descent now and the breeze felt good to all. There didn't seem to be anything so pretty as
sun setting over mountain.
They passed through Tremont and a while later crossed me tiny bridge near McKenzie's
and started up the first ridge. They came to a railroad crossing, and instead of continuing
on the road, Cotton turned and drove the Oldsmobile on down the tracks.
"Smoother than the roads up here," he explained. "We'll pick it back up later on. They've
got asphalt and macadam at the foothills, but not up here. These mountain roads were
built by hands swinging picks and shovels. Law used to be every able-bodied man
between sixteen and sixty had to help build the roads ten days a year and bring his own
tools and sweat to do it. Only teachers and preachers were exempt from having to do it,
although I imagine those workers could've used some powerful prayers every now and
again. They did a right good job, built eighty miles of road over forty years, but it's still
hard on one's bottom to travel across the results of all that fine work."
"What if a train comes?" asked an anxious Oz.
"Then I suspect we'll have to get off," Cotton said.
They eventually did "hear the whistle and Cotton pulled the car to safety and waited. A
few minutes later a fully loaded train rolled past, looking like a giant serpent. It was
moving slowly, for the track was curvy here.
"Is that coal?" Oz said, eyeing the great lumps of rock visible in the open train cars.
Cotton shook his head. "Coke. Made from slack coal and cooked in the ovens. Ship it out
to the steel mills." He shook his head slowly. 'Trains come up here empty and leave full.
Coal, coke, lumber. Don't bring anything here except more bodies for labor."
On a spur off the main line, Cotton showed them a coal company town made up of small,
identical homes, with a train track dead center of the place and a commissary store that
had goods piled floor to ceiling, Cotton informed them, because he had been inside
before. A long series of connected brick structures shaped like beehives were set along
one high road. Each one had a metal door and a chimney with fill dirt packed around it.
Smoke belched from each stack, turning the darkening sky ever blacker. "Coke ovens,"
Cotton explained. There was one large house with a shiny new Chrysler Crown Imperial
parked out front. The mine superintendent's home, Cotton told them. Next to this house
was a corral with a few grazing mares and a couple of energetic yearlings leaping and
galloping around.
"I got to take care of some personal business," said Diamond, already pulling his overall
straps down. 'Too much soder pop. Won't be one minute, just duck behind that shed."
Cotton stopped the car and Diamond got out and ran off. Cotton and the children talked
while they waited, and the lawyer pointed out some other things of interest.
"This is a Southern Valley coal mining operation. The Clinch Number Two mine, they
call it. Coal mining pays pretty good, but the work is terribly hard, and with the way the
company stores are set up the miners end up owing more to the company than they earn
in wages." Cotton stopped talking and looked thoughtfully in the direction of where
Diamond had gone, a frown easing across his face. He continued, "And the men also get
sick and die of the black lung, or from cave-ins, accidents, and such."
A whistle sounded and they watched as a group of charcoal-faced, probably bone-tired
men emerged from the mine entrance. A group of women and children ran to greet them,
and they all walked toward the copycat houses, the men swinging metal dinner pails and
pulling out their smokes and liquor bottles. Another group of men, looking as tired as the
other, trudged past them to take their place under the earth.
"They used to run three shifts here, but now they only have two," said Cotton. "Coal's
starting to run out."
Diamond returned and vaulted into the rumble seat.
"You all right, Diamond?" asked Cotton.
"Am now," said the boy, a smile pushing against his cheeks, his feline green eyes lighted
up.
Louisa was upset when she learned they had gone to town. Cotton explained that he
should not have kept the children as long as he had, therefore she should blame him. But
then Louisa said she recalled that their daddy had done the very same thing, and the
pioneer spirit was a hard one to dodge, so it was okay. Louisa accepted the shawl with
tears in her eyes, and Eugene tried on the hat and proclaimed it the nicest gift he had ever
gotten.
After supper that night Oz excused himself and went to his mother's room. Curious, Lou
followed him, spying on her brother as usual from the narrow opening between door and