Free Black Mountain Breakdown by Lee Smith Page B

off the trees. For a while they are on a hardtop road, going up Paw Paw, although it narrows until there’s room for only one car at a time. They pass the three-room Paw Paw elementary school, pass several independent mines, pass all the houses and trailers crowded along the road.
    “Look at that,” says Roger Lee, pointing and slowing down.
    He says something else, but Crystal can’t hear him over the roar and clank of the Jeep. She looks where he points and sees it, a house with polished hubcaps all over the front. The sun hits the hubcaps all at once and they shine together, a single incredible jewel in the cold bright light.
    “That’s the tackiest thing I ever saw,” Sue Mustard says, swishing her pony tail.
    “I like it,” says Crystal.
    Roger Lee grins at her. He knew she would like it. He wears a yellow hunting cap with green fur earflaps, turned up. His brown eyes are steady, flecked with gold. They leave the hardtop and go onto a dirt road which has big ruts in it, so that Crystal has to hold on to the edge of the seat. She loves the way the Jeep smells, like leather and oil and sweat,like a hunting trip. The wind on her face feels cold and new. The road is steep, and off to their right is a sheer drop down. Way below them they can see the town like a toy down there. One more curve and then they’re right up on top of the mountain, which has been leveled off for strip mining and then left, a huge dirt expanse with no trees and nothing growing on it, the biggest piece of flat land Crystal has ever seen in this county, something like the surface of the moon. Roger drives figure eights all over it, and they know they’re the only people around for several miles.
    Roger stops the Jeep and they get out, Sue Mustard and Russell Matney holding hands in their matching His and Her sweatshirts. There’s a kind of pool, like a quarry and not so deep, and they put their blankets out by that and then eat Lorene’s fried chicken and potato chips and some chocolate cake that Sue Mustard made. Russell eats pistachio nuts, his trademark. You can always tell where Russell has been because he leaves a little pile of the bright-red shells behind. Then Russell and Sue go off to make out, and Roger takes Crystal’s hand and leads her over to a mine entrance. Crystal wonders if he wants to pet, and she thinks of Mack Stiltner again. It makes her stomach feel weird. They go into the mine pretty far, until Roger says it’s not safe. The timbers are rotting now. He takes a railroad stake from the little old railroad track that goes into the mine, as a souvenir. Suddenly Crystal remembers a time years ago, when she was about seven or eight, and her daddy took her up into the mountains to see a man he had to see about some land, and there was a small mine like this one, where they still used ponies to pull out the coal cars. The mine ponieswere small and shaggy, just the right size for Crystal. The ponies blinked in the sun. The men let Crystal ride them, in and out of the mine. The men all grinned and waved to her each time she came out. Her daddy stood there with them, smiling. Suddenly Crystal is sure that this mine will cave in. She can see the timbers giving, the rocks pouring in on each side. She can practically smell the dust. Panic thuds in her chest and she grabs Roger’s arm. “Let’s go! Let’s get out of here.” Her words echo way back in the mine. Then she lets go of his arm and starts running and runs all the way out.
    “Hey!” yells Roger. “Crystal! It’s all right. Wait a minute.”
    Crystal collapses on a rock outside, breathing hard. Of course she’s being silly. The sun feels good out here, and everything is totally calm and peaceful. Flat red dirt, the town down there, the other ridgetops across the valley, all the cliffs and big rocks showing everywhere with the leaves gone. The vertical line up the opposite ridge where the power line runs.
    Roger Lee finds her and sits down, too. “What happened