The Path Was Steep by Suzanne Pickett Page A

stepped into the tub. Coal-mining muscles rippled with his every movement, and his skin was like silk. He turned to me, and his eyes were as bright as stars. “The mine will be closed for two weeks,” he said. “Like to go home while there is no work?”
    I was too stunned to speak, too happy to cry. Then I managed a whispered. “Tomorrow? Oh, David, I can help drive.” I’d taken Thunderbolt to the ball diamond below our house a few times. I could start the car, shift from low to high gear and go forward erratically. So far, I’d never managed to shift into reverse. But who needed to reverse when we were going home?
    “Let’s go today,” David said.

10
    Here We Rest
     
    David, naturally, had everything arranged for the trip, even a spare driver—not his wife. Karl Hauser, son of a friend, a high-school graduate with no job in sight, was happy at the chance to see Alabama. Mr. and Mrs. Hauser drove up with Karl all ready to go as we scrambled to put things in the car. “Which road you taking?” Mr. Hauser asked.
    “The Jumps,” David said, having asked the shortest way.
    “You wouldn’t!” Mrs. Hauser reached a protective hand to her son. “That’s the worst road in the world.”
    “The shortest way home,” David grinned.
    “You’ll be sorry. You wait and see.”
    David would never let a road intimidate him, I thought with pride. Anyhow, no road could be worse than the road between Marytown and Hemphill. In less than two hours, I discovered that I’d never been more wrong in my life.
    We were a tousled but happy crew as we shuttled through Marytown, passed Twin Creek, and took the road that led to the Jumps.
    When I am a hundred, ask me if I remember the Jumps and no doubt I’ll be able to give you intimate details. The road was a nightmarish thing suspended on sheer cliffs, brittle ledges, and crumbling walls. Now and then dugouts had been whittled into the side of the mountain where one car waited if another approached.
    Trees jutted through clouds below and stared at us. Far above, rocks heaped carelessly together by an army of giants dared us to jostle them; when we met a car—and there were other fools on the road that twilight—one had to back up or down hill.
    David was not the one who backed. Cars snorted daringly towards us, then backed frantically. Curses, roared at us, resounded from hill to valley. Our guardian angels alone, I am convinced, kept our wheels from going the extra inches that would have sent us into oblivion.
    Only once did David give ground. A big muddy lumber truck bolted down the mountain and screamed towards us. His brakes screeched as the driver saw us. The truck rocked and continued to slide downwards toward us, helpless below. David, seeing that the truck couldn’t stop, ground into reverse and crawfished madly.
    Screaming and screeching, the monster hurtled towards us. David hung onto the road. We careened, missed the edge of curves by a razor’s edge, and heard the rattle of shale falling down the mountainside. We teetered at the edge, still shuttling backwards, and then found a dugout and jolted to a stop as the truck missed us by a fingernail, screamed past and on down the devil-begotten road.
    I closed my eyes, thankful to God, then opened them when there was strength to raise my eyelids. It was strangely quiet in the car. Karl leaned against the back seat. “Gosh,” he whispered at last. “Gosh!”
    Sharon, her eyes as blue as the twilight, patted my cheek. Then David found his voice. He went into detail, profanely, on the personality, looks, and intellect of the truck driver. Then he mentioned the road builders for some time. Next, he commented on the state and county road commissioners and worked his way up to the governor. He began to speak of the president; then Davene cut in:
    “Spongabick!” she said clearly. “Gott down spongabick!”
    I clapped my hand over her mouth.
    Another car or two, outfaced by David, backed hastily uphill or, seeing our