The Path Was Steep

by Suzanne Pickett

  After supper, the girls were playing with paper dolls, and David and I sat down in the kitchen to figure. “There will be only two dollars left after we pay all of our bills,” I said. There had been Easter outfits and new pants and shirt for David, charged at the commissary, and grocery bills had been pretty high.

  “I’ll manage,” David said, grandly. His eyes searched the room and lighted as they rested on a portable radio we’d bought and paid for: cost, $14.50. Smiling triumphantly, David tucked the radio under his arm and took the road to Welch.

  Two hours later, he returned, driving a car. How did he do it? Well, you’ve never seen David operate. Before he finished talking to the manager, the price of the car had been cut from $150 to $125, and the man loaned him the radio until David could come up with the down payment.

  We named the car “Thunderbolt” from the roar it gained after a few weeks of our expert neglect. At first it was just a 1926 Studebaker—California top, deluxe, five-passenger sedan—quite a large car in those days of weary miniature Fords and Chevrolets. But soon the car became a personality, and we spoke of it as “he.”

  Thunderbolt had a special brand of curtains. Nothing like the tricky, troublesome kind made of isinglass and kept under the back seat, then in bad weather you fumbled through patching, baling wire, tire tools, and pump until you found the crinkled, rumpled curtains. Then you had to stand in the wind, rain, or cold until the curtains were hitched onto the frames. Thunderbolt’s curtains fastened to a rod at the top and rolled up or down like window shades. Since they were permanently attached to the car, you never had to search for them. They almost caused our death once, but that was later.

  Thunderbolt must surely have been the best car ever made. In our youth and blissful ignorance, David and I neglected him miserably. We bought oil and gasoline, but other attention he never received. Growl he did, until his growl turned into a thunderous roar, but he roared faithfully wherever we wished to go. Anywhere.

  David had learned to drive on the comparatively straight roads of Alabama. (Any roads would be straight compared to those of West Virginia.) He knew only one speed, as fast as the car would go. And David had a new theory about curves: you roared up to one at top speed, took it completely by surprise, slammed on the brakes, and slid around. No curve, treated in this manner, would dare to throw you.

  Surprisingly, they didn’t. I clutched the children in my arms the first few times we drove to Welch, closed my eyes, and sent frantic prayers heavenward. Then I grew brave enough to look. Pines, oaks, and hemlocks pierced the top of clouds that were level with the road. On a clear day, I could see to the bottom of the precipices around which we careened, and all the way to the distant depths below. Tires, fenders, and parts of cars hung on ledges, rocks, and trees. The scenery was half hidden by undertaker signs, a very appropriate place to advertise.

  After a few trips, I grew numb and sat calmly beside David as we shuttled along. Drivers of other cars were not numb. They soon recognized David and would pull to the side of the road, thrust heads from their windows, and hurl curses as we passed. David, too drunk with speed to care, ignored them.

  Weekends we drove through the mountains, sight-seeing, to other towns. As mentioned, the girls had the blue of David’s eyes, his gold hair, and fairness. I didn’t have any features worth mentioning—a pug nose, etc. But I had big black eyes, very fair skin, and a mane of jet-dark hair that was black until the sun hit it; then it gleamed with chestnut and mahogany tints. I must have looked strange with my blue-gold angels, but wherever they went, I was along.

  In those days, a car seldom made a trip without a full load. Transportation was scarce, gasoline a thing to be used only when necessary. If one was fortunate enough to own and operate a car, he shared his good fortune with others. But after one ride with David, most people preferred to walk. Brave Virginian Jeff Carter, who had moved to Marytown ahead of us, rode to work with David.

  Marytown consisted of a dozen houses on a swatch of level ground between high mountains. A railroad ran through the valley, and big trains snorted past daily. I soon heard the story of a little girl, a beautiful child with fair curls—like my own fair-haired girls—who was killed the past summer. The engineer helplessly tried to stop the train. “She ran to the center of the track and smiled at me,” he sobbed afterwards.

  No one blamed him. They knew it was impossible to stop a fast train suddenly.

  A row of houses across the road stood between us and the tracks. These were a quarter of a mile away from the houses. And though I didn’t believe in frightening children, I did my very best to make them afraid of the railroad, and succeeded, for they never ventured in that direction. Yet I lived in constant terror, for they would run away to play with small friends down the street. I tried spanking, pleading, shutting them in the closet. There could always be just one time when they’d be on the track before I missed them.

  Once, in desperation, I tied a rope loosely around Sharon’s waist and hitched it to a peach tree. “Maybe this will keep you in the yard,” I said.

  She could have untied the rope with one hand; instead, she fell to the earth in panic. “Mother! Please untie me; I’ll be good!” she sobbed.

  I loosened the rope and took her in my arms. She was trembling, her little heart pounding. “I won’t tie you again, darling,” I crooned.

  “Tie me,” Davene swaggered up to the rope. “I’m not afraid.” She tried to tie the rope around her fat tummy. “I can’t run away now,” she laughed.

  “Can’t you, sister?” Sharon jerked the rope from Davene.

  “You tie me,” Davene said. “I haffa stay in the yard.”

  For a few days it was a nice game. Davene played cheerfully in the yard under the peach tree. When the rope fell, she waited for Sharon to tie her again. But she tired of this game. As independent as her daddy, Davene decided to join the nudists, of which there were five or six in Marytown. These native children played all day, sans clothing, and no one seemed to think anything about it. But not the Pickett children! I tried spanking, everything, to no effect.

  I didn’t have to worry about gaining weight that summer. I’d look out, see Davene’s little naked figure scurrying down the road, and race to catch her and wrestle her into her shorts.

  Centuries of organic soil had washed down the mountains and settled in the valley. David and I dug furrows with a hoe, stuck seeds in the rich, black loam at the back of our house, and pulled weeds as they appeared. Warm midday suns and afternoon rains did the rest. Vegetables grew faster than we could use them. David took basketfuls to the commissary to exchange for items that did not grow in gardens. Jeff Carter shared the car expense, there was no rent to pay, and I felt close kin to Midas as we began to save money. Our hoard was kept in a sack, stuffed into the toe of a shoe, and this was thrust up the chimney in our bedroom.

  David allowed himself the luxury of a bootlegger and arranged a charge account, but this bill was small. Just a drink or so on idle days. Another luxury: he would buy clothes for me. Perhaps the most beautiful dress I ever owned was one he brought in one day. His face was so happy I didn’t have the nerve to return the dress. It was black satin-back crepe, long sleeves, cut out to a deep ‘V’ in the front, with a vest of eggshell white satin, overlaid with gorgeous, delicate lace. Down this was a row of jet acorn-shaped buttons with rhinestone centers. Cost: $18.75. Such a dress would be several hundred dollars today.

  Our shoe-toe bank became a little crowded, so David took the ones and fives to exchange for twenties. We couldn’t know what a sensation a twenty-dollar bill was to create in Gadsden, Alabama. Even here, they were not common.

  One afternoon, as we ate supper, a small boy and girl appeared at the kitchen door. The little girl was about ten and had a curious, old-woman look in her face. The boy, a year or so younger, stared at a plate of leftover boiled corn.

  “Have you had supper?” I asked gentl
y.

  The girl’s face reddened. “We was just going to ask if you have any food to spare.”

  “Of course there is food.” I took down two plates.

  “Could we have it in a poke?”

  “Are there others?” I asked.

  “Mommie and Aunt Bess and three small children.”

  “Where do you live?” I asked.

  She bent her head, and her face reddened again. “Nowhere.” It was only a breath. “We—we’ve got people over the mountain.”

  “Where did you sleep last night?” I put my arm around her shoulders.

  “Down the road.” She raised her head. “I aim to pay for the food. I’ll wash dishes,” she said.

  “You slept outdoors?”

  “We built a fire. Hit wasn’t cold.”

  Nights in the mountains were always cold. “Go tell your folks to come here for supper,” I said.

  “If you’ll let me work. I aim to pay.”

  “If that’s the way you want it,” I agreed. I knew the stern pride of the mountaineers.

  “That’s the way hit has to be,” she said.

  I stirred the fire in the kitchen stove, sliced salt pork, put it in a pan at the back of the stove, and ran to the garden. The pork just needed turning when I returned with corn, tomatoes, onions, and lettuce. By the time the corn bubbled on the stove in salted water, with a little butter added for flavor, and biscuits were browned, the girl was back with her family. The women, young and fair, looked tired and hopeless. The smaller children were shy, hardly speaking. After supper they were all a little more cheerful.

  The girl’s name was Irene. She washed her hands, cleared the table, and began to wash dishes. One look at her face, and I didn’t interfere.

  “You got some soap we could have?” her mother asked. “We ain’t washed no clothes since we left Pennsylvania.”

  “How did you travel?” I took a bar of Octagon laundry soap from a pantry shelf.

  “Rode a freight. They found us at the state line and throwed us off the train. Said if hit wasn’t fer the children, they’d a throwed us in jail.”

  Irene swept the kitchen floor, then carried water to wash the clothes. They hung them up on my lines and stayed until dark; then the aunt said, “You mind if we sleep in yore yard?”

  “We’ve plenty of room for all of you,” I said, my throat dry.

  “Just make us a pallet,” she smiled listlessly.

  But I crowded Sharon and Davene into bed with David and me, so the women could have a bed. Perhaps it was the first they’d slept in for many nights.

  Irene spread their bedding on the floor. It was dirty and mud-stained. I offered my only clean sheets for cover. “I mean to pay,” her eyes were fierce gray. “I’ll sweep yore yard in the morning.”

  She had watched as I put the girls to bed, first kneeling with them for their prayers. She knelt and whispered, and I saw tears falling from her hands between her fingers.

  I fought back tears. How had she kept her pride? Her mother, aunt, and the smaller ones had the very smell of the Depression about them. Pride, if they ever possessed it, and most mountaineers do, was gone and there was a trapped, animal look—I couldn’t describe it, but when David came in from work the next day, I knew. It was the look of cheap, shoddy, used goods.

  There was two dollars in my purse. I didn’t even dare look at the fireplace, but slipped the money to Irene’s mother and gathered corn and tomatoes, found half a box of crackers and some cheese, and put them in a bag just before they left the next day.

  Irene washed dishes, swept the floors, and was sweeping the yard when her mother called. “Time for us to git on.”

  “I done what I could,” Irene told me.

  “You did more than you should,” I stooped to kiss her.

  She threw her arms around me and gave a big, gasping sob. “You are so good, as good as any angel,” she wept.

  “Oh, no,” I whispered and held her close. “Why don’t you visit with us for a week or so?” I asked. I’d bathe the child, cut her hair, make her a dress. “All right?” I asked her mother.

  “You can have her fer good if you want,” indifferently.

  I looked at Irene, dreading to see the blow strike. But her eyes grew luminous and she ran to her mother. “I have to go with Mommie! I have to!” Her face grew protective, tender, burning with love, and suddenly I understood. The mother was whipped, cowed. Nothing was left to her, not even love for her children; but this child was not whipped. Somehow, Irene would get them through this Depression, if it ever ended, as a golden voice over our $14.50 portable radio promised over and over that it would end.

  As they started away, Irene darted back to whisper fiercely, “Don’t think Mommie wants to give me away. She just wants to get a good home fer me.”

  “Of course she does.” I kissed her, and her face lighted at my words. I offered them as a sacrifice to the child, and if He will accept a lie as a sacrifice, I offered them to God, for I knew the words to be a lie. Irene’s mother would be happy to be rid of the child. But no earthly power could make Irene believe this. Her love was so overwhelming that she wrapped it like a warm blanket around her mother. She was a swamp blossom. Pure gold, growing from black swamp mold. Perhaps her love would be strong enough to save her mother.

  I scalded all the bedclothes against possible contamination from our guests. David, coming in from work, told that the women were prostitutes, plying their trade in mining towns.

  A few mornings later, he went to work and returned just after lunch time. “Mine’s closed for repairs,” he announced as if he had just inherited a million dollars. He whistled “Dixie” and poured water into the tub for his bath. Hanging his clothes behind the stove, he knelt beside the tub to wash face and hands, head and shoulders; dried them; and 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 determined roar up the precipice, waited in dugouts until we passed.

  The trip down the other side of the Jumps was gentler, and so we traveled safely into Virginia. A serene moon and lovely hills—not mountains—tried to soothe my nerves. But the Jumps had been too much for me. “Stop the car,” I moaned.