“You git down when the coal starts to blow,” Daddy said. “Put your head down. You’ll know hits a-coming when I holler out like this.”

He leaned back and yelled, “Fi-i-i-yah! Fire in the hole!” He laughed. “I allays do the hollering cause hit just dont sound right when ole Joe does it.”

I went back where Daddy showed me to wait while they drilled. I tried not to think of the mountain pushing down on us. To distract myself, I bobbed my head up and down and watched the light from my lamp skitter across the ribs and timbers. It was quieter than I had expected. Puffs of coal dust danced in my lamplight. I heard a steady plopping of water, like a banjo played with only one note. My eyes were heavy with the darkness. I longed to see the mine lit just once, to possess a magical eyesight that could see the men all at their places; Daddy crawling on his belly in the number four coal; others drilling upright in the number five; the skinners driving their mules; the trappers opening and closing the trap doors. I felt them trying to breathe together as one, in unison with my own heaving chest. The air was still and our breathing could not move it. The mountain pressed down, uneasy at the violation of its entrails. Daddy hollered. The air blew apart. I bounced onto my belly, covered my ears with the heels of my hands. The earth stroked my chest, my thighs.

Daddy emerged from a billowing black cloud.

“Come on, boy, time to break it up and load it.”

I jumped up and hit my head on the roof.

When we left the mine at the end of the day I was so weary from shovelling coal that I could not walk very fast. When we came for Talcott, he could not stand up, but sat hunched over on his bench. Daddy picked him up and he cried out.

“Dont worry, son,” Daddy said. “You’ll git toughened up.”

I heard Mommy crying in the kitchen that night before I slept.

“What am I supposed to do? I’m a-scairt to hug my own babies for fear of hurting them. I seen bruises all over Talcott’s back where that boss man hit on him. Aint no mother supposed to let such things happen to her younguns.”

“Shut up!” Daddy said. “I can take care of them boys.”

I closed my eyes.

The pain in my body settled into a dull ache. I went on. For the first time in memory, I spent time with my daddy. I came to realize that he was glad to have me with him. He had few ways of showing it. We seldom spoke underground. We were too busy with our picks and shovels, straining to load as many tons as we could, for the more we loaded, the more we were supposed to earn. But when we left the mine, Daddy sometimes pulled off my cap and gently rubbed his knuckles back and forth across the top of my head. He could never bring himself to touch me with the fleshy palms of his hands. But I knew he loved me.