Big Cherry Holler - Adriana Trigiani [82]
The marble pit is so deep and wide and black, it looks like the pit of hell in the catechism book Mama bought me for my confirmation so many years ago. I take a step back.
“Are you all right?” Pete asks.
“It’s just so deep.”
“Don’t look, then,” he says, and pulls me away from the edge.
We walk away from the pit and into a clearing, where trailers are set up. These are the mining offices, and just like our coal mines in Big Stone Gap, there is a sense that this business is temporary. No need to build an actual office; a trailer will do.
Pete takes us into the largest trailer. He shows the girls little boxes of samples, small, cool squares of finished marble, shell pink with gold veins, black with white streaks, and my favorite, the rarest of the marble, lapis-lazuli blue with accents that look like black glitter.
“You like the most expensive marble,” Pete tells me. He stuffs a square into the pocket of my jeans.
“It figures.” My hip tingles where he touched it. I bury my hand in my pocket to stop the sensation of that, whatever that was.
Pete lets the girls take whatever small squares they want. As we load back into the truck, Pete tells us that he has a surprise. The girls giggle and chat as we descend the mountain. Pete veers off the main road; all of a sudden, we’re bouncing on an unpaved gravel road, kicking up dust.
“Mama, this is like our road,” Etta says.
“Yes, it is,” I tell her.
“What road?” Pete wants to know.
“Cracker’s Neck Holler Road. Where we live.”
“Cracker’s Neck?” Pete laughs.
“Hey. Don’t laugh at Cracker’s Neck,” I tell him.
“Yeah! Don’t laugh,” Etta says with mountain pride.
“If you think that’s funny, you ain’t been to Frog Level and It-lee Bottom,” I tell him.
“I’ve got to see this Big Stone Gap someday,” Pete says. “Yeah, right,” I want to tell him, “come to the Gap and meet my husband.”
At the end of the gravel road is what looks like a crude parking lot, a square of muddy field that has been driven over so many times, there is no grass, just dirt.
“Here we are!” Pete announces.
“What is this?” Etta asks, unimpressed.
“Well, not here. We have to go in there.”
Pete points to the woods. We follow him in, and for a second I think, really, how well do I know this guy? He could kill us and leave us here, and we’d never be found. But when he turns around and motions for the girls and me to walk in front of him, I look at his face and trust him. It’s just the trees, so high they block the sky and create a dank forest, that give me the creeps.
“Take a right,” he tells the girls. They turn and we pass two big rocks; one has a red arrow painted on it.
“Look. Directions!” Etta says. I nod. Chiara nods too; her English is only rudimentary, so I don’t know how she knows what Etta is talking about half the time. But they have that secret language of girls, and now I have proof that it is international. We hear a loud hissing sound, and at first it’s a little scary. But it isn’t the hiss of a machine, and it’s too loud to be a snake.
“These are the mineral baths of Assunta Mountain,” Pete announces. And there, before us, is a waterfall of deep purple rocks so dark they’re almost black, covered with glistening pale green moss, leading to a natural pool of clear water. Steam rises off the top and swirls delicately upward through the trees, like cigarette smoke from a glamorous Bette Davis moment.
I turn to Pete. “Hot springs?”
“Amazing, isn’t it?”
The girls circle around the edge of the pool and dip their hands in.
“It’s warm, Mama,” Etta says, amazed. “It’s like a bath.”
I sit at the edge and take off my shoes and put my feet in. The warmth settles into my entire body. This is bliss. The girls’ laughter seems far away. They climb the side of the hill up to the top of the waterfall.
“Be careful!” I shout. They disappear into the ravine.