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of squeaking, rattling chain. It’s powered by steam generated from the coal and trash that rolled off the lower slopes when the mountain uplifted, helped by the weight of the trucks coming down. Even in the dark I could see them through the rain twenty yards away. I know most of the drivers, even the up-and-backs, or yoyos as we Flat Toppers call them. The mountainside looked junky in the headlights. The lower slopes, from 7,200 to the clouds at 11,500 are overgrown with weeds and weird new ferns and what’s left of the trees—plus whatever else rolled down when the land rolled up. Some say they see giant volunteer tomatoes back in the weeds but I never see them.
    The first hundred trips or so, it’s a scary ride. The kid tried to act cool but I knew exactly how he felt. Your truck is tipped back at forty-five degrees, you’re wondering if the mag and the safety under it will hold, and even if it does, what about that clattery old chain? Then every once in a while the chain hauls up short—maybe a truck had trouble unhooking at the Hazard end, or maybe the world is coming apart—and the boards under your tires creak and the leaf springs sway, and the wind howls across the splinters of the trees, because we’re still low enough on Flat Mountain for there to be wind, and you realize you’re just hanging there like a wet pair of jeans on a line.
    I popped in some Carl Perkins, the early stuff where he sings like George Jones, and managed to mostly close my eyes.
    Then here come the clouds, above 11,500. The clouds make it easier. Thinking I wasn’t looking, the kid unfolded a ten-dollar bill from his watch pocket, folded it up again, and put it away. I remembered hitchhiking and feeling the same way: checking it every hour or so to make sure it hadn’t turned into a five.
    At Hazard, you’re still in the clouds but they loosen up as the mountain levels off a little and the cogway ends. All of a sudden there’s noise and lights all around. For most of the trucks, the robot train roundabout is the end of the line. It’s a big semicircular modular building—hauled up since the Uplift, naturally, since nothing of the old town survived. The yoyos unhitch and snake in and unload, load up whatever’s contracted down, and get back in line for the cogway down. No deadheads in this business. Of course there are some loads that can’t wait three weeks for a backed-up robot train, and that’s where me and the other Flat Toppers come in—trucks that go all the way over Flat Mountain.
    I figured the roundabout was where the kid’s dad worked, since there’s a lot of hand labor involved loading and unloading, not to mention the guys who jockey the trucks through the line for a few bucks while the drivers are sitting in the Bellew Belle. This is barely a living. They sleep in a pressure shed behind the roundabout.
    “This must be the place,” I said.
    “Appreciate the ride, mister.”
    “CD,” I said. He started to open the airlock and I said, “Whoa. Aren’t you forgetting something?”
    He looked back at me, scared, and started to unbutton the shirt.
    I had to laugh. “Keep the shirt, kid,” I said. “But you can’t go around up here without breath spray. You’re a mile higher than Everest. Open your mouth.” I sprayed his throat with C-Level and told him to run before it wore off.
    Carrying his plastic bag, he hurried out the airlock and into the roundabout.
    I drove across the lot to the Bellew Belle. It’s the only diner in Hazard and the drivers call it the Blue Balls. It isn’t airlocked and the revolving door spins on its own from the pressure inside, easing out a continual little cloud of coffee and hamburger steam. Hazard can use it. It’s a cold, dark, nasty place where nobody would live unless they worked there, or work unless they couldn’t work anywhere else.
    I wondered if the kid’s dad knew he was coming. Or if he even existed. When I was his age I told folks I was hitching to Dallas to