Beth caught up with Joe at the side of his  battered old truck.
  
       `The man on the wireless said it could blow at any time. We really ought to pack
a few things an` head on outa` here.`

Joe dabbed irritably at the sweat clinging to his grubby neck.

     `Hell Beth that mountain ain`t spat in anger in more`an two hundred year an`

I`m sure as shit it ain`t gonna start now.`

     `But the man on the radio-

     `Radio!` Joe snapped, tossing a spade and a roll of fencing wire into the back of

the truck  `You believe everythin` you hear on that new fangled gadget. I`m sorry as

I ever brung it home now, screachin` out all that heathen music day an` night`.

Beth smiled thinly. `But he was one a` them..what ya` call `em..experts on

volcanoes.`

    `Shit Beth, everyone thinks they is an expert on somethin` nowadays. Well let me

tell you gal I don`t buy none a` their crap. Now if you don`t mind I got a hundred

yards a` fencin` needs repairin`.

    `But I  was talkin` to Efram up on Gunner`s Ridge Joe,` Beth continued, her face

crinkling in disgust as she caught her husband`s whisky-laden breath. `He said he

seen what looked like smoke comin` out of Old Pinnacle day `afor yesterday. Says

he ain`t seen nothin` like it all the time he`s lived up here.`
 
    `Efram ain`t got no more brains than these here fence posts,` Joe said, a gob of

spit hissing in the dusty soil.` Why you give the old fool the time `a day beats me.`

    `Cos he was good to us when we first moved in here that`s why,` Beth replied. `An
he also swore there were fire a` comin` out of the mountain too. Please Joe, I`m

frightened.`

    `Old fool`s bin at the moonshine more like,` Joe snorted, moving to the front of

his truck. `Look, there ain`t gonna be no..what you call it..eruption. Scaremongerin`, 
that`s all it is. Them city slickers would just love to have us move outa` here so they

can take our piece a` sod an` put up their  fancy houses an` make themselves a

mint a` money. Well it  ain`t gonna` happen  gal, so you just get back in the house

an` do me some vitals an` let`s hear no more about stupid volcanoes.` 

     Beth reluctantly made her way back to the house. She paused as she neared the

ramshackled porch, her listless eyes taking in the missing shingles and the chimney

stack that for years had looked as if it was about to crash through the flimsy roof.

Joe had been so full of promises when they`d married. Good looking and full of

ideas, he was going to take her away from the mountains, give her an easier, better

life somewhere down there in the misty valleys. But like most of the menfolk the hill

life had proved too strong a pull. Eventually she had come to accept her lot in life.

Perhaps if she`d had children it would have been more bearable, but here too Joe

had been found wanting. What was it Old Mother Carter called him..a poppy without a

seed head...

     She made up the thick doughy rolls and took them out to her waiting man. She

watched as he drove off into the rising sun and then slowly made her way back to

the place she knew now she would never leave. As she reached the rickety porch 

 steps she paused, and for one glorious moment she imagined the ground beneath

her feet begin to move....