Plumcoloured

Through the smudged windows of the daycoach you could see a string of coal cars, the black tipple of a mine standing up in the fold of a hill beyond the bleak storefronts of the main street of the little town, and behind the tipple the plumcoloured hills streaked with blue coal smoke.

The golden time to be in these woods … is on a misty day in November when every tree is pale copper, and you can look over their heads down into the Bix valley, filled with a plumcoloured haze like grapebloom.

By the time he reached the highway a plumcoloured light filled the eastern sky and the light set in silhouette a pair of tractortrailers thundering into town, their jakebrakes hacking as they passed the speed limit signs.