“But there was an abiding and aboriginal fear too, which had kept him from ever being tempted; where cars had been to Joe Boyd and the boys of the Cumberlands heart-filling personifications (even named, often) of freedom and power and heat, to Pierce they had been like the dogs chained to stakes outside Cumberland cabins, or encountered roaming free in the hollers: big beasts, minding their own business but to be dealt with gingerly or not at all. He still sometimes dreamed of such dogs, but filled with mindless malevolence, their chains giving way like twine; and he had dreams too of finding himself inexplicably at the wheel, under way and the pedals useless, the car speeding willfully toward ruin.”
(John Crowley, Love & Sleep, p. 278.)