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Eustace, who will generally go anywhere to talk to anyone, sent the envoy back home with this message for the professor: "Tell her I did it by working my fucking ass off."I hugged him right back, happy to be welcomed but thinking—as I have often thought before and since—This guy likes me, but he doesn't really need me.There are other buildings on his land, though: a blacksmith shop, a handful of barns, a large open-air kitchen with wood-burning stoves, several log cabins for campers.She heard he made his own roofing shingles, built cabins without nails, did his own blacksmith work.Fascinated, she sent an envoy up to Turtle Island to ask Eustace if he would come down the mountain and explain to her anthropology class exactly how he'd done all this.He makes, builds or kills anything he needs, so it's somewhat difficult to buy the guy a house gift.He's only about twenty miles from the nearest Hardee's, but they're a dramatic twenty miles; once you get off the highway, you are in serious Appalachia.I figured his traditional American heart would appreciate that—the fruits of the labor from a small family farm, etc.I got the feeling the two could pass entire days without speaking a superfluous word.None of this was here ten years ago, but Eustace cleared, constructed and arranged every sturdy and ingenious piece of it.As the mountains get higher, the houses become tin-roof shacks, with yards full of fossilized appliances and ancient cars."After seventeen years in a tepee," he said, "I decided it was time to move up."She heard there was this young guy living in the hills who farmed with mules.Then Eustace would say gravely, "We are grateful for this beautiful day and for the blessing of this food."Still, my mama taught me never to visit anybody without bringing a present.Days later I drove up the twisted roads of the Blue Ridge Mountains towards his home.I'd never visited Eustace before, so I was surprised to discover that he doesn't even live in a tepee anymore.