3. If he is kidnapping me, I have no phone and no idea where I am, so I’m seriously screwed.
“We almost there?” I ask, trying to sound casual.
“Just about,” he says reassuringly. “I know it seems like a long ride, but you’ll get used to it.”
I will? I wonder. Why?
“Have you lived out here long?”
“Oh, a real long time. My entire life.”
“Seriously?” It doesn’t compute. Sam Buzzard seems too urban and cool to live out here in the boonies.
“I travel, of course,” he says. “But I like it here. My father lives here, and my grandfather before him, and my grandfather’s grandfather before that. My family was given this land after the Civil War.”
My jaw drops. “Your family has lived here on the same land since 1865?”
“Eighteen sixty-eight, actually. Forty acres and a mule, baby. Although Sherman didn’t actually give anyone forty acres, and my family never did get that mule, but we got three parcels on the river. During the war, the federal government seized a lot of the land down here and redistributed it. White folks tried to take it back by any means necessary, but my ancestors were smart—they not only held on to their own but bought more.”
“So, your ancestors were slaves?”
“Of course. When my great-great grandfather was freed, he’d been a slave for three years, and he couldn’t speak a word of English. There was a whole population of Africans here who were exactly like him, just off the boat. A lot of families out here still speak Gullah—a mix of English and West African dialects, a little Krio, a little Vai, a little Mende.”
A huge water oak rises up in the middle of the highway. One of its broken branches is painted like a smiling alligator. Sam follows it to the left. Oak branches form a canopy over the road, and as we drive they droop lower and lower until they’re brushing the top of the truck. Then, after half a mile, we reach a shady stretch of land completely covered by live oaks that rolls gently all the way to the river. The oak trunks rise up like twisted pillars, and their branches burst like fireworks and form a green roof over the entire area.
Close to the river is a cluster of one-story wooden houses. They look like white boxes, with bright turquoise shutters and doors, and the dirt in front of them is carefully swept. To one side is a larger building with a big screened porch and a sign that reads Buzzard Social Club—Members Only, and next to it is an enormous satellite dish.
“Welcome to Buzzard’s Roost,” Sam says.
“I like that turquoise.”
“We call that haint blue. People believe it keeps the devil away from the house.”
“Maybe not such a fan of the satellite dish,” I add.
“Just because we live in the country doesn’t mean we don’t like football,” he says. “This is still Georgia, after all.”
He gets out of the truck. I open the door, letting my feet dangle below me. The air is cool and salty from the marsh and the river. The only sounds are the wind rustling in the trees and the soft call of wind chimes made of stained glass and old forks.
“If you can bear to look past the dish, you might see something of more interest to you,” Sam says.
I look again, and there it is: a greenhouse, long and low, flanked by smaller buildings that look like work sheds. Behind them I see a gate—also painted haint blue—and beyond that there’s a garden. Everything is crafted of naked wood, long gone silvery gray in the sun. Even from here, I can smell cloves, cinnamon, lemongrass, and an intoxicating mix of herbs. It smells almost like home.
“And this is my humble abode,” he says, walking up onto the plank porch of a clapboard cube by the river.
He slides back two huge iron bolts—they’re meant to lock out the weather, I guess. The house is one long, low room, with windows that open out on the river. It looks like a weird archaeological museum—every surface is stacked with artifacts. I recognize a lot of them; the RC was a hotbed of people who were “searching,” running from one religion to another. There are Tibetan prayer wheels, dozens of Sacred Heart milagros made of tin from South America, a set