The Last American Man Read Online Free Page B

concordance with nature
     would spread and spread across families, towns, counties, and states until we would all be living like Eustace—growing our
     food, fabricating our clothes, making fire with two sticks, and recognizing our blessed humanity. Thus both our grand nation
     and our sacred planet would be saved.
    That was his plan, anyway.
    Audacious? Sure. Still, there is something about the guy . . .
    Eustace is not easily dismissed. As his brother Judson would attest in awe, and as I later came to witness in person, Eustace’s
     skills in the wilderness are truly legion. He is wildly competent. He is physically and intellectually predestined to acquire
     proficiency. He has perfect eyesight, perfect hearing, perfect balance, perfect reflexes, and perfect focus. He has long muscles
     on a light but strongly constructed frame, like a natural middle-distance runner. His body can do anything he asks of it.
     His mind, too. He has to be exposed to an idea or shown a process only once to get it right, to lock it in, and immediately
     begin improving on its principles. He pays closer attention to his surroundings than anyone I’ve ever seen. His mind operates,
     as Henry Adams wrote of the minds of the earliest American settlers, like “a mere cutting instrument, practical, economical,
     sharp, and direct.”
    And that kind of mind makes for a hard honesty. So that when I once asked him, “Is there anything you can’t do?” Eustace replied, “Well, I’ve never found anything to be particularly difficult.” In other words, he’s got the self-assurance
     to back up his conviction that he can change the world. That, in addition to the unshakable will and airtight world view of
     a natural-born reformer. And he’s got charisma, too, which he unleashes brazenly in every interaction he has with anyone.
    I first visited Eustace at Turtle Island back in 1995. Midway through my stay, Eustace had to leave the mountain, and I went
     with him. He had to leave the woods, as he often does, to teach about the woods, to make some money and spread the gospel. So we drove across North Carolina to a small summer camp that specialized
     in environmental education. A group of teenagers skulked into the camp’s dining room for the evening’s event, and to me they
     all looked like jerks—loud, disrespectful, shoving, shrieking, laughing. Eustace was supposed to get these kids excited about
     nature.
    I thought, This is not gonna end well .
    Eustace, wearing jeans and a plaid shirt, not buckskin, walked across the stage toward the microphone. Around his neck hung
     two large coyote teeth. On his belt, the knife.
    The shoving and shrieking and laughing continued.
    Eustace, thin and serious, stood at the microphone with his hands in his pockets. After a long moment, he said, “I am a quiet-spoken
     man, so I am going to have to speak quietly tonight.”
    The shoving and shrieking and laughing stopped. The jerky teenagers stared at Eustace Conway, riveted. Just like that—dead
     silence. I swear it. It was like goddamn To Sir with Love .
    “I moved into the woods when I was seventeen years old,” Eustace began.“Not much older than you are today . . .”And he talked
     about his life. Those kids were so transfixed, you could have operated on them and they wouldn’t have noticed. Eustace told
     them about wilderness survival and his adventures, but he also gave his speech about the difference between the world of boxes
     and the world of circles.
    “I live,” Eustace said, “in nature, where everything is connected, circular. The seasons are circular. The planet is circular,
     and so is its passage around the sun. The course of water over the earth is circular, coming down from the sky and circulating
     through the world to spread life and then evaporating up again. I live in a circular teepee and I build my fire in a circle,
     and when my loved ones visit me, we sit in a circle and talk. The life cycles of plants and animals are