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"I've been waiting a long time," I said when I stepped beside him. He didn't look at me. He took long strides and glared ahead, his thumbs hooked in his overalls. I saw that his hands were covered with dirt and his fingernails were long and grimy.
"Got me butcherin' hogs all mornin' and then they expect me to drive all the way to the airport," he muttered.
"Do you know if my things arrived yet?" I asked as we turned toward the exit. "All my clothes were shipped from New York City," I added. I didn't think he was going to reply. He continued to walk and mutter and then reached for the door handle.
"Don't know," he finally said. I followed him out, practically running to keep up as he crossed the street and headed toward the parking lot. He didn't pay any attention to the traffic and cars had to stop short, the drivers shouting at us. But that didn't bother him. He kept his eyes forward, his head slightly lowered and continued his long, quick strides.
When we reached the parking lot, he turned abruptly and led me to a battered and rusted black pickup truck. Even before we reached it, I could smell it and the stench was enough to make my stomach gurgle and turn. I covered my mouth with my hand and looked away for a moment. He stopped after he opened his door, and looked back at me.
"Git in," he commanded. "I gotta git back and shovel out some cow manure and repair a flat tire on the tractor."
I held my breath and approached the truck. When I opened the door, I looked in at a torn seat, the springs showing everywhere. Where was Ito sit? He got in and looked at me. Then he realized why I was hesitating and reached back behind the seat to produce a dingy and dirty looking brown blanket. He dropped it over the seat for me to sit on it. I got in slowly and lowered myself to the seat, making myself as comfortable as possible. Instantly, he started the engine. The truck sputtered and spit and then he ground it into reverse and backed us out of the parking spot.
I tried rolling the dirty window down so I could get some ventilation, but the handle just turned and turned without doing anything.
"That don't work no more," he said, not taking his eyes off the road. "Ain't got a chance to fix it. Not with the way that Emily's after me to do this and do that."
"How far do we have to go?" I asked, not relishing a long trip in this stuffy and smelly vehicle. It seemed to hit every bump in the road and announce it loudly. I was getting more and more nauseated every moment and had to swallow hard to keep whatever was in my stomach down.
"Close to fifty odd miles," he said. "Ain't no Sunday ride," he added. He shifted so the truck would go faster and we finally turned down a smooth high-way.
"Who are you?" I finally asked since he never volunteered to tell me.
"Name's Luther."
"Have you been working at The Meadows long?" I asked. I thought if I kept talking, I could keep my mind off the horrible ride.
"Long as I could lift a bale of hay and heave it on a truck," he replied. "Never worked nowhere else." He finally turned to look at me. "You one of Lillian's kin, ain'tcha?"
"Yes," I said reluctantly.
"Ain't seen her for years and years. She don't never come back, but I heard she's a fancy rich lady now. She was always the smartest. Of course, it don't take much to be smarter than Charlotte. Hell, I got hound dogs know more than she does," he said and looked like he was smiling for the first time.
"What is The Meadows like?" I asked.
"Like most old plantations. It ain't what it was; that's for dang sure. But," he said, turning to me, "nothin' is—not the people, not the government, not the land, not the buildings, nothin'."
"What are my aunts like?" I asked.
He looked at me for the longest moment and then turned back to the road.
"You don't know?" he replied.
"No," I said.
"Well, it's best you find out for yourself. Yeah," he said, nodding, "it's best you do."
He was quiet most of the remaining time, muttering to himself about another driver or something he saw that annoyed him for reasons I didn't understand. I tried looking out at the scenery, but the window was so streaked, it made everything look gray and dismal, even though the sun was out most of the time. A little over a half an hour after we had left the airport, the sky grew more overcast and what had been cloudy and misty became murky, especially under the spreading magnolia trees. Fields and houses were draped in dim, purplish shadows everywhere.
Soon the nice, small farmhouses and tiny villages became few and far between. We passed long, dry, drab brown empty fields and when we did come to a house, it was usually sick looking with bleached clapboard siding and porches that leaned, their railings cracked or missing. I saw poor black children playing in front of many of these houses, the lawns covered with parts of automobiles or broken wooden chairs. The children stopped their make-believe and stared at us with empty eyes only vaguely curious.
Finally, I saw a road sign announcing our arrival in Upland Station. I recalled Grandmother Cutler telling me this was the closest town to the plantation. As we entered it, I realized it wasn't much—a general store which also served as the post office, a gas station, a small restaurant that looked like part of the gas station, a barber shop, and a large stone and wood house with a sign in front describing it as a mortuary. At the far end there was a railroad station that looked like it had been closed for ages. All the windows were boarded and there were NO TRESPASSING signs posted all over it. There were no sidewalks in Upland Station, and there was no one in the street, just a couple of hound dogs lying in the mud. It was one of the most depressing places I had ever seen and I had been in many rundown villages and towns when Daddy and Momma Longchamp took us from one place to another.
Luther turned as soon as we passed the old railroad station and started down a more narrow road that had only an occasional house here and there, all of them looking like poor farms on which people barely scratched out a living. The road began to look rougher and older, its macadam cracked and broken. The truck rocked from side to side as Luther tried to navigate it over the most solid pieces. He slowed down and turned right on what was nothing more than a dirt road with a mound of yellow grass running down its center. He drove slowly, but that didn't stop the truck from swaying so much it made me nauseous again.
"All thi
s land still belongs to The Meadows," he said when we reached a broken wooden fence. I saw sections of it running far off to the right and far off to the left on both sides of the road. The fields were overgrown with bushes and dry grass, but it looked like acres and acres of it.
