Free Shotgun Lovesongs: A Novel by Nickolas Butler

Here’s what I’ve gleaned : more and more people, less and less planet, and everything keeps getting hotter and hotter. That about sums it up, far as I’m concerned.
    People like to tune the teevee to something they think I’d like, usually a documentary about nature. Or the West. Or horses. Makes me feel like I’m at a nursing home or something, some well-meaning nurse coming into my life telling me what kind of teevee to watch like I can’t use a remote control myself. I think they do that because they don’t know what to say to me anymore, because they’re sad for me, or because they think I’m sad. And most of the time, guess what? I ain’t. I ain’t sad. I’m just bored stiff. I’m so goddamned bored that watching a documentary about The Wild Horses of Colorado gets me to thinking about one thing: if I was a wild horse, I’d bolt right off and just keep on running.
    I want to break out of here so bad and I don’t even know where I want to go. Maybe Anyplace, I guess. I know they think I can’t take care of myself, but I sure as hell can. I’m not a smart man—I know that—but I ain’t dumb. And the way things are, it’s like I’m in a cage. People forget, I think, that I’ve ridden more bulls and more horses than I can count, that I’ve gotten in barfights from here to Boise and all the way down to Baton Rouge, that before my accident, I used to walk into a bar, any bar, and go up to a girl and there was a damn good chance I was going to make her my friend for the night. Easy as pie.
    I am a man . I’m a goddamned person . And I’m restless as hell.
    I’ve tried running away. I try about three times a year. Mostly in the summer. I’ll wake up early as I can, pack a bag, buy some food from the gas station, and just start walking west. I suppose I could steal a car, but that’s not what I want. I’m not a criminal. I just want to disappear. At least I did before I met Lucy.
    This place has some crazy kind of gravity. I know that’s a funny word to use, a big-sounding word, but I’ve thought about it. It must have some kind of power otherwise Lee wouldn’t have never come back—but he did. And Kip and Felicia. Not to even mention all them people who never left to begin with, people like Henry and Beth and Eddy and the Giroux twins. Hell, they didn’t make it as far afield as even I did when I was a rodeo. And, you know, it’s crazy, but it was on those mornings when I left town, trying to run away, I felt it most. That pull.
    Walking on the gravel shoulder of County Y or X, old Highway 93 or Missell Road and enjoying the walk: the red-winged blackbirds and startled deer and the morning fog, and on those mornings I’d walk with sneakers instead of cowboy boots and I liked that, those shoes like two clouds beneath my feet, carrying me along.
    One time, about two years ago, I figured I made it about twenty miles out of town. I knew I was getting closer to the Mississippi because the land changed on me, went all rolling, all sandstone draws and deep cool forests, and I didn’t make such good time in that country and the towns get fewer and fewer in between and I suppose it was about suppertime and who should pass me but Eddy Moffitt, heading back toward Little Wing. I heard him brake his Ford Taurus and then pull a U-turn and he came back behind me and at first I kept walking but then I stopped and sat down in the gravel and just listened to the insects in the trees and the sound of his engine until Eddy shut off the car, stepped out, and came over to me. He was wearing what he always wears in summertime: a short-sleeve dress shirt, a tie, and khakis.
    “Ronny,” he said, scratching his head, “you lost?”
    “No,” I said, spitting.
    “Well, what are you doing out here?”
    “I don’t know,” I said, “I just started walking.”
    He patted his belly. “Hmm. Look, can I maybe buy you a cup of coffee and some dinner? I’m famished and you must be too.”
    I think he knew what I