He had spent far too much time listening to the Eagles.

More about He had spent far too much time listening to the Eagles.

Their songs drifted out of the radio like desert wind slipping through a canyon—easy at first, almost friendly, then lingering long enough to change the shape of a man’s thoughts. He listened while driving empty roads, while sitting alone with coffee gone cold, while the sky turned copper and the land stretched wide and indifferent. The harmonies were smooth as worn saddle leather, and the words carried that low, restless promise of freedom without ever quite delivering it.

Out here, the country had its own music: wind in sage, the distant crack of stone cooling after sunset, the long hush that followed daylight. But the Eagles sang of highways that never truly ended and places that welcomed you only to quietly close the gate behind you. The more he listened, the more those songs settled into him, blurring the line between longing and resignation.

Men like him were made by open spaces, by silence and hard choices, not by polished choruses drifting out of speakers. Yet the music kept him company in a way people no longer did. It softened the nights, even as it sharpened the sense that something had already slipped past him. You could ride those melodies for a long time, believing they were guiding you forward, when in truth they were teaching you how to stay put.

One evening he shut the radio off and stepped out into the raw, honest cold. The land did not sing to him—it demanded. He knew then that he had listened long enough. Songs could name the feeling, but they could not carry the weight. He turned his face toward the darkening hills, leaving the echoes behind, and trusted the quiet to tell him what came next.