But, heck, if you want to float the river and catch some rainbows, be my guest. And he spent the next hour showing us a couple of dandy put-ins and a perfect takeout and promised to leave his ATV down there for us to run a shuttle back to the launch point. We all smiled and shook hands. Bob, in one of the most gracious acts of generosity I've ever seen, pulled a virgin bottle of Evan Williams from one of our cases and handed it to Toby. Coyote Nowhere , which gets its title from a Jack Kerouac expression, is also about the people who inhabit high plains towns and live under a blanket of stars.
Eyes roll back into the head and thought processes short-circuit.
That's what the northern high plains are. What they do to a person. Look above or let the eye wander along the incomprehensible vastness of this wide-open country, and you drift swiftly away into a world of history, myth, and legend. And reading Holt's account of his travels and travails, one gets the sense that legends continue to be born in what remains of the American wilderness. Holt is an honest writer, one whose prose shifts gears with his moods.