He was a long man

The longest road he ever ran down was a frontage road near the Topeka turnpike. He ran from 4:00 till 8:30pm, finally stopping to inspect an injured bird that appeared to have lost half its reddish feathers in the net of something like a 4 X 4. Summer dusk all but swallowed the bird in its gasping, but he managed to spot it anyway, swept to the shoulder. He saw the wound and tended to it, sweat as thick as gelatin dripping from his brow into its blood feathers. He looked around the pavement and prairie grasses for something, for what he knew not,  but a quick scan only found piles of feed and manure in the distance, and a few crusted tin cans. Each shaking from exhaustion, they square-eyed the other, and each knew the other knew it was a hopeless venture. The man spooned the bird into a nearby blemish of soil and sat next to him while the sun sank slow. He picked up his legs and ran back toward town in half of the time it took him on the way in.