Education Of a Wandering Man (1990) by Louis L'amour

following.
    Now, having spent much time in the Mohave and Colorado Deserts, I know what my options were, yet given the circumstances, I probably did the right thing. At the moment I could not be sure.
    Shouldering my small pack, I set out along the dim trail that should intersect with the road I needed, and roughly two hours later, it did.
    If I recalled correctly, and I had learned to pay attention, the road that lay ahead was not only straight but flat, hard-packed sand for the most part, and at least ten miles to Garlic Spring. With luck I could make it during the cool hours of the night. By day that road would be pure hell. Temperatures in September often soared as high as 120 degrees, and down there on the desert flat where my feet were, it would be even hotter. Already that day I had walked farther at one stretch than ever before in my life, although days would come when I would walk much farther.
    When I reached the main trail and started south for Garlic, a lot of the spring had gone from my step. The sun dropped from sight beyond the western mountains and the air grew cool. I walked steadily, only at a slower pace.
    The stars appeared, incredibly bright in that clear, cloudless desert air. Constantly I looked for some rock large enough to sit down upon, but saw nothing. Getting up from the ground would not be easy, so I hesitated, at that time, to attempt it. I was very much afraid that if I sat down I would not have the strength to get up.
    On I walked. Occasionally I sang, which was enough to protect me from anything predatory. The only persons who ever enjoyed my singing were myself and my kids, before they became old enough to know better.
    Crossing an old desert road that came in from out of nowhere, I came upon a collection of broken wood that might have been the tailgate of a truck. There was other debris around, too, and so I stopped, gathered sticks together, and built a fire. What the hour was I no longer remember, but it was probably about 2:00 A. M. It was cold--cold as only the desert can be where there is nothing to hold the heat of the day. I dug out a hollow for my hips and settled down beside my small fire to rest, and sleep.
    Wind rustled the brush, stirring mysteriously in the smaller plants, rattling seedpods still clinging from another year. I did not remove my boots. If my feet should swell, as they almost surely would, I would not get my boots on again.
    In the first faint blue light of dawn, with stars still hanging in the sky, I awakened, shaking with chill. My small supply of fuel was gone, so I tightened my bootlaces and started walking myself warm.
    It actually felt good to be moving, but I was worried. The terrain ahead was flat and offered no promise of shelter from the sun when day came. Yet there was a black shadow ahead and slightly to my left, and I remembered that near Garlic Spring were the Tiefort Mountains, such as they were, so there might be a chance of some hole I could crawl into out of the sun.
    At Garlic Spring, I opened my can of pears. They were half pears and I took them into my mouth, holding them as long as I could before they gradually almost melted away. I sat on the ground, resting and taking my time with the pears.
    A good third of the can was juice, for which I was grateful, and I took my time with that, too, and carried the empty can with me when I walked away. A sign near the spring warned me it was more than thirty-five miles to Barstow. Before leaving the spring I filled the can with water. It was difficult to carry but might help a little, yet when I had walked only a short distance I saw among the scattered rocks two that had fallen together to make a small cave, open on both sides. Carrying my can of water, I went down over the rocks and crawled in out of the sun.
    It was early to stop, yet thirty-five miles without more water than I had, on the open desert, was insanity. I would simply wait out the day and try to make most of that distance during the night