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

to come.
    Hunched in my small shelter I leaned a shoulder against the brown rock and tried to sleep.
    From time to time I sipped water from the pear can.
    The cool hours of morning slipped easily away and it became hot. Suddenly, my eye detected movement. At the back opening of my shelter was a stretch of baked white earth and crossing it toward me was a good-sized desert rattler, obviously heading for the shade I occupied. He was still some distance off, so I gathered a handful of sand and threw it at him.
    He stopped, head up, tongue flicking.
    I threw another handful and he coiled but did not rattle. It was still not hot enough to kill him out there, but soon would be, and a rattlesnake cannot stand long exposure to the hot sun.
    I threw another handful with some larger rocks this time, and he came out of his coil and started to crawl away. Satisfied that he was no longer planning to share my shade, I let him go.
    Nothing else stirred. It was a long, slow morning and afternoon. I dozed, awakened, dozed again. My ears were always attuned to the hoped-for sound of a motor, but luck failed me, as it often has. In the distance, down the way I would go, but probably farther out, I could see a brief shower falling, a rarity at that time of year. Several times I saw dust-devils, those miniature desert whirlwinds that spring up suddenly, travel briefly, then die.
    Somewhere along the line I fell asleep and slept as if drugged, awakened only when the coolness began to come. It was after 5:00
    P. M. when I refilled my can at the spring and started once again. The water at Garlic Spring had not been particularly good, but it was water. The only other water I knew of was Paradise Spring, which the old man had mentioned, and it was more than a mile off the road, which meant perhaps three miles extra added to my hike.
    Was it worth it? I did not know.
    And what had happened to the old man?
    Suppose he had died? Would I ever get paid?
    The night was cool, and I walked steadily.
    I was very tired, and occasionally I stumbled. The road turned left down a wash and followed it for a short distance. It was an effort to climb out.
    I sipped a little of my water and decided I had to make the side trip to Paradise Spring. It was in a box, he'd said, set down in a patch of grass.
    Finishing the little water I carried, I refilled at Paradise Spring, but by the time I got back to the road I was dead tired.
    I sat down on a low bank of sand piled by the wind around some brush. How long I sat there I do not know, but the realization that I must get as far as possible before the sun came up got me started.
    My mouth was dry, my lips cracked. My face felt hot despite the coolness of the night. As I had on several previous occasions, I put a pebble in my mouth to ease my thirst.
    A few miles farther along I finished the little water in the can and must have dropped it. That I do not remember. I do remember sipping some milky water from a rut in the road, probably left by that brief shower I had seen from a distance.
    The town was suddenly there, and I remember crossing a bridge into town and walking up the street to a caf`e. I dropped down on a stool and asked for a Coke.
    The waitress said, "Man, you look like you've been through it. What happened?"
    The Coke bottle felt cold and wonderful in my hand and there was ice in the glass. "I just walked in from Death Valley," I said.
    A man on a stool near me turned and stared. "You walked in? You got to be crazy."
    When I found him, the old man was ill, sick in bed, but his daughter paid me the $150.
    "Sorry, boy, I'm real sorry.
    Planned on pickin' you up."
    I explained about the car. "Well, she's no loss. Never was much account, anyway."
    My next stop was Los Angeles, and then San Pedro and a ship.
    An idea upon which attention is peculiarly concentrated is an idea which tends to realize itself.
    --Charles Baudouin When first I arrived in Los Angeles, I was hitchhiking a ride on a truck. By the time I