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

bouncing, into a wash, and made a desperate dash up the other side, bouncing over rocks and dodging a near collision with an invading bunch of creosote.
    "Shorty was a finder, not a keeper. Come from back east somewhere, New Jersey, I think it was, an' hoboed his way west when he was a youngster.
    "Orphan. Least, that's what I heard.
    Died a few years back an' if what they say is true, he was buried standin' up in the lowest part of Death Valley.
    "They were diggin' a grave but it was just too durned hot, so they stood the coffin on one end and filled it in. Buried him standin' up at the lowest part of Death Valley. Ol' Shorty would have loved that. Had his epitaph: Here lies Shorty Harris, single-blanket jackass prospector, or something like that.
    Never seen the spot, more'self."
    We stopped at Garlic Spring to fill the radiator from a water trough. The spring itself was about a hundred yards up the draw, and when we started on I was telling myself that if I had to drive back alone I would hope the tire tracks would still be there, as roads or trails intersected with our road every mile or so.
    The old man talked steadily, but everything he had to say was amusing or informative. He knew a lot about desert plants and talked of them. We were climbing slowly, headed for the Granite Mountains with the Avawatz showing up behind them.
    It was all of seventy miles to the claim, and as much attention as I paid, I was to wish I had looked around still more.
    The claim was nothing. Somebody had opened a tunnel and dug in a few feet. Some flimsy poles had been stuck in the ground and they supported a few sheets of metal that offered a little shade. There were a couple of barrels underneath, one containing water. There were several picks, a shovel, a singlejack, and some drills.
    An old Model T with no top stood under the shed. "If something happens an' I don't get back in five days, you just wind up that ol' buggy an' drive her into town.
    Come to my place an' I'll pay you off.
    "Work in the tunnel, yonder. Get in as far as you can in the time you've got, but if you run out of something to do of an evenin' you might walk back along the road an' roll some of those big rocks away."
    He looked at me again, as if seeing me for the first time. "Think you can do it, boy?"
    "No problem," I said, and meant it.
    He let out the clutch and rolled away, making a quick turn to dodge a big rock. That was another case where I should have been paying more attention.
    For a long time I just stood there, listening to the sound of the car for as long as I could hear it. He was an old man. Suppose he didn't make it back to Barstow?
    Picking up my duffel, I walked back under the awning. It was late afternoon and the sun was under some rare clouds, very thin, very high.
    There was a fire-ring of rocks and some piled wood alongside it. There was a coffeepot, a frying pan, some odds and ends of knives, forks, and enamel dishes. And suspended under the awning was a hammock.
    I suppose I was lonely. I know that often I longed for someone with whom I could talk of books, writers, and things of the mind, but that was not to be for a long time, except here and there when I chanced on some other lost literary soul.
    Loneliness is of many kinds, and the mere presence and companionship of people does not suffice. The people I had been meeting were friendly, pleasant, and the salt of the earth, but they did not speak my language. I enjoyed them, but something in me reached out for more. Moreover, I needed time to write, to sit down, free of care, and just write. So far I had been trying, here and there --aboard ship, at the mine, and elsewhere--but I needed more.
    One is not, by decision, just a writer. One becomes a writer by writing, by shaping thoughts into the proper or improper words, depending on the subject, and by doing it constantly. There was so much I needed to learn that could only be learned by doing, by sitting down with a typewriter or a pen and simply