noon
There had not been much of a crop to haul that year . Half of the wheat on the Broderson ranch had failed entirely , and Derrick himself had hardly raised more than enough to supply seed for the winter 's sowing . But such little hauling as there had been had reduced the roads thereabouts to a lamentable condition , and , during the dry season of the past few months , the layer of dust had deepened and thickened to such an extent that more than once Presley was obliged to dismount and trudge along on foot , pushing his bicycle in front of him . It was the last half of September , the very end of the dry season , and all Tulare County , all the vast reaches of the San Joaquin Valley -- in fact all South Central California , was bone dry , parched , and baked and crisped after four months of cloudless weather , when the day seemed always at noon , and the sun blazed white hot over the valley from the Coast Range in the west to the foothills of the Sierras in the east . As Presley drew near to the point where what was known as the Lower Road struck off through the Rancho de Los Muertos , leading on to Guadalajara , he came upon one of the county watering-tanks , a great , iron-hooped tower of wood , straddling clumsily on its four uprights by the roadside . Since the day of its completion , the storekeepers and retailers of Bonneville had painted their advertisements upon it . It was a landmark .