A toast to the talented and troubled, the lonesome coyotes

I steer south on Interstate 15 flanked by homebound Californians on a brilliant Sunday afternoon. It's April in the Mojave, a fleeting season of renewal, but instead I'm thinking of you, Warren Bates, and of the incredible sadness you must have been feeling.

At the Zzyzx offramp just past Baker, wildflowers mingle with the empty beer bottles and other roadside debris. You called your remarkable website roadtozzyzx.com and filled it with the haunting night and desert photography that allowed us a glimpse at your solitary soul. I have decided this is the place to start.

You were so talented, Warren. Talented and without an ounce of ego in a trade where those with a sliver of your skills make a living posing like so many faux Faulkners.

There are several ways to reach the lonely stretch of rail between Amboy and Ludlow, where your life ended late Friday afternoon in what the California Highway Patrol is investigating as a suicide. You were 49, Warren, and left behind your own family and an extended family at the Review-Journal that appreciated your writing and editing chops and thought it knew you well.

I had known you nearly 25 years, but in retrospect not well enough to imagine you gone like this. At a loss and in acknowledgment of the futility of the gesture, I decide to drive and toast you in the country you loved best.

There are several ways to reach the ghostly railroad outposts of Amboy and Ludlow, but I take Kelbaker Road. From Baker it slices east through the Mojave National Preserve, and this time of year the paintbrush and poppies are blooming. Kelbaker is more patched than an old pair of jeans. Above, crows, ravens, and vultures are black slashes in a Van Gogh-blue sky.

Kelso Depot and the nearby dunes are as still as postcards. I pass under Interstate 40 and turn onto a bleak stretch of road that goes by the audacious title, "National Trails Highway." The Burlington Northern Santa Fe rail line runs parallel to the two-lane road and shimmers in the distance.

Up ahead is Amboy, your favorite place.

It's a ghost town at heart. The Amboy School and an old church are in a slow state of collapse. Roy's Motel and Café has seen better decades. "Suspicious Minds" pumps through stereo speakers. But not even the festively painted Juan Pollo taco stand brightens my mood.

Tattooed Harley riders returning from a weekend of partying at the Laughlin River Run pause in Amboy to shake off the road wobbles, but they do not linger.

In the next two hours I'll ask eight locals in Amboy and Ludlow about Friday's incident involving the car and the train. All say basically the same thing: That they didn't see it, only heard about; that they also heard the car parked on the tracks on purpose, and that it was all very sad.

When I reach the railroad crossing, the arm has dropped. About 10 feet away, an eastbound Burlington Northern Santa Fe train roars by going 60. The vibration is bone rattling.

After the last train car has screamed by, I take out a bottle of whiskey, pour some on the tracks, save a little for myself. I propose a melancholy toast to you, Warren, and tell you how sorry we all are that you were hurting so badly, and that you're gone so soon.

The last light of day fades, and the cool night sweeps in. Outside Ludlow, a mangy coyote trots onto the road, panics in oncoming headlights, and does a little dance.

Then it scoots under a guardrail and disappears into the greasewood shadows.

Here's to all those lonesome coyotes out on the road.

May they find their way home in the dark.

John L. Smith's column appears Sunday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday. E-mail him at Smith@reviewjournal.com or call (702) 383-0295. He also blogs at lvrj.com/blogs/smith.