by W. L. Rusho
Love from Everett
Sentinels of the Wild. Blockprint by Everett Ruess.
The Sound of Rushing Water
Then there will be no musk but the sound of rushing water that breaks on pointed rocks far below, and the sighing of the wind in the pinyons—a warm wind that gently caresses my cheeks, ruffles my hair tenderly, and wanders downwards. Alone I will follow the dark trail, black void on one side and unattainable heights on the other, darkness before and behind me, darkness that pulses and flows and is felt. Then suddenly, an unreal breath of wind coming from infinite depths will bring to my ears again the strange, dimly remembered sound of the rushing water. When that sound dies, all dies.
—From an essay by Everett Ruess
August 22
Dear Father, Mother, and Waldo,
After breakfasting on pancakes Monday morning I left Glen Aulin, taking the McGee Lake trail to Tenaya Lake. The granite boulders and slabs were polished like mirrors, by the glacier.
All along the Yosemite trails are dead trees which often fall across the path. They are never moved, and the trail is changed, to go around them. I was told that in Rainier Park, as soon as a tree falls the rangers dash out in a group and cut it up, clearing the path.
It seemed that I would never reach the end of the trail, but I finally arrived at Tenaya Lake in the early afternoon. Just as I walked into the campground, ready to throw down my pack, a man walked up and wanted to know if I were hungry. He wanted to know all about me. It turned out that he and his family were about to drive on farther, and they gave me a good lunch before leaving.
Then I hiked around the lake to the Tenaya Lake camp. It seems that all the people in charge of the High Sierra camps are likeable and friendly.
After sleeping between some young firs by the lakeside, I rolled up my blankets once more and began the hardest part of my trip from Tenaya Lake to Little Yosemite, by way of Cloud’s Rest.
I climbed up the steep slope of the Forsyth trail to Forsyth Pass. Then I seemed to hike more easily, and the trail slid away under my feet until I came to the foot of Cloud’s Rest. I hiked over a sort of hump in the ground, then down a hollow, and up the shoulder of the mountain. On the smooth granite summit, I perched precariously as I ate my lunch, and surveyed the lowered skyline. Patches of snow were visible on some of the distant peaks. In back was Tenaya Lake, glistening turquoise in the sunlight. Half Dome, rounded and worn, was below me, and below me also was the narrow cleft of Yosemite Valley. A corner of Mirror Lake was in view.
Then I clambered down the mountainside over an abrupt trail. My eyes were soon full of dirt and gravel, but I continued for two or three hours until quite unexpectedly I saw Little Yosemite Camp a short distance below me. I finally arrived at the door of the mess shack, where I flung down my pack and blanket roll. It was good to be back again.
That evening, Mr. Cuesta, a visitor, and I climbed up the cliff behind the camp until we reached the top of a tremendous granite boulder. He showed us the Indian mortars and relics of an Indian camp, which had been there long ago. The three of us then took a log and industriously pried away at a large boulder at the edge. It finally slid off, and with a great flurry of sparks from the friction, it crashed down. There was a short silence, and it struck the ground far below, crashing through the brush and over some trees.
It was growing dark, so we started back, going down the face of the cliff this time. It was quite steep, but we all had rubber-soled shoes, and we successfully reached the bottom.
The next day I read three books: Oh, Ranger!, a book about the national parks, The Lore and the Lure of Yosemite, by Herbert Wilson, and Yosemite Trails, by J. Smeaton Chase.
Mr. Cuesta told me of his travels in Brazil, Cuba, and Jamaica, and then I made some arrowheads with a bone as the means of pressure. It is not as difficult as one might think, but the arrowheads usually break when you are half way through. It is also very dangerous to get one of the tiny obsidian flakes in your eye.
The next morning, I shouldered my pack once more, and started down to the valley. The whole atmosphere was one of anticlimax. I was returning from the mountains and the solitude to the valley, the noisy, uninitiated tourists, and eventually to the city and its sordid buildings and business places.
I was becoming extremely weary of being told by everyone that I had a load, or, “Say, isn’t that heavy,” or “What a load that boy has,” etc. ad nauseum. So I went to the Camp Curry scales and weighed it. What was my surprise to learn that, with but a pound of food left, it weighed forty-eight pounds! Evidently I am not as weak as I thought I was.
However, I have thought for some time that I would like to have a burro next time I start a hike of this kind. They cost $1.50 a day, and you can buy them for $15 or less.
I read The American in the library for a while, and then had my shoes heeled. The last pair lasted for more than 200 miles.
Near my camp is an interesting college girl who majored in sociology.
I made an unsuccessful experiment with rice pudding for supper. Tonight, believe it or not, I am going to try the Indian dish of fried grasshoppers. There must be something to it if both Chinese and Indians liked it.
Love from Everett
Junipers. Blockprint by Everett Ruess.
* * *
[2] Edward Weston is widely recognized as one of this century’s great photographers. In the 1930s he was living in Carmel, having moved there after his lengthy sojourn in Mexico and a brief stay in San Francisco. It was in Carmel in the 1930s, when he himself was in his forties, that Weston fully united within himself the creative energies that allowed him to make some of the world’s most remarkable photographs. Weston made explicit in his mode of living the philosophy that allowed him to create.
He achieved a remarkable harmony between simplicity of living, which to a large extent freed him from the demands of the material world, and good taste, which enabled him to enjoy life on a high level. He had but a few material possessions. He immersed himself in classical music, partook of a modest, mostly vegetarian diet, reveled in the conversation and company of friends, and, above all, achieved a daily routine that allowed him to submerge himself in the beauty of nature.
Weston’s successful lifestyle, centered about artistic freedom, was seen as an ideal model for Everett Ruess, who was discovering similar ideas on his own.
[3] Harry was the son of Harry Leon Wilson, novelist, author of Ruggles of Red Gap and Merton of the Movies, and close friend of Edward Weston. In 1937, Weston married the elder Wilson’s daughter, Charis.
Chapter 3: The Letters 1931
Upon his return to Los Angeles from the Sierras, Everett completed his high school education, graduating in January 1931 from Hollywood High School. He immediately began making preparations to spend several months traveling in northern Arizona, where he planned to “buy myself a little burro, change my name, and call him Everett.” When he departed he headed specifically for Monument Valley. In his letters he gives no clue as to how he happened to know about this scenic red rock desert, since in those days general public knowledge about Monument Valley was limited. It was not yet a favorite location for Western movies, and references to the place that had appeared in books, newspapers, and magazines were brief and sparse. Possibly his mother, through her interests in art, had talked to an artist who had been there. At least when Everett arrived in Monument Valley he did seem to know just what to expect. It was a rough thing for him to do. Alone and friendless, he wandered into this desert land of the Navajos in late winter, virtually penniless, paying his small expenses by doing odd jobs and occasionally selling one of his watercolors or blockprints. In the 1930s, even more than today, such an act was almost unheard of and thought of as genuinely foolhardy.
The Indian Council Cave
Wand’ring among the painted
rocks one day
I saw some ancient, moss-grown
boulders there
That leaned together in a friendly
<
br /> way
And formed a cave that might
have housed a bear.
But on the high arched ceiling
were designs
And symbols that some Indian had
drawn;
A rising sun, marked out in faint
red lines,
A row of running wolves, a deer
and fawn.
Bones from forgotten feasts
were on the floor,
Picked clean by men who sat
around a fire
Discussing and deciding peace or
war
Or chanting solemn prayers, in gay
attire.
The cave is empty now, the paintings fade...
And here the silent centuries invade.
—Everett Ruess, published in The American Indian, April 1929
February 13
General Delivery
Kayenta, Arizona
Dear Bill,
Here I am at last on what was, ten years ago, the final frontier. An Indian mailcarrier brought me from Flagstaff. I haven’t met a single person on the way who I thought ought to be shot.
I’ve been bargaining with some Navajos about a burro, and I’ll have to put out eight dollars for one. Most of the Navajos don’t speak English, and an interpreter is necessary. Practically all of the burros are down with the sheep now. In the summer it is much easier to buy them.
When I was going to Needles in a Buick Eight with an old gentleman and his dog Jerry, traveling seventy-five miles per hour, the famous miner’s hat blew off. I have worn the wool cap most of the time, since there has been no sun to keep off.
I drove to Oatman with a potato truck. After I had unloaded a ton of potatoes to earn my lunch, a friend of the driver took me on to Kingman, before I could eat the lunch.
Beyond Kingman, I was picked up by a couple of Long Beach toughs who were driving to New York in a Dodge. Having no money, they had siphoned their gasoline from other people’s cars. It got dark that night (!) and as they had no lights driving was difficult. For about ten miles we kept just ahead of another car, driving by its lights. Then it dropped behind and we nearly went into the ditch. Tearing up a few fence posts, we started a fire and waited for the moon to rise and show us the way. The moon became the standing joke. It didn’t come up till four o’clock in the morning. In the meantime we all crouched around the fire. One of the men slept on a slope right next to the fire, with his arms across his breast. Gravity kept working, and every few minutes his arm would steal down to the ground and the fire. It would get hot and slowly return to his breast. Finally it got burnt and the sleeper awakened.
At moonrise, we rolled onward, through Seligman to Ash Fork, where we arrived on an empty tank. I gave them half a dollar, and they begged a few dimes from sympathetic strangers. Twenty-five miles from Flagstaff all the gas was gone. They picked up a tramp who gave them his only quarter. They walked a mile to a gas station and we drove on again till the gas gave out, eight miles from Flagstaff. I got out and walked.
I slept on pine needles in the Coconino Forest that night. I tried melting snow to drink, but it tasted smoky and utterly unpalatable. Next day no burros were to be purchased in Flagstaff, so I went on, and camped near Mount San Francisco.
In the morning it was snowing, but an Indian took me to Kayenta. We stopped at several trading posts along the way. We drove through the Painted Desert, over a very wild road. Passed the place where The Vanishing American was filmed. All the mountains are pink and red. No trees but pinyons.
As soon as I get the burro and it stops snowing I’m going to visit some ruins. I sleep in a hogan now. The only thing lacking is you to throw a snowball at.
Your Comrade,
Lan Rameau[4]
By no means was Everett a recluse, for he would, and did, talk to anyone he met. At Kayenta, the little village just south of Monument Valley, Everett lost no time looking up John Wetherill and his wife, Louisa, the leading Indian traders of the area.[5] John, one of the four famous Wetherill brothers who discovered so many major ruins at Mesa Verde in the late 1880s and early 1890s, had lived in the Navajo country since 1906, and had since earned fame as a guide and explorer. The Wetherills undoubtedly told Everett much about the red rock desert, its people, and about how to survive a trip across it. Wetherill also told a fascinated Ruess about some of the closer Anasazi Indian ruins. Later comments, however, by both Wetherill and Everett, show that the two were highly dissimilar, and that they held little respect for each other. (See letter of 17 June 1934.)
Dramatic Monument Valley at sunrise. Photo by W. L. Rusho.
February 13
General Delivery
Kayenta, Arizona
Dear Waldo,
The Indians around here are very poor, having no income except from their sheep and the blankets they sell. A statistician here figured that the per capita income from sheep, including wool and hides, is $13.40 a year. The Navajos live in filth.
This town consists of the trading post, the missionary’s house, the tuberculosis sanatorium, and John Wetherill’s house, with a few hogans scattered around. Wetherill is the man who discovered Mesa Verde and was in the party which discovered Rainbow Bridge. He is the best guide in the Southwest.
The snow is practically all melted now, so tomorrow I shall probably start out for some ruins. I have already written one letter and don’t feel like reiterating. The territory, however, is all that I hoped it would be.
Sincerely, Lan Rameau
March 1
Kayenta, Arizona
Dear Family,
It was quite a shock to receive the news about the poster.[6] I had no thought of the prize when I made it, and I slapped the paint on in a great hurry, during the last few days of school. The only reason I made it was so the art teacher wouldn’t think I was letting him down.
The money will, of course, be very useful. I have spent $6 for a burro, $1 for a seamless sack, $2.50 for a Dutch oven, $2.00 for a Navajo woven cinch and some rope, $8 for a tarpaulin to keep out wind, rain, and snow. I’ve spent as much again on food, but I have enough to last several weeks now. Bread is not sold in this country, so I have learned to bake squaw bread, cornbread, and biscuits in my Dutch oven. Yesterday the biscuits were perfect.
I would appreciate it if you sent some Swedish bread, peanut butter, pop, and Grape Nuts. They are unobtainable luxuries in this country. Canned milk costs fifteen and twenty cents, raisins are sometimes thirty cents a pound, and lard costs the Indians seventy-five cents for two pounds.
Although my postal address is Kayenta, I am actually at Say-kiz-y Pass near Monument Valley, Utah. Tomorrow I am starting on a trip to discover some cliff dwellings and do some painting and camping. I don’t know how long I’ll be gone, but write to Kayenta, and I’ll answer your mail as soon as I get it.
Please respect my brush name. It is hard to lead a dual existence. The first name begins with “L,” not “S.” How do you say it in French? Nomme de broushe, or what? I would like to know. If you use my new name in addressing letters it will save confusion. It’s not the perfect cognomen but I intend to stick by it.
A chilly wind is whistling and I am in the shadow of a cliff, but the Monuments are glowing in the afternoon sunlight. There are no clouds, but it may snow or rain in a few days. There is usually a March snowstorm here. A week ago there were four inches of snow, and every night ice forms.
As to the Navajo rug, if and when I get it, I intend to use it, but if I get another, I shall send it home to you.
Love to all,
Lan Rameau
March 9
Say-kiz-y Pass
Kayenta, Arizona
Dear Bill,
Just received your letter, and another from my family which held heartbreaking news. Imagine the salt tears rolling down as I read a clipping from the Times stating that I won 1st prize for my Foreign Trades Week poster, in the Los Angeles Day School division. $25!! The worm must be turning
.
I had to look at the clipping several times before I could believe it. And to think with what difficulty my art teacher persuaded me to make the poster at all! I made it with breakneck haste because Art was an afternoon class, and Seniors did not have to go to their afternoon classes.
As to my pen name, although it is really a brush name, I am still in turmoil, but I think that I will heroically stand firm in the face of all misunderstandings and mispronunciations. I’ll simply have to lead a dual existence. If you have any brilliant suggestions, I won’t consider myself too far gone to reconsider. Comment regardless. The name is LAN RAMEAU, and the friend who helped me select it thought it was quite euphonic and distinctive. Personally, I felt that anything was better than Ruess, but I may have been mistaken. I can’t tell whether you made it Lan or San in your letter. It’s an “L.”
I am going to pack up my burro and take a jaunt through Monument Valley to a row of cliffs I know of, explore every box canyon, and discover some prehistoric cliff dwellings. Don’t laugh. Maybe you thought they were all discovered, but such is not the case. In the territory I shall cover, a few cliff dwellings have been found but not investigated. Most of the country is untouched. Only the Navajos have been there, and they are superstitious. In the event that I find nothing, I shall do some painting and have some interesting camps.
I have been in several snowstorms and rainstorms, but water is not plentiful, and is only found in potholes.
I’m glad someone shares your sentiments about my art, but a man can’t live on promises. Nevertheless, I have a couple of promises of Navajo rugs in case I make two paintings that please two Indian traders, I have already traded one blockprint for an old Indian bowl but I’m not carrying it with me.
