by W. L. Rusho
There has, however, been one flaw, aside from the insistent clamor of that disgusting god, money. Art needs an audience, or it will die, just as the world ceases to exist if there are none to contemplate it. I have had many sublime experiences which the presence of another person might well have prevented, but there are others which the presence of a perceptive and appreciative friend might have made doubly worthwhile. In all this country I have met but one moderately intelligent man, and he is too steeped in sarcasm. Only one hospitable family have I encountered, and with them, familiarity has bred contempt. For these reasons, and because of the corroding effects of money, I have shirked contact with humanity, preferring to live more perfectly in isolation. Yet, after all, people are interdependent, and I have felt the need of a real friend. That is all. Make of it what you will.
In the meantime, my burro and I, and a little dog, if I can find one, are going on and on, until, sooner or later, we reach the end of the horizon.
Your alter ego,
Lan
April 19
Dear Waldo,
Among the things in the three packages which I sent are: an ancient black and white Indian bowl; a modern black bowl made by the Pueblo Indians, a mother of pearl ornament of value which I found at Keet Seel, a part of a human jawbone with teeth, some corn more than 1200 years old, and many types of pottery chips.
But now to tell you of the real news. My family group has been enlarged to three! The latest is just following an ant across the hogan floor, an attempt to find out what it is. Now he is chewing a scrap of rope as if it were a wild beast attacking him. He is a little roly-poly puppy with fluffy white fur, and blue-brown patches on his head and near his tail. His eyes are blue, and his nose is short. I found him last night, lost and squealing for help. When I stroked his fur in the darkness, electric sparks flew off.
I haven’t yet decided about his name, but may call him Curly, because of his tail. When he is large enough, I am going to train him to go behind the burro, occasionally nipping the donkey’s heels, so that we shall be able to go faster.
It is quite amusing to watch him sniffing and digging and investigating the world. I shall take the trail again in a few days. Repassing Kayenta in ten days, I shall collect what mail there is, and then strike out for Canyon de Chelly, returning westward through the Hopi Reservation, to the Grand Canyon, then north to Kaibab and Zion.
It is unfortunate that you have been unable to find a good position, and no doubt your $40 was gone long ago. But you are probably enjoying life anyhow, even though you do not live it to the fullest. Nevertheless, when we read of the immense strides in accomplishment that some men have made in their youth, our own years often seem wasted. However, it is man’s lot to be imperfect and discontented. In my travels in Arizona, I have never met anyone whose life I envied. I myself feel much freer and happier here than I did in the city, but that is due not only to a change in environment, but to a change in my mental attitude.
My little family is a peaceful one now. The puppy is taking a nap and the burro is eating sagebrush in a nearby field. The air is clear, fleecy clouds float dreamily overhead, and not a sound is to be heard anywhere, except the scratching of my pencil. I hope no unpleasant misadventures have befallen at home, and that you are not too much dissatisfied with the careless treatment of circumstance.
Love from Lan
May 2
Kayenta, Arizona
Bill, you dear old hypochondriac,
Yes, I have a dog! He is a month-old Navajo puppy, whom I found lost in the night, a couple of weeks ago. He is a ball of white with two mouse-gray patches near his tail and on his head. He has blue eyes. I call him Curly, for his tail.
A young Navajo squaw tried to kidnap him once. She picked him up, squealing, and started to walk off. Seeking to detain her, I grasped her two strands of beads, but she wouldn’t stop, and they broke. Even then I had to manhandle her and pinch her fingers before she would let go of Curly.
A couple of days ago, I helped a rancher butcher a calf, for which service he gave me the skin. I made a quirt from it, to stimulate the burro.
You wonder why I do not go into the hills and get a deer. The main reason is that there aren’t any. Deer were extinct long ago in this country. All through the Indian country, the game is very scarce. Then too, there is very little water for the game.
This morning I meant to leave for Canyon de Chelly, but I slept late, and have taken several hours to write a few letters, with one more to go. I seldom write letters hastily. Now it is raining, as it has frequently done in the last two weeks.
Maybe you have been gloating, as you promised, over your hot baths and showers, but I don’t envy you. Hot baths, say the dermatologists, are bad for the complexion. At any rate, I feel more exhilaration from physical cleanliness when I swim or splash or bathe outdoors, under the wind and sun. My last bath was on a cliff top in a waterhole a yard across and three inches deep. I tried to use soapweed, but found it impractical.
I have changed my name again, to Evert Rulan. Those who knew me formerly thought my name was freakish and an affectation of Frenchiness. It is not easy to choose a name, but Evert Rulan can be spelled, pronounced, remembered and is moderately distinctive. Of course, I changed the donkey’s name. He is now definitely titled Pegasus.
Don’t write, or rather, hold your letters until you hear from me again, as I am not having mail forwarded from Kayenta, and shall be on the move from now on.
Your comrade of ancient days,
Evert
May 2
Dear Waldo,
It was a fine letter you wrote me, with your individuality showing everywhere through it. I feel that you are worthy of a better position than your present one. The idea put forward by some, that all necessary work is honorable and beautiful because it must be done, means nothing to me. As far as I am concerned, your work is quite unnecessary, since I can keep very healthy without Fleischmann’s yeast, and do not need it for booze or bread, as I consume neither. I’ll wager Uncle Alfred and his family never use the stuff either.
I myself would sooner walk a whole day behind the burro than spend two hours on the streetcar. What are your plans for the future? Are you preparing yourself for a better job, are you ignorant of your own desires, or are you leaving your life to circumstance? There is nothing wicked about either course, but I know you would dislike to imagine yourself in the same type of job ten years from now.
Somehow, I am very glad not to be home, where civilized life thrusts the thought of money upon one from all sides. With an adequate stock of provisions, I can forget the cursed stuff, or blessed stuff, for days and weeks at a time.
Your censure was quite deserved in regard to providing my needs, but remember that I have asked for no money, and that most of the equipment I asked for was unprocurable here, and necessary to my life. The brush, the shoes, the clothing, the diary, the bell, the pack sack, the paper, the plate, and many other things were real needs. I have made many efforts to find jobs, but hard times are here as well as elsewhere, and on Indian territory the government must give all the work possible to the natives. However, I expect to find some source of income in the near future. I am determined to make my own way, but each day spent in stupid labor, I shall consider wasted. You and I seem both to suffer from backwardness, not caring or not able to “sell” ourselves.
As to my plans, while I expect fortunate and unfortunate circumstances to make changes here and there, my whole life is roughly mapped out. After the Grand Canyon, Kaibab, and Zion, I shall go south for the winter, perhaps pausing in Mesa, where a friend has relations. After working in the cactus country of southern Arizona, I may go northward through New Mexico, Rocky Mountain National Park, and Yellowstone to Glacier. This, of course, is a decision left to the future. At all events I intend to spend a year or two in the open, working hard with my art. Then I shall wish for city life again, and to see my old friends if they still exist. By that time, it is imperative for someth
ing to have turned out for the better, so that I shall have funds with which to do painting on a larger scale. Some kind of studio or large room to myself, will be necessary. There I shall work with oils and watercolors, improving my work of the past and, with it as a foundation, working out new and better pictures. It is my intention to accomplish something very definite in Art. When I have a large collection of pictures, done as well as I can do them, then I am going to make a damn vicious stab at getting them exhibited and sold. If this fails, I’ll give them away to friends and those who might appreciate them.
Then I am going to lead a very civilized life, getting plenty of good music, having many new experiences in reading, and having social experience. I shall find new, worthwhile friends, meanwhile continuing with art, and perhaps working in poetry.
After having lived intensely in the city for a while (it may not be in Hollywood), I feel that I must go to some foreign country. Europe makes no appeal to me as it is too civilized. Possibly some unfrequented place in the South Seas. Australia holds little allure for me now. Alaska is too cold and Mexico is largely barren, as is most of South America. Ecuador is an interesting place with its snow-capped volcanoes, jungles, and varied topography. As to ways and means, that problem will be solved somehow.
I must pack my short life full of interesting events and creative activity. Philosophy and aesthetic contemplation are not enough. I intend to do everything possible to broaden my experiences and allow myself to reach the fullest development. Then, and before physical deterioration obtrudes, I shall go on some last wilderness trip, to a place I have known and loved. I shall not return.
Love from your brother,
Evert
May 10
Chin Lee [Chinle], Arizona
Dear Father, Mother, and Waldo,
I contrived a roundelay, but found no one to sing it with:
Prod, prod, prod your burro
Gently near the tail,
Merrily, merrily, merrily, merrily,
He’s a kind of snail.
Love from Everett
May 10
Chin Lee, Arizona
Dear Bill,
On the assumption that, since I heard from you last, you have not become a professor of metempsychosis, I take my pencil in hand, once more to convey to you my thoughts, aspirations, and disgusts.
It took me four days to go from Kayenta to Chin Lee, a distance of about eighty miles. One day I covered twenty-five miles, but in the afternoon, Pegasus folded his wings, and progress was very slow.
The first day, after intermittent spatterings, two rainbows appeared simultaneously. I watched them for a long time. For three days’ duration there were magnificent cloud effects, with rain, lightning, and rolling thunder.
One day, there came a young Englishman of genuine intelligence, who stopped his car for an hour or two while we talked, during the rain. He is a graduate of Cambridge and has also gone to California. Was on his way to London to find some geological job in the Orient. He won’t take it unless it leaves him six months a year free for exploration. He has been on two Arctic trips, is fond of good literature and poetry.
Curly, the pup, rides the pack most of the time, as he tires easily.
In Chin Lee I have met some very interesting and very generous people. Hard times prevail here as elsewhere, and I haven’t been able to find any jobs. The Indians are not very lovable here. This morning, when I looked for my burro, I found that his bell and tie rope had been stolen (from his neck). Peg had evidently been mistreated, as his legs were skinned. The burro was just beyond a small hill. Experienced Indian traders say that a Navajo is your friend only as long as you give to him. Certainly none of them would go to church if the missionaries did not give them food and clothes. The missionaries are a snoopy, superfluous lot, who gossip and spread trouble, no matter how good their intentions.
The Navajos do not help one another. If one Indian is trying to corral a herd of horses, and they start to escape past another Indian, the latter will stir neither hand nor foot, but will only laugh. When a Navajo begins to be helpless and decrepit, the others cease to have anything to do with him. The government used to give such Indians a few rations once a week, but now times are hard and they only get grub once a month. In consequence they go to all the white people and beg. I saw one woman give the very coat from her back to an ancient squaw.
Tomorrow I intend to start up towards Canyon de Chelly and Canyon del Muerto. From the pictures I have seen, and from all I have heard, they would seem to be fascinating. I shall be gone perhaps two weeks, possibly making a test of my self control which I have in mind.
I look forward to the Grand Canyon.
On all sides, people are being murdered, run over, are dying and committing suicide. It may be our turn next, but if you receive this letter, write to Chin Lee so that I’ll find your reply when I return from the canyons. If you try to muss up my latest appellation, by misspelling sirs, or esquires, your own cognomen will suffer in the return mail.
Love and kisses,
Desperately yours,
Evert
P.S. The miner’s hat is becoming picturesque (falling apart). But the sleeping bag is still intact.
If I had the postage money, I’d send home the shotgun, which is an unnecessary burden for the donkey. I fired it once, killing a chipmunk which was too small to eat. I’ve seen a few prairie dogs big enough to eat, but I’d rather not have them than carry a gun all day.
Your comrade
Evert Rulan
May 23
Dear Family,
After twelve days, I’ve returned from the Canyon, having been stuck in the quicksand several times. I made half a dozen paintings, but as yet I’ve not enough to spare. They are all different and I like to have the variety to show to people I meet. Have seen nothing suitable for blockprints, but do not despair.
Today the doctor’s wife bought a blockprint of the windblown cypress for a dollar. I wish you’d send more, on the yellow, wave-lined paper, as it was my only copy. Also prints of the mountain range with the line of trees in the foreground. Preferably green on white.
I did not expect you to send any groceries or any money, but of course they were welcome. I’m sorry the financial situation is so pitiful at home. I really couldn’t tell you where to reduce expenses or how to earn more money.
Here’s my budget:
Rent nothing
Electricity "
Gas for heat and cooking "
Telephone "
Retirement assessment "
Savings "
Running burro, oats, etc. .25 (5 lbs)
Food $10 to $20
Magazines, newspapers nothing
Burro insurance "
Doctor bills "
Clothing no allowance made (shirts are in shreds and I’ve but one extra)
Family nothing
Contributions 10
Unexpected sundries $1.00
Insurance nothing
Total usually under $20
I have bought no more than $40 worth of equipment, most of which need not be frequently replaced. The $25 prize money is not quite all spent. All attempts to find work have failed. Hard times prevail as elsewhere.
Secretly, I had wished for puppy biscuits, but never dreamed you’d be thoughtful enough to send them.
Tomorrow I am starting for the Hopi country and Grand Canyon—about 200 miles distant. In writing, specify that the mail be held, as I may be weeks arriving.
Love to all, Evert
On a hot day in June 1931, two high school boys, Tad Nichols and Randolph “Pat” Jenks, were driving their pickup back from a rough trip to Navajo Bridge when they spotted Everett, with a burro and a small dog, trudging along the barren road near Cameron, Arizona, moving very slowly, apparently about exhausted. Nichols and Jenks stopped and offered him a drink of water, but Everett, confused at first, thought they wanted water and reached for his own canteen.
In spite of his selfless g
enerosity, Ruess obviously needed help, so the boys suggested that they take him to a ranch that Jenks had homesteaded on the west side of the San Francisco Peaks. Just loading the burro into the tiny pickup and tying him down was a complex operation (see photograph). Jenks says that on the ride through Flagstaff and around the Peaks he discovered that Everett, even though very tired, was an interesting, artistically sensitive young man. Soon Everett found himself relaxing in a crude but comfortable cabin beneath cool Ponderosa pines, supplied with groceries by his two young friends. Jenks, who visited him at the ranch whenever school work allowed, says that Everett spent his time in leisure, with no particular aim or objective.[7]
Tad Nichols, who took this photograph, and Randolph “Pat” Jenks (background) were driving this pickup near Cameron, Arizona, on a hot afternoon in June 1931 when they found Everett wearily trudging along the dusty road. Jenks and Nichols stopped, loaded the burro into the truck and took Everett to a mountain cabin in the San Francisco Peaks. Everett is shown at the left.
June 8
Dear Father, Mother, and Waldo,
This letter is being sent from the vicinity of Flagstaff, not Grand Canyon. Yesterday noon I was at the Little Colorado River, about to turn westward, when along came two boys in a small Ford truck who were much interested in what I was doing. They had passed me before near Hotevilla pueblo. One of them suddenly decided to take me and the burro and Curly to a ranch of his in the Coconino Forest, among the San Francisco peaks. I was much surprised, and did not consider the project feasible, but he was confident that it could be done.
The three of us finally shunted the donkey on, after much maneuvering. The rest of the pack was lashed on the roof. Pegasus stumbled and lurched from side to side, but maintained his equilibrium. We sailed along through desert and forest, with the shadow of the donkey beside us. At dusk we reached their school, which has five teachers and five pupils. This afternoon I’ll go to the ranch, and stay in the vicinity for a week or more. I expect to do some good painting and work out some blockprints. The mountain slope is covered with aspens, and wildlife is very abundant. One of the boys, Randolph Jenks, is interested in ornithology. He wants to buy my painting of a cliff dwelling if he can procure the money. There is always some catch, you know.
