by W. L. Rusho
I’m truly glad you enjoy the picture—as I told you once before, an artist can’t paint for himself alone—he must find someone else who thinks his stuff is good.
On this whole trip I haven’t met anyone who really cared for art—not even the few tourist artists I met.
I started a poem the day before I sickened—here are the first four lines;
I have been one who loved the wilderness
Swaggered and softly crept between the mountain peaks
I listened along to the sea’s brave music;
I sang my songs above the shriek of desert winds.
Evert
Gibbs Smith painting of Everett in Zion National Park, pausing with his burro and dog. The Watchman formation is in the background. August 1931.
Upon his recovery from poison ivy exposure, Everett rode to the southeast, then ascended through the Kaibab Forest to the North Rim of the Grand Canyon, taking eight days. He spent another week crossing the canyon by way of North Kaibab Trail, the Kaibab Bridge, then Bright Angel, Tonto, and Hermit trails, reaching the South Rim at Hermit Rest. Again, Everett neither painted nor wrote in detail of his impressions of the canyon. He only commented that “Nothing anywhere can rival the Grand Canyon.”
September 30
Kaibab Forest
Dear Bill,
Thanks very much for the compass and purse. I know they will be useful.
For eight days I traveled from Zion to the North Rim, a distance of 150 miles by my route. If only you could have seen what I saw then—but you didn’t and as a picture is supposedly equal to a thousand words, I’ll send you that when I reach the South Rim.
One of those sunsets will always linger in my memory. It was after a day of struggle—of violent hailstorms that beat down like a thousand whiplashes, and of ferocious, relentlessly-battling winds.
Then sunset, at my camp on a grassy spot in the sage. Far to the north and east the purple mesas stretched. Cloud banks arched everywhere overhead, stretching in long lines to the horizons. There was an endless variety of cloud forms, like swirls of smoke, like puff balls. Here and there where a sunshaft pierced a low hung cloud bar, the mesas were golden brown and vermilion.
Then the treeless western hills were rimmed with orange that faded to green and deep blue. A cold clear breeze caressed me and the full moon rolled through the clouds. The lunatic quaver of a coyote—silence and sleep.
Winter is close at hand; the maples are crimson, and flurries of yellow aspen leaves swirl about with each breeze. On many hillsides the yellow leaves have blackened, and the trees stand bare and silent. Soon the snows will be here, but I won’t.
Tomorrow I start down the hole. In a week or ten days I’ll be at the South Rim. After that, God knows where, except that I’ll be drifting south toward the cactus country. I may not have a postal address for a month or two, again. When I reach the South Rim I am sending my parents most of my earlier paintings, some relics, and curios. Ryall means to go over and look at them.
Your comrade,
Evert
Everett poses with his burro and dog, Curly, in Arizona, 1931.
October 9
Grand Canyon
Dear Waldo,
I was delighted to hear from you yesterday. I’d almost given you up—thought you were tired of me. I would have replied yesterday, but I was expecting an important change which has not occurred. The season is changing—cold winds shriek ominously, and then there is meaningful silence. I expect change in my life, too.
I’m glad you don’t find it unpleasant to write to me. You are right that in spite of our differences there is much that makes us near to each other. Whenever I think of you I feel glad that I have a brother like you.
Though I have not seen a bathtub since I left Hollywood, I never find it difficult to be clean. Whenever I feel futile, impotent, a swim in an icy stream, a shower under a waterfall, or in a few gallons of water in the canyons, the forest, or the desert, with the wind and sun to dry my skin, never seems to fail to lift the depressive feeling.
As to terrific physical experiences, I’ve had several, but recovery from each was fairly rapid. Only once was I ever too tired to eat when I was hungry.
I meet very few Mexicans. Many of the sheepherders are Basques. I learned a few words of Navajo. The Latin and French I learned in high school have never been of practical use.
My only choice between getting out on my own and going home is the first alternative. I couldn’t go back—not defeated, at least. In that last letter I told you to tell Father to send no money and I wish you had made that clear to him. It might have saved me more trouble than the money saved.
It is unfair to you to be chained at home—particularly if it is partly on my account. I don’t feel very guilty, because in more than eight months, Father and Mother have sent only fifty-two dollars.
You may be interested in a financial statement.
I started with fifty dollars, parents sent fifty-two, thirty-five came from prizes, I procured fifteen from various sources.
I have spent 136 dollars altogether. Considerably more than a third went for equipment—all the rest for food. Needless to say, I have earned dozens and dozens of meals.
Not for God’s sake or yet for Hell’s sake can I sell any of my paintings. The world does not want Art—only the artists do. Oh, I have sold something over six dollars worth of prints and I traded one sketch for a sheepskin and another for some grub—but that’s negligible.
It should be superfluous to say that jobs are nearly impossible to find.
On my way across the canyon I took the Tonto Trail. No one else has been over it this year. It was always a rough trail, and washouts and landslides made it doubly so. In one side canyon that cut deep into the plateau, I found the skeleton of a mountain sheep in the middle of the trail. One horn was broken, but I have the other and am sending it home. I traveled after dark that night. Time and again the burro went off the trail, twice at dangerous places. We traveled on the edge of a cliff. I could hardly see where to set my foot. Only a white spot on Perry was visible. Arriving at Hermit Camp, I saw that the place was lighted. Some Fred Harvey employees who I had met before were preparing the abandoned camp for the use of the Fox outfit. They are producing The Rainbow Trail, another Zane Grey picture. I met the art director and his wife yesterday. They gave me some good advice.
Many times I have been broke. I was broke yesterday, and I met another young chap who was all but broke. He turned out to be a very likeable and intelligent person. I showed him about the canyon and gave him the first good meal he’d had in a long time. I arranged so that he had a good night’s sleep. He left home in order not to handicap his family financially.
For the present I am stranded here, with no means of moving my equipment. My clothes are fairly well worn out. As soon as I can procure two good burros, which is my greatest concern at present, I’ll be traveling south.
I expected to send most of my pictures home from here, but I find it desirable to have the better ones with me so what I am sending is really the dregs. However, it gives an indication of what I have seen and done. There is one picture, however, of the Grand Canyon from the North Rim, showing Brahma Temple and Zoroaster Temple, which I like above anything I’ve done.
Everett
October 9
Grand Canyon
Dear Waldo,
That picture is for you. I hope you like it well enough to frame it and put it in your room.
I came to the room in which I’m writing to escape the wind but a radio is nearby and baseball addicts are crowded around it. I have to leave.
Whatever I have suffered in the months past has been nothing compared with the beauty in which I have steeped my soul, so to speak. It has been a priceless experience—and I am glad it is not over. What I would have missed if I had ended everything last summer!
I’ll quote part of one day from my diary:
“As soon as we were out of the town, proceeding slowly
on the cow path beside the long row of poplars, the cloudburst came. The hail beat down like a thousand whiplashes. Two small boys on a horse were thrown off into the mud when the horse saw Perry. There was another violent hailstorm, then, what with the wind and the sun, everything was soon dry again. We crossed the line into Arizona.
“Curly danced and pranced about with shreds of bark and bones.
“Then the wind blew furiously and relentlessly. I was soon weary with fighting against it. It was like walking in sand. At last we left the beaten path, turning south toward the Kaibab. The wind battled unceasingly.
“The noon halt, long delayed, was in a bend of a deep gulley, where the steep sides shut out some of the wind.
“We struggled against the gale until we came to the old campsite on the hill near the grassy slope.
“Supper of fried yams, toast and cheese, and corn.
“Sunset made all the misery worth enduring. Far to the north and east stretched the purple mesas, with cloudbanks everywhere above them. Some were golden brown and vermilion when sun shafts pierced the low clouds. A rainbow glowed for a moment in the south. That was a promise.
“Clouds of all kinds and shapes arched overhead, stretching in long lines to the horizons. Some were like swirls of smoke. Then twilight—a rim of orange on the treeless western hills. The full moon appeared, rolling through the clouds.”
Months ago, at the San Juan camp, I was in the tent with Johnny, Elston, and Mac. One of them remarked that it was unfortunate there was no dog to eat the meat they were throwing away. “Why not save it for my burro?”, I asked, They roared with laughter. I thought they would never stop.
However, they were wrong to laugh. I knew more about natural history than they did. At Ribbon Falls I had more meat than Curly could eat, and offered some to Pericles. He ate three large tough pieces and wanted more. He always liked greasy paper, or any kind of paper.
Once I was eating cheese when Perry snatched the wrapper and knocked the cheese to the ground. He enjoyed that piece of paper.
Nothing anywhere can rival the Grand Canyon. I must come here again some day. There are things I must paint again. I think it would have given you a new lease on life to have seen what I have seen.
We both feel the lure of far places. I hope your dreams come true.
Your loving brother, Everett
To escape the approaching cold in northern Arizona, Everett caught a ride with tourists to a lower elevation, south to the saguaro cactus land east of Phoenix.
October 23
Superior, Arizona
Dear Mother,
This evening I am starting for the Apache Trail with two new burros.
For the past two days I have been in Mexican town in Superior, which is a mining town. The Mexicans use burros to haul wood, and there are dozens of them here. I could not buy two burros with my ten dollars, so I wired you to send some money. It came this noon, and I felt much better. This is the first time on this trip that I’ve asked you outright for money, and I needed it. Good equipment is much harder to find than food, and it is very important to get a good start. Neither Pegasus nor Perry were good burros—they were too old, and suffered under their loads. I had to travel light and carry part of the pack myself.
I am not a haggler—it is not my nature. If I knew Mexican and stayed here a week, I might be able to buy burros for what they are worth, but I don’t and I can’t. I bought two burros for $11.50 ($8.00 and $3.50 pack saddle included), but when I started off today, the smaller burro fell down under his pack. I got $1.50 back and bought another burro for seven dollars. That took most of my money, but ten dollars was the price named for each, so you see I saved five dollars. I bought films and food and had my shoes repaired and now I have twelve cents. Only one of my burros is shod—all the shoes in town have been sold. Perhaps I can get back the dollar that is owing me—I hope so. One of my burros is brownish gray, with white nose, a brown streak down each shoulder, and brown bands on his legs. The other is black with a white nose and breast. I haven’t named them yet—I just bought the black one an hour ago.
It hurts me to think you consider me selfish for wanting another burro. My load is too heavy for one burro to carry. This is the only place I’ve been where there were burros to choose from, and I could not let the opportunity go by. The only work in this country is cotton picking-men are wanted for that job-but imagine picking 100 pounds of cotton for sixty cents!
I intend to spend several days in a small canyon, and I expect to find interesting subjects in the saguaro forests. Write to Mesa. I will be there two or three or four weeks from now. I may not be able to get mail until that time. I wish you would send to Mesa my pup tent which I used last year. It would be very useful.
You would enjoy watching the Mexican children playing with baby burros.
I came from Grand Canyon to Mesa with two tourists—a man 6 ½ feet tall and his wife.
Love from Everett
November 13
Tonto National Monument, Arizona[9]
Dear Bill,
I traveled over the Apache Trail, then left it and struck across the mountains to some cattle ranches. My burros became adept at leaping across gullies, and many times they were persuaded to go down steep places, against their better judgment.
I want to survive this panic and yet have my time free for work and travel. Bill, you don’t know what you’re missing. This life is the only one, and the only disagreeable thing has been the financial uncertainty.
Snow has fallen on the crests of the Sierra Anchas, and several sousing downpours have drenched the valley, accompanied by lightning and rainbows.
The outlook was quite dismal for a time, but now I am assured of enough to keep me going for a month or so. Tomorrow I must wrangle the burros, shunt them into a truck, and join three New Yorkers and an easterner beyond Three Bars Ranch. There I’ll pack the burros with three days’ grub for the five of us, and blankets, and drive them up toward an amethyst mine back of Four Peaks.[10] It will be a three-day trip. I’ll do the rough work while the easterners hunt.
We went over some quite rough trails—it was a good thing the donkeys were ahead—from the land of Saguaro and Cholla to that of sycamores and willows, and of pine and alligator juniper. One cow ranch has to have supplies brought twenty-five miles by burro train.
All this time I was penniless and trying to pick up a few dollars and some grub. I managed to keep fed, but the dollars were elusive.
I circled around to the Tonto cliff dwellings and have been here for ten days, perhaps. There is an Apache guide—a generous, childish soul, and an old globe-trotter and artist who sells postcards and paintings. He wants to found an art colony here! He has been telling me all about the pyramids, the diamond mines, his ranches in the South Seas and Australia, and we’ve had some good discussions on scientific subjects.
My grub gave out, so I trundled the burros to the lake shore and loaded them heavily with driftwood. It was three dollars worth of wood, but I managed to get a dollar for it. Then I sold a black and white sketch for a dollar. I’ve met several well-known artists and got new slants on the matter with my stuff. It is improving. That criticism of your friend about comparative distance was well founded, but I am getting over that obstruction. I am confident that I can make something of my work—the problem is how to keep alive until I have succeeded in a larger measure. My plan is to amble about the Southwest with donkeys for a couple of years more, gathering plenty of material and mastering watercolor technique—then to get some windfall so I can work with oils and do things on a larger scale, perfect my field studies, and then do something with what I have.
I have been meeting all types of people—artists, writers, hobos, cooks, cowmen, miners, bootleggers. A friendly hotel keeper got me this latest job.
The bootlegger said that as soon as he sold his stock on hand he could offer me a job guarding his still in the mountains and packing barrels to the retreats.
Enclosed is a foppish pho
to of Pericles, Curly, and me in the Kaibab forest.
Your old cronie,
Evert
In 1931 Everett wrote, “My burro and I, and a little dog, are going on and on, until, sooner or later, we reach the end of the horizon.”
December 13
Tonto National Monument
Dear Waldo,
On canyon trails when warm night winds blow
Blowing and sighing gently through the star-tipped pines,
Musing, I walked behind my placid burros
While water rushed and broke on painted rocks below.
I have been here at the cliff dwellings for nine or ten days. First I took the Apache Trail, left it, and struck across the mountains into the rough country, with Cynthia and Percival, my two new burros. I killed a rattlesnake, and forced the burros to descend steep mountains against their better judgment. They became quite dexterous at leaping gullies and avoiding cactus. I stopped at a cow ranch which is supplied by burro trains that start twenty-five miles away.
The lore country is dotted with saguaro, cholla, cat claws, and mesquite, the canyons are brightened by sycamores, cottonwoods, and willows, and the heights are covered with pine forests, oak, pinyon, and alligator juniper.
All this time I was penniless and trying to pick up a few dollars and some grub. I managed to keep fed, but the dollars were elusive. A bootlegger said that when he had sold his stock on hand, he could offer me a job guarding his still and packing barrels into the mountain retreat.
I’ve met several well-known artists, and got a new slant on the matter with my stuff. It is improving.
I’m confident that I can make something of my work; the problem is how to keep alive until I begin to succeed in a larger measure. The proprietor of the Apache Lodge said he thought he would sell some of my paintings, but I would have to buy frames or mounts first.
The prospect was dismal until this evening. I sold a black and white print for a dollar, then the Apache boy invited me to supper of venison, and the hotel keeper found me a small job. I am going to pack supplies on my burros for four hunters and myself for a three-day trip. Three of the men are New Yorkers; the other owns an amethyst mine back of Four Peaks, and we are going there, by way of the Three Bars Ranch. I am assured of at least five dollars a day and my chuck. The proceeds will keep me going for another month. I want to survive the panic and yet have my time free for work and travel.
