by W. L. Rusho
After leaving Salt River, I entered country where people are hospitable, generous, and friendly. I stayed at several cow ranches, and bought no food for a long time.
Physically, I am not very tough. I haven’t the constitution of a day laborer. I soon wear out at a job like road building, or digging and lifting. This seems to be my physical makeup, because though I have tried many times, I find I can’t do a man’s work in physical labor. Aside from this, however, I am well able to take care of myself, to a certain extent I know my capabilities, and I pride myself on sincerity and steadiness. I don’t have much trouble getting along with people, but I have the greatest difficulty in finding the sort of companionship I want.
At Ganado an educated Indian invited me to stop at his house, rest my tired horses, and hoe corn for him. I taught him some English. He had to go to an Indian council for a couple of days and told me to stay with his son-in-law while he was gone, if I wanted to. His son in-law lived seven miles south on the banks of the Pueblo Colorado. He could not speak English, and was staying alone. I helped him hoe weeds in his corn fields until I was on the point of exhaustion. For the first two meals we had absolutely nothing but coffee and cold squaw bread (namskadi). Then another Indian, Lefty Johnson (Sam Johnson was my host), came, and Sam walked off without a word to me. We cut hay and hoed another corn field, then had mutton for supper. The next day we hoed another corn field and a bean patch and plowed a field in which we sowed oats. Next morning I left. It had been some nightmare! The horses had plenty to eat, if I didn’t. I was glad to find someone who spoke English again. While I was cutting hay I saw a rattlesnake, stepped on his head, and cut off his rattles. He is the seventh I have killed this year. None of them gave me any trouble or danger. We used scythes, not mowing machines, to cut the hay.
It took me only a day and a half to cover the forty odd miles between Ganado and Chin Lee. That was very good for my thin old horses. We camped a few miles beyond Behikatso Lake the first night. I’d have liked to camp by the lake, but grass and water are never found together in the Navajo country. The sheep eat all the grass within two or three miles of waterholes. One must choose either a dry or a grassless camp. I was glad to see the old landmarks.
Mrs. Wetherill, whom I knew in Kayenta, drove in yesterday with Grace [Frances] Gilmore, author of Windsinger and other Indian books.[11] Mrs. Wetherill is looking for Indians without accents to play in the picture Laughing Boy which is to be made near Kayenta.
I like this country very much, though at times I wish for the ocean. The country is fiercely, overpoweringly beautiful. I have not been able to paint for some time, but I am going to try some more before I admit defeat. The thing I miss, here as elsewhere, is intelligent companionship. Then too, it seems wrong that people should mean so little to one another. This certainly could be a glorious world. Neglected opportunities are piled sky high. I have not met any intelligent girls out here. Before I left Hollywood I met a very interesting Polish girl, but it might have been better if I hadn’t. I have an endless hunger for good music, but it is hard to hear good music anywhere unless you are wealthy. In Hollywood I knew, and knew of, several people with fine orthophonic victrolas and whole cabinets full of symphonies, but all these people were either effeminately queer or impossible in some other way, so I did not hear their music.
Unlike you, I do not have to pay for gasoline and haircuts. However, I have to buy grain for my horses, and my clothes must be frequently replaced. My shoes wear out, my shirts and trousers tear, and occasionally equipment must be purchased. A cowman cut my hair three weeks ago. Food is extremely costly on the reservation.
My life in Arizona has much more uncertainty than it would have at home. The low spots are fearfully low, but I have learned that they do not last, and a few glorious moments make me forget them completely.
It seems rather late, but I think I shall continue to Mesa Verde by way of Roundrock, Red Rock, and Shiprock. I’ll take my time going through Canyon de Chelly and Canyon del Muerto. I suppose Shiprock, New Mexico, will be my next address. I’ll be here a day or so but you probably won’t get this letter for a week. If you write there, be sure to put “Return after two months” or something like that, so they won’t return it if I don’t call for it in a week. It is over a hundred miles of rough traveling by my route, but I’ll probably be there within a month, perhaps much sooner. I’ll see Lukachukai, which I have heard is very beautiful. There is much wild backcountry.
The night before last, near the lake, I made camp by moonlight. Inky clouds swept across the sky, wild winds whiffed by. Lightning flashed and thunder muttered ominously. Some bulls nearby roared like lions. The storm blew, and to my ears sounded like hyenas, or a frightened heard of goats.
For the time I am among friends, in beautiful surroundings, with plenty to ear and think about. I hope you’re in the same condition or better.
Love from your brother,
Everett
I have been thinking more and more that I shall always be a lone wanderer of the wilderness. God, how the trail lures me. You cannot comprehend its resistless fascination for me. After all the lone trail is the best. I hope I’ll be able to buy good horses and a better saddle. I’ll never stop wandering. And when the time comes to die, I’ll find the wildest, loneliest, most desolate spot there is.
Canyon de Chelly, as seen from a tourist viewpoint, looking west. Photo by W. L. Rusho.
The Wild Calls to Me
God, how the wild calls to me. There can be no other life for me but that of the lone wilderness wanderer, it has an irresistible fascination. The lone trail is the best for me.
—Diary entry, Canyon de Chelly, 12 July 1932
There was a hawk’s nest in the treetop. I cooked some sweetbread and read the letters of Mendelssohn, Wagner, Liszt, W. W. Story, and Jules Breton. After it had cooled a little and the horses had grazed awhile, I grained them and went onward. The road followed the rim of Beautiful Valley. My water was quite gone. I had been misinformed about the distance to Behikatso Lake. I met a car and the occupants told me it was five more miles to the lake. They had no water. Before long I left the road and “followed the gleam.” There were gullies and ridges to cross. Finally I came to a dry lake. The alkali glittered like water. Close by was the lake. I looked prayerfully across the wide waters while the horses drank. I was in another land. I could hear some horses on the other side splashing as I drank. I waded in and filled two canteens, then led my horses toward the road. Grass and water are never found together in the sheep country. I saw a small snake wiggle away. The moon rose. I stopped on a grassy knoll. There was no firewood, only a few dry weeds. Fortunately I found the remains of a summer hogan and used them for firewood. Just as I was ready to eat, it began to rain. I covered camp in a hurry and when I was half through eating, the storm passed over. Thunder still muttered and the sounds of an African jungle accompanied it. Some bulls roared just like lions and a band of goats, frightened by the lightning, sounded like hyenas, in the distance. It was decidedly weird.
—Diary entry south of Chinle, Navajo Reservation 10 July 1932
July 25
Canyon de Chelly
Dearest Bill,
This letter is written high up in the Lukachukai Mountains, on the New Mexico border. I have just returned from a swim in the lake below my camp. There are a hundred small lakes nearby. The mountainsides are green with aspen glades and black with firs and pines. Yesterday I saw a big brown bear ambling into the forest depths.
I wish that you could have been with me in Canyon de Chelly and Canyon del Muerto. How they would have delighted you! I’m sure you have never seen anything like them. Words are futile to describe them.
I’ve had a wide variety of experiences now, cutting hay with a scythe, hoeing corn, and the like. For several days I lived with the Navajos. I’ve now killed seven rattlesnakes this year. The fastest traveling I’ve done was forty miles in a day and a half—from Ganado to Chin Lee.
I went up C
anyon de Chelly past the last Indian settlements, then came part way back and lived in a hogan for five days. You speak of ruins. They are very numerous in the canyons, and I saw several which were untouched, but they were inaccessible. In almost all the ruins, the walls and the cliff above have fallen down covering up most of the relics. One can find things in almost any ruin by digging, but the dust makes one sick—a mask is required. I scratched around with a stick in one kiva and uncovered dozens of soapweed cords, two headstraps, coated with pinyon pitch, abundance of corn, pumpkin shells, and pottery chips. I found fine arrowheads on the slope, but none were perfect. They were made of petrified wood for the most part.
Canyon del Muerto gave me a strange sense of unreality. For the first few miles the walls come sheer to the sandy floor. Cliff dwellings are in every cranny. There are drawings of deer and antelope, devils, snakes, scorpions, turkeys, and hand prints, in white, red, brown, yellow, and grey. I bought a saddle blanket from old Dilatsi (yellow moustache) whom I had met last year. His daughter was just adding the last tassel when I came. I went beyond the last Navajo hogans and spent a day in solitude.
Then I saddled old Nuflo, my white horse and led Jonathan (also old) up the side canyon under the dwelling where I found the necklace last year. We started up a steep trail, but halfway up, Jonathan fell down and couldn’t get up. I unpacked him, but when I pulled out the pack saddle, he slid off the trail and rolled over three times before he could stop himself. I packed Nuflo and led Jonathan up the canyon a few miles to a grassy spot, and camped. Jonathan wouldn’t eat. I doctored his cuts and he stood still awhile, then he walked around in circles with his head up. Finally he ran sidewise like an athlete putting the shot, but his legs buckled under, and he fell to his side in a clump of cactus. He never got up. For him, Canyon del Muerto was indeed the Canyon of Death—the end of the trail, for a gentle old packhorse.
I saddled Nuflo and galloped up the canyon, riding in the old Frazier saddle for the last time. I stopped him under a high perched cliff dwelling, shouldered the saddle, and toilsomely ascended to the dwelling where I found the baby board last year. No one had been in it since then. I cached the saddle in an old corn bin, leaving it for the ghosts of the cliffdwellers to guard. As I climbed down from the “asoaze bekin” loud peals of thunder crashed and reverberated in the narrow canyon. I was wet to the skin by the time I reached Nuflo, and the dry stream-bed was a torrent when I reached the pack. The sky opened wide, water cascaded down the cliffs in muddy floods, I took a last look at Jon, loaded old Nuflo, and waded up the canyon. By evening I was nearly at its source at Sehili. I camped in a dry cave, made a meal of mutton and namskadi, and watched the stars appear in the fir tops.
Everett
Everett and his horses in Canyon de Chelly, 1932.
Serene and Tempestuous Days
I wandered through the Painted Desert and spent days serene and tempestuous in Canyon de Chelly, then traveled up Canyon del Muerto in the shadow of sheer, incurving cliffs, breathtakingly chiseled and gloriously colored. I passed the last Navajo encampments and stopped for a space in an abandoned hogan constructed of smooth clean-limbed cottonwood, with singing water at the door and sighing leaves overhead. Tall, gracefully arched trees screened the turquoise sky with a glistening pattern of dappled green; above and beyond were the gorgeous vermilion cliffs.
All day I would brood in the cool of the hogan, lying on the diamond figured saddle blanket I bought from old Dilatsi. Beneath it was a swirl of crisp brown leaves, over the earthen floor. Now and again a trickle of sand pouring through a crack in the roof of logs would rustle the dry leaves, and the circle of sunshine from the skylight would move from hour to hour.
At evening I would go out into the glade and climb high above the river to the base of the cliff. I would gather scarlet flowers and come down when the stars gleamed softly. Sighing winds would eddy down the canyon, swaying the tree tops. Then the leaves would cease their trembling; only the sound of rippling water would continue, and the spirit of peace and somnolence would pervade and the red embers of my fire one by one turned black and shadows deepened into a gently surging slumber.
The time for leaving came. I decided to climb out of the canyon and ride to the Lukachukais of New Mexico. On a steep, tortuous trail, Jonathan, my meek, lovable old pack horse missed his footing and fell. For him it was indeed the Canyon of Death.
So I took a last wild ride in my old saddle, loped Nuflo to a place below a crumbling cliff dwelling that is never visited, climbed the steep slope shouldering my saddle, and cached it in a prehistoric corn bin beside a cliffdweller’s cradle. There I left it, to be guarded by the spirits of the ancient dead.
As I stalked down from the high perched ruin, lightning flashed out from the darkening sky; thunder rolled and reverberated in the narrow canyon. A vivid arrow flare of piercing brilliancy struck down at the red cliffs, ricocheting with a sickening whine, like a hurtling shell. With a grinding, grating sound, a mass of rock slid down the cliffside.
In a moment the cloudburst came. The water cascaded from the gleaming rocks and poured frothily from a thousand sources into the plunging stream. I flung the pack on Nuflo’s wet back and lashed down the stiff tarpaulin. Afoot, I breasted the foaming torrent, Nuflo following obediently. For hours I trudged upstream, until at dusk I reached the head of the canyon, camping in a dry cave.
—Portion of an essay
Canyon del Muerto, Arizona. Blockprint by Everett Ruess.
The Clouds Have Gone; the Stars Gleam Through
Pines and firs were on the canyon floor, and there was one clump of aspens. At long last the canyon walls were lower, but we did not find a way out. Finally I saw sheep tracks, the print of bare feet, and when I found a dry cave, I stopped, for we were both very weary.
There is good grass for Nuflo. I climbed out and saw a range of purple mountains and buttes—doubtless the Lukachukais. An Indian was whistling a herd of sheep. I found a trail leading out of the canyon and returned to camp. It was late. The skies were murky, and I had not eaten since morning, so I fried some mutton and sweetbread. Then I read Browning and pondered.
How strange is reality! In the morning I shall not ride. I don’t think I’ll buy another horse—I haven’t the money and one will do. Having only Nuflo, I’ll care for him more solicitously. He’ll have more oats, there’ll be no more rope hobblers. I put the saddle cinch on the pack saddle and left the other in the cliff dwelling.
If I had not attempted the steep hill, Jonathan might yet be serving me, but he behaved strangely the last few days.
I sang tragic songs, looked into the coals of my campfire, listened to the song of the crickets, the murmur of the water, the clatter of Nuflo’s bell (yo asoyu), and the sound of the grass being munched.
Somehow Jonathan’s death has not disheartened me. I feel better for accepting the challenge to proceed without him. His death was certainly dramatic. I shall never forget how he ran sidewise, as if groping for something to lean on, found nothing, crashed to earth, and rolled over.
I don’t think anyone will ever find the saddle. The babyboard was where I left it last May, except that the hoops had fallen into the bin. My printing on the board—Evert Rulan, etc.—was almost obscured. The rain washed away my tracks. The saddle is well cached. The ghosts of the cliff dwellers will guard it. I do not think I will return for it, however.
The clouds have gone. Stars gleam through the fir tops. It might be Christmas.
—Diary entry, July 1932
Accident in Mancos Canyon
The trader [at Mancos Creek Trading Post] was a jovial, fat, good-natured fellow. I bought a little grub, drank cool water, and asked about the trail to Mesa Verde. I bought half a watermelon and started upstream. I’d gone a quarter of a mile when the trail led along the edge of a bank in a quite narrow pass with the high bank above and below. I supposed it was passable because it was there. Nuflo went ahead, scraped safely by, but around the turn, the ledge was narrower. There
was nothing to do but go on, and Nuflo was within a few yards of safety when at a particularly narrow spot, his kyaks pushed him out and he began to slip off. He lunged up, but once more the pack pushed him off. He clawed the ledge frantically, then fell down into the current of the muddy Mancos. It was deep near the bank and he floundered about and wet his pack. When the kyaks were full of water he could not lift them, and he floundered miserably and floated downstream several yards. He could not stand up. The pack became thoroughly wet.
I stood on the bank, looked to right and left, and exclaimed, “Oh, for God’s sake, for God’s sake.” Then I leaped into the torrent, up to my waist, and tried to help Nuflo up, but he floundered worse than before. I had only fastened the breast-strap by the neck-strap because of a sore spot on his breast. The thin neck-strap broke. Nuflo squirmed and struggled like a dragon-fly casting his skin, and finally stepped out of his cinch. He started off across the creek, but I led him back and tied him to a young cottonwood. Then I wallowed back to wrestle with the pack. I flung off the things tied on top—canteens, groceries, camera, then unhooked a kyak, bore it to the bank while the muddy water sprayed out at the bottom, then got the other. The saddle blankets were heavy. One of them, a red and gray one from Grand Canyon, disappeared. I suppose it will come out at the Gulf of Mexico. I flung the other and the saddle on shore, then heaved at the bedroll. It weighed like lead. I had to try a dozen times before I could get it on the bank.
