by W. L. Rusho
I have made a few good paintings and others that I need to work on.
I’ve had to buy considerable equipment—ropes, leathers, etc. Tomorrow I’m going to shoe my burros, to take them over the rocks.
The wind is blowing now; sandstorms yesterday, but no rain for three weeks.
Love from Everett
June
Monument Valley, Utah
Dear Carl [surname unknown],
You could not guess in what a fantastic place I am. I sit in the shade of an ancient, dying juniper tree, cushioned on my Navajo saddle blankets. On all sides, the burning sun beats down on silent, empty desert. To right and left, long walls of sandstone mesas reach away into the distance, the shadows in their fluted clefts the color of claret. Before me, the desert drops sheer away into a vast valley, in which strangely eroded buttes of all delicate and intense shadings of vermilion, orange, and purple, tower into a cloudless turquoise sky.
Here I am truly alone. The faint tinkle of the bell on one of my burros is the only sound. The nearest water is many miles away.
This is near the end of a long trip—some four hundred miles of desert, canyon, and mountain. I have often thought of you and regretted that something similar could not be happening to you. For I have had all and more than I ever desired. I have constantly known beauty so piercing as to be almost unbearable. I have led a wild gay life of fantastic adventures that seem to crowd upon me without my searching for them.
As a child I used to dream of such a life as this. Little did I imagine that all my dreams would be realized and all surpassed in every direction. Thinking of you, it has seemed almost wrong that one person should have such utter fulfillment while another leads a life of poisonous denial.
This time in my wanderings I have had more reckless self confidence than ever before. I have gone my way regardless of everything but beauty. Traits I have used only when they led my way. I know the Indians now—have lived with them and exchanged gifts, and enjoyed the hospitality of the finest of them, riding their horses and taking part in their weird ceremonies. I know the white people too—all the traders in this locality, and strange experiences I have had with them, but I like the Indians better. I had two true friends among the whites, but one was driven from the country by misfortune, and the other was killed a week ago. A truck lost a wheel and the load fell and crushed him.
Hundreds of times I have trusted my life to crumbling sandstone and nearly vertical angles in the search for water or cliff dwellings. Twice I was nearly gored to death by a wild bull. But always, so far, I’ve escaped unscathed and gone forth to other adventures.
Summer draws on, the shrill song of the cicadas is over, and the scarlet cactus blooms are gone. Columbine and Sego Lily have vanished, too. Now only the sunflower, and in shaded canyons, the Scarlet Bugler, are found. In these last few days the heat has been intense, and siestas have been in order. I have traveled only at dawn and evening, often after sunset, under the stars. I shall never forget coming down the Lukachukai Mountains at dusk, with the blood-red moon falling through the pine branches as I descended.
Your good friend,
Everett
In mid-June he determined to make a trip to Navajo Mountain, clearly visible as a ten-thousand-foot-high forested dome in the west. Its Navajo name was Naatsis’aan, or Head of the Earth Woman,[21] and it is one of the most significant sacred mountains of the Navajos. He also wished to visit Rainbow Bridge, which spans one of the small creeks—flowing northward in a side canyon from the heights of Navajo Mountain.
Everett’s route from Monument Valley to the south side of the mountain led him over high mesas and across deep side canyons tributary to the San Juan River, a few tortuous miles to the north. On the way he nearly lost one of his burros when the animal fell backward and rolled to the brink of a “yawning gulf.” The following letters were written from his camp at War God Spring, located at about the 8,700-foot level, two miles south of the Navajo Mountain summit.
Everett does not understate the character of the trail along the west side of Navajo Mountain to Rainbow Bridge. When the trail was first opened in 1922 by personnel of the Charles L. Bernheimer Expedition (including John Wetherill, Indian trader and guide; Zeke Johnson, famous guide and Custodian of Natural Bridges National Monument; and Earl H. Morris, well-known early archeologist in the Four Corners area), they were forced to use dynamite to break through some of the rock “fins.”[22]
Rainbow Bridge looking north as Everett Ruess first saw it when hiking in from Navajo Mountain in July 1934. Photo October 1959 by W. L. Rusho.
June 29
War God Spring
On Navajo Mountain, Utah
Dear Bill,
A high wind is roaring in the tops of the tall pines. The moon is just rising on the rim of the desert far below. Stars gleam through the pine boughs and the filmy clouds that move across the night sky. Graceful, slim-trunked aspens reach upward under the towering pines. Their slender, curving branches are white in the firelight, and an occasional downward breeze flickers their pale green leaves.
The beauty of this place is perfect of its kind; I could ask for nothing more. A little spring trickles down under aspens and white fir. By day the marshy hollow is as warm with gorgeous butterflies; Tiger and Zebra Swallowtails, the Angel Wings, the Mourning Cloak, and others. There are a hundred delightful places to sit and dream; friendly rocks to lean against—springy beds of pine needles to lie on and look up at the sky or the tall smooth tree trunks, with spirals of branches and their tufted foliage.
Two small bands of handsome bay horses, each with a bell mare, water here. Often I hear from opposite directions the deep-toned music of their bells, against the sharper tinkle of the burro bell. No human comes to break the dreamy solitude. Far below, the tawny desert, seamed with canyons, throbs in the savage desert sun. But here it is lofty and cool.
It is hard not to be sentimental about my burros; they are such droll, friendly creatures. On the trail, particularly when they do the wrong thing in a tight place, I am often impatient with them. But when they stand up to their knees in wildflowers with blossoms in their lips and look at me with their lustrous, large brown eyes, cocking their furry ears and switching their tails at their fat sides—then who that knew them could help loving them?
I had to laugh, a few mornings ago on the desert, when tracking the two foolish looking pals, I saw their trail leading up to an abandoned hogan and heard a snort and scuffle inside. With all the spacious desert around them, they had chosen to bed down in that little hogan, which just comfortably contained the two of them!
We followed a steep trail out of Copper Canyon opposite No Man’s Mesa. Near the rim it was just a scramble, and Leopard, whom I was packing, in attempting to claw his way over a steep place, lost his balance and fell over backwards. He turned two backward somersaults and a side roll, landing with his feet waving, about six inches from the yawning gulf. I pulled him to his feet. He was a bit groggy at first; he had lost a little fur, and the pack was scratched.
Now the moon swings clear of the treetops. The wind is in the pine trees; what other sound is like it!
The perfection of this place is one reason why I distrust ever returning to the cities. Here I wander in beauty and perfection. There one walks in the midst of ugliness and mistakes. All is made for man, but where can one find surroundings to match one’s ideals and imaginings? It is possible to live and dream in ugly, ill-fitting places, but how much better to be where all is beautiful and unscarred.
With plenty of money, the way is smoothed, and it is fun to create a place to match your personality. Sometimes too it is fun to tinker away in a picturesque hovel, but the struggle for a mean existence is not worth it.
Here I take my belongings with me. The picturesque gear of packing, and my gorgeous Navajo saddle blankets make a place my own. But when I go, I leave no trace.
The post where I last got supplies is a costly place to trade. The owner has to haul his stuff
350 miles by truck, over the worst of roads. In this remote place he never sees a tourist, and seldom a dime crosses his counter in a year. All his business is trade; in wool, sheepskins and blankets. Gallup, New Mexico, is the nearest place where he can dispose of them. He has been offered seventeen cents a pound for the wool which cost him twenty, if he will haul it to New Mexico.
I baked a cake in my frying pan this noon. It was really a success. I wish you could have tasted it.
The beauty of this country is becoming a part of me. I feel more detached from life and somehow gentler. Except for passing flurries, it has become impossible for me to censure anyone. I wish harm to no one and occasionally try to be kind, though it seems futile striving. I have some good friends here, but no one who really understands why I am here or what I do. I don’t know of anyone, though, who would have more than a partial understanding; I have gone too far alone, I have always been unsatisfied with life as most people live it. Always I want to live more intensely and richly. Why muck and conceal one’s true longings and loves, when by speaking of them one might find someone to understand them, and by acting on them one might discover one’s self? It is true that in the world such lack of reserve usually meets with hostility, misunderstanding, and scorn. Here in isolation I need not fear on that score, though the strangers I do encounter usually judge me wrongly. But I was never one to be content with less than the most from life, and shall go on reaching, and leaving my soul defenseless to attacks. I seldom retaliate, for I perceive too well the ultimate futility.
And meanwhile, I have used my body mercilessly, seldom giving way to it until forced, so that I should not wonder if it will turn traitor to me some time. Anyway, as Omar says, “If the soul can naked on the air of heaven ride, wer’t not a shame for him in this clay carcass crippled to abide?” That is a big if, but may the time never come when I have to minister to my body.
I was thinking when I wrote you last how I refused you that picture of the old watertower, and I meant to give it to you then, but felt awkward about saying it. You don’t even have to frame it unless you want to, but it would look vastly better, and you ought to in fairness. It is not the soul of the desert, bare and glorious, nor yet that of the forest or the mountain. But it is an old watertower on a hilltop, in the last light, and its windows look westward to the old, mysterious sea. Perhaps you will be able to imagine that and more that is in it—even if no one else can.
Now the aspen trunks are tall and white in the moonlight. A wind croons in the pines. The mountain sleeps.
Peace to you. Everett
June 30
Navajo Mountain, Utah
Dear Father and Mother,
The sun is beginning to set, and at last my camp is in shadow. The desert still throbs with heat, but below in the canyon, frogs have begun to croak, heralding the cool approach of Night. I am a day’s journey from Rainbow Bridge. Yesterday I came down the mountain, over a steep and rocky trail. The days on the mountain were delightful, and I cannot remember a more beautiful camp than the one I had there, under the tall pines and the aspens, with swarms of butterflies at the little trickling spring.
Seen from the mountain, the country between here and the San Juan and Colorado rivers and beyond them is as rough and impenetrable a territory as I have ever seen. Thousands of domes and towers of sandstone lift their rounded pink tops from blue and purple shadows. To the east, great canyons seam the desert, cutting vermilion gashes through the grey-green of the sage-topped mesas.
I remember well the tortuous trail leading out of Copper Canyon opposite No Man’s Mesa. A vast expanse of brown country lay between the mesas. Far north was the silent, nearly empty canyon of the San Juan, with a vivid green strip of willows. Opposite me the mile-wide canyon was banded with blue-green, grey-blue, and delicate purple, surmounted by dull vermilion, which grew more vivid until at the rim of the mesa, the color was almost blindingly intense.
It has not rained for a whole month now, and most of the canyons and waterholes are dry. I have been lucky and diligent in my search for water. The burros have never had to go two days without it. Here there is fine clear water under cottonwoods. I enjoyed a splash this afternoon, and afterwards washed my shirt and socks.
The saffron of the clouds that lie low on the skyline is turning to a soft blue-grey. The orange turrets and pyramids opposite me fairly glow against the paling sky.
I reread A Dreamer’s Tales of Dunsany on the mountain, and appreciated them more than ever. How beautifully Dunsany writes, and how rich is his imagination! I thoroughly sympathize with his hatred of the commercial, the ugly, and the unimaginative.
I hope you sent Don Quixote and the chocolate. With the rest for July. I wish you would send me one very sturdy pair of shorts, size 32, as they are not to be had here, and mine are in shreds. If you could find some, I would appreciate a couple of pounds of dried apples. They make delicious applesauce, with a little cinnamon. Dry dates too, if you can get them easily.
The last trader with whom I dealt has to haul his supplies 350 miles over some very rough roads, so you can imagine what the prices were.
I expect to be back in Kayenta in a couple of weeks or thereabouts. Then off again southward and westward.
Love from Everett
From War God Spring he descended to the trail circling south and west of Navajo Mountain. He stopped at Rainbow Lodge, then proceeded on to Rainbow Bridge, which he must have reached about 2 July 1934. But if he described the natural bridge in any of his letters, those letters have not been located.
[Addressee unknown)
I just reached Rainbow Lodge tonight and found the people very friendly and likeable.
In the last two days I have traversed the longest continuous up-and-down broken trail that I ever went over, it was tremendously dramatic to stride down steep sandhills in shadowed canyons only a dozen feet wide at the bottom with towering walls above. I don’t see how anyone was ever able to even plan the trail; there is such a maze of narrow winding canyons, many of them blocked at one end or both, and all buried down in the confusing jumble of towers and turrets, so that you can never see where they lead until you get there. It was a real thrill to go through that country.[23]
Before he left Kayenta, Everett met some young archaeologists and helpers associated with the Rainbow Bridge–Monument Valley Expedition. Sponsored by the University of California and the Museum of Northern Arizona, this group investigated Anasazi ruins along the Utah-Arizona border during 1933 and 1934. Although he was not offered a job, or even encouraged to visit, Everett was intrigued by their work and was determined to join them. Since he knew that they planned to excavate cliff ruins in high tributaries of Tsegi Canyon, he was able to head directly for their camp. Ten days after leaving Rainbow Bridge, Everett was with the expedition.
Camp Anasazi
Degosha Boko, Tsegi
Dear Father and Mother,
For five days I have been with the expedition, having a good deal of fun. The packer for the outfit was a friend of mine at the Grand Canyon three years ago. Several of the fellows are from Berkeley and know friends of mine there. The packer paints, and the young fellow who makes architectural drawings of the cliff dwellings sketches, too. Ben Wetherill is partly in charge. I met Hargrave, the archaeologist, at Mesa Ranch school before. Yesterday I went out with Mr. Barton, the biologist and plant man, and explored a nearby canyon.[24]
I worked all morning today, hewing logs for a table and carving slabs for a floor. This afternoon I went down the canyon to a side canyon and climbed into Bat Woman House, a nice little cliff ruin above a spring with Douglas fir. I made a painting of one of the rooms and the Bat Woman pictograph.
I am writing this in the supply tent at night, using the light of the six paper players. The burros are getting a good rest. I don’t know how long I’ll stay here. All I get is my meals. Some of the fellows are well worth knowing, and the canyons are a delight to explore.
Too bad I didn’t have some money
last month. I had to pass up some fine saddle blankets. I may be able to get a blanket for you this month or next.
Love from Everett
Rugged country near Tsegi Canyon, where Everett worked with an archaeological expedition in July 1934.
A few days after his arrival, Everett was asked to serve as cook for a small team headed by Clay Lockett that planned to excavate a ruin in a high, almost inaccessible cave. Wishing to avoid daily climbs and descents from this cave (each of which consumed almost an hour), they were able, using Everett as a cook, to remain in the cave almost two weeks. A highly unusual cave of the Basketmaker II period, it contained several half-buried mummies that had to be carefully excavated, photographed, and crated.
Everett did not impress Lockett with his interest in archaeology, for Ruess spent most of his free time, which was considerable, in gazing out over the landscape. Lockett noticed also that Everett seemed careless about his own safety when climbing around cliffs, citing as an example the time Everett wanted to make a watercolor sketch of rain-spawned waterfalls shooting off from several points. According to Lockett, Everett nearly got himself killed finding a good vantage point on the wet slickrock. Needless to say, the rain-streaked watercolor sketch was not one of his better efforts.
July 22
Lasker Marker Cave
Skeleton Mesa, Degosha Boko
Dear Mother and Father,
At present I am in a cave below the rim of Skeleton Mesa, looking out over the canyons of the Degosha Boko. This cave is in the Navajo sand stone a few feet under the rim. About three hundred feet below and some eighty feet back under, is Twin Caves cliff dwelling, but this cave is far more interesting. The culture here goes back to the first quarter of the Christian era, and presents many unsolved problems.
I have been in this locality about two weeks, working with the expedition. With me in the cave are an archaeologist, his assistant, and a photographer who also digs. Below in the canyon are ornithologists, entomologists, botanists, zoologists, geologists, and the like, each with plenty of problems unsolved.
