The Mystery of Everett Ruess
Page 17
May 2
Kayenta, Arizona
Dear Mrs. [Emily] Ormond,
Vilhjalmur Stefansson, the Arctic explorer, says that adventures are a sign of unpreparedness and incompetence. I think he is largely right, nevertheless I like adventure and enjoy taking chances when skill and fortitude play a part. If we never had any adventures, we would never know what “stuff” was in us.
So last night, I had quite a satisfactory adventure. I have had Leopard and Cockleburrs, my burros, for twelve days now, and they are beginning to learn how to play the game. Yesterday was about the longest day we have had; we came fully twenty-five miles. At dawn I watched the red moon set. There was a ring around the moon and I remembered the Wreck of the Hesperus. Shortly after sunrise I saddled the burros and rode off against blustering winds. The peak of Agathla and the buttes of Monument Valley were almost obscured by sandstorms. Vast seas of purple Loco Bloom were buffeted by the wind. The vermilion sand spread in ruffles over our tracks, obscuring them almost at once.
At morning we fought the gale, and in early afternoon I stopped to rest and lunch. After a few mouthfuls of oats, the burros cropped the grass tufts. Forage is plentiful this year. While I chewed jerky I read a Chapter in Death Comes for the Archbishop, a well-written book about the early Southwest.
Then I rode on again, and for a while I was very blithe, singing lustily into the wind and remembering some magnificent music. Then the sky grew inky and I urged the burros onwards, shouting, “Sintlo, Kelly, dill yage!” We passed right under the towering bulk of Agathla, popularly called El Capitan, and I had to make a painting. It is a splendid rock, with spires and pinnacles of black volcanic stone. I did not trouble to finish the sketch, but even so it was almost dark, and it was five or six miles to a campsite.
So I soon dismounted and drove both burros, shouting until they fairly loped. Soon it was dark and we were in the middle of a broad level valley. I kept the burros at a fast walk, and finally we topped the farther ridge. It was not black dark and a mile or so to the hogan I knew of, so I urged them on. Just as I reached the rock pile where I meant to turn off a few hundred yards, the burros suddenly bolted into the night.
It was probably Leopard’s idea, but Cockleburrs took the cue instantly, and they were off like a shot. I gave chase at top speed, until my lungs were afire, and I heard the pack thumping along in the darkness. The burros had certainly made their getaway at a strategic time. I followed along the trail, stumbling in the dark, and picking up a couple of saddle blankets which had slipped out.
I kept on to the creek finding no trace of them. The desert might have swallowed them up; they might be anywhere. I thought of the smashed saddles, the broken kyaks, their contents flung broadcast, the camera crushed, my paintings lying in the rain, and the burros kicking their heels miles away. I knew Cockleburrs could not strip off his pack without smashing it. And while I hunted for the burros the Navajos, who have no moral sense, would collect my scattered belongings and take them home.
I started to walk to Kayenta, thinking that a Mormon I knew might be willing to come in his car at dawn and pick up the stuff while I tracked down the burros. Within a mile of the trading post I made an about-face. It was not that I couldn’t stand being laughed at by the whole town, for it really was funny, and such things don’t bother me; but it would be asking too much from these people, and since for some time I had flattered myself that I could “take it” and always had, without complaint, I thought this was a good time to show myself. So I went back, circling around in the rocks, but finding no trace and hearing nothing but the scream of the wind I took my saddle blankets and felt my way back to the hogan. Soon I had a fire going, and watched the stars through the sky hole as they appeared and disappeared. Since there was nothing to eat or drink, I smoked a cigarette and lay on the sand with a blanket for a pillow. The moon rose murkily, and shone dimly through the racing clouds. I would sleep until the fire died down, then build it up again. After four or five naps the dawn came, and as I went in search it began to rain.
A mile or two away I found tracks on the sand, and before I knew it, I was face to face with Cockleburrs, who was standing stock still and looking foolish and tired. I had bundled better than I knew; his pack was intact! Nearby was Leopard equally sheepish, his saddle under him but unhurt. The camera and canteen were lost from it, but in half an hour’s circling, I recovered them both, little harmed.
So I cinched the saddle down, mounted, and we three went back through the rain to last night’s point of departure. As we approached the hogan, the fire blazed up, the smoke curled out on top, and I felt quite delighted with everything. I gave the burros an extra ration of oats, hobbled them out, and put on the supper and breakfast pot.
Though not all my days are as wild as this, each one holds its surprises, and I have seen almost more beauty than I can bear. Many times in the search for water holes and cliff dwellings, I trusted my life to crumbling sandstone and angles little short of the perpendicular, startling myself when I came out whole and on top.
So tell Mabel what kind of burros I have; they are grazing peacefully now, like good little donkeys, and haven’t strayed all day.
Love from Everett
Monument Valley, Arizona. Blockprint by Everett Ruess.
The Lone Trail
Three or four years ago I came to the conclusion that for me, at least, the lone trail was the best, and the years that followed strengthened my belief.
It is not that I am unable to enjoy companionship or unable to adapt myself to other people. But I dislike to bring into play the aggressiveness of spirit which is necessary with an assertive companion, and I have found it easier and more adventurous to face situations alone. There is a splendid freedom in solitude, and after all, it is for solitude that I go to the mountains and deserts, not for companionship. In solitude I can bare my soul to the mountains unabashed. I can work or think, act or recline at my whim, and nothing stands between me and the Wild.
Then, on occasion, I am grateful for what unusual and fine personality I may encounter by chance, but I have learned not to look too avidly for them. I delve into myself, into abstractions and ideas, trying to arrange the other things harmoniously, but after that, taking them as they come.
—Everett Ruess
Chilchinbetoh, Arizona
Dear Mother,
Returning to Kayenta the other day I found your letter and was delighted with your poem. I liked the longer version much the better.
I am staying now with Jose Garcia, Indian trader whose brother Camilio I knew in Chin Lee. When I came here last night, Jose’s kindness and courtesy almost brought the tears to my eyes, for there is something very fine about him, and I have not met many of his kind in this country. His father, a wizened old pioneer of the Spaniards, is here too. They are good, simple people without sophistication, living happily in this at present untroubled part of the world. Jose speaks four languages—English, Spanish, Navajo, and Zuni.
Before I leave here, I am going to make for Jose a painting of the Three Fingers, familiar landmarks on a promontory of the unexplored Black Mesa. You should see the glorious color when the first light of dawn spreads on the golden cliff tops and the blue-grey pinyon-clad slopes.
Cockleburrs and Leopard are the names of my two burros, and they are pals with each other and me now.
Love from Everett
May 5
Chilchinbetoh, Arizona
Dear Frances,
The negatives from you reached me in Kayenta a few days ago.
I am staying now with Jose Garcia, Indian trader whose brother Camilio I knew in Chin Lee. When I came here last night, Jose’s kindness and courtesy almost brought the tears to my eyes, for there is something very fine about him, and I have not met many like him in this country. His father, a wizened old pioneer of the Spaniards, is here too. They are good, simple people with no sophistication, living happily in this at present untroubled part of the world. Jose speaks four langua
ges—English, Spanish, Navajo, and Zuni.
There are some handsome, lithe young girls among the Navajos here. The Indians have many vices, but they are a kindly people, and I like them and admire their fine qualities.
Before I leave here, I am going to make for Jose a painting of the Three Fingers, familiar landmarks on a promontory of the unexplored Black Mesa. You should see the glorious color when the first light of dawn spreads on the golden clifftops and the grey-blue pinyon-clad slopes.
To one aware of the strangeness of life, my life in the cities was as strange as it is here. In many ways, toward the last, it was a fulfillment. I had many gloriously beautiful experiences, as well as the wild and intense adventures which seem to come without my searching. I do not know if I shall ever return to the cities again, but I cannot complain that I found them empty of beauty.
I was sorry, though, that our intimacy, like many things that are and will be, had to die with a dying fall. I do not greatly mind endings, for my life is made up of them, but sometimes they come too soon or too late, and sometimes they leave a feeling of regret as of an old mistake or an indirect futility. I like to be able to be perfectly open and sincere, and yet it is impossible to be sincere to all of one’s self at once, so for the deepest understanding one must seek those with whom one can be most truly one’s self. And never be blind to the ineffable drollery of it all.
So here too I have been leading a life of strange contrasts, violent indeed when considered separately, yet flowing naturally enough into one another. There has been deep peace, vast calm and fury, strange comradeships and intimacies, and many times my life and all my possessions have tottered on the far side of the balance, but as yet, from each such encounter I have in the end come away, unharmed, and even toughened.
But much as I love people, the most important thing to me is still the nearly unbearable beauty of what I see. I won’t wish that you could see it, for you might not find it easy to bear either, but yet I do sincerely wish for you a little at least of the impossible.
Love from Everett
May 5
Dear Bill,
Once more I am roaring drunk with the lust of life and adventure and unbearable beauty. I have the devil’s own conception of a perfect time; adventure seems to beset me on all quarters without my even searching for it; I find gay comradeships and lead the wild, free life wherever I am. And yet, there is always an undercurrent of restlessness and wild longing; “the wind is in my hair, there’s a fire in my heels,” and I shall always be a rover, I know. Always I’ll be able to scorn the worlds I’ve known like half-burnt candles when the sun is rising, and sally forth to others now unknown. I’m game; I’ve passed my own rigorous tests, and I know that I can take it. And I’m lucky too, or have been. Time and again, my life or all my possessions have swung on the far side of the balance, and always thus far I’ve come out on top and unharmed, even toughened by the chances I’ve taken.
“Live blindly and upon the hour; the Lord, who was the future, died full long ago.” Among others, I’ve tried that way, and found it good, too. Finality does not appall me, and I seem always to enjoy things the more intensely because of the certainty that they will not last. Oh it’s a wild, gay time! Life can be rich to overflowing. I’ve been so happy that I can’t think of containing myself. I’ve no complaints to make, and time and the world are my own, to do with as I please. And I’ve had it up and down; no tedious, humdrum middle course has been mine, but a riotously plunging and soaring existence.
Again I say, it’s a wild gay time. I’ve slept under hundreds of roofs, and shall know others yet. I’ve carved a way for myself, turned hostile strangers into staunch friends, swaggered and sung through surplus of delight where nothing and no one cared whether I lived or died.
The things I’ve loved and given up without a complaint have returned to me doubled. There’s no one in the world I envy.
Around me stretches the illimitable desert, and far off and near by are the outposts of suffering, struggling, greedy, grumbling humanity. But I don’t choose to join on that footing. I’m sorry for it and I help it when I can, but I’ll not shoulder its woes. To live is to be happy; to be carefree, to be overwhelmed by the glory of it all. Not to be happy is a living death.
Alone I shoulder the sky and hurl my defiance and shout the song of the conqueror to the four winds, earth, sea, sun, moon, and stars. I live!
May
Northeast Arizona
Dear Edward [Gardner],
I fear it is rather impolite to write to your office address but I could not remember your street in Alhambra.
For five days I have been in this canyon. I have not seen an Indian, and it is a week since I saw a white skin. Day before yesterday I narrowly escaped being gored to death by a wild bull, and there was a harrowing sequel when he discovered my camp that night, somewhile between midnight and dawn. Yesterday I did some miraculous climbing on a nearly vertical cliff, and escaped unscathed from that, too.
One way and another, I have been flirting pretty heavily with Death, the old clown.
Now the shadow of a mighty cliff has fallen on my camp to remain until dawn. On the opposite canyon wall, towering sheer above, I watch the fantastic gyrating shadows of two buzzards, that wheel and slant in the upper sunlight.
Strange, sad winds sweep down the canyon, roaring in the firs and the tall pines, swaying their crests. I don’t know how you feel about it, Edward, but I can never accept life as a matter of course. Much as I seem to have shaped my own way, following after my own thinking and my own desires, I never cease to wonder at the impossibility that I live. Even when to my senses the world is not incredibly beautiful or fantastic, I am overwhelmed by the appalling strangeness and intricacy of the curiously tangled knot of life, and at the way that knot unwinds, making everything clear and inevitable, however unfortunate or wonderful.
Here are a couple of things I dashed off today. You might ask to see the letter I wrote Bill, and show him this for contrast.
“The love and perception of beauty are real, but they do not lead to happiness. Happiness lies in a large measure of self-forgetfulness, either in work, accomplishment, or in the love of others.
“When analyzed, both work and love are shown to be futile, and the joys imaginary and evanescent. All accomplished works or deeds perish or are forgotten eventually. No love lives forever, and no two can completely understand one another, or if they do, it kills their love, which is in reality only a projected form of self love.
“Realizing the transitory quality of happiness, and knowing that the intervals are filled with doubt, misery, or mere empty existence, how can we value it, knowing how it deceives the recipient? And can one feel otherwise than contemptuous towards those who blind their analytic faculties by submerging themselves in work? For whether they know it or not, the pleasure so bought is falsely grounded on a complicated built-up system of self-deception, and their lives are lies.
“The chief danger to an even semi-intelligent happiness lies in being analytic. One who is truly analytic cannot possibly be happy unless there is some great contradiction in his nature—some side of himself where the cold mind never probes. For to think is the beginning of death. And as cold as thought is purely perceived beauty. Love not beauty, for she will certainly betray you.
“Beauty isolated is terrible and unbearable, and the unclouded sight of her kills the beholder. His only refuge is in insignificant things, in labor that keeps the mind from thought, and in companionship that gives back to the ego some of its former virility.
“But he who has looked long on naked beauty may never return to the world, and though he should try, he will find its occupation empty and vain, and human intercourse purposeless and futile. Alone and lost, he must die on the altar of beauty.
“The absorbing passion of any highly sensitive person is to forget himself, whether by drinking or by agonized love, by furious work or play, or by submerging himself in the creative arts. Sometimes, if his
will is powerful, he can pretend to himself that he does not know what he knows, and can act a part as one of the rest. But the pretense cannot endure, and unless he can find another as highly strung as himself with whom to share the murderous pain of living, he will surely go insane. Moral: Do not develop your faculties.”
Such and so have I written. Now the last light lingers on the topmost rim of the red sandstone cliffs, touching a lone tree with gold. Now that has faded. The flowers are closing and the cicadas sing shrilly.
Edward, you do not know how ridiculous life is unless you have had strange experiences and seen the ineffable absurdity of it all.
I’m enclosing for you a single gay blossom of a Scarlet Bugler. Doubtless it will be wan and faded when you see it, but remember that it was once as fair and fresh as you.
Give my well wishes to your sister and Alec and the rest of the family. Was the final performance of the Ninth as good as the rehearsal?
I don’t know if I’ll be able to mail this before I reach Lukachukai. Best write to Kayenta with instructions not to forward to Lukachukai as I’ll be there in two or three weeks.
Sincerely,
Your Friend,
Everett
P.S. From up the canyon, I hear an ominous muttering and bellowing, rapidly coming nearer. Evidently black Sir Taurus and I are going to have it out again, and I’ll leave you in the suspense I’m in. But if this letter reaches you, the chances are I will have ousted him. Now he is much closer; what ugly long horns he has, and how unbelievably horrible his furious bellowing! Meanwhile a melody of Brahms recurs to me.