The Mystery of Everett Ruess

by W. L. Rusho

  As the two men watched, the young artist prodded his burros southward, supposedly on his way to paint and make sketches at Hole-intheRock.

  We have no record that Everett was ever seen again. So the veil of mystery falls; real knowledge ends and speculation begins.

  Everett had written his parents that he would be out of touch for as much as two months, but when almost three months had elapsed, Christopher and Stella Ruess received Everett’s uncalledfor mail from the postmaster at Marble Canyon, Arizona, the post office nearest Lee’s Ferry, where Everett said he would be heading. Alarmed by the returned mail, they wrote a letter of inquiry, dated 7 February 1935, to Postmistress Mildred Allen at Escalante. Mrs. Allen, who had met Everett when he came to the post office to mail letters, turned the letter over to her husband, H. Jennings Allen, a Garfield County Commissioner, who was immediately curious.

  Taking a personal interest, Jennings Allen wrote to the Ruesses that he would make inquiries in the local area. The entire population of Escalante was alerted to the disappearance. Even though the Allens could find no clues, it was a mystery that galvanized the community, especially those who had known Everett personally.

  Jennings Allen organized a search party, which left town on horseback about 1 March to start looking at the sheep camp of Clayton Porter and Addlin Lay, where Everett had last been seen. When Porter and Lay told the searchers that Everett seemed interested in the nearby canyons, the men turned east, then successively investigated the deep gulches named Willow, Soda, and Davis.

  In Willow and Soda they found nothing, but upon descending the rocky trail into Davis Gulch they very quickly spotted Everett’s two burros, which were contained in the upper part of the canyon by a brush fence. Some have maintained that the burros were in starving condition, having eaten nearly all of the grass in the “corral.” Jennings Allen, however, as well as others, reported that the burros had a long section of canyon floor to wander in, that there was plenty of grass and water, and that the burros were “fat and healthy.”

  We know for a certainty that the burros were brought back to Escalante, as a photograph of them appeared in the June 1, 1935, Salt Lake Tribune, with the caption “two burros found in February by Gail Bailey.” The burros arrived back in Escalante on 2 March 1935.[26] Bailey apparently found the burros a month before the search party set out in March. But in my interview with Bailey in 1982, he said he found leather halters and bridles, but denied ever seeing any of Everett’s camp gear or personal belongings.

  Chester Lay of Escalante, also a member of the big search party of March 1935, reported that the burros were still in Davis Gulch, but that when they stubbornly refused to climb the steep slickrock trail they had to be dragged out, each burro hitched to two saddle horses.[27] This would suggest that perhaps Everett had tried to lead the burros out of the canyon, but they resisted and he had to give up.

  Descending the only horse trail into Davis Gulch, September 1982. Photo by W. L. Rusho.

  A network of canyons forms along the lower Escalante River. The Colorado River, in Glen Canyon, flows from right to left. Davis Gulch is the third Escalante River tributary, counting from the mouth, on the left side. Photo September 1962 by W. L. Rusho.

  Allen said that since Davis Gulch was used each spring as a place to keep cows and their newborn calves, the burros were removed because they were consuming too much good grass.[28] The search party led the burros on to Escalante, where they were kept in a corral and ridden occasionally by the village children. Bailey later took them into the high country, to another sheep camp.[29] No one seems to have seen them again. Everett’s burros were located just upstream from the point where the trail winds down the cliff on the north side of Davis Gulch. Southwest of the trail, the narrow canyon extends upstream for a few miles, ending abruptly in a jumpup, impassable to horses or burros but scalable to an agile human being. Downstream from the trail, the sinuous canyon descends between towering sandstone cliffs about three miles to its junction with the Escalante River. Throughout its length flows a delightful stream of clear water, fringed occasionally with stately cottonwood trees and almost constantly lined with flowers and grass. Deep within several of the sheltered alcoves in the cliffs are ruins of ancient Anasazi dwellings or granaries. Centuriesold petroglyphs and pictographs on shaded rock walls are picturesque, unusual, and undecipherable. Two magnificent arches, now called Bement and LaGorce, curve outward and downward from the north wall. It is a place where a person can wade happily through the gentle streamflow aware only of beauty and mystery. It is no wonder that Everett’s long searching finally brought him into this marvelous canyon.

  Searchers from Escalante, Utah, bring Everett’s burros out of Davis Gulch in March 1935.

  The search party from Escalante near Davis Gulch. One of Everett’s burros at center, March 1935.

  Bement Arch, in Davis Gulch upstream from Everett’s 1934 campsite, clings to the north wall of the canyon. Its opening is 100 feet high and 50 feet wide. It was called Ruess Arch for some time but was later renamed. On the horse is Don Griffin of Escalante. Photo September 1982 by W. L. Rusho.

  While part of the search party was removing the burros, the remainder rode slowly downstream, pausing to investigate alcoves containing ruins or pictographs. Passing LaGorce Arch (called by the cowboys Moqui Window), they climbed to a high, small ruin and suddenly stopped in surprise. There on the base of the doorway were carved the words NEMO 1934. A mystery indeed! Nearby were four Anasazi pottery jugs lined up on a flat rock.

  As news of the search party reached Escalante, Jennings Allen passed it on to Christopher and Stella. On 3 March Allen telegraphed news of the discovery of the burros. Then on 8 March he wrote:

  ...searchers went into Davis Gulch where burros were and there they located Everett’s tracks where [he] had been the last of November. There they found up and down the canyon his tracks where he had been traveling back and forth. Also where he had been in several Moqui houses and caves. Also where he had been examining Indian drawings and writings on the ledges and also where he had written NEMO on the ledge and also carved the date Nov 1934 but did not put the day of the month...from where the bridle and rope were located they tracked him out of the canyon; he had followed an old Indian trail.

  The Indian ruin where the searchers found NEMO carved on a rock below the dwelling. Photo by Ken Sleight.

  Allen also reported that after studying Everett’s tracks the searchers had determined that he had apparently scaled “many dangerous cliffs,” but there was no evidence of an accident. In a sheltered alcove near the bottom of the trail into the canyon they found numerous tracks, empty condensed milk cans, candy wrappers, and marks in the dirt where Everett had laid his bedroll and then rolled it up. Obviously this had been his camp.

  One peculiarity—and one that was to influence all theories about Everett’s disappearance—was the absence of his bedroll, his cook kit, his food, his paintings and paint kit, his journal, and his money. How could Everett have carried his outfit out of the deep canyon without the aid of his burros? Gail Bailey, who helped trail the burros out of the canyon and later kept possession of them, denied that he or anyone else could have removed the outfit before the main group of searchers found the camp site.

  Jennings Allen also reported that Everett’s footprints were spotted “from where the burros were found to the foot of the Fifty-Mile Mountain.” Allen conjectured that Everett might have taken his camp outfit to the top of FiftyMile (Kaiparowits), where “he could see and paint the country for miles around.” He might then have returned his burros to Davis Gulch and climbed back to his camp. Then, while high on the mountain, he might have been cut off and isolated by heavy snowfall. Pursuing this theory, Allen and the search party waited for the warm sun to melt the snow. He said they would climb to the top and, hopefully, find Everett.

  On 15 March, however, apparently after a thorough search of Kaiparowits, Allen reported in a discouraging letter: “We have searched the count
ry good on this side of the Colorado River and haven’t been able to find any fresh sign of Everett.”

  Implicit in all the correspondence between Allen and the Ruesses and in all newspaper accounts of the search was the notion that Everett may simply have fallen from some high precipice and that in this greatly bisected rock country the searchers could not find the body. Almost anyone who knows the character of the country would suggest falling as the probable solution. Everett himself, in his letters, mentioned the danger. In June 1934 he wrote from Monument Valley: “Hundreds of times I have trusted my life to crumbling sandstone and nearly vertical angles in the search for water or cliff dwellings.” A month earlier he wrote: “Yesterday I did some miraculous climbing on a nearly vertical cliff, and escaped unscathed....One way and another, I have been flirting pretty heavily with Death, the old clown.”

  Clay Lockett, the archaeologist who spent a week with Everett in a lofty cliff dwelling in July 1934, said that he was appalled by the seemingly reckless manner in which Everett moved around the dangerous cliffs.”[30]

  Still, there isn’t a hint of hard evidence that he did actually fall to his death. Places in Davis Gulch and in nearby areas where a person might be tempted to climb are not numerous; an attraction—a ruin, an arch, a spring, an unusual viewpoint—has to be combined with an apparently possible climbing route. Such combinations were readily spotted by the searchers and were closely inspected. Everett’s body could not be found. Given the topography, the suggestion that his body could have been covered by drifting sand in the short space of three months is very unlikely. Searchers who are still living believe the accidental falling theory has little validity. Norman Christensen, who saw much of Everett in Escalante, says that Everett was careful and “able to take care of himself.”[31]

  The theory that Everett fell also requires an explanation for the missing camp outfit. It might have been removed from Everett’s camp by one of the searchers, who, having discovered the beautiful Navajo blankets, the paintings, and the money while alone, hid the outfit, then returned, perhaps weeks later, to retrieve it. To pull off such a theft, the man would have to have uncanny skill or luck, as well as the unusual ability to keep his mouth shut for many years. Several accusations along these lines have been made in private, but never has one piece of evidence been produced; Everett’s outfit remains missing today, more than seventy-five years later.

  A thief, perhaps a wandering cowboy, could have found the outfit before Everett was known to be missing and could have taken it away. But if this did happen, the thief would have had to know that Everett was dead, or he would have had to callously violate one of the basic unwritten laws of the wilderness: to steal a man’s essential camp outfit was akin to murder.

  By early March 1935, the first search party had returned to Escalante. The burros were identified by people who had seen them with Everett in November. Jennings Allen, although discouraged, wrote to Christopher and Stella Ruess that he was organizing a second search party for the express purpose of examining the south rim of Davis Gulch, which had not yet been thoroughly covered. Allen himself headed the group, spending about two weeks in late March and early April on a fruitless search. He wrote to the Ruesses that “Everett must [have] left this section and gone to the Navajo reservation; he can’t be anywhere on this side of the Colorado River alive because every inch has been searched.”

  As to the word NEMO found carved on the cliff dwelling in Davis Gulch, an inquiry telegraphed in June 1935 to the Ruesses produced this reply:

  Everett read in desert Greek poem Odyssey, translated by Lawrence of Arabian desert. Here Odysseus Greek word for nobody, “Nemo” being Latin word for nobody. Odysseus trapped by maneating giant in cave, saves life by trick of calling himself Nemo. Everett dislikes writing own name in public places.

  —Mrs. Christopher G. Ruess

  A few months later, at the suggestion of a friend, Christopher decided that NEMO was an echo of Jules Verne’s Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea, in which Captain Nemo, like Everett, was trying to escape from civilization.

  The possibility arose that Everett had disappeared intentionally, an idea discussed more in detail in Chapter 10, “To the End of the Horizon.”

  Allen, although discouraged, was not yet ready to quit until he had exhausted all of his resources. He drove to Salt Lake City hoping to see the governor, but was frustrated to find that Governor Henry Blood was out of town. Allen also paid calls at the Deseret News office in Salt Lake City, only to be told by the editor that the story had insufficient interest for them to sponsor another search. He therefore turned to the Associated Civic Clubs of Southern Utah, a loose organization made up of representatives of fifteen counties and headquartered in Richfield. In Frank G. Martines, President of the Associated Civic Clubs, Allen at last found full cooperation.

  Martines at first contacted the office of Governor Blood, where he found no interest in conducting an official state search. Martines then called upon his fellow members to contribute funds that the Associated Civic Clubs could use to sponsor its own search. Appealing to their pride that “no one gets lost in southern Utah,” Martines quickly obtained necessary contributions. A third search team from the town of Escalante, organized under the direction of P. M. Shurtz, left town on 1 June 1935.[32]

  On 14 June 1935, Ray E. Carr, Secretary of the Associated Civic Clubs, wrote to Christopher and Stella that the search party had been out eleven days without success. The searchers, however, did find additional evidence of Everett’s activity in lower Davis Gulch—size nine boot prints leading to an Indian pictograph panel, an old Anasazi pot nearby, and on the panel the inscription NEMO 1934. This, of course, was similar to what had been found farther up Davis Gulch in March, and did not add any really new clues.

  One different item reported by Ray Carr was that the team located a man who had been camped at Hole-in-the-Rock from early December until April. The man, whose name was not given, said that he was confident he would have seen anyone riding through that area to cross the Colorado River. From his statement the searchers concluded that Everett probably did not cross the river.

  At that time the search was temporarily halted so that the men could harvest their hay and take cattle to the high country. Carr said the search would resume later with five men to cover the Escalante River Canyon and the rough country to the southeast. No record exists, however, that the extended search was ever made.

  During the search for Everett, no one mentioned in writing the possibility of foul play. Yet stories began to circulate that he could have been killed by rustlers. The theory slowly gained credence as one of the few explanations that could fit with known facts. Most of the residents of Escalante suspected that cattle rustlers might be involved, but as they lacked (and still lack), definite proof, they kept their suspicions to themselves—at least for a few years. Furthermore, the rustlers, whatever their degree of guilt, lived as neighbors in Escalante.

  Rustling cattle brings forth stereotyped images from many Hollywoodproduced Westerns, movies that depict the villainous criminals making off with scores of cattle in clouds of dust. In actuality, it didn’t often happen like that. Bigtime rustlers were extremely rare in the West, but smallscale cattle thievery continues to operate up to the present day. So it was also operating in 1934.

  Cattle rustling was a known, if not always reported, fact along the Escalante River and its tributary canyons in the mid1930s. The crime took three forms: on occasion a thief would shoot another man’s steer far out on the range and would butcher it for his own use; a more common form of rustling was to find a cow with an unbranded calf that was old enough to be weaned, in which case the thief would simply kill the cow (often driving it off a cliff), dispose of the carcass, and brand the calf as his own; the third form, more rare, was for the rustlers to herd a few head of cattle across one of the roughest trails in the canyon country. The trail descended into Clear Creek Canyon, a tributary just south of Davis Gulch. Then it crossed the Escal
ante, ascended a steep slickrock trail to a point near the confluence of the Escalante and Colorado rivers, then tortuously wound its way over the Circle Cliffs into the Halls Creek drainage, where it ended at the Baker Ranch. There the cattle could be rebranded with a “running” iron and trucked off to market.[33]

  Rustling in the Escalante Desert had one common characteristic: no outsiders were, or could be, involved. The residents knew each other, knew what was happening in the area, and knew when a stranger entered their valley. A stranger attempting to rustle cattle might not only have been suspect; he would probably have been quickly caught and prosecuted. A cowboy, however, who was employed in the area, could secretly make off with one or two head of cattle. Though he might be suspect, proof was usually lacking. An accused thief could simply claim that cattle were missing because of depredation of coyotes, fierce storms, or because the cattle had found an obscure hiding place.

  Just before Everett’s arrival in Escalante, rustlers had apparently overextended themselves, bringing down the wrath of the local cattle owners. To try to scare the hooligantype rustlers, the owners decided to spread a false story to the effect that they were hiring an undercover agent to infiltrate the range and to obtain incriminating evidence. They were not explicit about who they would hire, or when, preferring to keep the thieves guessing. At any rate, the rustlers were expecting a mysterious stranger to show up.

  It was into this atmosphere of deceit and suspicion that Everett innocently rode his burros south from Escalante. Of course, Everett must have looked about as dangerous as a puppy dog, but who can account for the possible reaction to him in the mind of a worried petty thief? Naturally, the cattle owners were not going to hire an investigator who looked like an investigator. And Everett certainly acted and talked like an outsider.