The Mystery of Everett Ruess

by W. L. Rusho

  It is quite possible that Everett, like Nemo, felt that he had suffered too many defeats. He could have felt depressed and withdrawn, notwithstanding cheerful posturing in his letters. Such a defeat could have been a rejection in a hoped-for love affair, perhaps in San Francisco. Or it could have been a criticism of his basic ability to become a fine painter. Maybe his defeat was simply his reaction to the chaotic state of the world in 1934. Whatever the cause, his withdrawal from organized society, his disdain for worldly pleasures, and his signatures as NEMO in Davis Gulch, all strongly suggest that he closely identified with the Jules Verne character.

  According to his parents, Everett had read Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea several times. He was, at age twenty, still impressionable, still able to project himself into idealistic, if unrealistic, roles. Could Everett have consciously determined that he would disappear, that he would “break every tie upon earth,” so as to turn into Nemo himself?

  Everett’s letters occasionally foreshadow his death or disappearance, almost as if he were making plans for one, or perhaps both, of these eventualities. As far back as May 1931, he wrote:

  I intend to do everything possible to broaden my experiences and allow myself to reach the fullest development. Then, and before physical deterioration obtrudes, I shall go on some last wilderness trip, to a place I have known and loved. I shall not return.

  During the summer of the next year, 1932, he wrote, “And when the time comes to die, I’ll find the wildest, loneliest, most desolate spot there is.” A touch of foreboding may be read into his June 1934, statement: “When I go, I leave no trace.” His intention to remain in the wilderness is clear in his last letters, sent from Escalante, when he wrote, “As to when I shall visit civilization, it will not be soon, I think” and “I have known too much of the depths of life already, and I would prefer anything to an anticlimax. That is one reason why I do not wish to return to the cities.”

  A retired librarian named Alec W. Anderson reported that Everett spent considerable time at his Covina, California, home in early 1934, listening to recordings and writing poetry. When Everett left for Arizona, he said goodbye to Anderson, then added, as an afterthought, “And I don’t think you will ever see me again, for I intend to disappear.”

  If Everett vanished voluntarily, the plan could have evolved around the campfire near Davis Gulch, when he met Dougeye and his Navajo associates. It would have to have included the following: to succeed in vanishing from the canyon country without anyone ever learning of it, Everett would require the cooperation of the three Navajos, who would furnish him with horses and would whisk him through the Navajo Reservation. Everett would have to have their complete silence, so that not even local medicine men would know that he had traveled through their land. (Such silence was not infeasible for someone considered to be a good friend.) He would also require his camp outfit, which of course, did utterly vanish from Davis Gulch and Everett’s footprints were discovered among moccasined Navajo footprints both at the site of the Navajo camp and near Hole-in-the-Rock, the crossing point of the Colorado River.

  In March of 1983, river runner Ken Slight reported that years earlier he had seen “NEMO” inscribed into the chinking of an Anasazi ruin in lower Grand Gulch, a southward flowing tributary of the San Juan River about forty miles due east of Davis Gulch. Sleight could not be certain that Everett made the inscription, but he thought it possible. Everett, perhaps just exploring, perhaps on his way to “disappear,” could have crossed the Colorado at Hole-in-the-Rock, then followed the tortuous trail of the 1880 pioneers on foot, carrying his supplies in his backpack. After passing through Clay Hills Divide, Everett could have left the Hole-in-the-Rock trail by descending Collins Spring Canyon into Grand Gulch. Upon reaching the San Juan River he would have been only about twenty miles north of Monument Valley, and in country familiar to him from his travels there in 1931 and earlier in 1934.

  If Everett was in fact heading for Monument Valley—perhaps to join someone there—a swing through Grand Gulch would have required a side trip of only a few miles, since the more direct route would have been south from Clay Hills Divide to Clay Hills Crossing on the San Juan River.

  Everett did enjoy visiting Indian ruins and rock art panels, both of which Grand Gulch has in abundance. Besides, he would probably have been in no hurry. A side trip of perhaps three days through Grand Gulch would seem perfectly reasonable.

  Monument Valley would be a logical destination for Everett, since he had spent so much time there, as recently as six months earlier. The theory that he may have taken a Navajo bride, discounted earlier in reference to Navajos around Navajo Mountain, would seem to have greater validity in Monument Valley, where he was probably well acquainted with several Indian families. Even if he were just passing through, perhaps intending to disappear with a new identity, his entrance into Monument Valley from the north might not necessarily have become known to Navajos in the Navajo Mountain area who gave only negative responses to reporter Terrell of the Tribune.

  In the months that followed the search for Everett, reports were received that he had been seen elsewhere. A man and his wife, who had vacationed near Moab, Utah, wrote that they had seen a young man who strongly resembled Everett on the eastern Utah desert in the late 1930s, but that the man avoided conversation, as if he were trying to avoid detection. Another woman wrote that she had most certainly seen and talked with Everett near Monterrey, Mexico, in 1937. The man told her that he had once lived with American Indians, that he had studied art in Chicago, and that he made his living doing watercolor paintings. Furthermore, she positively identified Everett’s photograph as that of the man she met.[43]

  Captain Neal Johnson reported to Christopher Ruess that while in Phoenix, he saw a young man who looked familiar, then realized that it must be Everett Ruess (whom he had never met). Johnson crossed the street, asked the man if he was Everett, whereupon the man excused himself and departed, saying that he would be right back. But the young man never returned. Christopher Ruess simply put this story down as another of Johnson’s fantasies.

  It is tempting to suggest that Everett simply moved on, then escaped to a new identity in an unknown land. Perhaps he did head for Mexico, although there is no hint that Mexico held any fascination for him. The chances of this having actually happened are small to the point of being remote, but the possibility does still exist.

  Throughout the years other reports surfaced that Everett Ruess had been seen. Yet, when examined closely, all traces and clues disintegrated like wisps of cloud vapor in the sunlit Grand Canyon.

  Our own assumptions about Everett, however, may lead us astray. Everett was totally unlike young men of his age and time. To conclude, for instance, that as he matured he would lose his playful notions of emulating Captain Nemo and that he would return to his parents’ home may be an unjustified assumption.

  * * *

  [41] Letter of 26 September 1942 to Christopher Ruess from Harry C. James, Altadena, California.

  [42] Interview with Norman Christensen, Escalante, Utah, 27 December 1982.

  [43] Hugh Lacy, ed., On Desert Trails With Everett Ruess (Palm Desert, California: Desert Magazine, 1940).

  Chapter 10: Missing—To the End of the Horizon

  The story of Everett Ruess is still alive. It is one of romance, idealism, sensitivity, beauty, independence, youth, freedom, and mystery, set against some of the West’s most dramatic landscapes. It is a truly American story, combining elements of art history, Indian culture, and the settlement and development of the wilderness.

  One who came to appreciate the fascinating aspects of Everett’s story was his mother, Stella, who received much reflected fame and interest, particularly after initial publication of a selection of Everett’s writings in 1940. Throughout the rest of her life she continued to receive letters and callers making inquiries about her son. Even in his absence, Everett and his story were a major part of her own life.

  It is probable that Ste
lla—and perhaps Christopher, also—came to know Everett better after his disappearance, by rereading his letters, through letters from others, and as a result of conversations with friends. In her missing son, she seemed to find a focus for her artistic energy. The Ruesses used some insurance money to found The Everett Ruess Poetry Awards at Los Angeles High School, with Stella serving as judge.[44] She sent off collections of Everett’s writings to publishers seeking publication and maintained files of clippings and correspondence.

  In a letter Everett once asked his father, “Can one make great sacrifices without submerging oneself?” Christopher replied, “Yes, wives of many great men, mothers of great sons, teachers of leaders, have found their lives by losing their lives. A seed fulfills itself by losing itself in the ground. So did the men at Thermopylae.” So also did Stella find fulfillment through the lyrical life and writings of her son.

  In 1948, at the invitation of professional river guide Harry Aleson, Stella and a woman friend made a difficult trip to southern Utah, particularly to see Davis Gulch. After a night in a range cabin near the Hole-in-the-Rock road, they hiked the very long, rocky, and obscure trail leading to the deep gorge. Assisted by Aleson, Stella climbed to the high alcove and saw where Everett had carved the words “NEMO 1934” on the doorsill of an Anasazi ruin. Under a canopy of trees on the canyon floor, they spent the night, then set off in the morning light for the long hike back.

  Stella paused at the rim of Davis Gulch and reached into her bag for a small bundle of flowers she had been gathering. With a few words of remembrance for Everett, she lofted the bouquet of flowers into the canyon. It was a dramatic, fitting gesture—and it was typically Stella Ruess.

  Christopher Ruess died in 1954 and Stella in 1964. Both were active until the ends of their lives, Stella in art and poetry organizations and Christopher in helping senior citizens feel constructive and worthwhile. Waldo, Everett’s older brother, married his Andalusian wife, Conchita, in 1957, then moved in 1960 to Santa Barbara, California, where they lived with their four children.

  Neal Johnson, who tried in some manner to conduct searches in the Navajo Mountain area, was murdered. There are many vague stories of Johnson becoming an outlaw and a fugitive, hiding out in a cave along the Colorado River. In the 1940s his body was found hanging in a mine “on the Arizona side of the river,” probably near Navajo Mountain.[45] Who committed the murder as well as the reason remain a mystery.

  Considering that a halfcentury has elapsed since Everett roamed the canyon country, and that the world is a different place than it was in 1934, what relevance does Everett’s life hold for us today? At age twenty, still wavering on the edge of maturity, still needing much more visual art training, Everett could nevertheless write in astonishingly lyrical, descriptive passages. Important also was his spirit, the life force of an active, intelligent imagination that refused to idle away his youth in dull conformity. Most of us only wish our lives could be different, daring, and uncomfortable for a time. But Everett actually did it.

  The drama of Everett’s disappearance, with its abundance of clues and theories, would be interesting anywhere. What makes it especially fascinating is the cast of characters involved—Mormons, cowboys, rustlers, a neurotic miner, Navajos, medicine men, and traders. And the complex, colorful canyon country provided a perfect backdrop. To relate Everett’s story is to describe the landscape itself.

  We are left without a final answer, only riddles within riddles. With the passing of nearly eighty years, Everett’s fate has been discussed many times among the people of the canyon country. Those who met Everett have either reached advanced age—or have passed beyond earthly bounds. Time has marched on, changing even the remote land where Everett and his burros passed the early days of the 1930s. The Sierras, Grand Canyon, and Mesa Verde are now in danger of being loved to destruction, overpopulated, even rationed to meet the demand. Monument Valley now includes paved highways and a Navajo Tribal Park. Canyon de Chelly is a National Monument, and the Colorado and San Juan Rivers are now flooded by a manmade reservoir, which backs even under Rainbow Bridge. This body of water, Lake Powell, has even invaded Davis Gulch, where it has covered the ruin Everett inscribed with NEMO, and has backed almost up to his 1934 campsite. Although fluctuations do occur, Lake Powell is no longer expected to fill to capacity, and boater access to upper Davis Gulch is frequently blocked by long stretches of quicksand. The arch which was called Ruess Arch because of the nearby “NEMO 1934” inscription has been renamed.

  As great as are these changes, the West of Everett Ruess remains much as it was then, not a place so much as an experience, where the least artistic of us all can occasionally feel a touch of inspiration. Though we may not find Everett himself, we can share with him, over the years, enthusiasm for the color, magnitude, even the emotional impact of a Western landscape.

  His love of wilderness, his sense of kinship with the living earth, his acute sensitivity to every facet of nature’s displays—all of these, because of their intensity in one young man, gave Everett rare qualities. What made him unique were his reactions to the striking and dramatic landscapes of the American West.

  If Everett could return to the canyon country today, he would find ignorance and insensitivity, but he would also discover far more understanding of his goals, more appreciation for his talent, than he ever knew in the early 1930s. It can be hoped that his spirit, at least in a universal sense, resides within us all. Perhaps somewhere, across a distant horizon, silhouetted against a golden sky, Everett may yet ride his faithful burro toward his mystic dream...Mobilis in Mobile.

  Monument Valley. Blockprint by Stella Knight Ruess (Everett’s mother).

  * * *

  [44] Each semester two students from Los Angeles High School whose original poems were judged the best of the entries were given a “kit of tools” consisting of a selection of books of value to a beginning writer. The list included Roget’s Thesaurus, a rhyming dictionary, and collections of British and American poetry. The judges were the principal of the school, Stella Ruess, and a third person chosen by the other two. A brochure announcing the contest says, “As long as either of his parents live, each year or so boys and girls of the Southwestern states that Everett traversed will be invited to excel in one or another of the arts that Everett loved. So in his silence he will live on creatively. His parents hope that more fathers and mothers will establish similar living memorials to sons and daughters whose life songs break off after a stanza.”

  [45] Interview with Addlin Lay, Salt Lake City, Utah, 27 December 1982.

  Afterword: Beyond Horizons

  Seventy-five years—almost a lifetime for some of us—three generations if one is counting—have elapsed since Everett disappeared. Should he appear alive today, he would be nearing 100 years old. Some believe that Everett did reappear, at least briefly, before he felt the claws of death. The questions of both his disappearance and possible reappearance are tantalizing, and people have been seeking answers since 1935. Yet the answers remains elusive and only add to the mystery of his disappearance.

  Since Everett vanished, and especially since this book was first published in 1983, several people have reported finding the poet’s bones in southern Utah. Yet almost every time the reports of bodies have been quickly dismissed as being those that were too old, too tall, too short, or tied in with some other event. They were definitely not those of Ruess. Yet people keep looking and questioning.

  Interest in Everett, in his writings, his journeys, and especially in his disappearance, have grown steadily since this book came out in 1983. Of course, he has not, and will never, achieve rock star status, but his story continues to attract interest, especially in both men and women of younger generations. They universally seem to admire his spirit, his independence, his vision, and his uncanny ability to express his subjective reaction to Nature’s wondrous sculptures, colors, and panoramas.

  Concerning Everett Ruess, other books have been written, including his 1932–33
journals, which I edited.[46] Also appearing was a lyrically written but rather nonsensical theory about his disappearance,[47] a master’s thesis, and even a novel. Numerous films and plays have also been produced. Diane Orr produced a documentary DVD[48] about Everett’s days in southern Utah, as did Dyanna Taylor, granddaughter of photographer Dorothea Lange, who took Everett’s portrait in 1933. More recently, Jerry Rapier produced and staged a sensitive and thoughtful play of The End of the Horizon,[49] written by Debora Threedy, in Salt Lake City to favorable reviews. Essays about Everett, his emotional states and his motivations, have been included in several modern books about psychology. Even a Japanese company made a VHS documentary in Japanese language. Because of his bipolar swings (more on this later), writer Gary Bergera, in the commemorative edition of On Desert Trails, speculates that Everett may have taken his own life.[50]

  So the media gamut goes on as the interest in Everett Ruess continues to intensify. In 1986, the town of Kanab, Utah, held its first “Everett Ruess Festival,” in which they held a parade, and where several artists put up booths to sell souvenirs, such as framed calligraphy of Ruess epithets taken from his letters and poems. Since then the commemoration has reappeared in the little town of Escalante, Utah, the final civilized spot on Everett’s sojourn in 1934. In conjunction with the annual festival, vendors at this festival usually sell reproductions of Ruess blockprints and a variety of T-shirts marked with what has been accepted as his burro logo (Everett used this burro drawing on some of his letters as well as other souvenirs, but he never claimed it as a logo).

  Everett’s disappearance itself remains an intriguing puzzle, for which several have advanced theories, conspicuous among them old-timers living in Escalante. Arnold Alvey, an elderly resident of Escalante, related his theory, paraphrased: