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Special Report
Man-Child in the Promised Land
Everett Ruess disappeared Utah’s canyon country in 1934 — and after 75 years the mystery of what happened to this 20-year-old romantic has apparently been solved.
According to a May 1 story in the Denver Post, about a year ago a man in southern Utah at a place called Comb Ridge came upon a large crevice in a cliff that contained an old saddle and underneath that a pile of human bones. The man’s name is Denny Bellson, and he had been searching for those bones. They had been put there in 1934 by Bellson’s late grandfather, a Navajo named Aneth Nez. Through a friend Bellson contacted writer David Roberts (who had published a related article in National Geographic Traveler in 1999), and Roberts arranged for the bones to be sent to the University of Colorado-Boulder for DNA and other testing. The remains proved to be those of one Everett Ruess (pronounced “Roo-ess”), a young man who had disappeared in the canyon country at the age of 20, and who was the subject of Roberts’s 1999 piece.
I’ve come across Ruess’s name occasionally in my reading about the West. Until now, his 1934 disappearance had made for a cultish parlor game similar to the one that still speculates as to whether the outlaw Butch Cassidy survived the famous 1909 shootout in Bolivia and endured into old age. Likewise, Ruess’s legend was one of the great mysteries of the desert Southwest. Wallace Stegner wrote about him in his book Mormon Country: “What Everett Ruess was after was beauty, and he conceived beauty in pretty romantic terms….If we laugh at Everett Ruess we shall have to laugh at John Muir, because there was little difference between them except age.” In Desert Solitaire (published in 1968), Edward Abbey whimsically entertains the possibility that Ruess is still alive, a mad desert hermit subsisting on “prickly pear and wild onions.”
Ruess was not a typical misanthropic desert rat. As Stegner states, he was a true romantic, and something of a nascent Renaissance Man, who at his death enjoyed a small reputation as an artist and writer. He excelled at linoleum and woodblock printmaking, was a good photographer, and was the precocious author of two posthumously published books, one entitled On Desert Trails, Hugh Lacy, Ed.(1940); the other Everett Ruess: A Vagabond for Beauty, W.L. Rusho, Ed. (1983). These are a miscellany of Ruess’s journals, letters, and poetry. And the young man was known to read voraciously in the classics.
Everett Ruess was born in Oakland, California in 1914, the second son of Christopher and Stella Ruess: his father a Unitarian minister; his mother a culture enthusiast, who — among other intellectual pursuits — edited and published a Ruess family literary magazine. The San Francisco Bay Area at the time was maturing culturally from its rough-and-tumble gold rush roots. The writers Mark Twain, Bret Harte, Jack London, Frank Norris and Ambrose Bierce had already made their marks. There were photographers such as Edward Weston, Ansel Adams, and Dorothea Lange, and the painter Maynard Dixon, and the teenage Ruess knew personally all of this latter group. Weston encouraged his interest in printmaking; Adams coached him in photography; Lange took some interesting photo portraits of Ruess; and Dixon gave him drawing and painting lessons.
Ruess was something of a “red diaper baby.” His parents were — for the time — typically politically liberal, as were their friends and artistic acquaintances. Christopher Ruess’s ecclesiastical duties caused the family to move frequently as he was transferred to different churches, and Everett and older brother Waldo attended schools in different parts of California and in Valparaiso, Indiana, where at age 12 Everett won a school essay prize. Back in California at 15, and while a student at Hollywood High School, Everett had a flirtation with the Los Angeles chapter of “The Young Communists League.” But his creative impulses wouldn’t be put at the service of radical politics.
At 16, in the summer of 1930, Ruess wandered the Sierra Nevada from Sequoia to Yosemite, as the earlier naturalist and writer John Muir had done. His mode of transportation were the backs of two burros: one that he rode with saddle and saddlebags; the other he led, and packed with food, blankets, and personal belongings such as a camera, art supplies, a few books and a journal. His resulting woodblock prints of mountain scenes began to attract attention. Ruess reminds us of the example of the prolific Western photographer William Henry Jackson, who photographed the Yellowstone region and the Colorado Rockies in the 1870s. Ruess — like Jackson — was developing the talent and know-how to pursue his artistic ambitions in howling wilderness amidst a myriad of adverse conditions, especially weather.
Ruess first visited the Southwest in 1931, immediately upon high school graduation, and spent much of the remaining three years of his life wandering the remote Four Corners (Arizona, Utah, New Mexico, Colorado) region, with occasional trips home to California. In the 1930s the Colorado Plateau was one of the great blank spaces on the map with very few roads. Ruess’s epic journeys with those burros have their biblical aspects. Weeks and months of endless trudging through the desert landscapes: Zion Canyon, Rainbow Bridge, Grand Canyon, Navajo Mountain, the San Juan River, Mesa Verde, Canyon de Chelly. He read Rabelais, Thomas Mann, and The Arabian Nights by the campfire. And he sketched and wrote. Much of his journal is found in the two books noted above, but his letters show a superior vividness. Ruess was an enthusiastic scribbler of correspondence mailed during his periodic sojourns from hamlets such as Kayenta, Arizona and Escalante, Utah:
In my wanderings this year I have taken more chances and had more wild adventures than ever before. And what a magnificent country I have seen — wild, tremendous wasteland stretches, lost mesas, blue mountains rearing upward from the vermillion sands of the desert, canyons five feet wide at the bottom and hundreds of feet deep, cloudbursts roaring down unnamed canyons, and hundreds of houses of the cliff dwellers, abandoned a thousand years ago.
Ruess could be reckless and accident prone. In his final letter, written to his brother Waldo Ruess, he states:
I have had a few narrow escapes from rattlers and crumbling cliffs. The last misadventure occurred when Chocolatero [his burro] stirred up some wild bees. A few more stings might have been too much for me. I was three or four days getting my eyes open and recovering the use of my hands.
At an earlier date and to a friend named Bill Jacobs:
For six days I’ve been suffering from the semi-annual poison ivy case — my sufferings are far from over. For two days I couldn’t tell whether I was dead or alive. I writhed and twisted in the heat, with swarms of ants and flies crawling over me, while the poison oozed and crusted on my face and arms and back. I ate nothing — there was nothing to do but suffer philosophically….I get it every time, but I refuse to be driven out of the woods.
This last is interesting. Poison ivy is common in the lush river and creek bottoms of the Southwest, but Ruess would have to have been extremely careless to get it.
Everett Ruess’s last trip has for 75 years been shrouded in mystery, but since the discovery of his remains more facts are coming to light.
In November 1934, Ruess turned up in the Mormon ranch village of Escalante, Utah, and devoted a few days to preparing (procuring supplies, etc.) for another long trek into adjoining remote country. On November 11 he mailed that last letter to Waldo. It has a chillingly prophetic tinge to it: “I prefer the saddle to the streetcar and star spangled sky to a roof, the obscure and difficult trail, leading into the unknown, to any paved highway, and the deep peace of the wild to the discontent bred by cities.”
About the Author
Bill Croke, formerly of Cody, Wyoming, is a writer in Salmon, Idaho.
Kitty| 5.22.09 @ 7:42AM
Seventy-five years later the truth is learned. Thank God for forensics.
...
Kitty| 5.22.09 @ 7:48AM
You may want to check this out:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/blownaway/299533334/
...
Michael L. Hauschild| 5.22.09 @ 8:01AM
Good Lord, what a horrible way to die, reality providing a exclamation point to a vivid imagination.
Pingback| 5.22.09 @ 9:58AM
The American Spectator : Man-Child in the Promised Land | SnapsArea.Com links to this page. Here’s an excerpt:
Sam| 5.22.09 @ 12:13PM
Evil exists wherever man is, whether the wild or the city.
Thinking about the firearms in national parks debate, I wonder if the carried any weapons.
David Govett| 5.22.09 @ 12:42PM
It's hard not to harshly judge Aneth Nez for not reporting the murder. Family and friends must have suffered for decades.
Tim| 5.22.09 @ 12:46PM
He was young and innocent, may God have mercy on him. Did his murderers, examining a cache of poetry books, regret their crime?
Stay out of the long grass children: it's full of snakes.
Bob Wire | 5.22.09 @ 1:24PM
Ruess' story is strikingly similar to that of Christopher McCandless, chronicled in Jon Krakauer's 'Into the Wild.' A young idealist rejecting the confines and mundane constructs of society to pursue the beauty and power of nature, gets swallowed up by the object of his desire.
Well, in the case of Ruess, with the help of some Utes who brained him with a rock.
Great job relating this story, Bill. Very compelling.
Larry M. Southwick| 5.22.09 @ 5:47PM
This story makes me think of Lee Marvin's comment "there are 8 million stories in the naked desert, this is one of them". Well, maybe not 8 million, but equally as futile.
This guy Ruess appears to reflect a dreaminess and mysticism with the "wilderness" that certainly does not reflect the survival techniques of the less socially revered desert rat prospector. To have suffered from poison ivy (not once, but TWICE per year) is taking romanticism more toward the Penitente's flagellation.
This story reminds me of James Thom's "Sign Talker", a biography of George Druillard, fur trader who went west with Lewis and Clark. He too got stuck between two worlds. A dreamer, his mind immobilized with flights of mysticism, who could not recognize the danger of the Blackfeet, natural enemies to other Indians and fur traders alike. And so they killed him.
I'm sure the Blackfeet valued Drouillard's scalp far more than any writings he might have left behind. Similarly, the Utes likely found no use in Ruess' poetic ramblings. Further, the Navaho who saw the Ruess killing probably feared more being blamed for it than seeing any value in reporting it.
Likely too, a Navaho, whose relatives had been hounded into a dismal reservation and were still being treated as second class (third class?) citizens had little sympathy for the death of a strange white man.
By the way, Thom also got Sacagawea's role in the L&C expedition right - critical but not indispensible.
Riddle me this - how many "whits" did the life of Ruess amount to? In answer, let Everett Ruess' own words suffice - "When I go, I leave no trace." And "Nemo". Was he not more perceptive than many romanticists? Perhaps that is why he chose to live, and die, in the wilderness??
Andrew G. Smith| 5.22.09 @ 6:17PM
I enjoyed this story of Everett Ruess. I had never heard of him before, but it is a great tale of a sprited American who loved adventure and the American West. It was a great diversion from the generally somber news of today's politics and our limp wristed president. I would like to see AS publish more interesting human interest stories about the American Spirit like this!
AGS
Wilfred Bodden| 5.22.09 @ 9:42PM
Why would the murderers themselves not try to conceal the body? And why would a poor Navajo abandon something as valuable as a saddle?
Nez probably didn't report the murder because he thought he would himself fall under suspicion. And for good reason.
CH| 5.23.09 @ 1:55AM
Gotta keep your wits about you--no matter where you go. RIP young man.
Catherine| 5.23.09 @ 3:04AM
The Navajo did not want the saddle because it was covered with blood; it says so in the story.
Nature's a bitch to worship.
Bill| 5.23.09 @ 7:34AM
Our Naturalists and wonderer's, in their stories ,have always had the great predators as a large part of their experiance . The Lion of Africa , Tigers of India , Bears of Alaska , and Man of the Southwest . Man being the most dangerous of the lot has killed more wayfarers than all of the other preditors combined . A sad but logical end for the explorer of the untamed west .
Pete | 5.23.09 @ 1:43PM
To tailgate on Bob Wire's comment, Jon Krakauer, in his excellent book, "Into the Wild" does briefly examine the mysterious tale of Everett Ruess and others of his adventurous ilk and their similarities to the subject of his work, Christopher McCandless (and to the author himself). There have been a handful of these somewhat misanthropic, nature-lovers who preferred the solace and majesty of nature to the constraints and conveniences of modern civilization. For a few, it was their demise. A riveting work, highly recommended.
Wilfred Bodden| 5.23.09 @ 3:43PM
Catharine: Of course Nez didn't want the saddle because it was covered with blood.
My point is, how do we know Nez himself wasn't the killer, and the tale about the Utes was something he concocted?
Maybe someone would abandon his own saddle worth, I don't know, a month's wages, because it became ritually contaminated. But he would certainly abandon it if it would cause him to be convicted of murder.
Part of this story remains a mystery.
Catherine| 5.23.09 @ 6:01PM
Wilfred:
Well you should have made that more clear in your first comment.
Catherine| 5.23.09 @ 6:05PM
Wilfred:
On second reading, I concede you have a point.
I wonder whose "corral" it was where they found the two burros grazing?
American Bossman| 5.24.09 @ 12:34AM
Haha, so he was both a man child (republican) and a romantic (democrat) at the same time? A morman? That would just bust your paper to shreds.
Fuck your treaties| 5.24.09 @ 12:41AM
"But the discovery of the impromptu grave and resulting DNA evidence point to the fact that Ruess was murdered, and three anonymous Ute Indians were the killers. "
Yay for the home team!
Johnny Apple| 5.24.09 @ 12:58AM
Just admit it. "This last is interesting. Poison ivy is common in the lush river and creek bottoms of the Southwest, but Ruess would have to have been extremely careless to get it. "
You cant forgive him this, cause you hate his fucking liberal guts. Just admit it. Youre glad he got poison ivy. I bet you cackle still.
Ned| 5.24.09 @ 11:14AM
I was wondering how the blood got all over the saddle if his head was smashed in with a rock. Then I thought perhaps he was sleeping using the saddle as a pillow, you know like in the cowboy movies, and whoever killed him sneaked up on him and bashed his brains in.
It would also be interesting to know if any sign of clothing was found with body. My guess he was killed for his property and everything not traceable to him was taken and used by his killer or killers.
Utah has a lot of big open country in it and not all the rattlers have rattles and give warning. Like Porter Rockwell he should have had a little doggy to listen and look out for him. Then again burros are pretty cagey and should have woke him up also, unless he turned them loose at night to graze. The questions never end.
Ned| 5.24.09 @ 11:47AM
Chasing and catching a couple of pain in the ass burros every morning might explain the trips through the poison ivy.
Catherine| 5.24.09 @ 6:40PM
Just thinking... if the Navajo is the actual culprit, as some propose, why would he have even bothered telling the story to his family? Clearly he got away with it, so why bring it up?
Daisy| 5.24.09 @ 8:49PM
Guilty conscience?
macdaddy| 5.24.09 @ 11:32PM
He liked to roam around and explore. What's to criticize? He should have gone with a partner? At least he went with transportation and provisions. The irony is that despite his attempt to flee the discontent of the city, he got struck down by the discontent of the country.
Mike Marine | 5.25.09 @ 7:26AM
Life is a walking dream a poor player that struts and frets his hour upon the stage, and then is heard no more...
MarkJ| 5.25.09 @ 9:20AM
F*** Your Treaties,
"Yay for the home team!"
Question: When did murder, in any culture, become just a "game"?
Were you born ignorant, or did you need special training to get that way?
Eugene Podrazik| 5.25.09 @ 9:21AM
Let me guess. No firearm?
Yes, we should all have the right to walk peaceable upon this earth. But, there's still a need to have the means of self preservation. And, if you regard your life and personal gifts and talents as gifts from God, a duty to protect the same.
JS Ragmann| 5.25.09 @ 12:32PM
Re blood on the saddle; my guess would be that after having his skull crushed with a rock, there might be some blood. Too, leaving the saddle because it had blood and the Navajo's were suspicious is an easy out, but in 1934 (depression, anyone) to leave a saddle behind doesn't make sense.
As an avid watcher of Forensic Files, let's look at this case from a forensic's point. If Ruess was hanging crossway over the horse, wouldn't all of the blood from a head wound drip on the ground? Then again, shouldn't the blood have been dried by the time Nez arrived? The only way the blood would get all over the saddle is if it was a fresh wound; remember, the story is that he watched the murder from a distance, waited until the Utes left, then made his way over to the body. The distance isn't mentioned, but seems to indicate in the story it was some distance. Also, a dead body doesn't bleed, there's no heart to keep pumping the blood. So how was the saddle covered with blood unless Ruess was still alive?
Another point..Nez would ride home bareback, which is no fun at anytime, much less in the rocky desert. Also why wait until you're an old man to tell about a body you buried 75 years ago? Did it just slip his mind to tell the authorities even a few years later, or was it that in his old age, he needed to get something off of his chest before he was to meet his maker? I agree there is more to this story.
Mike| 5.25.09 @ 1:36PM
So the Navajo blames it on the Utes. Kinda like Susan Smith blamed it on black intruders. There's nothing like stirring up deep seated resentments in order to deflect blame.
But why leave the most valuable object behind? The blood stains don't explain it. Maybe it could be easily traced to the owner?
mike| 5.25.09 @ 11:38PM
Say What? What are Utes?
Catherine| 5.26.09 @ 3:58AM
I don't think the Navajo did it.
If he did it just to steal Ruess' belongings, then why leave the saddle behind?
An innocent man would not want to take the saddle because it could lead suspicion to himself.
And if he truly felt a need to "confess", then why make up the story about the Utes to his progeny? That's no confession; that's an outright lie.
No, I don't think Nez did it.
PKane| 5.26.09 @ 6:25AM
I gathered that the Navajo kept quiet because of the rivalry with the Utes. Had his account lead to the arrest of the murderers he and his family - or even a random member of his tribe - could have been in danger.
And, frankly, we're talking about the 1930s here. For a poor Indian to show up in town with a bloody saddle and news that some "other" Indians murdered an innocent white boy I doubt he'd expect a heroes welcome.
The same holds for the saddle. Superstition need not explain why he buried it. As mentioned, the bloody saddle could have caste suspicion onto himself. Oh, and we're talking about an Indian living in a remote canyon! I doubt the economics of the Depression had much effect on his thinking.
JS Ragman does, however, make a good point about blood on the saddle. Did this detail got muddled in transmission? Perhaps Navajo lore says something about a dead man riding in one's saddle? I'm sure this last point can be easily clarified in the title of a bad spaghetti western somewhere.
Catherine| 5.26.09 @ 9:44PM
PKane:
Points well taken.
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