The desert claimed Everett Ruess, writer, adventurer and artist, the desert's trails were his roads to romance. His paintings captured the black-shadowed desolation of cliff dwellings. His poetry told of wind and cliff ledge, He sang of the wasteland's moods. Everett belonged to the desert. And in the end, it claimed him. He was one of the earth's oddlings—one of the wandering few who deny restraint and scorn inhibition. His life was a quest for the new and fresh. Beauty was a dream. He pursued his dreams into desert solitudes--there with the singging wind to chant his final song. Everett's quest began early—and ended early. As a child he turned from toys to explore color and rhyme. Woodcarving, claymodeling and sketching occupied his formative years in New York and near Chicago. From this early background grew his versatility in the arts—media through which he later interpreted the multihued desert. At 12 Everett found his element—writing. He wrote inquiring essays, haunting verse; he began a literary diary. The diary matured into travelworn adventure-laden tomes. Wind and rain added marks to the penciled pages, scrawled by the light of many campfires. .