From the Improvement Era, February 1948 –

Quagunts

By Eleanor M. Hall

We had stayed away too long. Night was falling fast, and a raw wind howled from the southwest, rolling angry clouds before it, and forcing premature darkness upon us. We took a seldom used cut-off near the creek. Our trotting steps became a run as the dusk thickened, and heavy-blown creek sand stung our hands and faces.

Then we heard it — I thought it was a moan, high-pitched and angry. Annie said it was the wind. It sounded human to me.

“It’s a man,” I said. “Caught in the quicksand.”

Annie caught my hand and tugged at me, “It’s ‘Old Quagunts,’ she said; “we can’t help him; he’s mean.”

We ran on home, but for a long time I worried, was “Old Quagunts” in the mire that night? Or was it his lonely old wigwam torn by the wind that gave us, as we hurried by, a childish fright?

At home I asked why “Old Quag” lived alone and moved his wick-i-up so often to many places along the creek bank and among the foothills.

Uncle Will answered, “He’s too mean to live even among the Indians.”

Grandpa explained that he was not really of the Paiute tribe, but a Piede Indian who had been reared by the Paiutes and was not happy among them. His wife and boy were dead, so Quagunts, who was a very old Indian, and sensitive to tribal ways, lived alone.

“Quagunts,” Grandma said softly, “is bothered by wy-nu-pits (devils) and do-nu-pits (witches). He moves his tepee often so they can’t find him.”

“Old Quag” was feared among the children as a mean Indian. He was tall, slender, and ugly. His face was deeply creased with a multitude of wrinkles; his hair was shaggy and unkempt. His clothes, castoffs of the whites, were filthy.

There were various stories about “Old Quag,” the same as there were about the other Indians who hung around Kanab, Utah, and chopped wood or washed clothes for food and silver money. They trailed from house to house at Christmas time calling, “Christmas meat, Christmas pie.”

The old settlers always had Christmas food to give to the Indians.

I remember the time “Old Quag” teased Elma. She was scrubbing the kitchen floor of Grandma’s big hotel, and Quagunts, lounging in the doorway, kept stepping his dirty foot onto her clean floor. She hated the Indians hanging around and failed to see the humor in his trick, so she gathered her mop rag into her hands and splashed it square into the big Indian’s face. The family always laughed at the story of how the infuriated Indian took himself away. We children were glad he was gone.

Grandma was a first Pioneer, and feeding Indians was second nature to her. Those old Paiutes, who were old even when the whites came to Kanab, lounged about her kitchen door when the weight of years hung heavy upon them, and the restrictions of reservation were more than they could bear. We wondered why Grandma put up with them, for she was a fastidious woman. Perhaps it was because of some remembered kindness on the part of one or the other in those first raw days when Indians and whites suffered together because of each other’s outrages and mistakes. Then, too, Grandpa spoke their language and was a kind man.

Now Elma had enraged the big old Indian, and he removed himself from Grandma’s kitchen. He took up his abode in a clump of tamarisk that grew on the creek bank at the bottom of Uncle Leo’s lot. I remember his old wick-i-up down in those bushes. Atkin, Benita, and I had often played there, but now with “Quag’s” tepee there, we kept away.

As Quagunts grew more aged and the taut nerves of his great old body snapped one by one, he coaxed to sleep on the front porch of Uncle Leo’s house because wy-nu-pits were after him. This great, ugly old Indian, the last of the known renegades, was reduced to coaxing the white man to allow him to sleep, huddled in his dirty blankets, on porches where he could press himself close to stone walls. Could it be the protection of the hated whites that he sought? Or had he learned to respect the white man’s God? Anyway, he was allowed to sleep there. Aunt Lue fed him and explained only that he was a kind old Indian. Others called him “black-hearted,” “skulking,” and mean.

Twenty-five years after “Old Quag” died, I found his story written as he had told it himself to an old cattleman of our town, and filed in the state historical files.

“We of the cacti-studded lands of southern Utah and northern Arizona have called it “Our Country” for many years, but so far I have found no deed where the ground was purchased from the poverty-stricken Paiutes. Perhaps we should call it the “Land of our invasion.”

However, it is home to the second and third generation whites who were born there and grew up to love its pink pinnacles, red ledges, its prismatic sands, and turquoise skies, at the same time that we learned to deal with its rattlesnakes, scorpions, ugly tarantulas, and poisonous Gila monsters.

We have experienced the blasting winter winds that swirl in blizzard ferocity and leave hunched cattle on every south hillside, and lock a season’s fruit crop in its buds for another year. We know the sweltering summer heat that can make even a lizard scamper into the shade and lift his sand-burned feet.

Forty miles south and east from Kanab, in the state of Arizona, lies Kaibab Mountain. Pioneers called it “Buckskin” because of its numerous deer. The Indians called it Kaibabits ( mountain lying down ) . “This mountain reaches nine thousand feet elevation, is heavily wooded with yellow pine, quaking aspen, and Douglas fir. On its skirting edges where elevations are lower, scrub oak, pifion pine, and various grasses furnish seeds and nuts which formerly enriched the Paiute’s diet.

The Kaibab reaches forty miles north and south and twenty-five miles east and west.

On the east side the Kaibab drops abruptly to meet the desert valley, NanKo-Weap; the white men know it as “House Rock Valley.” This valley, thought Quagunts’ family, made the best of all homes for the Indian. The friendly and curious antelope ranged its plains. A hunting foray into the snowy Kaibab furnished meat, for the Indian had simply to follow the tracks of his prey into the ever-deepening snow until the animal floundered or became entangled; killing it quickly, the hunter returned with meat to his wick-i-up. In the spring when vegetable diet was the yen of the Indian, he dropped into the deep canyons tributary to the Grand Canyon and found yant to lend luxury to his appetite.

It was Nan-Ko-Weap that the father of Quagunts chose for his family’s abode. The Kaibab walled it on the west; great red sand cliffs (unkakanig) fenced it on the north. These two mountains meet at right angles in the northwest corner of the valley. Toward the east from this junction the red sand hill extends with ever-gaining altitude, then sees what is before it, stops abruptly, and makes a face — for there is the Colorado River gorge, and although the broken country near the river affords man a crossing, called Lee’s Ferry, Unka-kanig knows it will never meet the blue Navajo mountain beyond the river in the distant east.

The northeast corner of Nan-Ko-Weap cuts a wicked gash diagonally through the desert plains to the southwest corner, and here Nan-Ko-Weap, the Kaibab, and the Grand Canyon meet. The Grand Canyon makes the south border of the Kaibab mountain; it is a mile deep and twelve miles wide, a gutted slash through which the earth bares its broken teeth and snarls. The Kaibab spans twenty-five miles west from Nan-Ko-Weap to Kanab Gulch, but one dares not estimate the distance of this section of the world’s greatest canyon that connects these two places, for here, where it borders the south side of the Kaibab, it is a thousand feet deeper and far more diversified and complex than at any other part of its grinding two-hundred and twenty mile length.

At the time of “Quag’s” story the family was settling for winter in the warm southwest corner of Nan-Ko-Weap. Grass seed had been gathered into large woven baskets ready to be parched, then ground into meal. Long strips of venison hung from bushes and trees to dry for winter use. The Kaibabits, (Indians who dwelt about the Kaibab ) , were a happy and contented clan, consisting of Quagunts’ father, mother, a grown brother, a sister, Werrie, about ten, and Quagunts aged six, Quagunts’ uncle, his aunt, and their grown daughter.

Only Timpa-ca-ba, the young squaw cousin to Quagunts, was restless; the object of her discontent — the slender Indian she remembered from the last pow-wow at Moccasin, Arizona. She would like to meet with her tribe there again and see if he had grown stalwart. Perhaps he would notice her if ever they should meet again.

As if her thoughts had willed it, she met that night the slender youth of her dreams, now grown tall and handsome. After the setting sun had left the desert in its amber afterglow, there rode into their camp two Indians from Moccasin. Fresh meat was tied to their horses’ backs. Tribal news was exchanged, and over a festive meal the visitors told of being ang-e-quit (hired) by a band of Navajos who had stolen cattle from Uiano ( St. George country ) . They had to-qui-tow (rendered assistance) in bringing the herd over the Kaibab. The Navajos, when they reached Nan-Ko-Weap, paid the braves an old cow and pushed the herd east to cross at Lee’s Ferry into their own country and safety. The two Indians killed their cow, then proceeded southward to find their old friends and rest a bit. The young Indian looked significantly across the fire into bright brown eyes only partly veiled by smoke.

Morning broke like thunder on this A happy Indian camp. Angered white men, in search of their cattle had come across the place where the braves had killed their beef, then followed the tracks to find the sleeping family. As dawn lighted their unsuspecting targets, the white warriors fired into the Indian camp.

The Indians, surprised, scrambled to find their arms. Quagunts and Werrie hid themselves in the rocks. All day long the children pressed themselves between rough stones. Fear froze their minds while hatred grew in their hearts. The noise was short-lived; the battle, one-sided as it was, was soon done. Still the children crouched in their hiding place; there was safety in the friendly rocks. As hours of silence stretched on, and physical needs clamored for attention, the children crept cautiously back to camp.

The five dead Indians lay in bloody disarray. The three squaws could not be found. Two very small children kept an Indian vigil over their dead that night. In the lonely hours when the harvest moon bore witness, they wailed, and chanted the death chant of the Piede tribe.

When the sun arose on the second day, the children, as best they could, buried their dead. Their father’s great beloved body would not respond to their tugging. They caved a sand bank off to cover him. Quagunts again began to cry; Werrie sent him for his father’s possessions to bury in the sand near him.

Their brother came next. Quagunts wished he could cry now; tears were easier to bear than this empty lonely void within him. And the ever-rising panic, what would happen to them now? They buried their uncle; next the happy visitors who had brought them meat and news from the tribe at Moccasin. The stars began to shine, and the creeping desert darkness wrapped them round. Werrie raised her voice in a wail — the long Indian wail that the tribes chant when accompanying their dead to the happy hunting grounds. With the rising sun came the realization that their mother would never return. The whites had taken the three squaws with them. They were in very deed alone. They could not know how their beloved mother had fought to return to her children. Now when the children realized that their mother was a captive to be used as a slave, they wept.

Werrie had been to Moccasin once in her ten years of life. She thought she could make her way there again. It was too late in the fall to risk going over the Kaibab, by far the shortest route. The snow fell deep, and food would be unavailable even if the children could get through before freezing. They only briefly considered the easiest trail of all, up the canyon between vnka-kanig and the Kaibab, around the mountain, and across the Prismatic Plains to Moccasin, a trip of about sixty miles with abundant growth of grasses and seeds, and a little creek of good water to follow: But the whites had gone that way. The children shuddered, gathered up some meat and a water jug, and began weaving their way toward the Grand Canyon.

The rocks that rim the canyon are limestone, studded with millions of razor sharp edges. Their bare feet were soon bruised and bleeding. Quagunts cried so much that Werrie would carry him until she dropped exhausted, and he would have to walk. Her feet became so cut that their imprint was left in blood at every step. Still she carried her little brother when he wept. Her face grew aged, her shoulders bended, and creases of toil, worry, and hunger etched themselves forever in her face.

The dizzying heights of the canyon walls that ever towered above them leaned over to oppress and smother. The depthless labyrinth below urged them to throw themselves down and end the pain and hopelessness of their venture. The happy hunting ground must be good to have their parents leave them so very much alone. One mis- step, one footing on the wrong rock, and they would both be gone. Such an easy way out was not considered. An urge, a driving urge kept their footing sure. Revenge! Find their own people and mete revenge! The children struggled on.

There is, half way to the bottom of the Grand Canyon, a shale-sand platform called the Tonto Platform. It is not a plateau, but a steep hillside that does hold earth enough to grow some vegetation. When the children reached this platform, they rested three days near a spring where their feet began to heal and grass seeds could be found. Then they took up their journey to the west.

It was a monotonous way they trod. Sometimes two days’ travel would net them no more than a mile. At night they slept huddled together in caves; by day they gathered grass seed; but water was hard to find, and they were often very thirsty.

One day Werrie fell, and Quagunts thought she was dead, because she lay so still for such a long time. Terror deepened the hunger-sharpened creases growing in his baby face. He knew he could never find his way without her; he would wander hungry and die in wretchedness alone. After a long time Werrie moved and made a funny noise. Quagunts leaned over her.
“Water,” she cried, “water.”

It was a long way back to water. Quagunts went back every day for more water. All his daylight hours when he was not after water were spent in gathering seeds for both to eat.

Finally Werrie could take a few steps, and every step was taken toward the west. Gradually she grew strong, and traveling became fast again. Weary, haggard, and worn they came to a place where no rain fell, and no grass grew. Ever weaker and hungrier they struggled on, until at last when it seemed that they would surely die, rain fell upon them in the night, and they could see snow high upon the mountain above. They climbed up to the snow. There they found the tracks of a rabbit. They followed him into the deep snow where they caught and killed him. His warm flesh and blood gave them strength to push on.

With that strength they reached Kanab Gulch where clear water ran and much grass grew. Werrie led the way north, following the gulch. Hope at last swelled within her heart.

Ane night they saw in the distance the light from a campfire. Was it whites or Indians? They crept close to see. It was Indians! Antelope hunters!

They took the children up to Moccasin with them. They had been a moon and a half on the way!

Another bitter disappointment awaited them at Moccasin. Their mother, with the other squaws, had been left at Moccasin by the white killers, but hurt from fighting, weakened from grief and worry she had sickened and died when scouts, returning from Nan-Ko-Weap, had found no trace of her children.

They counted on their fingers. The mother whom they would never see again had died the night it rained on them in the canyon. Had her spirit led them to the rabbit that gave them life? Quagunts vowed again that he would grow to kill white men enough to avenge his family.

The old-timers about Kanab said no one knew how old “Quag” lived to be. He was an old man when the whites settled there, but he had a young squaw and small ipats (boy). The thought never occurred to them that he was a young Indian with an old face.

Until he was left alone, he never lived near the whites at Kanab as the Moccasin Indians did but took his family and ranged about the Kaibab in summer and Nan-Ko-Weap in winter. He was often seen skulking behind bushes and rocks with a gun across his knees. My father caught him ready to shoot one day after the Kaibab forest had been made a National Game Preserve.

He asked, “Quagunts, what are you doing with that gun? I believe you had it drawn on me.”

“Me shoot’um deer,” he answered.

“Government say you no shoot deer.” My father dropped into the Indian vernacular.

“Me shoot old government then,” was Quagunts’ ready answer.

John Covington, herding sheep alone in House Rock Valley Nan-Ko-Weap) tripped and fell one day. He attempted to arise only to find himself staring into the long muzzle of a gun, held by a terrifying ugly Indian whose eyes gave no quarter.

John opened his shirt and said, “Shoot, you squaw, I have no gun.” He gazed unflinchingly into the hostile eyes while the gun was slowly lowered. The Indian disappeared into the thicket as silently as he had come.

However many times Quagunts drew a bead on a white cattleman, he never killed one. They always turned out to be Mulatts or Swappipats or Riggsippats, or some other Kane County man whom he knew and who had administered kindness to him or his family to the extent that their lives were spared.

So “Old Quag,” the ugly, mean Indian, with an aged face, and a straight slender body, crouched his last night away, pressed close to the white man’s stone walls that the wy-nu-pits sent by an unavenged clan would not find him in his lonely wick-i-up, pitched among the tamarisk by the creek.