Washed out at Piute Pass

I could hear the clank of shovels hitting buried rocks and the men panting from exertion, but they didn’t talk much as they dug dirt from the side of the road to fill the crevices of the washed-out road from Piute Pass into Red Canyon.
Ned Smith, Ted, and I had started from Blanding with our ATVs in tow.
We assumed the road, which was built in the 1950s to access uranium mines, had been bladed since it was one of the routes on the San Juan 2022 ATV Safari.
We hadn’t bargained for the washout from recent rains.
Earlier, we had jostled up to the pass where we paused to appreciate the view.
On the west side, Red Canyon unfolded like diorama of humps and valleys.
On the east, we could see White Canyon, the tiny Highway 95 with toy-sized motorcycles, pickups, and cars, and Jacob’s Chair.
Unfortunately, when we descended into Red Canyon, we found the road rutted and, in places, littered with boulders.
I helped a little by throwing a few rocks into the fissures, but my legs still felt shaky after our bout with Covid, so I let the men do the heavy work.
While they shoveled, I couldn’t help thinking about the bones of two men in a marked grave at Soldier Crossing.
According to Robert S. McPherson and Winston Hurst in an article, “The Fight at Soldier Crossing, 1884: Military Considerations in Canyon Country,” published in the Utah Historical Quarterly, 2002, a band of Southern Utes led by Mancos Jim fought the encroachment of their territory by settlers and cattle companies by killing cattle, often leaving the carcasses without taking the meat, and stealing horses.
This group refused to be “buttoned up” on the tiny Southern Ute Reservation, only 15 miles wide and 72 miles long, a painful contrast to their immense native lands.
Much to the cowboys’ chagrin, the Utes outmaneuvered them time and again, and neither side was opposed to opening fire on the other.
In a conflict that started at Verdure near Blue Mountain, the Utes “appropriated” 150 horses, and Mancos Jim’s band, which included women and children, headed across country toward Navajo Mountain.
The following day, the F Troop, Sixth Calvary, stationed at Fort Lewis in Durango, CO, set out to intercept the Utes, retrieve the booty, and return the band to the reservation.
The troop was bolstered by a number of riled-up cowboys. Before leaving, Captain Perrine loaded sixteen pack mules with enough food, he claimed, for everyone.
The Utes’ procession of approximately 100 people included the women, children, and a few men in charge of herding goats and horses at the front, men armed with Winchesters in the middle, and six or seven armed men at the back, responsible for engaging and delaying the posse if needed.
Although they boasted superior numbers, the posse suffered a serious disadvantage because they didn’t know the territory.
That meant they didn’t know where to find water, and thirst soon became a major threat since the July heat exacerbated the danger of dehydration and heat exhaustion.
They also traveled so far and fast, 200 miles for the soldiers, they didn’t stop long for rest and apparently not at all for food, exhausting their mounts which also suffered from heat, hunger, and thirst.
Mancos Jim’s group, on the other hand, knew the land, the springs, the resources, and even herded goats as a source of food if hunting failed.
The conflict culminated at an ambush atop Piute Pass.
Many in Captain Perrine’s company could smell the danger, but Joe Wormington and James “Rowdy” Higgins ignored the warnings and volunteered to scout the mesa.
As the two headed up the hill, the Utes opened fire, and both sustained soon-to-be fatal wounds.
As the Utes sent a volley of bullets into the posse’s panicked ranks, the soldiers and cowboys fled downhill to the safety of nearby juniper trees.
From that shelter, they surveyed their fallen friends through binoculars. Wormington died at nine and Higgins at noon.
That night, four cowboys tried to retrieve the bodies, only to find the Utes already there despite the steady rain of bullets the troop directed at the pass.
The next morning, the captain wisely commanded a retreat, and they eventually found a life-saving spring near Bears Ears.
Somehow in the fray, however, the mules packing the provisions disappeared.
The Ute trail, according to McPherson and Hurst, is not the same as the uranium road, but ascended at an even steeper angle, testifying to the amazing navigational skill of the victorious Natives who, after the battle, wended their way across seemingly impassible terrain to the safety of Navajo Mountain.
In 1886, two years after the Piute Pass conflict, Cass Hite and Joe Duckett found Wormington’s and Higgin’s bones and buried them at Soldier Crossing.
But forty years and many skirmishes later the roles of victor and vanquished would be reversed.
Even after Ned and my hubby filled and smoothed some of the crevices, moved rocks, and navigated our ATVs around an immovable boulder, we continued to meet obstacles, so, considering the time, the men decided to head back to the top for a late lunch.
At the pass, we climbed a nearby hill for shade. The vast landscape with Bears Ears and Wooden Shoe in the distance showed no evidence of the violence that occurred over 100 years ago.
I couldn’t help but hope for a peace, a harmony, a reconciliation just as vast for all who now call San Juan County home.