“When the sun reaches its zenith today, I leave you, never to come back until Tauquitch is destroyed. He shall die or I will. Pray for me, that I may locate this fiend and have the strength to kill him.”

Chief Algoot climbed the mountain and approached the cave that was Tauquitch’s lair.  The chief called the monster forth to do battle.  Tauquitch accepted the challenge but insisted that the combat take place in the valley below, so that he could also destroy all the Indians who came to watch.

Algoot battles the shape-shifting Tauquitch.

The great battle was fought where the San Jacinto drained into a great lake that is now called Lakeview.  First the combatants threw gigantic boulders at one another.  The mass of granite in the area of San Jacinto and Moreno is the result of that terrible conflict.  Then Algoot and Tauquitch met in the water and fought.  Suddenly Tauquitch changed himself into a giant serpent, striking out with his tail at Algoot.  He struck with such violence that he cut a slice through the mountainside to where Lake Elsinore now lies.  The water poured through the breach from the scene of their struggle and formed the lake.

Without water in which to swim, Tauquitch was suddenly immobilized.  Algoot fell on and vanquished his powerless foe.  Then Algoot and the watching people bound and placed the serpent on a funeral pyre.  Unluckily, green wood was used, and the evil spirit of Tauquitch flew off in a plume of smoke to his cave hidden in the mountains.

Some legends say that a massive rock was rolled in front of the huge cave, either by Tauquitch himself or by one of his pursuers, and that his roarings may still be heard.  Some believe that rock to be Tahquitz Rock, the most prominent landmark in the tiny village of Idyllwild.  It is said that Tauquitch still haunts the area and that until his spirit is destroyed, careless Indians or visitors who risk the mountains surrounding Idyllwild may yet be annihilated.  Even today, people say that strange rumblings may be heard coming from the depths of the mountains.  They believe that these noises are the dread monster Tauquitch, whose spirit lives on, trapped in a cave.

Eugene H. Miller is a free-lance writer living in California.