Read Online When the Legends Die by Hal Borland - Free Book Online

saw the white smoulder of the fire on the floor beneath the smoke hole in the roof and the drying rack above the fire. Long, thin slices of venison hung on the rack, drying and curing in the smoke and slow heat. He saw Bessie’s basket materials, the bundle of willow twigs, the black-stem ferns, the strips thin as a fingernail. There was a coil of strips in a bowl of water, pliant for weaving, and there was a partly finished blanket, its coiled twigs white as though freshly peeled. He saw two ironwood bows, sinew backed, and a quiver of arrows feathered with grouse feathers. He saw a lodge such as only the old people remembered.
    He ate, and then he asked, “Where is your brother?”
    “My brother,” the boy said, “will return when it is time to return.”
    Blue Elk looked at the unfinished basket. “How long is it since your mother went away?”
    The boy did not answer.
    “Your mother was here a few days past.” He nodded toward the fresh coils of the basket.
    “She is gone a long time,” the boy said.
    “It is not right to tell lies to the old men of your people.”
    “I tell the truth.”
    Blue Elk said, “When I was young I knew a lodge such as this. My mother and my grandmother dried fish and cured meat, but when the short white days came we were hungry.”
    “That is the way it is.”
    “That is the way it was. The grandmothers said this thing. Now the grandmothers are gone on the long journey and now it is different. The old days are gone.”
    The boy did not answer.
    “Your father is gone.”
    The boy nodded.
    “When your father had trouble, I settled that trouble for him. Your father was my friend. I knew when I settled that trouble for him that I would be a grandfather to you when you needed a grandfather. I knew I must tell you what to do.”
    “My mother told me what to do.”
    “Your mother is gone. And your father is gone.”
    The boy stared at the white ashes of the fire. He whispered the beginning of the mourning song. He stopped and looked at Blue Elk. “If you are a grandfather,” he said, “you will sing the mourning song.” He sang the mourning song aloud. Blue Elk tried to sing that song, but the words were dim. He sang a few phrases and was silent. The boy stopped and said, “How can you tell me what to do when you do not know the songs?”
    “I sing the song inside.”
    “My mother will not know if you sing the song inside. My father will not know.” He sang the song again, and Blue Elk closed his eyes and sang with him. His memory did not know the words, but his tongue remembered.
    They sang the mourning song, and tears came to Blue Elk’s eyes. It was a song not only for Bessie Black Bull and George Black Bull, but for Blue Elk’s own mother, and his own grandmother, and all the grandmothers. It was a song for the old people and the old days.
    They sang that song, and they sat in silence. Blue Elk opened his eyes, and he saw the boy and forgot the old people. He knew why he had come here. He said to the boy, “When did your mother go away?”
    The boy said, “She went away in the short white days.”
    “In the winter that is past,” Blue Elk said.
    “In the winter before the winter that is past,” the boy said. He made the sign that it was a year and a half ago.
    Blue Elk stared at him, unbelieving. He saw that the boy was telling the truth. He said, “I did not know. I should have come before this. You have been alone too many days.”
    The boy made no answer.
    “I am here,” Blue Elk said. “My ears are listening. It is good to talk of what happened.”
    The boy stared at the ashes, struggling with himself. It was a long time since he had talked to anyone except the bear cub and the jay and the squirrels. He was a boy, with things to tell, not a man who can contain all the things that happen. At last he said, “I will tell of these things.” He began to tell of the winter when his mother died. He was telling of their trip to the low valleys to take fresh meat