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

finished that song, and Blue Elk said, after a moment, “You are going with me to sing that song for remembering to those who have forgotten. We will go tomorrow, to our people down at Ignacio. You will tell them these things, and they will tell you what they know.”
    The boy sat silent for a time. Then he said, “You will go and tell them. I will stay here.”
    “I said I would be a grandfather to you. We will go together.”
    “I will stay here.”
    “They should hear these songs.” Blue Elk believed this as he said it. It is good for a people to change but it is not good for them to forget. He said this to himself, believing it, but he did not say this aloud. Then he remembered the agent, who might give him five dollars if he brought the boy to Ignacio. It had been a long journey here to the lodge. It was worth more than the five dollars the preacher had given him. Then he remembered that the preacher had said he felt responsible for the boy because he had baptized him. He told himself he must do this thing. He said, “Tomorrow we will go to Ignacio.”
    The boy put a robe on the floor of the lodge. He made the sign that Blue Elk should have the bed. He said, “Tomorrow I will talk of this. Now I shall sleep.” He lay down on the robe and drew it around him, and the bear cub lay down close beside him.
    Blue Elk went to the bed and lay down and drew the red blanket over him. Sleep was not long in coming. He was weary from the journey and from the long talk with the boy. He had dreams of his grandmother’s lodge. He went back to the old days in his sleep, and he sang those songs the boy had sung.
    The boy wakened him the next morning and they went together down to the pool at the stream. The boy took off his moccasins and his clout and bathed himself in the pool, and when he asked why Blue Elk did not bathe, Blue Elk said, “I am an old man.”
    The boy said, “If you are a grandfather and truly one of the people, you will bathe and sing the song to the sun and the morning.”
    Blue Elk stripped and went into the pool. It was so cold it numbed his legs and took all the breath out of him. Then he bathed in that water and he was warm inside as he had not been warm in a long time. He gasped for breath and every part of him shrank at the icy coldness, but the warmth inside was good to know. He remembered this from the time when he was a boy.
    When they had bathed, they sat on the big rock at the head of the pool and faced the sun rising over the far mountain. The boy sang the song to the sun and the morning, and Blue Elk’s tongue remembered. He, too, sang that song.
    When they had finished, Blue Elk said, “It is good to sing this song.”’ Then, remembering why he had come, he added, “Our people should not forget this song.”
    “It is a good song,” the boy said, and he sang another song, to the mountains when they are cool with morning and wet with dew.
    “That song,” Blue Elk asked; “it is your song?”
    “That is my song. I made that song.”
    “You are a good singer. You make good songs,” Blue Elk said. And he urged, “You should not keep these songs to yourself. Our people should hear them.”
    The boy did not answer. He put on his clout and Blue Elk put on his clothes and they returned to the lodge. They ate, Blue Elk silent, the boy thinking. He put away the food. He put away the robe on which he had slept. He asked, “How long is it to Ignacio?” and Blue Elk said, “Less than three days’ journey. It is not long.”
    Still thinking, considering, the boy put away the robes and folded the blanket on the bed where Blue Elk had slept. Then he went to the door and called the jay. When it came and sat on his shoulder he whispered a question and it pecked his ear. He called the squirrels and they came and one sat in his hand. He held it close to his face and asked the question, and it seemed to answer.
    Blue Elk was looking around the lodge with appraising eyes, at the robes, the blanket,