When the Legends Die by Hal Borland

mean?” Benny demanded of Thomas.
    “He does not live here any more,” Thomas said, pointing at Luther. “Now there is room here for my brother.”
    “But you can’t do this!” Benny exclaimed.
    “It is done.”
    Benny took him by the arm. “Come with me. There is another room where you are going to live.”
    “First we will talk.”
    “We will go to this other room. Then we will talk.”
    He took Thomas downstairs and along the hall to a room so small there was space for only a cot and a washstand. It had one small window, with bars on the outside, and it had a heavy door with a lock. They went in, and Thomas said, “My brother will not like this place.”
    “We will not talk about the bear today,” Benny said firmly.
    “Then I will not stay here.”
    Benny went out and closed the door and locked it. The boy beat on the door with his fists, then began to chant. It was a sorrow song, a song that Benny had never heard because it was the boy’s own song. Benny did not want to listen but he heard, and although he wanted to go away he stayed there. Without knowing, he began to hum the chant, then to say its words softly, and to sway with its rhythms. It was a song from far back, not only in the boy but in Benny’s own people. Its rhythm was his own heartbeat.
    Then he heard his own humming, his own words, and he forced himself to stop. This, he told himself, was nonsense. It was of the old ways, and the old ways were gone. He hurried away.
    Benny was still troubled after supper. He went to see the agent. The agent was annoyed. He had enough problems to settle during the day. His evenings should be his own. But he listened as Benny told him what had happened.
    Finally the agent said, “Just as I was afraid, this whole thing came about because of that bear cub. We’ll have to get rid of it.”
    “That is not easy,” Benny said. “Nobody can touch the bear except the boy.”
    The agent smiled. “Nobody has to touch it to shoot it.”
    Benny Grayback gasped. “No!” he exclaimed. “You cannot kill the bear!” Then he clapped his hand over his mouth.
    The agent frowned. He had worked with these people, lived with them, tried to understand them, for twenty-five years, and there still were things in them that he could not fathom. Emotions and superstitions that he couldn’t reach, somehow, even in one like Benny Grayback, who was civilized and educated.
    “I know the feeling about bears,” he said, weighing his words. “But when one is a troublemaker you kill it, don’t you?”
    Benny nodded. “When ones makes trouble.”
    “This one is making plenty of trouble, isn’t it?”
    Benny hesitated. “There is trouble, yes.”
    “Because of the bear.”
    “I do not know this,” Benny said, falling into the old speech pattern even though he spoke English.
    “What don’t you know?”
    Benny did not answer the question. “If you kill the bear,” he said, “then you will kill the boy.”
    “What makes you think that, Benny?”
    “My grandmother—” Benny glanced at the agent and broke off. The boy’s sorrow chant had beaten at him again. He shrugged it away, shrugged away his grandmother and all the old people, the old ways. “I know it,” he said. “That is all.”
    The agent sighed. “Very well, Benny. Do the best you can with the boy for another day or two. I’ve got an idea that old Blue Elk can help us solve this. I’ll get in touch with him tomorrow.”

15
    B LUE E LK DID NOT arrive until the third day later. He came in late afternoon and hitched his pony at the rack and went into the agency headquarters and said to Fred, at the desk, “The agent sent for me. I am here.” Fred went and told the agent; who said to send him right in.
    “Where have you been?” the agent asked. “I sent for you three days ago.”
    Blue Elk shrugged. He looked more smug than the agent had seen him in weeks. “I have been busy,” he said.
    “We have to get rid of this bear you brought in with the boy,