When the Legends Die

When the Legends Die is a 1963 young adult novel by Hal Borland. Loosely modeled as a bildungsroman, or coming-of-age story, it chronicles the life of Thomas Black Bull, a Ute Indian living in southern Colorado. The novel consists loosely of four sections: Tom’s childhood living in the wild beyond his extended family’s reservation, from which his parents fled; his time as an orphan at a school in the reservation; his wandering phase and employment at a rodeo; and his return to home. The book is well known for subverting traditional narratives about the lives of Native Americans, casting its protagonist as driven by a multitude of conflicting memories, impulses, and identities.

The book begins in Tom’s early childhood. He lives with his mother and father, Bessie and George Black Bull, in the region of Colorado known as Pagosa. His family falls into a crisis with their reservation when George Black Bull murders another resident, Frank No Deer, as revenge for stealing from him. George and Bessie flee with Tom to the wilderness where they lived before he was born. There, they return to what they believe to be their true Ute roots, subsisting semi-nomadically on the land. One winter in Tom’s adolescence, George Black Bull goes out to hunt in a gorge and is crushed by an avalanche. Tom establishes himself as the family’s new patriarch.

One day, Bessie ventures into Pagosa to get rudimentary supplies for their home and finds that her family has no lingering bad blood with the reservation. However, following her instinct, she rejects the reservation, choosing to remain in the wild. She dies less than a year later, leaving Tom to fend for himself. Honoring his spiritual roots, he connects to the wildlife around him, and befriends a young bear, coming to think of him as his brother. He adds an extension to his name, becoming Tom Bear’s Brother.



One day, a fellow Ute Blue Elk finds Tom and asks him to help evangelize the ways of their tradition to the reservation. Tom travels there along with his bear brother. Upon entering the town, however, Blue Elk reveals that he intends to force Tom to go to the reservation school. Because Tom is not of age, he is practically imprisoned there, quickly becoming disillusioned with reservation life. The school staff tethers his bear brother to a fence on the school’s outskirts, where it grows lonely. Blue Elk coerces him to go into the mountains with him and the bear, telling him that they will be set free. However, he merely sets the bear free, taking Tom back to Pagosa. Tom befriends Red Dillon, who runs a rodeo circus, and is recruited to train at his ranch.

Tom goes with Red to many rodeo contests, proving his skill at riding bulls. Though his training gives Tom a sense of purpose, he quickly grows irritated with Red, who micromanages his riding style to optimize his chances of winning bets. Red is also an incorrigible drunk, eventually causing Tom to split off from him. He drives Red home and declines his invitation to go on a road trip around the American West. Red goes off alone, leaving Tom at the ranch.

Not long after he leaves, a man appears at the ranch and relates that Red is extremely sick. Tom finds him at a hotel and tries to provide medical aid. Having saved his strength only to see his friend again, Red dies just after seeing Tom.



Tom goes back to the rodeo and is christened “Killer Tom Black.” One day, he goes back to Red’s house and finds his old chef, Meo, behaving unusually. He competes a few more times before sustaining a crippling blow to his arm. Leaving the hospital early, he goes back to the ranch and finds it empty. A doctor informs him that Meo died just before he arrived. With no close friends remaining, Tom despairs, withdraws from society, and treats his rodeo bulls badly. A further accident in New York leads to a doctor’s recommendation that Tom stop riding. A friendly nurse, Mary, takes care of him, but he treats her poorly. Embittered by his misfortune, Tom goes back to Pagosa via train.

Tom quickly revives his disinterest in Pagosa. He runs into an old acquaintance Jim Woodward, who gives him work as a shepherd for his mountain livestock. While alone in the mountains, Tom meditates on his past and his reason for living. He comes to regret his abuse of the bulls at his various rodeos, connecting it to his mistreatment of people stemming from his lost friends. When a hungry bear kills one of the sheep he is supposed to protect, Tom lets it get away without a fight. He quickly realizes that it was a mistake to protect the bear out of nostalgia for his lost brother and resolves to kill it in secret once Jim is away. He tracks it down but is unable to shoot it. That night, the Ute’s most spiritual deity, the All-Mother, enters his dreams and tells him that he is her son. She gives him protection from the chaos and suffering of nature. When Tom wakes, he goes back to the traditional ways of his people, returning to the wilderness a wiser man.

When the Legends Die depicts its protagonist’s coming of age as neither an acceptance nor a rejection of the two modes of life that inform his upbringing. Rather, he comes into his own by borrowing different elements of each. Borland thus conceives of the modern Native American subject as a hybrid of two narratives, paying homage to its spiritual tradition while understanding its historical contingency.