Will I love When the Legends Die?

When I was a little boy, all I wanted to be was an Indian. I have always had an open heart for the underdog, but these dark-skinned people seemed like masters of all woods lore. I wanted those skills for my own.

Now I see the friction between modern Native Americans and modern whites as inevitable, challenging, and wrought with a rotten history of broken promises. When a friendship between a native and a non-native can transcend that history to form a bond strong enough to die for, I am inspired.

When a poet picks up a pen to write a novel, the end result can be most rewarding.

Here the protagonist is a Ute rodeo star who has lost his way in a world to which he does not truly belong. As the underdog (an Indian in a white world), he seeks his personal redemption by finding the strengths that were long ago buried in his own psyche.

This story of one man’s salvation stays with the reader for a lifetime.

When Ute Native American, Thomas Black Bull, is orphaned, he’s forced into a white boarding school aiming to “civilize” him by erasing every trace of his heritage, language, customs and culture. The novel is a graphic picture of what happened historically to so many Native American youths, something recently revealed with previously unknown details—a horrifying scenario. My feelings of sympathy, empathy ,and fear for young Tom grew with each page. I felt hopeless, alienated ,and angry right along with him in his struggle to break free and return to his own beliefs. The novel evoked my fury at the attempt… show more.