Influencing Thomas Black Bull, the Ute boy and the protagonist of When the Legends Die, in the early stages of his life, Tom learns the “old ways” of the Ute Indians in which they lived among the wilderness around them. Living with his mother, Bessie Black Bull, and father, George Black Bull, in a lodge at Bald Mountain, tragic events occur where his father would be killed in an avalanche while hunting for deer and his mother contracted an illness which ultimately killed her during the winter. Utilizing the knowledge he learned from his parents, Tom manages to live in harmony with nature and its creatures for many months by himself. He would soon befriend a female bear and name himself “Bear Brother”. One day he discovers a man panning for
