#53 – Legend

Rachel

Even though I'm actively involved in an underground resistance fighting brain-snatching slugs, sometimes it's the everyday stuff that blows me away.

It was a Saturday morning, and my mom insisted on dragging Sara, Jordan and I out to a picnic in the park her law firm was putting on. It was a big deal that we all go as a family, because she was trying to make partner and I guess she had to show off the fact that she had a nice family to go along with her lawyerly bloodhound personality. Whatever.

Anyway, I was sitting on a picnic table off to the side of the main gathering, watching Jordan teach Sara to swing upside down by her legs on the monkey bars. It kind of made me smile, because way back when – in my other life, before the Yeerks – I'd been the one to teach Jordan. I was kind of lost in that memory when I felt a timid tap on my shoulder.

I turned around and saw a boy about my age. He was dark-skinned, darker than Marco. His hair was so black it appeared to be some weird shade of blue in the sunlight. His eyes were big and so brown they were almost black. He was looking at me solemnly, and that look was enough to tell me this wasn't some dude coming to hit on me. Still, the way he was looking at me sort of annoyed me. Like he knew something I didn't, or something. "Yeah? You gonna talk?" I said edgily.

He hesitated and looked over his shoulder. I noticed an ancient woman sitting on a blanket, staring at him – us – intently. When the boy turned to look, she held his gaze with her eyes and nodded; a single, curt gesture that was very clearly a command. The kid sighed and said, "Mind if I sit down?"

The fact that someone had made him come over to where I was hiding out actually made me warm up to him a little. I'm no stranger to being forced into stuff – the fact that I was in the park to begin with proved that. "All right," I said, trying to sound kind and managing to sound indifferent.

He sat beside me without even looking at me and sighed again. "I'm Yiko."

I bit my tongue at the last second to avoid asking what kind of weird name that was. "Rachel," I said instead, and he listlessly shook my hand. He wouldn't meet my eyes. His attitude, like he really didn't want to be sitting there, was a mystery, and I felt myself being drawn in. Who doesn't like a good mystery? Especially one that breaks up the monotony of a bunch of lawyers in the park?

"So, what's up?" I asked when he didn't say anything. "That lady make you come over here?" I tossed my head in the direction of the Oldest Woman Alive.

"That's my great grandmother. And yeah, she did." He put his hands between his knees and stared everywhere but at me.

"…sooo?" I prompted. "What does she want with me? She looking to hook you up with a girlfriend or something?" That got the first real reaction out of him – he barked a short laugh. Not a mean laugh, just more like a, "yeah, right" laugh.

"She's traditional Shoshone. If I had a white girlfriend, she'd have a stroke." He glanced up at me sharply, his eyes full of regret. "Not that I have anything against white girls," he said quickly. "I don't. I think you're really, really pretty. Well, I mean, you…you know…"

I laughed easily. "Don't worry, man, I know what you mean. You might get with a white girl, but you sure wouldn't tell great granny about it."

He looked relieved and grateful. "Yeah, that's about the size of it. Sorry."

I shrugged. "Some people – old people especially – can't stop seeing color."

He looked at me curiously. "Great Grandmother was only a kid, but she remembers being taken off of her land and crammed onto a way-too-small reservation. I kind of see why she's the way she is about white people, you know?"

I nodded. "Probably the same reason World War Two vets don't entirely trust Germans or Japanese, even though the war's been over for fifty years." He nodded back and seemed pleased that I got it and that I wasn't offended. "So anyway, what does she want with me?"

His look of discomfort returned full force; matter of fact, he looked downright embarrassed. "Don't laugh, okay? Grandmother is awfully superstitious, and she thinks she…sees something about you. I don't really get it, but she asked me to come over here and tell you one of our stories."

"Okay," I said cautiously. Yiko was still looking really uncomfortable, so I said, "I like stories. And it's gotta be better than the ones my mom and her friends are telling. Just make your Gran happy and tell it to me. I won't laugh."

He looked at me again, and this time there was gratitude mixed in with his discomfort. "Okay. I'll give you the abridged version – no need to drag this out. She wanted me to tell you about the girl who married the bear."

I tried not to let the reaction show on my face, something I was getting good at, but I felt like he'd pinched me. I started thinking about all the ways this could be a set-up, but then the logical part of my mind rejected it. If the Yeerks knew I was the person using the grizzly bear as a battle morph, surely they'd do more about it than send some Native American kid to tell me a story, right?

I guess I did a good job of keeping a straight face, because Yiko cleared his throat. "Long ago, when the Shoshone were just beginning to move south, they had a great chief. The Shoshone have had many great chiefs, but this one was special – he had only daughters. He cared for them like sons, though, and he never took a second or third wife to try to bear a son."

"His youngest daughter was his favorite. She was the most beautiful young woman any of the tribe had ever seen. She was proud of her beauty, but she also had a warrior spirit. This she was also proud of. She did many dangerous and foolish things to prove her bravery, but she was never punished. Her father loved her too much. But he begged her not to give in to her reckless side, for he knew that one day it would be her downfall."

Yiko paused here to study me, like he was trying to see if the story was meaning anything to me. I kept my face a blank mask, but inside I was feeling a weird sort of vertigo. The girl in the story he was telling could have been talking about me instead of some chief's daughter. The only difference was that I wasn't overly proud of my looks.

Yiko continued. "One day, the chief's daughter went out into the forest to dig roots by herself. The women of the tribe always did this as a group, because the forest was full of many dangerous – and sometimes magical – creatures. The daughter kept a knife inside of her dress and was confident she would never be overwhelmed by any simple creature, magical or otherwise."

"As the daughter collected her roots, she felt someone watching her. She turned to face the stranger, drawing her knife, and saw a man. He wore strange tattoos and a bearskin cloak. The daughter found him attractive and mysterious, but she held the knife out and called, 'Who are you, and why do you watch me from hiding?'"

"The man smiled and stepped into the clearing. He said, 'I am not hiding, I was simply caught off guard by your beauty.' That was all he needed to say; the bearskin told the rest of the tale. Here was a man who was brave enough to kill a bear, and he was impressed by her. She was impressed with him, as well. 'Please, come back to my village and be my bride.'"

"The daughter, who had gone into the forest for roots, emerged from the other side with a husband. She was more impressed when she found out he had magic in his blood; it turned out that he hadn't killed the bear whose skin he wore. He was the bear, at least part of the time. When his tribe needed a warrior, he would change into a great bear and charge into battle bravely, and the daughter loved him very much."

"One day, hunters from her original tribe spotted the daughter while she was in the forest with her husband. They called to her and told her that her father missed her greatly, and would declare war when he learned she had been stolen by a man of another tribe. Her husband, who loved her as much as he loved his own people, told her that he could not abide by this. She would return to her tribe, and he would sacrifice himself to take the blame and prevent war."

"He changed into his bear-form and charged the hunters. He shouted at them, 'I am the one who has stolen your woman. Take her back if you can!' The hunters shot him, and he fell dead at their feet. The daughter was enraged and sadden in equal parts, and she vowed to not let her husband's sacrifice be in vain."

"She returned with the hunters, and she was happy to see her father and sisters, but she would not forget her husband, the bear. She had somehow taken his magic, and she learned she could turn into a bear herself. She taught her tribe to love and respect the real bears in the forest, how to live in peace with them. In return, the bears would let the Shoshone borrow their form to protect themselves from other tribes."

"That is why we Shoshone love and respect the bear, and we remember the sacrifice of the first bear-man known to any of us. The magic has been lost, but the respect for our brother, the bear, remains. And we believe, when we need it the most, the magic will return and the bear will once again protect our tribe."

I was spellbound; Yiko had started his story reluctantly and self-consciously, but he had finished it with all the grace of a master storyteller. I blinked away tears that were threatening to form; his story embodied every bit of unrealized gratitude I had toward my grizzly morph. That bear had saved my life more times than I could count. He smiled, then noticed my facial expression. "Hey, whoa," he said. "I guess Grandmother was right – that story did mean something to you, didn't it?"

"Yes," I said simply.

He searched my face. "Can you tell me?"

"No," I said just as simply. I looked over at his Great Grandmother, who had been watching Yiko tell his story passively. Now she made eye contact with me and gave another brisk nod. This one seemed to say, I know about you. Now you know about me. Don't forget the bear's part in all of this, Rachel. To Yiko, I said, "She knows that I heard what I needed to, and that's enough."

Now that his part was done, he said, "Okay. I know better than to doubt her, but it's always weird when she does something spooky like this – like making me tell a dumb legend to a stranger and it actually meaning something to them."

"It's not dumb and it's not spooky," I said sharply. I saw that I'd hurt his feelings.

Lighten up, Rachel, I told myself. It was just a story. I knew it was way more than just a story, but I had to tell myself that in order to return to something resembling normalcy. I physically shook my head to clear it, then smiled at Yiko. "Whether or not it was important, it was a great story. And you did a really good job of telling it."

"Yeah?" he asked, pleased.

"Yeah. Want to go grab a burger and a Coke?"

He started to nod, then shot a glance back at his grandmother. I grinned at him. "I promise you she won't mind. I'm just your average white girl, but she doesn't think so." As if to confirm this, she gave Yiko one more nod and gestured toward the pavilion with the food. She nodded again to reinforce her decision – it was every bit as good as a "because I said so – just do it," from my mom. He smiled at me again.

"All right," he said. He didn't talk while we ate, and I didn't either.

I think he sensed that he'd already said everything he needed to say.

Author's Note: Yiko's story is an adaptation of a story told to me by one of my friends, who is a member of the Biloxi tribe. I have no idea if the Shoshone tell a story anything like this…and this one is pretty far from the one told by the Biloxi. Anyway, just wanted to make it clear that this isn't something anybody should take seriously, from a Native American point of view – I just borrowed a little of their culture and made a story of my own out of it. Thanks to my friend Palehorse for the original story and the inspiration for this fic!