Free Blue Ravens: Historical Novel by Gerald Vizenor

strain of art in the window was deceptive, and we decided that the display was only selected to entice passengers on the streetcars.
    The cloudy walls were covered with original art, gouache, oil on canvas, and watercolors on paper, mostly natural water scenes, evocative barns and country houses, railroad stations, sailboats, glorious summer sunsets, autumn maples, and winter landscapes. The trees and outlines were precise images, and the colors were intense and clean. The emigrants who moved to the cities must have been heartened by the romantic and picturesque landscapes.
    Three framed distinct watercolors were displayed on sturdy oak easels near the entrance of the gallery. Aloysius moved closer and reached out to touch the magnificent images of misty scenes, and then held back with his hands raised above the easels. The three watercolors, Snowy Winter Road , Summer Afternoon , and Woman in the Garden , seemed to reach out to touch and enchant my brother and me.
    Snowy Winter Road was a watercolor of giant trees on a curved country road. The trees were covered with heavy wet snow, a natural bow to the season. The entire scene was muted but the snowy trees, and the morning light, shimmer in the gallery and in my memory.
    The Summer Afternoon watercolor was a subtle diffusion of light and the waft and scatter of colors on a sleepy afternoon, a misty secret scene of lacy trees in praise of nature and memory. We could hear the sound of birds and insects in the scene, and the slight glint of dragonflies over the lily pond.
    The Japanese Woman in the Garden wore a traditional kimono, and she was crouched near a garden of lilies. We were touched by the subtle motionand magic of the visionary watercolor scenes. The elegant curves were natural, erotic, and magical.
    Aloysius was captivated by the Woman in the Garden .
    Harmonia, the gallery manager, a lanky, intense woman with short blonde hair pointed directly at my brother, but not at me. She wore a dark gray pinstripe suit, bluish necktie, and black-and-white oxford shoes. Naturally, we were distracted by her manly costume and hardly noticed her severe gestures.
    Keep those dirty hands in your pockets, she shouted, and then shooed me toward the door. Aloysius lowered his hands and stared at the manager. She, in turn, folded her arms, raised one long pale blue finger, and stood directly in front of the three easels.
    The Irish setter in the window, how much?
    The setters are not for sale.
    The Woman in the Garden , how much for that watercolor? Aloysius moved behind the easels and read out loud the name of the artist. Yamada Baske, how much for the Japanese Woman in the Garden ?
    Very expensive, what do you want?
    Aloysius told the gallery manager that we wanted to meet the watercolor artist named Yamada Baske. She turned in silence, rocked on her oxfords, and waited for us to leave the gallery.
    Aloysius announced that our uncle owned a newspaper, and he would surely buy the Woman in the Garden . Suddenly her manner changed. She cocked her head to the side, smiled, and pretended to be friendly, unaware, of course, that the newspaper was published on the White Earth Reservation. Yamada Baske was Japanese, she said, and he taught art in Minneapolis.
    Aloysius revealed that he was a watercolor artist. She smiled and again folded her arms with one finger raised as a gesture of doubt. One of our teachers at the government school raised her finger, but the gesture was more about derision than doubt. My brother opened his art book and presented several of his most recent abstract blue ravens, but not the ones he had painted earlier that day at the library.
    Harmonia slowly turned the leaves of his watercolor book, examined each blue raven, and then announced that Yamada Baske, or Fukawa Jin Basuke, was an instructor at the Minneapolis School of Fine Arts. Naturallywe were surprised to learn that the art school and the Society of Fine Arts were located on the same floor of the