Free Blue Ravens: Historical Novel by Gerald Vizenor Page B

side, a blue raven bow of honor and courtesy. My brother presented the watercolor to the artist of the Women in the Garden .
    Baske mounted the blue raven on a separate easel. Young man, he said, you perceive the natural motion of ravens, and only by that heart, by that gift of intuition, and distinctive sensibility create the glorious abstracts of impressionistic ravens.
    Aloysius was moved by the curious praise, of course, but he was hesitant to show his instant appreciation and sense of wonder. The blue ravens were in natural flight, and the studio was silent. We heard only our heartbeats and the muted screech of streetcars in the distance. The mighty scenes ofnew totems were gathered on the easels. No one had ever raised the discussion of blue ravens to such a serious level of interpretation or considered the abstract totems with such critical sensitivity.
    Aloysius invited the artist to visit our relatives on the White Earth Reservation. Baske smiled, bowed, and accepted the invitation. He walked with us down the stairs to the entrance of the library. Outside he paused, turned to my brother, handed him a tin of rouge watercolor paint, and suggested that he brush only a tiny and faint hue of rouge in the scenes of the blue ravens. Baske told my brother that a slight touch of rouge, a magical hue would enrich the subtle hues of blues and the ravens.
    Baske was a master teacher.
    My brother painted blue ravens over the train depots on our slow return to the Ogema Station. He practiced the faint touch of rouge, the hue on a wing or in one eye of a blue raven, and a mere trace of rouge in the shadows.

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    P EACE M EDALS
    â€” — — — — — — 1910 — — — — — — —
    Odysseus arrived as usual on horseback that early summer but his familiar songs were faint and unsteady. In the past summers we could hear the sonorous voice of the trader at a great distance. His hearty songs were gestures of amity on the reservation.
    Mine eyes have seen the glory
    Aloysius listened for the trader and created blue ravens as a present, an original totem of native respect. The scenes were finished by the time the trader arrived and raised his cowboy hat, as he had for more than ten years, to the banker, federal agent, newspaper editor, priest and nuns, and then dismounted at one of three hotels, the Leecy, Hiawatha, or the Headquarters. Most of his lively summer songs were familiar and reminiscent of the American Civil War.
    Glory, Glory Hallelujah ,
    His truth is marching on .
    That summer my brother painted a raven perched on a blue-spotted saddle. The raven and the saddle were in magical flight over the train station. Aloysius always created an original painting to celebrate the coming of our great friend the singing trader, and later my brother carved the fantastic image of a blue raven on a wooden pendant.
    Old John Brown’s body lies moldering in the grave,
While weep the sons of bondage whom he ventured all to save;
But tho he lost his life while struggling for the slave,
    His soul is marching on.
    Odysseus traveled and traded with natives in many parts of the country, from Santa Fe, Navajo Mountain, Oklahoma, and Omaha, to Pine Ridge, and, of course, the White Earth Reservation. He raised his whitecowboy hat, smiled, and waved to everyone on the wooden walkway as his two horses walked slowly past the government school, the mission, the post office, the new house of our uncle, Theodore Beaulieu, and past the Chippewa State Bank.
    Odysseus arrived that summer at the livery stable with a dislocated shoulder and a broken ankle. One shoulder was hunched forward, and his right ankle was badly swollen. He winced with pain as he tried to unsaddle the horses. Finally he moved on one foot to rest on a hay bale. One boot was fastened to the saddle horn.
    Aloysius loosened the cinch, and together we heaved the heavy saddle over a wooden