Blue Ravens: Historical Novel (10 page)

Odysseus was conscientious about his ancestors, and included them in most of his stories. Captain Charles Young, for instance, a graduate of the Military Academy at West Point, was a direct relative. The trader recounted that night on the porch the service of Captain Young in the Ninth Cavalry Regiment and later the acting Military Superintendent of Sequoia and General Grant National Park. He paused and raised the peace medal as a gesture of respect when he mentioned the name of President Ulysses S. Grant. The world of generals and presidents always seemed more congenial when the trader told personal stories about his relatives. The nurses were pleased, only the doctor turned away.

Odysseus was entrusted with a middle name in honor of a career soldier, Sergeant William Walker of the Third South Carolina Volunteers. The trader recounted that night how the eminent soldier had rightly incited others to resist duty and renounce the military over the lower wages paid to freedmen. The soldiers had been promised equal treatment when they enlisted in the Civil War.

Sergeant Walker was convicted of mutiny at a court-martial and was unjustly executed by a military firing squad on February 29, 1864. Odysseus was born on the very same day, a great legacy of coincidence and a cruel injustice. The United States Congress voted four months later to provide equal pay for black soldiers. There were two great epochs of memory on the day of his birth—the execution of Sergeant William Walker and the executive promotion of General Ulysses S. Grant.

Odysseus raised his peace medal once more and recited the glorious words of the Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, the Abolition of Slavery. The trader declared that the amendment was ratified on December 6, 1865, less than two years after the tragic execution of Sergeant William Walker.

Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.

The nurses and patients shouted out their devotion to abolition and then saluted the trader who was disabled by a shoulder sling and an ice pack. The trader was always a memorable storier, but that night on the porch he was at his very best, a glorious raconteur. The spiritual strength of his entire body seemed to arise in his sonorous voice, as a whisper, chant, and the mighty shouts of justice.

Jefferson declared that he would forever remember the soldier and so named his second-born son in honor of Sergeant Walker. The black soldier was executed only because he protested the injustice of slavery and the inequity of military pay. He should have been honored not executed. So, that night on the porch of the reservation hospital the soldier was honored by name, remembrance, and stories.

Odysseus was born at home, one of seven children, in South Carolina. He was a direct descendant of freedmen, exceptional soldiers, traders, and storiers. Madison, his favorite uncle, served as a Buffalo Soldier in the Tenth Cavalry Regiment, and he fought in the Apache Wars. The Young freedmen, soldiers and traders, were strong, dark, ambitious, and winsome. Jefferson and Odysseus were secure on the trail and honored by natives because of their songs, stories, and their trade integrity.

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Aloysius painted more than seven original scenes that night of blue ravens in the war, blue ravens perched on the porch with the nurses, and one blue raven with huge wings. A trace of red rouge was on the cheek of the soldier. My brother presented the watercolor paintings to the trader that night, and once more the nurses were teary.

Biitewan, the unaware federal agent, arrived at the hospital to inquire about the cause of shouts and laughter heard from a distance. No matter
the weather the agent always wore a white shirt, necktie, vest, and dark suit, and so he was dressed that night for a federal investigation of humor, chant, and native irony. No one, not even the ice woman, would have invited the agent out that night. Chance, humor, and native irony were weakened by the mere presence of the agent. Nonetheless, and with his bony thumb hooked over a watch chain, he was convinced that his political appointment as a federal inspector and reservation agent endowed him with the rights of cultural intrusion and personal inquiry. The man was not evil, or even a dopey federal monster, but his presence was a nuisance, and a deadly distraction. Foamy was an irretrievable trespasser on native reason and stories. Mostly he was the actual sources of the ironic stories, but never as a participant.

The nurses shunned the agent on every occasion because his dreary, niggling manner was a curse in the hospital. Patients lost their spirit to live in the presence of government agents.

The covert mission of the federal agent that night was an inquiry into the misuse of federal funds to heal a trader and others who were not natives of the White Earth Reservation. The doctor, nurses, and patients turned away when the agent intruded on the porch stories. The trader, however, teased the agent with ironic flattery, comments on his shirt, vest, and watch chain. You are a proper federal man, said the trader, to wear a white shirt, necktie, and vest only to interrogate an old wounded trader on a summer night.

Odysseus invited the agent to participate in a song about peas, or peanuts, that had been popular in the south during the Civil War. The trader had encountered the agent on another reservation and knew that he was born and raised near Macon, Georgia, and many of his relatives were veterans of the Confederate States Army.

Biitewan had no personal contact with natives, and he had no appreciation of the history and vicious termination of natives in Georgia. The Indian Removal Act of 1830 and the Trail of Tears were of no concern to the provincial agent. The appointment of federal agents was always political, and any sympathetic experience, comments, or knowledge of the abuses and removal of natives from homelands would likely complicate a nomination for government service on a reservation.

Odysseus teased the agent with ironic stories about the black panthers and the cruel removal of natives in Georgia. Nothing remains in your greyback
rebel birthplace, said the trader, to show the world that elusive natives and black panthers are worth more than a pocket of loam or gold dust. The trader waved and chanted that natives lost their homeland and stories to southern thievery.

Biitewan smiled slightly, a haughty gesture, unaware of the ironic analogy of natives, blacks, and panthers, and turned to the doctor for an accounting of the medical services provided to the trader. Nothing but ice for a swollen ankle, the doctor shouted, and the Beaulieu boys cut that ice last winter on the lake, and the ice is native and free to melt on the ankle of the trader, or on anyone in need of an ice pack. The trader smiled, the doctor cursed, and the nurses snickered when the agent officiously announced that the lake was federal trust land, and the ice was under his jurisdiction.

Odysseus raised one hand, gestured to the greyback agent, and started to chant the words of “Goober Peas.” The nurses and patients returned to the porch to participate in the tease of the federal agent.

Sittin' by the roadside on a summer's day,
Chattin' with my messmates, passing time away,
Lying in the shadow, underneath the trees,

Goodness, how delicious, eating goober peas!

Everyone on the porch, even the doctor, encouraged the agent, who had never taken part in any native ceremonies, family wakes, or reservation activities, to join the trader, nurses, and patients in the first chorus of “Goober Peas.” The Union was blue, the reservation was blue, the trader was blue, the ravens were blue, and the war continued with blue ironic stories.

Peas! Peas! Peas! Peas!
Eating goober peas!
Goodness, how delicious,

Eating goober peas!

The porch humor was memorable that night, and the dreary greyback agent never quite realized at that moment that he had been deliberately distracted with a dippy southern song of the Civil War. The trader was our captain storier that night, a trader of deliverance on the reservation. Yet the ironic participation of the antsy agent was a draw because he soon returned to fidget with his watch chain and continued the hospital inquiry.

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P
EYOTE
O
PERA

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1912
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Odysseus was sentimental at times about the old traders and chantey music. His trail stories and songs about soldiers and war were picturesque, slightly romantic, original by every recount, but never mawkish. Even so the winsome trader was teased for the first time last summer about the many songs he chanted from the American Civil War.

Foamy, the federal agent, mocked the popular war lyrics and reminded the trader that the War Between the States was ancient history. We were astonished by the taunt because no one had ever observed the agent at play. Augustus, our uncle, was convinced the agent had taken to government whiskey.

Glory, Glory Hallelujah.

Odysseus raised his white hat, gestured to the testy agent, and then turned to several students near the government school and sang a few lines from “Alexander's Rag Time Band” by Irving Berlin. The students were silent, but the agent shouted the same lines right back at the trader.

Come on and hear! Alexander's ragtime band!
It's the best band in the land!

So natural that you want to go to war.

Foamy never seemed to grasp the tricky tease of native stories, or the creative run of irony. Honoré, our father, said the agent had no sense of natural reason or presence, and no totemic associations in the world. Foamy was separated by name and disconnected by war and culture. He abided with the wrong sides, against emancipation and natives, and against the Union in the American Civil War. His new teases and greyback taunts were no more trouble than slow water over the smooth stone at the headwaters.

Calypso raised her ears, neighed, and ambled past the vested agent, the mission, post office, the bank, the gray wooden walkways, and straight into
the livery stables at the Hotel Leecy. Bayard the packhorse waited in the shadows to be unloaded. The trader stacked the huge bundles of goods in a locked cage at the back of the stables, and then whispered to his horses. We listened every summer, year after year, but we never heard or understood what the trader told his loyal mares.

Odysseus walked with a limp.

John Leecy had invited the trader to display his curious merchandise in the hotel lobby that Sunday. Naturally, we were there early to assist the trader and to watch natives and others negotiate the unstated prices of exotic goods. Expensive cigars in sealed boxes, decorative feathers, cloth, jewelry, and many other curious wares were stacked on large tables in the hotel lobby.

Odysseus traded secret reserves of peyote and absinthe by discreet names. Night Visions and Morning Star were the names for peyote. The French absinthe was mentioned only as
la fée verte
, or The Green Lady. Only the doctor and our uncle were aware that the trader carried absinthe and peyote. The Green Lady became very expensive that summer because the heady spirit had been banned as a poison by the Department of Agriculture.

Augustus bartered for cigars, absinthe, and mercury.

The bank manager bought snowy egret feathers. The wispy crown feathers and other exotic bird plumage were very expensive, more than the price of gold. The trader presented oriole, common tern, snow bunting, northern flicker, cedar waxwing, and, of course, snowy egret feathers. Rumors spread that the banker, a distant relative, used reservation deposits to buy feathers for a white woman. He fancied one of the government teachers, but she had never been seen in an aigrette or any other fashion feathers. The banker actually bought the feathers for his fancy grandmother.

My mother said women were the enemy of sacred birds, and likewise men had been the enemy of the beaver centuries earlier. The decorative plume trade decimated the showy birds, and our ancestors in the fur trade brought the beaver close to extinction. Natives and most of our relatives once hunted beaver for no other reason than the fashion of expensive felt hats in Europe.

Odysseus insisted that he only sold dead egret feathers that were gathered by the Seminoles in the Florida Everglades. Augustus doubted that
the egret feathers were dead, or shed in a natural way, and then rescued by natives, and he was not convinced that natives would have better protected the snowy egrets or any other totemic birds. He reminded us that our ancestors and fur traders slaughtered sacred totems for the money.

Augustus reported in the
Tomahawk
that the New York State legislature passed the Audubon Plumage Bill. The trade in bird plumage was banned in the state. The plumage laws were ignored on the reservation, and the secret trade continued.

Augustus never revealed his use of quicksilver.

Aloysius painted several blue raven scenes, and the ravens were encircled by traces of white plumes. The snowy egrets were portrayed as faint outlines with enormous blue crown feathers, and the eyes of the egrets were touched with a trace of red.

Catherine Heady, the prudish literature teacher, was there to buy calico and cotton lace. She gestured with a tight smile, but never said a word to students outside of school. The trader measured a length of lace for the teacher, touched his gray hairy cheek with the cloth, and then invited her to do the same. The teacher blushed and turned away.

Foamy bought a square yard of red velvet for a chair cushion, and the testy negotiations lasted for more than an hour. The trader met with other customers, and then returned several times to bargain over the price of velvet. Finally, the price was settled quickly when the doctor arrived to secretly barter for a sack of peyote. The agent was not aware that the trader carried the magical cactus.

Odysseus complained to the doctor that his ankle had not healed, and he was not able to walk without some pain. He was treated at the hospital two years earlier, and we were there to hear his marvelous stories. The trader handed the doctor a small canvas sack of peyote. Luckily we heard the doctor direct the trader to meet that very night at a site near Bad Boy Lake.