Blue Ravens: Historical Novel (28 page)

Margaret reached out and embraced Aloysius. Honoré hobbled down the platform and clutched my shoulders with his huge hands, a memorable moment because my father was seldom affectionate. He had injured his right leg in a logging accident last winter and could no longer work in the woods as a lumberjack. My father continued to hold my right shoulder for support as we talked about the troop ships, enemy submarines, rough seas, military food, and the trains crowded with soldiers.

My father rightly praised Patch for his dedication and good nature, and for playing military taps to honor the soldiers at every station. I decided not to reveal that afternoon my critical thoughts about the rage of patriotism and the deceit of peace.

Honoré asked me about the portrayal of painted faces in my stories as a scout. He wondered who had taught us how to paint our faces as warriors, and seemed rather concerned over my simple explanation that the decorations were invented, and nothing more. We painted our faces only to menace the enemy.

Margaret worried when she read my stories about the enemy machine guns, and the destruction of so many towns. She was ready to care for the children of the war. Aloysius mentioned the hungry children on the streets of Paris.

Honoré was rather talkative at the station, which was unusual, and vexed that we had served in the occupation, the enemy camp of the Germans. He expressed the native sense of the enemy way, and declared that native warriors
should never carry out an occupation of the enemy. Capture, liberate, or terminate, but never occupy.

I moved closer to hear my father, and touched his face as the engine roared out of the station. He stared at me, and then smiled, but did not move away. I tried but could not remember the image of his rugged face that year in France. Honoré was moved and actually embraced me, a heartfelt but awkward motion. He was protective, distant, never severe, and hardly listened to me as a child. No doubt the scenes in my published stories, his worries about the war, the stature of two sons in uniform, and our return without wounds brought tears to his eyes.

John Leecy provided the transportation from the station to an informal reception for the veterans at the hotel. The Ford truck was new and had been converted with seats in the back, similar to the ambulances in the war. The familiar horse-drawn wagon was no longer necessary. He explained that in the past year there were fewer travelers, more motor cars on the reservation, and the hotel no longer had a reason to provide a livery stable.

John was discreet and diplomatic at the reception, and handed out personal and formal printed invitations to Odysseus, Doctor Mendor, Misaabe, Catherine Heady, Shona Goldman, a cultural anthropologist who studied totems and music of the fur trade, Basile Beaulieu, Aloysius Beaulieu, Patch Zhimagaanish, and Lawrence Vizenor, who had returned a few months earlier, to a special Banquet Français at the Hotel Leecy. The banquet was scheduled a week later. Lawrence and Patch had never been invited to the high table. Patch pressed his uniform, and polished his bugle.

The soldiers were feted for two weeks, dinners, celebrations, services, salutes, and then the dreadful memories of the war returned with the solitude of the lakes and forests. The native soldiers who were once the military occupiers had returned to the ironic situation of the occupied on a federal reservation.

Margaret prepared a delightful family dinner for everyone that night at our home near Mission Lake. Father Aloysius saluted each and every soldier at the train station, and later that night he arrived with two bottles of sacramental wine from the namesake Beaulieu Vineyards of Napa Valley, California.

Prohibition of alcohol would soon be the new national law, but alcohol
was already banned on reservations so the only real worry was the federal agent. My mother thought it was shrewd to invite the agent to dinner. Maybe so, the agent always came by without an invitation. Foamy, of course, declined the invitation with regrets, but we knew he would appear in time for dessert. Father Aloysius, in the spirit of the moment, insisted that we toast the peace, honor the dead, and finish the bottles of wine with dinner and before the dessert visitation of the nosey agent.

Margaret and Honoré prepared fresh walleye pike, roasted chicken, wild rice with bacon, corn, carrots, potatoes, and blueberry pie. I was home with friends and family and my wounds of the spirit were easily disguised that night at dinner.

Patch deserved the greatest recognition, and his service as the regimental bugler was rightly celebrated. Everyone was moved by the story that he had played taps at every station on the route of the Soo Line Railroad. I told the story about the power of his magnificent baritone voice, and the incredible moment last Christmas Eve when he sang the French National Anthem,
La Marseillaise
, from a fortress overlooking the Rhine River and Koblenz, Germany.

John Clement Beaulieu, our cousin, learned several love songs when he was in France, and he wanted Patch to sing
La Marseillaise
that night at dinner. We were the descendants of the fur trade, and the anthem of
fraternité
,
égalité
, and
liberté
was necessary on the White Earth Reservation.

Father Aloysius praised the service of the soldiers, and twice repeated that so many were from the White Earth Reservation. He raised his glass to toast the memory of those who returned only in spirit. Michael Vizenor and Angeline Cogger pointed to a picture of their son, and our cousin, Ignatius Vizenor. My mother had thoughtfully placed two framed pictures on the sideboard to honor the memory of Ignatius and Ellanora Beaulieu. Angeline recounted a tender version of the familiar story that Ignatius was coddled at night in a cigar box because he was so tiny as a baby.

Father Aloysius surprised me with an exaggerated and ironic story about the holy baptism of Ignatius at Saint Benedict's Catholic Mission. The priest related that the mission sisters worried that the tiny baby might be doused, so a sacramental finger thimble from the school sewing class was used to measure the holy water.

Margaret naturally collected my seven published stories in the series
French Returns
. She bound the newsprint with a ribbon, and placed the stack of stories on the sideboard next to the photographs. On the wall above the sideboard were two framed paintings, scenes of blue ravens at the train station and at the White Earth Hospital.

Reverend Clement Hudon Beaulieu, our uncle, praised my stories and promised as the new editor of the
Tomahawk
to continue the publication of the newsprint series once or twice a month, but with a new title,
French Returns: The New Fur Trade
. Yes, and my uncle agreed that the theme of my new stories would obviously be on native veterans.

Foamy arrived with the precision of a master dessert spy, and at the same time he tried to detect the trace of alcohol. He nosed the laughter and easy conversations, but we had already consumed the sacramental wine with multiple toasts two hours earlier, and the bottles had been buried out back with fish guts, bones, and chicken feathers.

The
Tomahawk
had reported that the Eighteenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States had been ratified and would become the prohibition of alcohol law on January 17, 1920. Actually we read that the Wartime Prohibition Act banned alcohol to conserve grain during the war, but the war had already ended when the law was passed.

The federal government had banned the use and sale of alcohol on the reservation. Foamy was the enforcer, and he took pleasure in the capture of native drinkers and traders who provided the alcohol. The agent was born nasty, sober, reactionary, authoritarian, and his conceit was hardened with the arrogance of an outsider. The greyback might have been more likable as a drinker. He demonstrated the absolute absence of any sense of humor, irony or compassion for natives.

Foamy anticipated the national ban on alcohol and decided to enforce prohibition with a vengeance, a triple prosecution of the ratified and future law, the federal law to conserve grain, and the common prohibition of alcohol of any kind on reservations. So, our toasts that night were mighty violations of prohibition. The ceremonial use of sacramental wine was exempt from the prohibition laws, and so we designated the dinner reception a sacred ceremonial service.

Foamy asked me about my duties in the war, and moved closer to nose my breath for alcohol. I overstated my experiences, breathed heavily, and embellished my combat stories because the agent was not really interested
in natives, and was so easily distracted that he never appreciated my stories or the irony.

At first my father and uncles were amused by the mockery of my elaborate agent stories, and everyone at the dinner table waited for some response from the federal agent. I invited the agent to speak about his service in the military, but he changed the subject and tried to dominate the dessert conversation with tedious comments about native moonshine and stolen sacramental wine from the reservation missions. Foamy smiled smugly over the blueberry pie and refused to name the vintage of stolen sacramental wine.

Aloysius shunned the agent more that night than at any other time in the past. My brother could not bear to listen to the southern yammer of the agent. Yes, as soldiers we were obliged to respond to military morons in positions of authority, but not at home on the reservation. We were strained but mannered that night only because of the invitation by our generous mother, but we loathed the agent for ordinary political reasons, and because he reminded us of the dopey dangerous officers in the military.

Honoré shouted that the agent was a cadger and bloodsucker with no soul or spirit. My father was angry about the sale of war bonds on the reservation. Poor and patriotic natives sent their sons to war and then the families were shamed to buy bonds to support the war. My father was right that a greater percentage of natives died in the war than other soldiers, and natives were frequently given more dangerous missions.

I had never heard my father speak with such intensity. He had always tried to avoid the agent and the government when he was a lumberjack near Bad Medicine Lake. The logging accident changed his manner and native dodge, and he declared a verbal war on the deceit and treachery of the agent.

John Leecy regretted that he could not reinstate our jobs in the livery stable. He was worried that so many veterans returned from the war and could not find work. The government provided most of the jobs on the reservation, but the agent made the final decision on every person hired, and he would never hire two veterans who were related to the founder of the
Tomahawk
. For that reason we had actually hoped to return to the stable for at least a few months, and yet we understood the obvious decrease in travelers on horseback, and the increase in motor cars. So, we suggested that John Leecy establish the first gas station on the reservation and hire us
to service cars not horses. He was impressed with our proposal, but not for another few years. Meanwhile the only jobs he could offer were as waiters in the dining room. We declined the offer so he invited us to live at no cost in one of his tourist cabins near Bad Boy Lake.

Aloysius needed solitude to resume his painting, and the cabin was remote, a perfect location on the shore of the lake, and very close to Misaabe, the mongrels, and Animosh. We decided to return to a basic native sense of survival, to hunt, fish, and in the autumn gather maple syrup and wild rice. The plan was simple, secluded, and a peaceful transition from the military, and we could save most of our money. We had saved almost our entire pay for one year in military service. The government paid us forty-four dollars a month and we each saved about five hundred dollars.

››› ‹‹‹

Messy Fairbanks, the famous native
chef de cuisine
, chopped, stirred, stewed, seasoned, baked, and prepared with incredible concentration the Banquet Français at the Hotel Leecy. The actual menu for the special dinner was selected from a country cookbook published in Paris. Messy converted the weights and measures and Catherine Heady, the government schoolteacher, translated the recipes into English.

The Banquet Français reminded me of Nathan Crémieux and the marvelous stories about the atelier banquet in the alley at Le Chemin du Montparnasse. John Leecy told me that he had conceived of the banquet when he read my recent stories about the Café du Dôme and the cubist painter Marie Vassilieff in Paris. So, he decided to arrange a memorable banquet at the Hotel Leecy to celebrate our return, to respect the native casualties of the war, to praise our ancestors of the fur trade, and to honor the courage of Corporal Lawrence Vizenor who had received the Distinguished Service Cross.

John Leecy was inspired by ceremonies, and he suggested that the honored veterans wear uniforms to dinner, one last time to celebrate the end of the war. Aloysius decided at the last minute to paint two blue vertical bands on his cheeks. The blue decorations of a warrior were sensational at the banquet, and the curiosity about the face paint cued the stories about our missions as scouts, but the face paint that night was not a menace. I wore my campaign hat, web belt, and carried a canteen of water.

We entered the hotel as usual through the side door to the kitchen. Messy was beating egg whites in preparation of a wispy dessert. She turned, slapped her thighs, burst into laughter, and then wanted to know why my brother had painted his cheeks blue, and pretended he was a warrior. Aloysius smiled, the blue bands curved, and he provided no explanation.

Messy swayed toward my brother, a wild, erotic motion, and reached out with her strong arms for an embrace. Messy wore a smock and apron that disguised her huge belly. My brother tried to dodge the belly but he was caught in the corner. Messy was a heavy breather and determined to press against his blue cheeks and body. She always wanted to press on our bodies.

Messy seldom read the
Tomahawk
, or any newspaper, and she had not read my published stories, so, as a distraction, we recounted the night that we painted our faces as scouts to scare and capture the enemy. She was captivated by our war stories, but not sidetracked from the preparation of the banquet that night. Suddenly she waved her arms and pushed us out of the kitchen.