Blue Ravens: Historical Novel (5 page)

The passengers were particular about news stories, and the greater the stories of shame, coincidence, and native victimry the more newspapers we sold at the station. The travelers wanted to read about adventures, crime, war, storms, cultural turndowns, political corruption and rebuffs, and the ironic survival of ordinary people.

These newspaper stories about public experiences were our best tutors. I imagined these scenes later and created my own ironic stories. We were persistent, persuasive, and pretended to be at the very center of the worldly stories that were published that summer in the
Tomahawk
.

The Ogema Station was built near the grain elevator at the very edge of the woodland and the peneplain. The new station faced west, warmed by the winter sun, but in the summer the platform was not shaded. The Soo Line Railroad provided a residence for the agent and his family in the two-story station. The observation site and ticket office were located in the bay window near the main tracks, and a second building to store freight was attached to the side of the station. The railway mail and “wish book” catalogue orders were stored in the freight house. Montgomery Ward shipped the famous Clipper steel windmills to farmers. Many years later several houses, the entire precut materials, planks, windows, doors, siding and shingles, were ordered by mail from Sears, Roebuck and Company catalogue and shipped by train to the Ogema Station.

The station agent was a stout, silent, serious man who sat in the bay window and waited for the next train from Detroit Lakes or from Winnipeg. He encouraged and protected our newspaper business and allowed us to board the trains to hawk copies of the
Tomahawk
to passengers. The sound of his whistle was absolute and we never abused his trust. His wife provided water on hot summer days, and sometimes she would make sandwiches. The station agent, his wife, and our mother were very close friends. They had once lived near Bad Medicine Lake.

The Mogul engine sounded the whistle and came to a slow stop at the
station. The building and platform shuddered from the weight and coal-fired rage of the mighty engine. Steam shrouded the station windows. We waited inside to avoid the heat. Patch, the assistant agent, a smartly dressed native in uniform, greeted every passenger with a salute. He wore gray work gloves and his military coat was properly buttoned, even in the heat and humidity of the summer.

Patch Zhimaaganish, our good friend, was not paid for his service and dedication, but the station agent was sympathetic and allowed him to practice the manner and courtesy of a railroad conductor. Patch was the only boy to survive in his family, and so his given name was a tease of fate. The translation of his surname was “soldier” in the language of the Anishinaabe. His mother tailored a dark brown uniform for him with bright brass buttons and told her son to find a future on the railroad. So, he reported early every day to the station agent and proudly carried out his unpaid railroad duties with dignity.

Patch was taught to play the bugle by his grandfather who served as a bugler in the Civil War. His grandfather was badly wounded, lost a leg, and was given the nickname
zhimaaganish
, or soldier, when he returned from the war. That nickname became a surname when the reservation was created by treaty in 1868.

Patch Zhimaaganish was an ecstatic singer with a rich baritone voice. The government teachers praised the soldier but the students only mocked his manly voice. He sang native dream songs when the trains arrived at the station, and sometimes he sang in the rain and to the sunset. The Soo Line Railroad agents at other stations on the line told passengers to listen for the great voice of the young agent at the Ogema Station. Patch was honored for his voice, dream songs, and for his courtesy.

In the sky
I am walking
A bird
I accompany.
The first to come
I am called
Among the birds
I bring the rain

Crow is my name.

Aloysius painted an abstract portrayal of a soldier in uniform, and with two blue ravens at his side. The ravens with enormous beaks pecked at the bugle and buttons on his coat. Patch never had a father or a brother, so he was grateful for our attention and especially for the picture of the blue ravens. The students at the government school teased him as a stupid student, and more so in uniform, and gave him a new nickname, “Niswi S,” or “Triple S,” for Simple Simon Soldier.

Patch Zhimaaganish was a dedicated volunteer conductor at the station, a singer, bugler, and the soldier of his name. We became close friends that summer because he served the railroad agent and we hawked newspapers to passengers at the Ogema Station. Later we were mustered together and served as soldiers in the First World War in France.

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G
ATEWAY
P
ARK

— — — — — — —
1909
— — — — — — —

The Soo Line train arrived on schedule that afternoon and we boarded as passengers on our first adventure south to the great city of Minneapolis. Augustus bought our tickets as he had promised a year earlier. We were dedicated to the promotion of the newspaper during the year and that pleased him more than our hurried mission as painters. The white paint had already started to blister and crack on the sunny side of the newspaper building.

Augustus emerged from the steam of the engine, a great man on our reservation, and gave me a brown envelope with money for the hotel and other expenses on the journey. Aloysius was given a new book of art paper. He touched the smooth white paper, and then we both hugged our uncle on the steamy platform. We were about to leave the reservation for the first time and without permission of the federal agency regime.

Honoré, our father, had not been home for more than three weeks. He was cutting timber near Bad Medicine Lake. Our uncle told us not to worry, because no agent would dare to confront him or anyone in our family about government permission to leave the reservation. He had shunned the authority of the federal agent and every agent since the federal court had decided in favor of the constitutional right to publish the
Progress
. Augustus would never solicit favors or permission from any agent of the government to leave the reservation.

Margaret, our mother, our uncle, Patch Zhimaaganish, the eager soldier and conductor, and the station agent and his wife were there to wave as the engine slowly pulled away from the station. My heart beat faster with the mighty thrust of the engine. Aloysius convinced our mother that we must present the original totemic paintings of blue ravens to curators at art museums and galleries in Minneapolis.

Patch saluted and then he removed his gray gloves and waved until his hand vanished in the distance. Suddenly we realized that our friend, the good soldier, should have joined us on the train to the city. That would not
happen, however, for another nine years, when we were drafted at the same time to serve with the American Expeditionary Forces in France.

We packed thirty folded copies of the
Tomahawk
to hawk at stations on the way, but the tout and trade was reversed. The sound of the engine and the whistle was the same but every station was an adventure. We left the train for a few minutes at each station rather than board the passenger car to promote the newspaper and the Hotel Leecy on the White Earth Reservation.

I sold only five copies in one direction and twelve copies on our return to the Ogema Station. Aloysius painted blue ravens in scenes at every station, blue ravens with beaks under wing, and with great feathers that shrouded the passengers.

The Soo Line Railroad stopped at stations in Callaway, Detroit Lakes, Vergas, Ottertail, Henning, Parkers Prairie, Alexandria, Glenwood, Eden Valley, Kimball, Annandale, Maple Lake, Buffalo, and other towns without stations. We remembered every town on the railroad line, and we announced the street names and counted every house and building as the train approached the Milwaukee Road Depot in Minneapolis.

Eden Valley and other country towns moved slowly through the windows of the passenger car, one by one, surrounded by farms. The towns were built by migrants and fugitives from other worlds of stone and monarchies.

Chicago, our uncle said, was built twice with white pine trees cut down from our reservation, and we wondered at the time about the timber that built the houses in Minneapolis. We were native migrants in the same new world that had created the timber ruins of the White Earth Reservation.

The slow and steady motion of the train created our private window scenes, woody, churchy, junky, curious domains, and yet the steady rows of the newcomer towns were treacherous. Aloysius painted giant blue ravens perched on white pine stumps, beaks agape, and tiny houses decorated with bright blue leaves afloat in the pale sky. We were eager captives in the motion and excitement of railroad time. We sat first in window seats that faced the motion of the train through the late summer woodland
and towns. Later we moved to the opposite seats and watched the new world pass slowly with the steam and smoke behind the train. We decided then that we would rather be in the motion of adventure, chance, and the future.

The Mississippi River rushed with great energy and memory over Saint Anthony Falls and created a spectacular spirit world of mist and light around the many flour and lumber mills near the Milwaukee Road Depot. The waterfall spirits had started out as a cold trickle at the source of the Great River and months later became a misty light in the city.

The riverfront was overrun with railroad tracks, engines, and boxcars. We had never seen so many railroad tracks and engines in one place. The engine smoke and coal power of the mills poisoned the air and the river. The
gichiziibi
, the great native river at the headwaters in Lake Itasca, became a hazy and murky shame of greedy commerce in the cities.

Blue ravens were hard to imagine in the heat, smoke, and commotion. Only my words could describe our adventures, the roar of machines and deadly scenes on the riverfront, a spectacle no native totem, animal, fish, or bird could easily survive. I wrote about our first experiences on the river, and my report was published a few months later in the
Tomahawk
.

Aloysius was inspired, however, by the majestic curves of the Stone Arch Bridge over the Mississippi River below Saint Anthony Falls. He painted a row of three blue ravens perched on the bridge with enormous wings raised to wave away the poison coal-fire smoke and hush the strange whine, clack, and other machine sounds along the river.

The Milwaukee Road Depot was enormous, a great mysterious cavern of massive railroad engines. The building was granite with a great tower. We were already transformed by the city, only thirty minutes after the train moved slowly through the alphabetical street names, and then into the sooty, smoky rows of warehouses and railroad tracks.

Indians, are you Indians?

The station agent asked about our reservation when we only wanted to check our bundle of newspapers. He was in uniform, pressed his hands on the counter, and examined our clothes. Our mother made new white shirts and dark trousers for our journey. My brother stared back at the man but refused to answer his question. Not a glare, but a stony stare, and the appropriate response to his inquiry. My brother waited for the agent to continue, and then turned away. We were natives on the road, traveling without permission of the federal government, and we had good reasons to worry that the station agent might notify the federal agents.

Augustus was our champion only on the reservation. He had visited the
city many times, and he arranged for us to stay at a hotel managed by one of his close friends, but he could not protect us once we left the reservation.

The station agent leaned closer, over the counter.

No, we are artists on our way to the museum.

What museum?

The Minneapolis Society of Fine Arts, said Aloysius. He had read about a collection of art in the new library. My brother showed the station agent several paintings of blue ravens perched at several stations between Ogema and the Milwaukee Road Depot.

Where is that?

North of Detroit Lakes.

No, the museum?

The Minneapolis Public Library, said Aloysius. The station agent tested our knowledge about the public collection of fine art that was located at the time in the city library.

Artsy books?

No, original art at the library. The station agent was wary, we were not old enough to be artists, and he had no conception of creative art. So, we told stories about the train stations and recent news reports in the
Tomahawk
.

What are these newspapers?

Our family newspaper, said Aloysius. The
Tomahawk
is owned by our uncle, Augustus Hudon Beaulieu, and we are hawking the newspaper to people in small towns, people who have never heard of international news.

No, not on a reservation, said the station agent. He turned away and refused to believe that natives could publish newspapers on reservations. Luckily there was no way to overcome his mistrust, so we told him that the newspaper was an experiment in the distribution of national news stories, an unusual investment by the bishops of the Episcopal Church in the newsy prospect of education, assimilation, and civilization. The choice was strategic, but even so the testy station agent might have been a Roman
Catholic.

Gateway Park near the train depot became the second scene of blue ravens in Minneapolis. That afternoon the sun shimmered in the perfect rows of pruned trees. Aloysius painted several abstract ravens over the pavilion, one enormous blue beak above the arcade and classical colonnades on each side of the entrance. We had never seen so many warehouses, so
many motor cars, electric streetcars, horses, carriages, and so many great stone and brick buildings.

The Minneapolis Police arrived on patrol wagons drawn by horses. Two were parked near the construction site of the new Radisson Hotel. Every major street was obstructed with carriages and motor cars. The Model T Ford was the most common, of course, but there were cars that we had never seen on the reservation, such as the Pierce Arrow, Stanley, Hudson, and the practical Mason Delivery Wagon.