Blue Ravens: Historical Novel by Gerald Vizenor Read Free Book Online

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 thecity 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