Blue Ravens: Historical Novel by Gerald Vizenor

conversations. Simon Michelet, the contentious federal agent, ordered reservation telephone lines to the government schools in Mahnomen, Beaulieu, and Porterville. The Napa Valley Wine advertisement explained, “Ladies can visit our establishment as unconcernedly as any dry goods store.”
    Early the next morning we visited the three great dry goods stores on nearby Nicollet Avenue. Aloysius was inspired by the fortune and display of clothing in the stores, the great bay windows, and naturally he painted blue ravens in every display window of Dayton’s Dry Goods Company, Donaldson’s Glass Block, and down a few blocks at Powers Mercantile Company. We did not have enough money to buy anything, not even a paper napkin or a handkerchief, but we tried on shirts, coats, hats, and my brother painted me as a grandee in an enormous raincoat. The black sleeves became great blue wings that reached over the counters. The blonde clerk waved her hands and told us to leave, but when she saw the painting by my brother she was much more friendly. Aloysius painted the woman in a fedora and a brim of blue raven feathers over a train of light blue hair.
    Aloysius paused at his reflection in every window.
    The West Hotel was a great cruise liner afloat on a sea of shiny cobblestones, and surrounded by new theater buildings on Hennepin Avenue and Fifth Street. The Masonic Temple, a secret mountain of sandstone with decorative carved emblems, was only a block away. As the streetcars turned the corner in front of the hotel the trolley wheels sparked, a magical ritual at the foyer of the hotel.
    The doorman was courteous, raised his hand and inquired about our business in the hotel. We were young, native, and not properly dressed for the entrance, but we were not skanky. Aloysius told the doorman that our uncle was the publisher of a newspaper, and then announced that we were there to paint blue ravens.
    What is the name of the newspaper?
    The Tomahawk .
    Surely not a newspaper?
    Yes, and with international news.
    How the world changes.
    We only want to see the hotel lobby.
    The West Hotel lobby was luxurious and lighted by an atrium. The blue settees inspired my brother to paint blue ravens in every cushy seat, claws crossed as moneyed gentlemen, and disheveled wing feathers spread wide over the padded backs and arms, and across the marble floor of the huge lobby.
    Rich ravens in shiny blue shoes.
    Mark Twain, the great writer, had stayed at the West Hotel on July 23, 1895, in the same year that we were born on the White Earth Reservation. In a leather-bound book near the registration counter we discovered photographs and news stories about his visit to Saint Paul, Duluth, and Minneapolis.
    The Minneapolis Journal reported that he suffered from a carbuncle on his leg, and had declined the invitations of admirers to visit the Minneapolis Public Library and Minnehaha Falls. “To the casual observer, as he lay there, running his fingers through his long, curly locks, now almost gray, he was anything but a humorist. On the contrary, he appeared to be a gentleman of great gravity, a statesman or a man of vast business interests. The dark blue eyes are as clear as crystal and the keenest glances shoot fromthem whenever he speaks.” Twain entertained an enthusiastic audience for ninety minutes that night at the Metropolitan Opera House.
    Mark Twain left traces of his marvelous irony in the grand lobby of the West Hotel, and surely he would have told memorable stories about native totems and blue ravens from the White Earth Reservation.
    Aloysius painted blue ravens on streetcars, a conductor with blue wings, blue ravens in dance moves on the cobblestones in a rainstorm, and dark blue eyes reflected in the bay windows of the West Hotel.
    Hennepin Avenue was crowded with streetcars, motor cars, and horse-drawn wagons and carriages. The sounds were strange, unnatural, strained machines, and engines so loud we could barely hear the most