Blue Ravens: Historical Novel (11 page)

John Leecy loaned us a horse that afternoon, but we were too late to follow the trader to the secret location near the lake. Most peyote ceremonies started at sundown, so we waited and listened near the lake. We were too young to use peyote, and we had no obvious need to be healed at the time, but we were curious about visionary stories. There were several cabins in the woods, so we slowly ambled around the lake and listened for any sound
of the ceremony. Finally, several hours later we heard an eagle whistle and the fast sound of drums.

The peyote ceremony was held in a wigwam in the woods a short distance from the lake. The mongrel healers circled the horse when we dismounted in the dark, so we walked to the nearby cabin and tied the horse to a post. Misaabe, the old healer, invited us into his tiny cabin, and at the same time the mongrels pushed through the rickety door. We had been there only once last summer. The cabin was dark, lighted by a tiny kerosene lantern, and the oil was scented with cedar.

Misaabe sat naked on a plank bench near the cook stove. He seldom wore clothes in the summer, and only covered his body in winter, and when he was on duty with the mongrel healers at the hospital. Doctor Mendor paid the old healer for the services of the mongrels at the hospital, and always brought food, sometimes even dog food, and chocolate when he gathered nearby for a peyote ceremony.

No other public health doctor had promoted the mongrel healers on the reservation. The mongrels detected by the scent of urine, bare skin, bad breath, sweat, and by muscle tension various diseases. The mongrels were not shy about pushing their noses into the crotch of a human, and they had learned how to quickly pitch the hem of a dress and sniff the genitals of a woman. The doctor was amused by the disease detection practices of the mongrels, but the nurses tightened their dresses and sidestepped the mongrel healers.

Liver, kidney, pancreas, thyroid, and stomach diseases were detected and treated by the doctor, but most tumors were not treatable by ordinary medicine. Surgery was dangerous and the last resort. The mongrel healers detected and now and then healed the most serious diseases.

Misaabe trained the mongrels to sing, smile, nudge, nuzzle, and heal the patients in the hospital. Some patients resisted the healing energy of the mongrels because they could not accept the natural spirit of animals, and because they could not imagine the presence of a disease.

Misaabe once told a federal surveyor, a man who had marked and divided reservation land into government allotments, that the ice woman caused his tumors. He encouraged the surveyor to locate by imagination the tumor in his body as a chunk of ice and then slowly day by day concentrate on the location and melt the ice away. The man could not imagine a
chunk of ice in his body. He could not create or envision a scene or story to survive.

Misaabe and his mongrels healed serious diseases of more natives than the hospital doctors. Most of the government agents could not create stories, and could not imagine a disease. The ice woman stories were sources of fear and caution. That very sense of fear in stories of the ice woman could be imagined as the power to heal a disease.

Misaabe and the mongrels were natural healers. Sometimes he told natives to concentrate and imagine scenes of the ice woman and then melt the disease away with a song or story. Naturally, natives and others worried when the mongrels sniffed too closely. Any lingering scent could be the detection of disease. Harmony, a spaniel mongrel, had a nose much colder than the stories of the ice woman. The four other mongrels were distinct healers. Shimmer nuzzled and her body glowed when she sang. Nosy was skinny, tender, curious, and could heal anyone with her dark, watery eyes. Ghost Moth was so named because of his faint and misty coat. Mona Lisa was an artful healer by secretive smiles, a poser, and her gentle furry paws were crossed at rest. Misaabe named the young mongrel healer last summer when the
Tomahawk
reported that the
Mona Lisa
by Leonardo da Vinci had been stolen from the Musée du Louvre in Paris.

Aloysius sat near the kerosene lamp and painted great blue ravens in magical flight, and with abstract blue mongrels on the wing. The color blue had the power to heal in native art and stories. Misaabe used the blue ravens my brother painted to encourage natives to imagine a disease healed by blue ravens, blue totems, and by blue mongrels.

The moths bounced on the lantern, roused by the light, and left traces of wings on the globe. Gnats and other insects died on the wick. The mongrels moaned in the dark corners of the cabin. The lofty sound of an eagle whistle and the fast beat of peyote drums wavered in the distance. The peyote songs surged in the night, and we waited by the lantern for the old healer to move with the spirit of the music.

Misaabe murmured on the bench, and then chanted and gestured with his hands. His shadow became a wave of music, a natural motion with the moths, and yet he had never used peyote. The mongrels were observant, heads raised, ears turned to the music, and they watched the shadows of the great healer circle the cabin. Mona Lisa panted and crossed her paws.

Aloysius painted by the lantern.

We were secure with the moths, mongrels, and the old healer that night. The peyote music wavered and enclosed the tiny cabin. The lantern light shimmered and then fluttered with the sound of the drums. We were captivated by the music, and by the shadows of the healer. We had no need to move closer to the wigwam.

Much later we were startled by hearty shouts and the chanted names of totems, crane, raven, beaver, bear, and other birds and animals over the sound of the peyote music. The ceremony in a wigwam that night was not traditional, and not the same as the ancient native peyote practices in the desert. There were singers, peyote songs, the sound of rattles, drums, and eagle whistles, but no formal prayers, no peyote chief, no cedar man, sagebrush, and no sense of a supreme creator.

The peyote ceremony in the wigwam inspired natural visions, more individual than communal or churchy. The ceremony was dangerous, and the singers were brave visionaries. The singers were inspired by the liberation of personal and solitary visions. Later we learned that peyote created strange sensations of independence, a sense of visionary sovereignty, and the magical power of flight. The new burdens of time, masters, manners, cultures, and communal conditions were trivial in the peyote visions of magical flight. The creative stories were natural coveys, heartfelt, true scenes, and with an overwhelming native sense of liberty.

The shouts and chants roused the mongrels. Mona Lisa and Nosy circled the old healer in the cabin and waited for directions. Misaabe gestured with his lips toward the peyote wigwam and the mongrels rushed outside. We followed the mongrels into the night and recognized the voice of the chanter and trader. The mongrels nosed and bumped him back to the cabin.

Calypso neighed at the post.

Odysseus, once inside, handed each mongrel a piece of dried meat. He limped toward the lantern and sat on a rough chopping block. He raised his arms, waved his huge hands near the lantern, and reached for the shadows.

Odysseus suddenly turned to the old healer and sang “The Last Rose of Summer” by the poet Thomas Moore. We were moved by the great voice of the trader, and the mongrels turned their ears and howled with the singer. The voices of the trader and the mongrels resounded in the cabin. Shimmer nuzzled the ankle of the trader. Mona Lisa smiled and moved closer to
the lantern, and she crossed her paws at the feet of the trader. Ghost Moth sat directly at the side of the trader. He raised his head in the shadows and bayed with the music.

The last rose of summer

Left blooming alone.

Odysseus told stories about the creation of the melody and then recounted the story of the great opera singer Luisa Tetrazzini who sang “The Last Rose of Summer” two years earlier on Christmas Eve on the streets of San Francisco, California. He remembered the night was bright and
clear.

The trader recounted the great San Francisco earthquake, on April 18, 1906, as a personal experience. He must have read the news reports in the
Tomahawk
that more than three thousand people died from the earthquake and fire. He created a sense of natural presence in stories, more memorable than newspaper accounts, but he never experienced the earthquake or the actual outside concert by Luisa Tetrazzini.

Odysseus told stories that created an instant sense of presence and position. Time and duration were never necessary in his creative chants, and the stories he created that night were visionary peyote operas. The operas flourished as continuous dreams. He pointed in the direction of the stories he recounted to San Francisco, Montana, New Mexico, Lake Itasca, and White Earth with his eyes, a pucker and tack of his lips, and sometimes he would pause and gesture with his huge shoulders and hands. These gestures of direction created the actual and heartfelt scenes in the world of stories. Natives have always told stories with a sense of presence and direction, the natural scenes of a cultural opera. The trader was native by his stories.

Luisa Tetrazzini was sensuous that Christmas Eve. She wore an enormous hat and a white gown that shimmered in the light. The trader said she waved a stole of ostrich feathers and mounted the outside stage at the intersection of Kearny, Geary, and Market streets in San Francisco.

Odysseus arose from the chopping block seat near the lantern and his huge shadow reached across the entire cabin. The mongrels moved out of the reach of his shadow. His mighty voice teased and fluttered the lantern flame as he sang the final lines of “The Last Rose of Summer.” Nosy and
Harmony moaned and moved closer to the healer in the light of the lantern. Only the mongrels dared to move as he sang.

When true hearts lie withered
And fond ones are flown
Oh! Who would inhabit

This bleak world alone?

The trader chanted and the mongrels bayed the sweet name of Luisa Tetrazzini. She was there that clear night in his song and stories, and we could hear the beautiful voice of the soprano, a pure and natural sound, the true words of withered hearts and mongrels in the white pine that summer, and at the same time in the memory of the trader on Christmas Eve. Tetrazzini was a natural presence that summer at Bad Boy Lake.

››› ‹‹‹

Aloysius convinced the trader that we had met Oscar Wilde at the Nicollet House, the old hotel, in Minneapolis. The playwright and snappy poet had long hair, and beautiful blue eyes. He wore a huge slouchy black hat, and a heavy fur-trimmed coat even in the summer. We told the trader about his lecture at the Academy of Music. The
Tribune
newspaper wrote a very critical review of his lecture on decorative art.

Odysseus leaned back on the block, smiled, touched his peace medal, and beckoned to show he understood our counter tease and story. Wilde died when we were five years old but the trader heard the sense of presence in our stories. Since we could not have actually met the playwright we imagined his presence in a story that summer night in the cabin, in the same way that the trader created the presence of Luisa Tetrazzini.

Misaabe waved one hand over the lantern, and the fidgety mongrels moaned and moved to the other side of the cabin closer to my brother. The trader shouted out his praise of our peyote opera, the visionary presence of Oscar Wilde at Bad Boy Lake.

The truth is rarely pure and never simple, the trader recited as his own words, and then paused to touch Harmony. Modern life would be very tedious if it were either easy, pure, or righteous, and peyote stories a complete impossibility. Many years later we read the original words in “The Importance
of Being Earnest” by Oscar Wilde. The trader had changed “modern literature” to “peyote stories,” neither new, true, pure or simple. Some of his stories were peyote operas, and the scenes were original, never recitations or liturgy.

Odysseus was a trader and told stories to create a sense of presence, and the scenes were never the same. No wonder the stories of the trader were trusted by natives. The confidence of any trader is appreciated in original trail stories.

The Matchless Mine in Cloud City or Leadville, Colorado, was a salvation of teases and stories about fancy manners, vows of aesthetics, and the descent in a rickety ore bucket with unruly silver miners for dinner, drink, and cigars. Oscar Wilde descended into the dangerous earth with men of deadly risk in search of silver, stories, and deliverance.

Wilde had lectured on aesthetics at the Tabor Grand Opera in the Rocky Mountains. He lectured and read passages from an autobiography of Benvenuto Cellini, and explained that the sculptor could not be there because he died three centuries earlier. A wild miner shouted out from the back of the audience, Who shot him?

The poet was courted by the miners to a saloon dance and read a notice over the piano:
PLEASE DO NOT SHOOT THE PIANIST. HE IS DOING HIS BEST
. Wilde commented that the simple notice was the “only rational method of art criticism I have ever come across.” Wilde had supper in the “heart of the mountain,” and the “first course being whiskey, the second whiskey, and the third whiskey.”

Wilde could have easily survived by stories, even the trickery of shamans on the White Earth Reservation. My original stories created the presence of the eccentric playwright on the reservation, and his name became an aesthetic tease. The federal agent and our teachers at the government school, however, tried to conceal the name of the decadent poet who wore black silk stockings and a purple jacket.

The playwright would have survived the lusty monks at the headwaters by stories, and he would have teased the priest and nuns with bestial stories. Every mongrel on the reservation would have been at his side ready to heal the wounds of godly sincerity.

Wilde was a poser of mock revelations, and one evening, after drinking cheap whiskey with the bank manager, the postmaster, and our uncle, he
entered the confessional at Saint Benedict's Mission Church. He closed the black curtain and waited to reveal his most outrageous secrets, aesthetic sex and heart booty, to the priest but he fell asleep on the hard wooden bench.