Blue Ravens: Historical Novel by Gerald Vizenor Page A

to display his curious merchandise in the hotel lobby that Sunday. Naturally, we were there early to assist the trader and to watch natives and others negotiate the unstated prices of exotic goods. Expensive cigars in sealed boxes, decorative feathers, cloth, jewelry, and many other curious wares were stacked on large tables in the hotel lobby.
    Odysseus traded secret reserves of peyote and absinthe by discreet names. Night Visions and Morning Star were the names for peyote. The French absinthe was mentioned only as la fée verte , or The Green Lady. Only the doctor and our uncle were aware that the trader carried absinthe and peyote. The Green Lady became very expensive that summer because the heady spirit had been banned as a poison by the Department of Agriculture.
    Augustus bartered for cigars, absinthe, and mercury.
    The bank manager bought snowy egret feathers. The wispy crown feathers and other exotic bird plumage were very expensive, more than the price of gold. The trader presented oriole, common tern, snow bunting, northern flicker, cedar waxwing, and, of course, snowy egret feathers. Rumors spread that the banker, a distant relative, used reservation deposits to buy feathers for a white woman. He fancied one of the government teachers, but she had never been seen in an aigrette or any other fashion feathers. The banker actually bought the feathers for his fancy grandmother.
    My mother said women were the enemy of sacred birds, and likewise men had been the enemy of the beaver centuries earlier. The decorative plume trade decimated the showy birds, and our ancestors in the fur trade brought the beaver close to extinction. Natives and most of our relatives once hunted beaver for no other reason than the fashion of expensive felt hats in Europe.
    Odysseus insisted that he only sold dead egret feathers that were gathered by the Seminoles in the Florida Everglades. Augustus doubted thatthe egret feathers were dead, or shed in a natural way, and then rescued by natives, and he was not convinced that natives would have better protected the snowy egrets or any other totemic birds. He reminded us that our ancestors and fur traders slaughtered sacred totems for the money.
    Augustus reported in the Tomahawk that the New York State legislature passed the Audubon Plumage Bill. The trade in bird plumage was banned in the state. The plumage laws were ignored on the reservation, and the secret trade continued.
    Augustus never revealed his use of quicksilver.
    Aloysius painted several blue raven scenes, and the ravens were encircled by traces of white plumes. The snowy egrets were portrayed as faint outlines with enormous blue crown feathers, and the eyes of the egrets were touched with a trace of red.
    Catherine Heady, the prudish literature teacher, was there to buy calico and cotton lace. She gestured with a tight smile, but never said a word to students outside of school. The trader measured a length of lace for the teacher, touched his gray hairy cheek with the cloth, and then invited her to do the same. The teacher blushed and turned away.
    Foamy bought a square yard of red velvet for a chair cushion, and the testy negotiations lasted for more than an hour. The trader met with other customers, and then returned several times to bargain over the price of velvet. Finally, the price was settled quickly when the doctor arrived to secretly barter for a sack of peyote. The agent was not aware that the trader carried the magical cactus.
    Odysseus complained to the doctor that his ankle had not healed, and he was not able to walk without some pain. He was treated at the hospital two years earlier, and we were there to hear his marvelous stories. The trader handed the doctor a small canvas sack of peyote. Luckily we heard the doctor direct the trader to meet that very night at a site near Bad Boy Lake.
    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