and one blue raven with huge wings. A trace of red rouge was on the cheek of the soldier. My brother presented the watercolor paintings to the trader that night, and once more the nurses were teary.
Biitewan, the unaware federal agent, arrived at the hospital to inquire about the cause of shouts and laughter heard from a distance. No matter the weather the agent always wore a white shirt, necktie, vest, and dark suit, and so he was dressed that night for a federal investigation of humor, chant, and native irony. No one, not even the ice woman, would have invited the agent out that night. Chance, humor, and native irony were weakened by the mere presence of the agent. Nonetheless, and with his bony thumb hooked over a watch chain, he was convinced that his political appointment as a federal inspector and reservation agent endowed him with the rights of cultural intrusion and personal inquiry. The man was not evil, or even a dopey federal monster, but his presence was a nuisance, and a deadly distraction. Foamy was an irretrievable trespasser on native reason and stories. Mostly he was the actual sources of the ironic stories, but never as a participant.
The nurses shunned the agent on every occasion because his dreary, niggling manner was a curse in the hospital. Patients lost their spirit to live in the presence of government agents.
The covert mission of the federal agent that night was an inquiry into the misuse of federal funds to heal a trader and others who were not natives of the White Earth Reservation. The doctor, nurses, and patients turned away when the agent intruded on the porch stories. The trader, however, teased the agent with ironic flattery, comments on his shirt, vest, and watch chain. You are a proper federal man, said the trader, to wear a white shirt, necktie, and vest only to interrogate an old wounded trader on a summer night.
Odysseus invited the agent to participate in a song about peas, or peanuts, that had been popular in the south during the Civil War. The trader had encountered the agent on another reservation and knew that he was born and raised near Macon, Georgia, and many of his relatives were veterans of the Confederate States Army.
Biitewan had no personal contact with natives, and he had no appreciation of the history and vicious termination of natives in Georgia. The Indian Removal Act of 1830 and the Trail of Tears were of no concern to the provincial agent. The appointment of federal agents was always political, and any sympathetic experience, comments, or knowledge of the abuses and removal of natives from homelands would likely complicate a nomination for government service on a reservation.
Odysseus teased the agent with ironic stories about the black panthers and the cruel removal of natives in Georgia. Nothing remains in your greyback rebel birthplace, said the trader, to show the world that elusive natives and black panthers are worth more than a pocket of loam or gold dust. The trader waved and chanted that natives lost their homeland and stories to southern thievery.
Biitewan smiled slightly, a haughty gesture, unaware of the ironic analogy of natives, blacks, and panthers, and turned to the doctor for an accounting of the medical services provided to the trader. Nothing but ice for a swollen ankle, the doctor shouted, and the Beaulieu boys cut that ice last winter on the lake, and the ice is native and free to melt on the ankle of the trader, or on anyone in need of an ice pack. The trader smiled, the doctor cursed, and the nurses snickered when the agent officiously announced that the lake was federal trust land, and the ice was under his jurisdiction.
Odysseus raised one hand, gestured to the greyback agent, and started to chant the words of “Goober Peas.” The nurses and patients returned to the porch to participate in the tease of the federal agent.
Sittin’ by the roadside on a summer’s day,Chattin’ with my messmates, passing time away,Lying in the shadow, underneath the trees,
Goodness, how delicious, eating goober peas!
Everyone on the porch, even the doctor, encouraged the agent, who had never taken part in any native ceremonies, family wakes, or reservation activities, to join the trader, nurses, and patients in the first chorus of “Goober Peas.” The Union was blue, the reservation was blue, the trader was blue, the ravens were blue, and the war continued with blue ironic stories.
Peas! Peas! Peas! Peas!Eating goober peas!Goodness, how delicious,
Eating goober peas!
The porch humor was memorable that night, and the dreary greyback agent never quite realized at that moment that he had been deliberately distracted with a dippy southern song of the Civil War. The trader was our captain storier that night, a trader of deliverance on the reservation. Yet the ironic participation of the antsy agent was a draw because he soon returned to fidget with his watch chain and continued the hospital inquiry.
› 6 ‹
PEYOTE OPERA
— — — — — — — 1912 — — — — — — —
Odysseus was sentimental at times about the old traders and chantey music. His trail stories and songs about soldiers and war were picturesque, slightly romantic, original by every recount, but never mawkish. Even so the winsome trader was teased for the first time last summer about the many songs he chanted from the American Civil War.
Foamy, the federal agent, mocked the popular war lyrics and reminded the trader that the War Between the States was ancient history. We were astonished by the taunt because no one had ever observed the agent at play. Augustus, our uncle, was convinced the agent had taken to government whiskey.
Glory, Glory Hallelujah.
Odysseus raised his white hat, gestured to the testy agent, and then turned to several students near the government school and sang a few lines from “Alexander’s Rag Time Band” by Irving Berlin. The students were silent, but the agent shouted the same lines right back at the trader.
Come on and hear! Alexander’s ragtime band!It’s the best band in the land!
So natural that you want to go to war.
Foamy never seemed to grasp the tricky tease of native stories, or the creative run of irony. Honoré, our father, said the agent had no sense of natural reason or presence, and no totemic associations in the world. Foamy was separated by name and disconnected by war and culture. He abided with the wrong sides, against emancipation and natives, and against the Union in the American Civil War. His new teases and greyback taunts were no more trouble than slow water over the smooth stone at the headwaters.
Calypso raised her ears, neighed, and ambled past the vested agent, the mission, post office, the bank, the gray wooden walkways, and straight into the livery stables at the Hotel Leecy. Bayard the packhorse waited in the shadows to be unloaded. The trader stacked the huge bundles of goods in a locked cage at the back of the stables, and then whispered to his horses. We listened every summer, year after year, but we never heard or understood what the trader told his loyal mares.
Odysseus walked with a limp.
John Leecy had invited the trader 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
