Deep River Page 18

  “Some castle,” Lempi said. She turned back to the mirror, untied the ribbon, shook her hair loose, and started to retie the ribbon. “I’m not saying the boys don’t deserve better. They do.”

  “So, what are you saying?”

  “You keep it up and you’ll lose your job.”

  “This country has freedom of speech.”

  “Sure thing. You can say anything you like. And then get fired.”

  In the bunkhouse, strike talk was getting heated. The battle lines were drawn between the more radical Finns and the more conservative Swedes and Norwegians. Although sympathetic to the cause of the workingman, the Swedes and Norwegians hadn’t been radicalized by living under a foreign dictatorship.

  “For one of us, five are waiting at end of rail line to take our jobs,” Iverson, a Swedish bucker, was saying in English.

  “So don’t let them up the rail line,” Jouka retorted. “Picket right outside Knappton. We can turn them away at the docks.”

  “You and what army?” Iverson retorted.

  “They can’t fight us all.”

  “Yeah, but if we get into a fight, who do you think will get arrested?”

  Jouka looked at Matti and Aksel for help.

  “You know what he says is true,” Aksel said quietly in Finnish. “Reder owns the sheriff.”

  “But the sheriff doesn’t own me,” Jouka replied in English, looking around. “Any of us.”

  “Big talk, Jouka,” Aksel said quietly in Finnish. Then in English he said, “I don’t want anything to do with it.” It created an awkward silence.

  Huttula, a devout churchgoer, broke in, in English. “We don’t want reputation for troublemaking. You know”—he scanned all of them—“there is a list of names, really, I tell you. Owners send it other owners. It’s called blacklist.”

  “Money talks,” Jouka answered. “Reder is selling lumber like hell down to San Francisco. We stop putting logs through his mill, he’ll be up here washing our long johns himself.”

  “He’ll put you on a list of troublemakers and you’ll never see another job west of the Rockies,” Iverson said.

  “We only ask straw and bull helper,” Matti said in halting English. “Reder not give. We strike.”

  “Bull cook, you dumb Finn. Yeah, I’ve heard that red bitch sister of yours talking up that idea. Fat chance that.”

  Matti came off the edge of his bunk and threw a wide right cross, connecting with the left side of Iverson’s face. Iverson’s head snapped to the right, and he rolled away, shielding himself with his left arm. Inexperienced, Matti watched him instead of jumping in for the kill. Iverson was up, swinging and cursing. Matti tackled him, knocking the metal stovepipe loose from the stove. Smoke poured into the room. Three Swedes, Iverson’s friends, were on their feet, kicking Matti, trying to get him to release Iverson. That was too much for Aksel. Friends always trumped politics. He grabbed one man by the shirt, spun him around, and hit him square in the face. The man’s head snapped back, but only briefly; he came back at Aksel, screaming with rage, smashing Aksel against one of the bunk beds. The man moved inside, fists pumping into Aksel’s stomach. Doubled over, Aksel was about to be driven into the ground when little Kullerikki attacked the man with an ax handle, flailing his back. He was too short to get a blow into his head. The man turned in a rage and grabbed Kullerikki’s shirt, holding him while pumping three short jabs into his face. Jouka grabbed the man’s right shoulder with his left hand, right elbow coming in with all the torque of his very fit and rapidly twisting body. The man went down instantly, unconscious.

  A sudden, cold bucketful of water hit the fighters, hissing against the stove, giving them all the out they needed to stop. Hacking, the men streamed from the bunkhouse, their eyes in tears.

  “Take it outside,” Huttula said quietly in English.

  The fighters stumbled outside.

  Huttula got another bucket of water and drowned the fire in the stove. He came out, face blackened, eyes watering. He pointed to Iverson and Matti. “You two cleaning up the mess.”

  After helping Iverson restore the chimney and rebuild the fire, Matti came out and joined Aksel, Jouka, and Kullerikki, who were seated on the ground smoking.

  Aksel talked about fishing the Baltic and his dream of owning his own boat. Matti talked about one day owning his own logging company.

  “A Finnish John Reder,” Aksel chuckled.

  “No, a Finnish George Weyerhaeuser,” Matti said.

  Up to this point, Jouka had said little. He was cutting down the calluses on his hands with a straight razor, so he could play his fiddle better at the upcoming Saturday dance.

  Matti said, “You’re kind of quiet.”

  “Not so big plans like you two,” he answered. He moved his fret hand tentatively.

  “You can’t log forever.”

  “Maybe I get a farm.” There was a ragged ridge of hard callus at the edge of where he’d been cutting it and he carefully chewed it down to be level with the rest of his skin.

  “You? A farmer?” Matti asked.

  Jouka seemed embarrassed. “Maybe I want to someday run the steam donkey or maybe”—he hesitated—“be a locomotive engineer. They make good wages and it’s as good as indoor work.”

  Aksel and Matti looked at each other and then back at Jouka.

  “No doubt you’re good at machines,” Matti said. “I watched you help Swanson that time the locomotive died.”

  Jouka nodded, pleased that Matti had noticed.

  “You have to know how to take the locomotive apart and fix it when it breaks down,” Aksel said.

  “That’s not a problem,” Jouka said.

  “So, what is?” Aksel asked.

  Jouka swallowed. He started to say something and stopped. Matti, Aksel, and Kullerikki said nothing. Finally, Jouka said very quietly, “I don’t read so good.”

  There was silence in the face of this fact.

  Finally, Aksel spoke. “When I was in Stockholm, I once saw a manual for a steam engine for a boat.”

  “So?” Jouka asked.

  “The manual was almost entirely diagrams. You don’t need to read.”

  16

  The girls in the henhouse heard about the fight before the loggers came in for dinner. Aino could see that the little whistle punk was sticking to Jouka, Aksel, and her brother. The fight had formed the three of them into a team, with Kullerikki as a sort of ward. She found herself thinking of them as her men.

  On the first Saturday evening in October, Aino and her three men went to the Knappton dance. Jouka, his newly made violin carefully wrapped in deerskin, was humming dance tunes. Occasionally Aksel or Matti would remember a tune from the old country and suggest it. Jouka would grin with pleasure and hum it if it had no words or sing the verses through if it did. Trying to stump Jouka with a song he didn’t know became a game. Upon finally failing one from Aksel, Jouka claimed unfair advantage because Aksel was a Swede. But within ten minutes, Jouka had that one down as well. Aino caught herself feeling the clever banter and songs were a waste of time. She knew it was irrational. But she wanted to talk with Jouka all by herself. She wanted him to see how intelligent and funny she was. She wanted Jouka. Then she remembered wanting Voitto to see her the same way and felt irrationally disloyal.

  The sun had set and they made their way in the dark, never looking directly ahead, so they could pick up the trail with their night vision. They also guided themselves by the lighter band of sky above the trail between the trees. The songs ceased. Even Jouka had to concentrate in the dark. Cougars would be hungry this time of year, the easy pickings—fawns and elk calves—long gone. Aino moved closer to Matti, smelling the cigarette smoke that clung to his clothing, feeling the heat from his broad back. Then she felt Aksel move protectively closer to her. She would never tell them, but the vast, dark forest spooked her. The fear of attack and the comfort of her men surrounding her, however, made her heart hum with life.

  The net shed was alive
with the sound of instruments being tuned, the excited chatter of women, the low murmur of men in small groups, the smell of soap lingering on recently washed clothes, combined with the smell of kerosene lanterns, whose light struggled with the large, open rafter space and the haze of cigarette smoke. Aino watched Matti and Aksel pull tobacco from small pouches and expertly roll it into cigarettes. It meant they were smoking regularly. Her lips tightened just slightly in disapproval. She was the one who swept up the butts and dealt with the ashes in the cups and saucers.

  She sat on a bench against one of the walls formed by vertical, rough-sawn boards and changed into her good shoes. She’d already removed her glasses but could see just well enough across the net rack space to make out Jouka playing a bit of a tune to the accordion player, nodding his head to emphasize the rhythm. With a nod of Jouka’s head, the band set off in a lively polka.

  Men rushed across the dance floor to the girls. A tall stranger with a long, handsome face and strong jawline reached Aino first. He was a good dancer but nothing like Jouka. On the other hand, he was as good-looking. Maybe Jouka wasn’t the only fish in the sea.

  The music stopped. The stranger pulled out a tobacco pouch. “Do you smoke?” he asked in English.

  “I not smoking,” she said, knowing she hadn’t gotten it right. She felt stupid.

  He nodded somewhat deferentially and then put the pouch back in his pocket.

  “Finnish girl?” he asked in Finnish.

  “Yoh. Kokkola area. You?”

  He held up his hand, stopping her assumption that he was Finnish.

  “Do you speak Swedish?” he asked.

  “Lots of Swedes around Kokkola,” she said in Swedish.

  “I’m from Sweden. From Gävle.”

  When she was in Finland, she felt different from the Swedes, even antagonistic toward the wealthier ones. But in America, most of the Swedes were small farmers and laborers, just like the Finns. Everyone seemed more alike over here.

  She glanced over at the bandstand. Jouka was going outside, probably to get a drink. She glanced up at the man. His eyes had an intensity that reminded her of Voitto’s.

  “Do you mind if I smoke outside?” he asked.

  Soon they were leaning on a rail, looking over the gill net boats about ten feet below them, tied up bow and stern to lines over pulleys that allowed the boats to rise and fall with the swells from the Columbia. All around them in the darkness, the pulleys softly squeaked like young birds. When the Swede pulled on his cigarette, it lit his long face with orange light.

  His name had been Joel Hägglund, but because he’d gotten his name on a couple of blacklists he now went by Joseph, or Joe, Hillström. He’d been in America a little more than four years. Soon they were deeply into politics, he gently chiding her for her old-fashioned Marxist views, she staunchly defending them.

  “You’ll never get what you want through socialism. Marxist, revolutionary, Fabian, whatever,” he said. “America dangles the distant prize that anyone can get rich like Rockefeller. All you need to do is work harder and save more. If you don’t get rich, it’s your fault.”

  Aino suppressed a laugh. She liked listening to this man.

  “If you vote socialist,” Hillström went on, “you vote against your chance of getting rich. Even the AF of L,” he mockingly enunciated the letters that stood for the American Federation of Labor, “tells its members to stay clear of politics. You’ll never even get a socialist workers’ party here, much less a revolution.” He chuckled.

  “The revolution already started in Russia and Finland,” she retorted.

  “Yah, sure. They’ve all lived under a rigid class system, doffing their hats as the aristocrat drives by. Here, people all think they’re equal. If you’re poor and landless, it’s because you didn’t have the gumption to move west and homestead.”

  “That’s ending.”

  He looked at her, smiling with those eyes like Voitto’s, so sure of himself. “The false myth of Marxism is never going to beat the false myth of America. Marx and Engels’s prediction that America would be the first to go is wrong.” She felt a surge of excitement. This man was not only good-looking but also smart. Even better, he was politically conscious. He talked about what mattered—with her.

  “So, how do we raise starvation-level wages, change unsafe working conditions, filthy living conditions, take care of people who lose their limbs on the job, families who lose their fathers?” She stopped talking. Hillström was leaning against the railing smiling at her.

  “Direct union action is the only way,” he said, quietly. “The workers have the power, if only they’d organize.”

  “But the unions have done nothing here.”

  “The AF of L is as much an enemy of the working class as the capitalists are,” Hillström said. “They’ll be your union, if you have a traditional craft, but they won’t let you in if you’re just some dumb immigrant who sells muscle and sweat. They also don’t let in niggers and women.”

  “So, what do we do?”

  He threw his cigarette butt into the darkness beneath them and she watched its small orange glow as it fell until it hit the water. “Last June,” he said, “a group of union organizers who see through the AF of L and”—he looked at her—“see through the socialists met in Chicago. Big Bill Haywood, from the Western Federation of Miners, was there. They formed a single union for all workers, covering all industries, the Industrial Workers of the World. I joined last fall. We include craft workers, unskilled workers, immigrants, niggers”—he paused, smiling—“and women.” She felt her own excitement rising with his words. “If there is injustice in any industry, everyone goes on strike. Everywhere. We don’t wait for Marxist bullshit about a workers’ paradise. We don’t wait for the Republicans or the Democrats. They’re both financed by capitalists.” He was looking at her, his eyes burning, burning away any lingering annoyance, any lingering doubt. “We organize! We take direct action. If we don’t get justice, we shut America down.”

  Aino felt her insides were humming.

  They stayed at the dock, talking, Aino plying Hillström with questions about the practical side of organizing. Finally, he affectionately said that he had to get at least a couple of hours’ sleep before he headed up the river to Portland. “There’s an IWW local forming in Astoria. I think you’d add a lot.”

  Aino could only doze that night, trying to sleep on the hotel kitchen floor next to Matti, thinking about what Hillström had said, thinking about him.

  In the morning they ate sandwiches Aino had prepared the day before in the cookshack. She raised the idea of one big union, and Matti rolled his eyes and changed the subject to the size of Reder’s house. Aksel seemed more amenable to talking, but he didn’t care about unions or groups of any kind. He just wanted his own fishing boat, beholden only to the wind and tide.

  She made better progress with Jouka.

  “Yeah, we could use fresh straw,” he agreed. “Wouldn’t hurt the cheap bastard to get that for us. And maybe send someone home early to get the fires going. But word gets out you’re talking that way, bang, you’re gone. Some damned Greek or dumb Italian is always hanging around looking for work and Reder knows it.”

  “No girls are hanging around looking for jobs. We’re in short supply.”

  He looked at her. “Are you thinking that you could organize a strike?”

  She smiled at him. “Yoh.”

  Their eyes met. She thrilled at his admiration. He quickly looked away. She realized she had it all wrong. He wasn’t ignoring her; he was shy.

  Instead of going back to Reder’s Camp, Aino spent her last dollar on a round-trip ticket on the General Washington. All the way across the river, she thought about what Hillström had said. She thought about Hillström.

  In Astoria she walked to the restaurant Hillström said was an IWW meeting place. It was closed on Sunday, but she knocked on the back door. Seven men, rangy, with callused hands, greeted her. She couldn’t help being f
lattered by her reception and excited by the talk of the One Big Union. They weren’t just interested in raising wages, like the AF of L; they wanted to abolish the whole wage system. They wanted to abolish the government, itself another form of capitalist oppression.

  She got practical advice on how to organize a strike and promises of help. She left the restaurant with leaflets and pamphlets, her head spinning with the ideas of Proudhon and Blanqui and with stories about founding leaders Big Bill Haywood and Mother Jones.

  By the time she returned to Reder’s Camp, she felt as though a revolution had taken place in her own mind. That night she lay awake, excited by the thought of leading a strike—and the look in Jouka’s eyes when she told him what was on her mind. Then she thought about the look in Hillström’s eyes when he told her about the IWW—the fire in Hillström’s eyes.

  17

  There was also fire in Ilmari’s eyes. He’d just received the letter from Louhi asking him to come up to Nordland “to talk things over.” He’d been setting aside Sunday nights to write to Rauha every week. Rauha had written back almost as regularly, often with small talk about life in Nordland, less frequently, but enough to keep Ilmari starry-eyed, with words of endearment and questions about his life. There were also practical questions, many of which Ilmari suspected came from Rauha’s mother.

  He arranged for Ullakko, who was rueful, but didn’t seem to hold any ill will, to tend the cattle and the cow.

  Rauha met Ilmari the next afternoon at the door and invited him in to have coffee with her and her mother. She wore a dress that while seeming demure with long sleeves, high collar, and a skirt that nearly touched the floor managed to somehow promise that the body beneath it was hidden glory. It also brought out the blue in her eyes. Rauha knew what she had to trade and, in a society where men vastly outnumbered women, knew what it was worth. She had Ilmari hooked and could handle him. She was under no illusion that life with him would not be hard work. Hard work was a given and had been all her life. And he might even have a light side to him. He would occasionally smile while staring at the floor.