Deep River Read online

  “Want company?” Jouka asked.

  Aino looked toward the henhouse. “Lempi was coming. Have you seen her?”

  “I did. I told her I’d take her place.”

  “You did?” She looked at him quizzically.

  “I did. Can’t log.”

  They set off for the Tapiola General Store, walking on the rail ties to the path that led down to the Knappton-Tapiola trail.

  Their purchases made, they headed back. Jouka was as good at conversation as he was at memorizing poems and songs. He even persuaded Aino to sing some of the old Kalevala songs her father had taught her. Although she sang them haltingly and was somewhat embarrassed, she needed to sing a song only once and Jouka had it in his memory. He would sing it back to her making changes that were subtle or not so subtle but always for the better. After an hour on the trail, walking one on each side of Sally, smelling Sally’s sweet mule smell, singing and joking, they came to the turnoff for Reder’s camp and the uphill climb to the rail line. Jouka led Sally to the small creek that paralleled the trail at that point and let her drink her fill. Aino waited for them, sitting on a mossy nurse log sprouting at least twenty tiny new cedar trees. Watching Jouka pulling on Sally to regain the trail, she felt a rush of affection for him. She had rarely had such a good time, not since—she felt a twinge—Voitto.

  Jouka astounded her by kneeling to her level and asking her to marry him.

  She was shocked by her desire to say yes. She felt herself quivering with the fight between the yes and the no. He was so unlike Voitto, yet there was the same feeling. Jouka’s words were coming to her as if through the wrong end of a speaking trumpet.

  She just sat there, Jouka before her. Finally, she said, “Jouka, it’s … it’s too sudden.”

  Jouka looked up at her, fighting, unsuccessfully, to hide his humiliation.

  “Jouka, please,” she said softly. “Please get up.”

  Jouka stood and looked away from her. “Is it because I can’t read?”

  Aino knew she was standing there with her mouth open. So much about him was suddenly clear. She recovered. “No. Heavens no.” She smiled brightly at him and offered her hands, which he took. “I knew that,” she fibbed. She squeezed his large callused hands.

  She did not want to hurt him, but she did not want to marry him or anyone. She would always be true to her vow to Voitto. That was the truth. So, she said just that, imperfectly and haltingly.

  When she finished, Jouka said nothing.

  “I never have so much fun as when I’m dancing with you,” she said, “listening to your music, or just talking, like today. You’re wonderful.”

  “Not wonderful enough,” Jouka said.

  “I told you. It’s not you,” she said.

  He faced her. “How long will you be married to a ghost?”

  “Forever.”

  Jouka shrugged. “That’ll be tough to outwait.”

  She said nothing for a moment. “Come on. We were having such a good time. Sally wants to get home and we’ve got loggers to feed.”

  Aino walked over to Sally and slapped her on her haunch. Jouka went to Sally’s other side, slapped her gently, and they walked in awkward silence for about twenty minutes.

  “Oh, Jouka, for heaven’s sake, sing a song. Sing that one about Sven Dufva holding off the Russians at the bridge.”

  After a moment’s pause, Jouka’s baritone sounded through the trees.

  Two days later, John Reder appeared. He found Huttula inside the bunkhouse. “Get the other hook tenders.”

  “For what?”

  “Just get them.”

  Soon, the six hook tenders were standing in a circle around Reder.

  “I want you to come with me. I want to show you something before we start talking.”

  “You’re willing to bargain?” one of them asked.

  “I’m willing to talk.”

  They looked at each other, shrugged, and nodded OK. All seven of them boarded the speeder and they pumped their way to Willapa Bay where Reder pointed to several huge rafts of logs, floating quietly on the incoming tide. “Those are all mine,” he said. “And I wish they weren’t.” He turned to them. “And there’s more. Indulge me for a small walk.” He led them up a small hill to the south of Deep River’s mouth where they had a clear view of the south end of Willapa Bay. He pointed out several other large log booms.

  “Boys,” he said, “those logs aren’t moving, because the lumber market is in the shitter. Logging has practically stopped around Arcata and Coos Bay and it’s slow clear down to San Francisco. You don’t need to take my word for it.” He pulled a clipping from the Oregonian showing bellwether lumber prices and news of mill closures. “Prices are still going south and you saw the inventory. I just might be better off not logging. You go back up to camp and tell them what you’ve seen.”

  Huttula called a meeting by the cook fire after a dinner of beans and only beans. The pigs had all been butchered and eaten. He told everyone what he had seen.

  One of the hook tenders said in English, “I don’t worry for me about beans, but my wife, she worries. The baby getting colicky. I not know about nursing baby, but I know about living with a cranky woman.” There were some laughs.

  “So, what?” Aino said in English. “So, life at home not so good? You qvit on your fellow verkers up the river because your baby gets colic?”

  “Give ’em hell, Aino,” a man’s voice cried.

  “She’s not feeding the baby,” came a woman’s voice from the back. That brought laughs from the women.

  “You can’t give up,” Aino cried out. “We put so much into this. We not qvitting now, when we almost there.”

  “Aino,” Huttula said. “You’ve seen the log booms.”

  “Yes. The logs Reder piling up by highballing, logs paid for by Iverson’s legs. Don’t you see? He’s just scaring you. He is scared. I know he having bank loans due.”

  “Yeah,” a voice shouted out. “And Margaret’s due as well.” More chuckles.

  “Won’t you take me serious?” Aino cried. “He is about to breaking.”

  “If the mill verkers go back to verking,” Huttula said, “Reder can pay bills for months with that pile of logs. What have we got?”

  “You got your hearts. You’re on the right side of history.”

  “You can’t eat history, Aino,” he replied in Finnish. “I’m sorry.” He turned to the men. “I think we’re beat,” he said, still in Finnish. “It was a hell of a try, but I think we’re beat. The market is against us. It will be against the IWW, too. I say let’s vote on it.”

  He waited. No one said anything.

  “OK, hands up,” he said in English. “Who vants to go back to verk?”

  Silently, some with shame in their eyes, some with a defiant I-told-you-so look, men raised their arms. There was no need to count.

  Aino fought not to burst into tears.

  There were a couple of snorts of derision. A woman called out, “Maybe you should have cried earlier to soften Reder up.”

  Then someone else called out: “You got us into this, you red troublemaker.”

  Cries of approval and disapproval were all drowned out by Jouka’s scream of anger as he barreled into the last heckler. The loggers hooted their approval of the fight, some rooting for Jouka, others for his opponent. Finally, Huttula and two other hook tenders waded in, grabbing both fighters by their shirts and suspenders and hauling them apart. Jouka was bleeding from his nose and mouth. Aino ran to the henhouse.

  “Hey, we made a good try,” Lempi said, sitting next to Aino on the bed. She patted Aino’s knee. “Everyone was for it. Don’t listen to those lunkheads. They’re just trying to make you a scapegoat.”

  “I feel so ashamed,” Aino said.

  “For losing or almost crying?” Lempi asked. “I saw you.”

  Aino nodded her head. “Both.”

  “Aino Koski, not a man out there thinks less of a woman who tries and cries. But if you d
on’t go out there and tend to Jouka right now, they’ll never forgive you. Nor will I.”

  Aino willed herself out of the henhouse. Loggers still talked in small groups. She spotted Matti. He was whittling a bowl from a burl with his puukko, talking with Aksel and Jouka, Kullerikki sitting next to them, whittling what looked like a doll’s head.

  They all looked up as she approached. Jouka started to stand, but Matti put a hand on his shoulder and kept him seated. Jouka’s face was raw and his nose had been broken. Aino squatted down next to Jouka, touched the bruises on his face, touched his nose. “It’s broken,” she said. “Come with me to the henhouse and I’ll fix it up.” She turned to Matti. “It will need to be straightened.”

  Matti and Aksel looked at each other for a moment, then at Jouka. Matti nodded toward the ground. Jouka lay on his back and Aksel and Kullerikki each took a shoulder and pinioned his head. Matti sat on Jouka’s chest. He looked down at Jouka. “Ready?” Jouka nodded. Matti grabbed Jouka’s nose firmly between his thumb and forefinger, wiggled it slightly, and pushed it back into position. Jouka did not flinch.

  When Matti leaned back away from his face, Jouka relaxed his body and let out a breath. “Will it ruin my profile?” he asked.

  They helped Jouka to his feet and Aino walked him to the henhouse, holding his hand.

  Huttula walked to Reder’s house and told him about the vote. Reder came back to the camp with him.

  On Monday, April 22, the loggers were back at work. Reder told Aino to pack her bags. She was fired.

  When Aino arrived at Ilmahenki, she told Ilmari the strike had failed. He nodded and said, “Maybe now we’ll get some blacksmith work.” Then he said gently, “I can always use help.”

  The IWW strikes failed everywhere. The market kept contracting. Men who were rehired after the strikes were almost immediately thrown out of work all over the Northwest. Reder Logging managed to keep its head above water through a combination of smart engineering, experienced loggers—and low wages. None of the loggers complained. They saw outsider loggers walk up the tracks, disappear into Reder’s office, and then walk back down the tracks.

  Two weeks after the strike failed, Aksel walked into Tapiola for the dance above Higgins’s store, hoping Aino would be there. She was, but so was Jouka. He came down from the bandstand several times, making it obvious how he felt about her. Aksel got in a couple of dances with her, but a lot of other loggers lined up to do the same.

  When the band took a break and Jouka disappeared to take a drink outside, he and Aino were left together by the stair railing.

  His mother always said he should ask girls questions about themselves, but he didn’t know where to begin. “How’s Ilmari?” he plunged in, knowing she was now living with him.

  “Fine. Health is good.”

  Silence, with Aino looking over at the stairs, probably for Jouka.

  “Does Ilmari still see Vasutäti?” Aksel asked.

  Aino looked back at him and sighed. “Yes. He disappears sometimes for the whole night. Leaves me with all the chores.”

  “What does he do there?”

  “He says he just sits there and does nothing.”

  “Nothing?”

  “Nothing. He says that’s the point.” Aino laughed. “I love him dearly, but he’s always been a hard one to understand.”

  “Yes, but you have to like him.”

  Silence, more glancing at the stairs.

  “How’s Sampo Manufacturing coming along?”

  “Still moving the yarder.” Aino laughed. “My two capitalists. Living in dreamland where everyone gets rich.”

  “What’s wrong with wanting to improve themselves?”

  She looked at him warily.

  “I mean,” Aksel said, “I want my own fishing boat. Is that bad?”

  “No. The problem is you’ll be one out of a thousand. It’s dreaming like this that makes labor its own worst enemy.”

  It irritated him. “Why do you make everything look so bad? We’ve never had it so good. Here in America we have no class structure. There’s opportunity.”

  “For a lucky few. If workers got their fair share of the wealth they create, there would be plenty for everyone. That’s the dream of the IWW.”

  “Which is dynamiting its way to power.” Aksel knew he should stop there, but he couldn’t. “That’s what got my brother killed.”

  “We’ve never used dynamite. Those are the lies of a capitalist press.” She paused for just long enough to make sure Aksel would get the next point. “What got your brother killed was that someone betrayed him.”

  They stood there, angry with each other and silent, Aksel wishing he’d never gotten into the argument. The tension broke when Jouka came up the stairs, happily inebriated, and asked Aino to dance.

  24

  Margaret had planned on checking into St. Mary hospital in Astoria the week before her due date, even though she wasn’t Catholic. The universe had a different plan. She went into labor two weeks early, eighteen days after the loggers went back to work. A storm was driving straight off the Pacific, whipping the river into six-foot rollers that formed surf on the sandbars. It was impossible to get a message to Astoria for a doctor. No one was crossing the river.

  John Reder could only swab Margaret’s forehead and pray. He had been doing it for twelve hours.

  The house shuddered with the blasts of wind. The rain fell nearly horizontally, driving against the glass windows, spattering in liquid light from the kerosene lanterns in streaks of pale yellow against the blackness of the night.

  Margaret was breathing hard. “It’s not coming, John. I don’t know how long I can keep this up.” Her face glistened with sweat. Another contraction hit, and she squeezed hard on her husband’s hand, gritting her teeth to try to contain a scream. “Something is wrong. I think the baby is upside down.”

  He looked at her dumbly. “So, what happens if the legs come first?”

  “I don’t know, John!” She was suddenly angry, exasperated. “I don’t know anything!” she wailed, then was hit with another contraction. “Oh, God, John. The baby could die.” She didn’t say it, but he knew. She could die, too.

  John Reder looked at his hands. Years of hard labor with ax, saw, steel cable, and rigging had made them massive. He couldn’t imagine getting one of them in there.

  She touched his hand. “I know, John,” Margaret said. “I know.” She took a breath. “Aino Koski’s mother is a midwife and she was teaching Aino before—” She was hit with a contraction.

  “It won’t come while I’m gone?”

  “It can’t come,” she said through gritted teeth. “That’s the problem.”

  Armed with a mission, John Reder never faltered.

  Aino wakened when she heard the pounding on Ilmari’s door and what sounded like John Reder’s voice shouting her name. She heard the scratching of a match as Ilmari lit a lantern. It could only mean Margaret’s labor wasn’t going well.

  She sent a thought heavenward, not believing in any deity but still behaving as if someone was listening. Then she toughened up. No help was coming. She’d known this since childhood. She was the help. She began putting on her clothes.

  Reder mounted the horse and reached for Aino’s hand, hauling her up behind him. A blast of wind sent a crack through the night as a large limb crashed to the ground. The loggers called them widow-makers. There’d be many on a night like this. She locked her arms around his waist and they moved off into the dark.

  They reached Knappton at four thirty in the morning. It was clear immediately that it was going to be a breech birth.

  She had watched her mother do a breech birth once. She remembered Maíjaliisa looking at her, a hand in the woman’s vagina, saying, “You have to get the baby’s arm across the body, get the shoulder right. I’m trying to find the arm. If I don’t, we’ll have to cut her open.” She pushed that from her mind. That she could not face.

  Aino leaned over Margaret and felt her huge hard
abdomen. She shouted to Reder for a wineglass. He came running up the stairs, a puzzled look on his face but with a wineglass in his hand. Aino put the glass on Margaret’s belly and put her ear against the base. She looked at Reder. “Baby heart beating good.”

  “The baby’s heart beats well,” Margaret said through clenched teeth.

  Try as she might, Aino could not get the baby to shift simply by pushing at it through Margaret’s skin.

  The yellow light from the lamps that had been reflected from the driving rain moving across the windows began to mix with the gray of the Washington dawn.

  Margaret was exhausted. Aino was remembering her sisu.

  “I go inside,” Aino said. “This my first time.”

  “Go inside!” Margaret, in labor now for over twenty hours, was pushing her feet against the bed, raising her hips and writhing. “Goddamnit, go inside!”

  Aino went to the kitchen where Reder had boiled water. She carefully washed her hands with soap. “You keep fire going. Water hot. House not cold.”

  Reder did not ask if Margaret was going to be all right, because he knew Aino would not know.

  Aino put fresh towels underneath Margaret’s buttocks. “You ready?” Aino asked.

  Margaret nodded, her eyes wide with urgency and pain.

  Aino bit her lower lip, looked Margaret right in the eye and began working her hand up the birth canal.

  It had never been boring, helping her mother. Not at all, but she paid attention like a teenager. If only, she repeated to herself, if only. She felt a tiny leg and looked at Margaret, whose eyes were closed.

  “Mr. Reder,” Aino shouted. “More towel.”

  Reder came up with two towels. “Roll one. Put it in wife mouth. She can bite.”

  Without a word, Reder rolled the towel and gently as he could put it between Margaret’s teeth. Aino went in farther. Margaret’s eyes widened with pain and she bit down hard.

  Maíjaliisa’s voice filled Aino’s head. The problem is the umbilical cord comes with the legs and then gets squeezed. The baby dies from lack of oxygen or is an idiot if it lives. Aino felt carefully, slowly, between the baby’s legs and the cervix opening. There. A lump of umbilical cord had come into the opening. She felt it, like a smooth tough tube of rubber, and slowly pushed it back inside the womb. The legs were partly out, the head back inside. When the head comes through, it molds to the opening. Sort of like poop squeezing through an asshole. Aino smiled at the memory. More than once people told her Maíjaliisa had an earthy sense of humor. So, she focused on getting the head squeezed down and then, once through, expanded back to its original shape without hurting the brain.