Deep River Page 27
When the boys left, she and Aino cleaned up.
“He’s so hard to read,” Lempi finally burst out.
“Yoh. They practice it since they’re babies.”
“Rrrhhh,” Lempi growled in frustration. “Men.”
Lempi and Aino walked to the show, bringing the lunches. Aksel was already up at least eight stories on a Douglas fir, balancing on a springboard and chopping another niche, when they got there. He looked tiny, so far above her, and Lempi felt vertigo just watching him. Yet he was moving around and rigging the block as if he were on the ground instead of on eight inches of wood eighty feet up.
When Aksel came down, Lempi realized she hadn’t been breathing normally. All loggers had to be brave, skilled, and strong, but she doubted any would do what Aksel just did. At the same time, she knew he was no daredevil—even more impressive. She felt proud that she knew this quiet Swede, the best friend of the brother of her best friend. It just seemed so perfect how it could all work out, if only she could make it so.
Aksel was sorting out his gear when Lempi walked up to him. He looked up at her a little shyly. “That’s some good work,” Lempi said.
Aksel gave her a big grin, terribly pleased, but he quickly started fiddling with his gear. He couldn’t think of anything to say, so he just nodded at her, still grinning, feeling like a bumpkin.
She smiled and picked up his ax. “How come this is called a swamping ax?” she asked, using the English term.
It puzzled Aksel that she cared. “It’s because they call cutting limbs and cleaning logs up swamping. It’s the ax we use to do it.”
“You mean it’s different from the ones you use to chop down the trees?”
It pleased Aksel that this girl seemed genuinely interested in what he did. He picked the ax up and showed it to her. “See the bit, here,” he said, moving his finger along its curve. “It’s wider and rounder than the ones we use for felling. Better for cutting through limbs, but not so good for making headway into a big tree.”
“Oh, I see,” Lempi said. Still holding the ax out to her, Aksel watched Lempi touch the ax’s cheek with her fingertips and move them back and forth on it. Then she quickly pulled back her hand. He didn’t know whether to keep holding the ax out to her or put it down.
“Are you scared up there?” she asked.
How to answer truthfully but without looking bad? “Not so much,” he said.
She smiled at him, nodding. He thought maybe it was time to pick up his gear and started to do it.
“We brought coffee and sandwiches,” Lempi said.
“Oh. Good.”
“We’re setting up over there,” she said, nodding toward where he could see Aino. “See you there.” She smiled, then walked away toward Aino.
Aksel assembled his gear to move to the next place. He stood just a moment, watching Aino ready the lunch. He knew that to her he was just her little brother’s friend. Then he had a brilliant idea of how he could change that.
28
For six months, Ilmari was a man possessed, refusing to even think discouraging thoughts. He turned his blacksmith shop into a miniature mill-parts production factory, where he hammered out anything he couldn’t buy or didn’t think was worth spending the money on. He reshaped the chimney and forge. Through the long days of summer, through the shortening days of fall, just as alchemists of old hoped to turn lead into gold, Ilmari turned iron and steel into machinery.
Often alone, sometimes with family and friends or hired help, he turned machinery into a sawmill. First, connected to Deep River, was a holding pond deep enough to float the largest logs. Next to the pond he built a pole-barn structure with platforms to hold the saws and conveyor belts. The most expensive purchases were the saws themselves: a large circular head rig to take the logs down to dimension lumber sizes and smaller gang saws for cutting them to length. He purchased two used steam tractors and modified them to power the saws and conveyor belts.
After several days of breaking in, breaking down, fixing, and starting over again, he put the first log, floated down from Matti’s Saaranpa show, completely through the mill without a hitch. On a clear, crisp October day at high tide, a small tug brought the first small raft of logs that was purchased from another logger, and Sampo Manufacturing was truly in business.
Day after day, the magic mill began grinding out money. Louhi and Rauha came down to look at it and Louhi nodded her approval. Ilmari and Rauha’s wedding was on.
* * *
Aino was scheduled to speak in Astoria on the Thursday night before the Sunday wedding. It gave her two full days to get to Nordland, but it still worried Ilmari that she might miss his marriage. He sent Matti.
“Why risk it?” Matti asked. He and Aino sat together on the riverbank in front of Ilmahenki.
“I can’t back out,” she said. “It’s been scheduled for weeks. I’ll make it.” Then she added, almost muttering, “Besides, it’s just another church ceremony.” She wished she’d kept that to herself. She turned her head to look across Deep River.
Matti watched her. Then he said, “Ilmari believes it’s a sacrament. Not an empty ceremony.”
“Ilmari is delusional.”
“If he believes it is a sign of God’s grace then it is a sacrament. It’s not at all delusional.”
“Humph.” She hated the way Matti always made such sense of things—especially at her expense.
“You’re giving a speech. One of many.” He left it to her to work out the implication that there would be only one wedding for Ilmari.
She did. She said, “I’m going to Astoria. Don’t worry. I’ll be there.”
On Thursday night, a storm blew in from the Pacific, shutting down river traffic. The storm was still blowing strong on Friday morning, the twenty-second. Aino had gone down to the docks in the dark. There she waited in the rain for the instant the General Washington would sail. She tried to tell herself it was just a ceremony. It didn’t work. She felt terrible.
Her brothers waited in the rain on the banks of Deep River. Aino still hadn’t shown up by noon. Saying nothing, Ilmari untied his boat and he and Matti climbed in. Ilmari propelled the boat with a single oar from the stern into the strong ebb. Sunday would be the new moon and the tides were both higher and lower than usual.
The Koskis, less one, arrived on Saturday afternoon. Louhi had made barrels of her own beer. Matti was delighted and Ilmari uncomfortable. She’d also bought a beautiful fat steer for the wedding meal, and it stood tethered in her backyard, contentedly chewing on the grass. Louhi had bought it to save money, but neither Rauha nor Louhi wanted to kill it. Rauha pointed out that it was Louhi’s idea and handed her the ax. Louhi swung the ax down as hard as she could, but she was not strong enough or fast enough for a killing blow. Blood ran from the wound as the steer backed away bellowing, jerking at the rope that tethered it to a stake in the ground. Louhi swung again and the ax glanced off the bony forehead. The bellowing steer was trying to shake loose of the stake, while Louhi circled it, trying to dodge its flailing hooves.
Rauha coolly reached her hand out for the ax and Louhi relinquished it, her chest heaving. Rauha brought the ax down hard on the steer’s neck just above the shoulders, severing the spinal cord. She swung the ax again, just to make sure. She looked down at the skirt of her dress. It was splattered with blood. “Goddamnit,” she said.
They gave a derelict who frequented Tannika House two dollars to skin and butcher the animal and take the relevant parts to the butcher. The man’s eyes lit up as she put the money in his hand. He loaded a wheelbarrow with as much meat as it would carry and set off down the street with the bloody hide draped over the top.
“How do you know he won’t steal the meat?” Rauha asked.
“He’s a regular at the Tannika House bar,” Louhi answered. “Stealing the meat would only slow him down.” She started back into the house. “And I’ll get my two dollars back.”
The day of the wedding was rainy and dreary. The
Koski brothers had packed Sunday shoes in their valises, made of canvas stitched onto wood slats. They’d found a room at the same boardinghouse Ilmari used earlier, only this time they luxuriated in a room with two cots.
They carefully donned their best wool trousers, white shirts, and suit coats. Matti, having recently arrived, still fit into his suit coat best—the sleeves at least covered his wrists—but his chest and back muscles had developed and the coat strained to close. For the occasion, Ilmari splurged on a tin of Macassar oil and the two left the boardinghouse smelling like gardenias, their thick, dark hair gleaming.
* * *
Seeing Rauha, radiant beneath her myrtle crown, her blue eyes framed with her blond hair nearly doubled in size by the leaves and rose hips woven in it, Matti certainly understood why this woman made his beloved big brother happy, but he saw no warmth and certainly no sweetness. He couldn’t define warmth and sweetness, but he knew that’s what he wanted in a woman—and this woman had neither. He looked at Ilmari with hope, just as did the bride.
After the ceremony, the chairs and other furniture were hauled away to clear the space for dancing. Louhi had hired a fiddler and an accordionist and they struck up a traditional wedding song, the men and women alternating verses. Ilmari went to one knee before Rauha, who was sitting in the only chair like the queen for the day that she was, and asked her to dance. With everyone singing and clapping, Rauha and Ilmari danced with solemn dignity.
Aino finally made it back to Deep River the same Sunday. She stopped by Ullakko’s to tell him he needn’t come to milk the cow anymore. When she reached Ilmahenki, the house was cold. Empty. She gathered Ilmari’s dirty work shirt, canvas pants, socks, and wool underwear, realizing it would probably be the last time she did Ilmari’s laundry. From now on, he would have a wife. She fought down a feeling of being replaced. She pulled the sheets from Ilmari’s bed. She wanted him and his bride to sleep in clean sheets. Ilmari hadn’t thought of it before he left.
The night air was still as she made her way to the riverbank by the light of the kerosene lantern. She could hear Deep River talking as it made its way to Willapa Bay. The darkness seemed to press down on her with a palpable weight. An owl hooted. There was a sudden fierce flapping of fast wings as two ducks, startled by what might have been a muskrat, rose into the sky. She listened to the rapid whirring of their wings in the near silence as they disappeared around the first bend. She regretted being so stubborn about making the speech now that it was over. It was one of many.
Hitching her skirt up above her knees and securing it with a knot, she hung the lantern on a branch and laid the clothes on the washing rock, then began to beat each piece with the worn-smooth club she kept hanging on another branch nearby. She wondered if there would be dancing at Ilmari’s wedding. Soon she was lost in the rhythm of the washing, the lapping of Deep River around her ankles, and the lonely gray sky above the river between dark guardian trees.
The sound of a throat being cleared startled her so severely that she threw the shirt she was washing into the river, her heart pounding. She whirled and saw a man standing there, barely illuminated by the lantern.
The man sprinted into the river and grabbed the shirt that was now floating downstream. He brought it back and handed it to her. “I didn’t mean to scare you.” It was Aksel.
Aino couldn’t talk, because her heart was beating so fast, the blood coursing through her throat. She tried desperately to control her trembling, but she could not.
Aksel’s bright-blue eyes stared at her with a combination of fear and wonder.
“My God, Aino. How you’re shaking.”
She swallowed, sighed, and reached out for the shirt. He let her take it. “You scared me,” she said.
“I guess so.” Aksel looked at her closely.
Aino turned from his gaze and looked down at the pile of laundry. “What brings you here?” she asked, trying to recover from the extraordinary unexpected fright.
“I saw Ullakko at Higgins’s. He said you missed the ferry.”
“That’s a nice way of saying I missed my brother’s wedding.”
Aksel chuckled. “I just thought I’d stop by to see how you were doing. Have you done the milking?”
Aino was suddenly aware of her exposed legs, then she thought, What’s wrong with seeing a girl wash clothes with her skirt above her knees? She left her skirt tucked.
Aksel sat on a log and pulled out a cigarette, striking a match with his thumbnail. He had his good shoes wrapped around his neck. She knew he was trying to avoid staring at her legs. He tossed the match into the river and it made a brief glowing arc before being extinguished in the water.
“Were you at the Knappton dance last night?” she asked.
Aksel seemed to hesitate. “I was in Astoria.”
She thought she saw Aksel color just a bit. He was doing that. He just didn’t seem old enough.
“What’s wrong with Lempi? She’s your age and you know she likes you.”
“It’s awkward.” He seemed about to say something more but only said, “I don’t want to hurt her.”
Aino began twisting the shirt, wringing the water from it. Aksel stood, cigarette dangling in his mouth, and reached out his hand for the shirt. She handed it to him. She thought she smelled cheap perfume. Even though she had already wrung the shirt, he easily got more water out of it when he wrung it again.
Aksel took a drag on the cigarette and nervously flicked ashes into the river. He took another deep drag, licked his thumb and forefinger, and snubbed the butt out. He took out his tobacco pouch and carefully stripped the paper, dropping the remaining tobacco into the pouch, letting the scrap of cigarette paper fall into the river. They watched it drift downstream out of the small circle of lamplight.
Aino picked up a pair of stiff canvas trousers and this time she handed them soaking wet to Aksel. Why bother to do it herself, when he did it so easily?
After a few halting starts, the conversation soon normalized. She told Aksel what she knew about Rauha. He talked about people she knew at Reder’s camp. As usual, she was frustrated because he didn’t seem to know what was going on with the girls in the henhouse, who they were sweet on, who was sweet on them. Even though she always felt she had nothing in common with the other flunkies, she realized that compared with the other 80 percent of the local population, she and the flunkies had a lot in common.
Aksel helped her pack the damp clothes back to the house, staying on the porch as she hung the sheets on the clothesline above the stove. She was surprised to find herself anxious that Aksel would interpret her hanging the laundry inside without him as a signal to leave. She hurried back outside with the lantern and the remaining clothes.
He followed her to the clothesline and she happily talked of whatever came to mind while he rolled another cigarette.
“How’s the fishing boat project?” she asked.
Aksel gave a short laugh. “I’m about where I was before the strike.”
Aino wasn’t sure whether it was a statement of fact or criticism.
Aksel took a short drag, blinking his eyes as the smoke was pushed back into them by a gentle breeze that also stirred the laundry. She again smelled the perfume along with the faint odor of whiskey that had clung to his wool coat. She suddenly realized Aksel was no longer a boy. Other than the whistle punks, a logging show had no room for boys.
She could tell he was about to leave. A woman had no easy way to say goodbye to a man. She couldn’t shake hands or touch cheeks with him as she could with women. Just this awkwardness, this space between them.
“You’re leaving?” she asked.
Aksel put his tobacco pouch in his coat pocket, not answering her. Then he said, “Do you care?”
“Care if you leave?” She was puzzled.
Aksel shrugged.
Men could be so inarticulate. “What?” she asked.
“Aino, ever since we danced at Midsummer’s Eve, I’ve been in love with you.”
“Didn’t know.”
She didn’t know what to say.
“I know you’ve always seen me as your little brother’s friend.”
Aino could only nod.
“I am.” Aksel nodded back. “But your little brother and his friend are all grown up now. I’ll be eighteen in January.” He plunged ahead, his words coming faster. “I know I’m younger than you. And I know you like Jouka … and he’s a good man.” He put his hands in his pockets and looked at the ground. Then he met her eyes. “I’m a high rigger. I can make more money than any other logger in the valley, including Jouka.” He paused.
She stammered, “I thought you wanted to fish.”
“I do. But, if you’d marry me, I’d high climb until the day I die.”
For a high rigger, she thought, that could be a short time.
“Are you asking me to marry you?” she asked, saying it to buy time. Of course, he was.
Aksel nodded.
Time was up. “Oh, Aksel.” She turned to look in the direction of the river, which she could hear but not see. She felt him waiting behind her. “Aksel, I can’t do it,” she said, still looking at the river. He touched her shoulder.
“Tell me to my face.”
“I can’t do it,” she said loudly and clearly. “Aksel, you’re a wonderful man. You’d make any girl happy. It’s just not me.”
“Why not? Is it Jouka?”
“Aksel.” She felt that she was pleading. “It’s no one.”
“You won’t marry?”
“I won’t marry.”
“You’ll marry me.” With that, he walked away.
Just before he could no longer be seen in the lamplight, he turned and waved to her. She waved back. Aksel turned and disappeared into the dark.