Deep River Page 43

  “Mr. Reder, I have chores to do. If you’ll excuse me.” She turned into the house. She felt Reder’s eyes on her back. She turned to him. “You know my husband’s hotheaded. He didn’t mean you harm.”

  “I know he’s hotheaded. So was I at his age. But the son of a bitch nearly killed me. I lost ten days of work. I can’t let it go.”

  “Why not? We can pay you for your lost work. Pay you double.”

  “You don’t just owe me for lost time.”

  “What do you mean?”

  Reder told her exactly what he meant—including interest.

  She whirled away from him, slamming the door. Shaking with fear and anger she walked into the bedroom and began packing for Astoria. She didn’t tell Aino when she skipped her turn to go to Long Island.

  The first day, Matti thought she was delayed. He hid near the beach until sunset, the other designated time. When she didn’t show up and it had been dark for several hours, Matti’s mild anxiety moved into worry. She wasn’t there the next day—or the next.

  When Aino arrived on her scheduled visit, she told Matti that Rauha said Reder came to the house and that same day Kyllikki and the children moved to Astoria.

  Matti was now beside himself, torn between hiding and worry about why Kyllikki was in Astoria.

  Kyllikki came the next week. He rushed to kiss her, but she turned her back on him, pulling the rowboat onto the beach. When he touched her on the shoulder, she whirled around and slapped him.

  “Don’t you dare tell me you did it for me and the children.”

  Matti said nothing, rubbing his cheek.

  “Goddamn you, Matti Koski. You think I’m the kind of woman who will just spend her husband’s money and not ask any questions?”

  She threw the food onto the beach and rowed away.

  5

  While Matti was hiding, the IWW had been acting. On April 16, just ten days after the United States declared war, the union led out over six hundred paper mill workers in Camas, Washington, demanding fifty cents more per day for eight hours’ work. IWW log drivers in Brief, Washington, left millions of board feet of logs, critical to the war effort, floating in the rivers. The owners immediately met their demand of five dollars for an eight-hour day. There was a war on and money to be made. The union’s strategy of taking advantage of this situation was successful—until it wasn’t.

  Under an onslaught of bad press, mostly organized by the government and ownership, strikers were painted as siding with Germany and damaging the war effort to line their own pockets. In late May, when the IWW led thirteen hundred miners in Bisbee, Arizona, on strike, protesting dangerous conditions and poor pay, retaliation was swift and brutal. Goaded by the press, two thousand deputized citizens—full of patriotic fervor and armed with machine guns paid for by the mine owners—herded the strikers into manure-strewn cattle cars. They were transported without water or food to the desert town of Tres Hermanas, New Mexico, and abandoned there. Angry citizens everywhere began attacking picketers as traitors.

  At Reder’s Camp, the loggers were also divided over the question of sabotaging the war effort. To win them over to striking, Aino focused on the ethical question at the root of the conflict: why were they—working people, loyal American citizens—being asked to sacrifice for the war effort by accepting low wages and dangerous and appalling working conditions, while owners were making money from the war and sacrificing nothing?

  The government didn’t care. It wanted lumber, no matter what. There were rumors that it was willing to send in the army to do the logging if the IWW struck. Owners were focused on costs, not ethics. The IWW was asking for three dollars for an eight-hour day and clear safety rules to stop the horrifying maiming and deaths. It wanted an end to cramming twenty loggers into leaky bunkhouses designed for eight. Often, the younger boys slept three to a bed. It wanted clean quarters without lice and flies and the outhouse shit limed every day and then buried when the pit was full. For the big boys, these demands would hit only earnings per share. For smaller outfits, survival was at stake.

  On June 12, Reder asked Aino to talk with him in his office.

  “I’ve been invited to another industry meeting in Nordland on Friday. The big companies are going to ask all of us to form a united front.”

  “So?”

  “You’ll be facing the combined power of the government, the timber industry, the banks, the newspapers, and an outraged patriotic public.”

  “We know that.”

  “You’ll lose, not just to the industry. The IWW’s image will be forever tarnished in the eyes of loyal Americans.”

  Aino knew that as well. She’d argued the very same case to IWW leadership to no avail, but she stayed silent.

  Reder put his large forearms atop his desk. “Once I attend that meeting in Nordland,” he said, “there will be no way you and I can make a separate deal. If I don’t go along with whatever is decided, no one will buy my logs. I’m out of business.” He waited for that to sink in. “I’m open to a deal now. What will it take to avoid a strike?”

  “You know what the IWW demands are.”

  “You’re asking too much. It’ll put me out of business.”

  “Not if the whole industry bears the same costs. All we’re asking for is fairness and human dignity. If we don’t get it, we’re prepared to fight for it.”

  Reder looked at her like a father trying to reason with an intelligent teenager convinced of her moral superiority. “The meeting in Nordland will definitely ensure labor costs are the same: low everywhere. Compromise with me.”

  “Mr. Reder, if I compromise, I’ll be a scab.”

  Aino read Reder’s appeal for a compromise as a sign of weakness and held a rally in the dining hall when he left for Nordland. Reder found out when he came to Camp Three on Monday morning.

  When Jouka brought in the Shay that evening, Reder shouted from the office steps to come see him. It could only be because of Aino.

  “I’ve tried to reason with her,” Reder said. “Now, you get her under control.”

  “Mr. Reder, she’s no horse.”

  “And if you can’t control your wife, you’re no man.”

  Jouka knew the loggers often laughed at Reder, who had trouble controlling Margaret. That was the point, however. They laughed. Jouka felt deeply shamed.

  “I want her to stop haranguing my loggers or you’re fired and she’s evicted. You’re only here because she did us that good turn at my daughter’s birth.”

  “I’m here because I’m the best engineer in long-log country,” Jouka said quietly.

  “Yes, Jouka, you probably are,” Reder said, softening. “But this is a business. I don’t need the best. I only need one good enough to get the logs to tidewater and you know there are plenty of those. If my loggers go on strike, I’ll by God fire you and blacklist you in a heartbeat. And you also tell her, we’ll find that son of a bitch brother of hers.”

  Jouka felt a dark curtain falling on what had been the most satisfying act of his life. He had respect. He had good wages. If Aino would just stay home, he could even have a real wife and maybe someday children.

  “Please, Mr. Reder. I worked nights and Sundays learning the mechanics. We haven’t had to send for repair parts since I started running the Shay.” He hated this groveling. It shamed him nearly as much as the taunt about not controlling his wife.

  “One more speech and you’re both gone.”

  “I’ll see what I can do, Mr. Reder.” Jouka stood there for just a moment longer, fully understanding powerlessness.

  Jouka usually whistled when he walked from the rail yard to their shack. Aino watched him walking along the railroad tracks, his head down. The Shay had come in some time ago. She suspected he’d been called in to talk with Reder.

  He didn’t announce he was home or come in. She opened the door to his back. He’d taken off his boots and was sitting there, looking down the tracks to where the Shay stood in the yard. She wanted to touch his shoul
ders, but she was afraid. Those shoulders, usually broad and strong, were slumped. Was he fired?

  She went inside, saying nothing. After about ten minutes Jouka came in, his shirt off, his suspenders dangling from his waist. He walked over to the stove. “The coffee’s cold,” he said.

  “I’m saving wood. You know that.”

  He turned to her, the pot in his hand, and he slowly and defiantly poured it out onto the floor. Then he hurled the empty pot at the wall behind their bed. The violent action made her flinch, but she wasn’t going to back down. Reder had probably laid down the ultimatum that she knew one day had to come.

  Jouka was staring at the pot that now lay on the bed, a brown stain slowly growing around spilled wet grounds. Then quietly, as if talking to the air, he said, “If you make one more speech, I’m fired and we’re evicted.” Jouka sat on the edge of the bed, his forearms on his knees, looking at the floor. Aino’s whole body was tense, anticipating an explosion. She’d seen him fight. If he lost his temper, really lost it, he could kill her.

  He looked at her. “All my life, Aino, I was ashamed because my father left us and I can’t read. I married you, an educated woman. I worked hard, and I passed the test.” He was looking at his clenched right fist. “When I blow that whistle steaming through camp, I blow it for you, to let you know I’m coming through. I’m running the engine. It fills me with pride.” He looked up at her. “You’re going to destroy that.”

  She felt herself trembling. She always knew there would be sacrifices. It had never occurred to her that the sacrifice would be someone she loved.

  “Do you really want men like Huttula to die so Reder’s grandchildren will never have to work? What about our own grandchildren?”

  Jouka came to his feet, “We won’t have any without having children first.” He walked out, slamming the door behind him.

  Jouka returned about two in the morning, drunk. She was under the covers, awake. She heard the door shut and his breathing. She smelled the whiskey and the cigarette smoke on his breath. She stayed still, as if somehow staying under the wool blankets would protect her from Jouka’s anger. She heard him stumble against one of the chairs at the little table. Then she heard him cursing, picking up the chair, and smashing it against the door. He smashed it repeatedly until it splintered in his hands and he could smash it no more.

  “Great,” she said aloud. “I assume you’re going to be the one who stands to eat.”

  She heard him breathing. Then he said, “One chair will be enough for this house.” He walked out, not bothering to shut the door. She lay there, the room getting colder and colder. Finally, she came out of the warm covers, shut the door, and crawled back into bed.

  In the morning twilight before the usual time to go to work, Aino made a speech outside the mess hall. Jouka was getting steam up in the Shay. He’d spent the night in its cab. He lit a cigarette and listened while Aino spoke. There had been no movement from the industry. The next day, June 20, the Reder loggers would either join their brothers from British Columbia to California or be shameful toadies of big business and government. Every logger holding the red card voted for a strike. Eighty percent of those not holding the card voted to strike as well. Jouka’s heart sank.

  Reder had been listening from the office steps. He marched over to the Shay and climbed into the cab. Reder said nothing for a while, the red glow of the open firebox lighting his face. Jouka threw another piece of wood into the fire. He shut the door and turned to face Reder, knowing what was coming.

  “You are to be out of the house by tonight, or I’ll have the sheriff on you.”

  “No need for that, Mr. Reder.”

  Jouka picked up a rag and wiped the throttle one last time, saying goodbye.

  Reder looked out the cab window, unwilling to face Jouka. “You know that I can’t have her back.”

  “I know.”

  Jouka carefully folded the wiping rag, relishing the mixed smell of oil and burning wood. “Are you going to blacklist the best locomotive engineer in the woods?”

  “I won’t have to. As long as you’re married to her, you’ll never run anyone’s lokie.” Reder held out his hand. “I’m sorry, Jouka. I don’t want there to be any hard feelings. I had no choice.”

  Jouka looked at Reder’s outstretched hand. “All they want are safe conditions, an eight-hour day, and a living wage. You had a choice. Go shake hands with George Weyerhaeuser.”

  Jouka grabbed his lunch pail and pushed past Reder, jumping to the ground. The tall stumps all around the camp were just visible, long ghosts emerging from the darkness.

  They made two trips to Ilmahenki, the second with Ilmari’s horse.

  The next day, June 20, 1917, fifteen thousand loggers and mill workers all over the Pacific Northwest walked off the job. Lumber manufacturing—and that part of the war effort—ground to a halt.

  A week after the big strike was called, Rauha stood with Aino looking at the ruins of Kyllikki’s garden. Rauha toed a potato plant and then squatted to set it upright. “What a mess,” she sighed. She turned to Aino. “Is Jouka all right?”

  Aino was taken aback. “Sure. Of course. Why?”

  “Well …” She hesitated. “You know. When he came home early this morning.” Aino felt a wave of shame. They knew that she and Jouka were having trouble. “Jouka was out drinking, wasn’t he.”

  “He’s angry about losing his job. He’ll get over it.”

  “If a man can’t provide and protect, he doesn’t feel like a man.”

  “I don’t need anyone to do that for me,” Aino shot back.

  “None of us need anyone to do that. But don’t you want someone to do it?”

  Aino bent down to get a stone and threw it sidearm at Matti and Kyllikki’s chimney. She missed.

  Rauha picked up a stone and threw it overhand with considerable force. It hit the chimney square on. Aino looked at her with surprise. “It was my job growing up to kill the chickens,” Rauha said. “I hated it. I started killing them with rocks. I got pretty good at it.” She smiled, then picked up another stone and hit the chimney in the same place. “Ilmari kills the chickens in my house.”

  Two weeks later, Jouka didn’t come back at all. He had been making a little money playing at dances, but striking loggers weren’t spending much money on those. Some nights he’d come home with just twenty-five cents. He showed up around noon on Sunday. He’d clearly been out in the open all night. Aino was furious.

  “You passed out, didn’t you?”

  “Why do you care?”

  “You embarrass me in front of my family.”

  “Nothing more than I embarrass you?”

  “No,” Aino said. “Of course, I worried about you … It’s just that—”

  “To hell with you. So, I’m an embarrassment? One way to solve that. Pack my bag.”

  “I will not,” Aino said.

  He grabbed her arm, hurting her. “You think I’m the only embarrassment in this marriage?”

  “Let go of me.”

  Jouka pushed Aino backward, surprising her with his anger. “I can’t find any work here. Because of you. Now, pack my bag so I can go find some work and stop being an embarrassment to you.”

  Aino’s first reaction was to dig in and fight him, but she didn’t, knowing her marriage was on the brink. It frightened her. There was Jouka, the man who’d fought for her and for others less able to fight, the best engineer in the woods, the best fiddler in the woods, standing in front of her, his eyes red, his hair and clothes muddy, smelling of vomit and booze, begging for some respect.

  She packed his bag.

  Rauha, who’d heard the whole exchange, met them in the kitchen with a loaf of freshly baked rieska. She handed the bread to Aino and said in a low voice so Jouka couldn’t hear her, “My mother once told me that sometimes by bending, we give them room to stand straight.” She nodded her head toward Jouka who was standing next to the kitchen table, the valise at his feet. Aino hesitated. Then she wal
ked over to Jouka and began packing the rieska into Jouka’s valise. When she finished, she looked up at Jouka. He reached out his hand. She took it and he helped her to her feet. Then he walked out, leaving Aino with a hole of loneliness she would try to fill by dedicating herself to the coming battle.

  6

  By the time Jouka left, forty thousand loggers and mill workers and over 75 percent of the logging camps west of the Cascades were out on strike. The IWWs had the moral high ground and thought they were winning.

  In all wars, however, both sides think they’re right and can win.

  On the first of August, a patriotic mob lynched Frank Little, an IWW organizer, in Butte, Montana. The United States Post Office refused to mail newspapers or other written material that any individual postmaster considered to be hurting the war effort. IWW strikers were jailed on charges ranging from disturbing the peace to vagrancy to obstruction of justice.

  The most serious response was the Espionage Act. When President Woodrow Wilson urged a Democratic-controlled Congress to pass the act, he declared that “these creatures of passion, disloyalty, and anarchy must be crushed out. They are not many, but they are infinitely malignant.” The penalty for violating the act was up to thirty years in prison or death.

  Aino lived in fear. Every morning when she awoke, she didn’t know if that night she’d be sleeping in jail. Still, every morning she went to work, traveling from camp to camp, encouraging the strikers with news of other strikers, inciting their anger with stories of brutal retaliations, helping the women organize to collect and distribute food, talking doctors into treating strikers’ children for free, arguing from upturned boxes on city streets—always wording her arguments carefully so they wouldn’t run afoul of the Espionage Act—that what was being done in Europe and to workers at home under the banner of patriotism was wrong. Patriotism was being used to club labor. She was arrested twice but released after a day or two, mostly because the jails were full and she was female.