That next Thursday night, Lempi Rompinen was braiding her long, light-brown hair while looking over Aino’s shoulder. Aino was reading a copy of Työmies, the Finnish socialist newspaper published in Michigan. “You’d better be careful with that stuff,” Lempi said.
“Why?”
Lempi tied off the thick single braid with a strip of cloth. “Everyone knows you’ve been talking up a strike with the bunkhouse reds.”
Aino put the newspaper down. “All they want is clean, dry straw and one man off half an hour early to light fires. We live in a castle compared with the bunkhouses.”
“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.
“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.”