Some sounds are always there and go mostly unheard: the wind moving the treetops two hundred feet above, Deep River’s quiet rippling and small slaps against the bank, its rushes over stones in the shallows, the chirping and chattering of squirrels and chipmunks, birds raucously warding off intruders but going quiet when feeding their chicks. Up until now, the sound of Sampo Manufacturing had been part of it: the boiler hissing, saws screaming as they bit into wood, the slapping of lumber and timbers being pulled from the green chain and stacked in the yard. Now there was just the quiet of nature as Ilmari watched Mielikki make sure Helmi was scrubbed and her dress spotless before sending her off barefoot to the new one-room schoolhouse. It seemed, for now at least, Mielikki had put aside the sadness of having to quit school. Now was her time for sisu.
A half-finished basket was on the kitchen table. Mielikki had been working on a new pattern that Vasutäti had shown her. She worked on her baskets at night, after Jorma and Helmi went to bed. It was the best time for basket weaving or carving or working leather, snug in the kitchen, the rain pelting on the roof, the sound of the coyotes signaling each other, warning about territory violations, the hooting of owls doing the same thing or seeking mates in late winter.
Ilmari followed Helmi out the door, picking up his ax where it was struck into the chopping block. There was alder to cut for firewood. He watched Helmi disappear down the road and his mind went back to the happier times, when he and Rauha had helped with building the little school the previous summer on a small hill at the edge of Tapiola on land donated by Higgins. The men arrived after church—whether they’d gone or not—and within minutes they would be formed into teams, hammering, sawing, hauling, climbing: all working furiously, competing to see who could get his wall up first or get his quarter of the roof shingled first. The women didn’t work in teams, competing, but split up the work to be done, talking and laughing as they prepared food or made coffee, which they walked over to the men.
The men would work until darkness made them quit. Then all would eat what the women had made, telling jokes, laughing at stories they had heard at least three times before.
The mill had been sold to Western Washington Lumber Products, a growing company with three—now four—mills in Washington and one in Oregon. It had an eye on the vast amount of timber in the Willapa Hills that until now had been too expensive to get to market. With rail lines, however, all that timber could be harvested and Sampo was on the south edge of it.
So was Vasutäti.
Ilmari didn’t want her to leave, but he felt it was his duty to warn her of what was coming. The forest would be logged. The government was consolidating the small coastal tribes into one larger tribe inland by Chehalis. Vasutäti’s time was ending.
One warm Saturday in May, Ilmari took the children with him to visit Vasutäti to see if he could convince her to move while she was still spry.
He realized he should have known better.
“Everything changes,” she said, almost as if comforting him, talking to him in their own language of Chinook jargon, English, and Finnish.
Ilmari looked at her fondly. “I hope you don’t live to see the day,” he said. “You can always live with us.”
She looked away. After a moment she said gruffly, “You take the children home. Leave me with Mielikki. She’s ready for the next design.”