Deep River

by Karl Marlantes

  The day after the declaration of war he’d gone with a supervisor to plan a rail line to his timber next to the stand Koski had logged for Drummond several years earlier. In the old days in Michigan, he’d once “inadvertently” gone over the line and gotten away with several hundred dollars’ worth of timber that wasn’t his. Ever since, he always buried his own markers near the surveyor’s marks.

  The surveyor’s marks had clearly been moved—as well as several thousand dollars’ worth of timber. If he accused Koski, Koski would point to Drummond. If he accused Drummond, Drummond would point to Koski. If he went to court, he couldn’t prove conclusively that the original stakes had been moved. The opposing lawyers could claim the first survey was in error and he’d buried his own markers after the fact. This crime needed to be paid for outside the legal system.

  When Matti arrived, Drummond and Reder were both there, along with around twenty other men, a few representing the giants, a few representing medium-size firms, and some small owners like himself. When he shook hands with Drummond, he got a poker face. When he shook hands with Reder, he got civil hostility. He knew then that Reder knew. How?

  He looked at Drummond, his eyes very briefly flickering to Reder and back. Drummond was showing just a shadow of smugness. Matti realized that Drummond knew that Reder would be unlikely to do anything about it—legally.

  Then George Long walked into the room and it went silent.

  Drummond, ever the party host, began identifying the men in the room. The group included two army officers in civilian clothes. When he got to Matti, he said, “This is Matti Koski. He owns a little outfit logging around Grays Bay.”

  A man who seemed to be around fifty looked at his cigar and said, “I’m Julius Bloedel. How many loggers work for you?”

  “Fifteen.”

  That brought smiles.

  “Two years it was me and one.”

  “Well, we’re prospering, I see.”

  Reder broke in. “Before Mr. Koski became the head of his own show, he worked for me.” People nodded. Reder looked hard at Matti. “Along with his red sister.”

  Long cocked his head questioningly.

  “She’s a Wobbly organizer,” Reder said. “She’s married to one of my locomotive engineers.”

  “He must be a hell of an engineer,” Long said.

  Everyone chuckled except Matti and Reder, who they were locking eyes.

  “Koski, did you ever formalize your citizenship?” Reder asked. He turned to the group. “Mr. Koski, here, married a genuine American beauty. A pathway to both citizenship and her father’s money.”

  Matti was barely keeping himself under control. Wrenching his eyes from Reder’s, he addressed Long. “Yes. My sister is a Wobbly. Yes, I am married to an American. I am an American and proud to do my part for the war effort.” He felt he was licking the floor with his words. He glanced at the two army officers, for whom the speech was meant.

  Both nodded, smiling. “We won’t hold your sister against you, Mr. Koski,” one of them said. There were more chuckles. Matti smiled, his mouth closed, his teeth clenched.

  The meeting got down to business and Matti and about half the men in the room were virtually ignored. The business was, as Matti had thought, how to stop the IWW from shutting down the woods.

  Matti ended up at the far end of a long bar in one of the main Nordland speakeasies with several of the smaller owners. Already on his third whiskey, he was trying to fit in, nursing a grudge over Reder’s nailing him with Aino and implying he’d used his wife’s money to get ahead. His humiliation and anger were made worse by his guilt over drinking his and Kyllikki’s hard-earned cash, which explained his overreaction to a whore trying to pick up business. He’d shouted at her in Finnish to go to hell and the word soon passed to the other whores to watch out. There’s a drunk, angry Finn at the bar.

  He was halfway through his fifth whiskey when Reder came into the speakeasy with Al Drummond and another man from the meeting, all of them already well liquored. The men drinking with Matti all looked at him. They knew Reder had tried to humiliate him but not why. Matti knew that they expected him to uphold his honor.

  Reder, Drummond, and the other man ordered bottles of Olympia beer, prized like a rare Northwest vintage since statewide prohibition had closed the brewery down just over a year earlier. In making their way to a table, Reder and the others almost walked right past Matti. Then Reder saw him. “Well, looky here. If it isn’t our Finnish George Weyerhaeuser.”

  Matti turned back to the bar. He slugged down what was left of his whiskey, his shame and anger at his humiliation rising. His drinking companions started moving away.

  “Come on, Koski. Buy me a drink.” Reder said. “Would it be with your wife’s money or mine?”

  Matti swung and connected squarely with Reder’s nose. Blood spurted.

  John Reder was no stranger to bar fights. Snarling with pain and rage, he smashed Matti across the temple with his beer bottle, causing Matti to see stars.

  Matti didn’t think; his body just reacted. The puukko came from its sheath and into Reder’s ribs. As Reder buckled to the floor, Matti made a wide sweep with the puukko, forcing people away, and ran for the door.

  He ran for the river. He knew his life had been changed, just like that—in an instant. If Reder died, he’d never see Kyllikki or his children again.

  He heard distant shouts. “There he goes. The son of a bitch is over there.” He ran—and he was a good runner—soon leaving them behind. He headed north of town, away from the water, the most likely escape route. He settled into a loping run, heading in a wide arc toward the mouth of the Chehalis River and the sea. The April night was cool. A waning half-moon moved behind and out of high clouds. He hit the river, put his shoes and clothes into a bundle, and swam for the south shore. He felt bottom after about half an hour of hard kicking and waded quickly into the muddy marsh grass. He was shivering with cold. He had to hide. He had to reach Kyllikki. He didn’t know where or how. By instinct, he moved south, in Kyllikki’s direction, crossing the hills separating the Chehalis from the north end of Willapa Bay.

  After hiding in the brush the entire next day, he again went in the water, this time striking out across Willapa Bay for the Long Beach peninsula that separated the bay from the sea. He ran down the beach on the Pacific Ocean side making good time, the hard, flat sand perfect for running. Just south of where he figured Oysterville would be on the bay side, he cut across the low-lying dunes and through the shore pines and salal until he reached the mudflats on the east side of the peninsula. It was about a two-mile swim from there to Long Island—an island logged off near the water, but with thick old-growth forest still left in its interior. He knew the island was uninhabited except for infrequent visits by a few oystermen, and probably safe.

  Over the next two days he built a shelter using his puukko and scoured for clams and oysters, eating them raw. By now Kyllikki would have heard the news. Was she married to a murderer?

  Initially, he wanted to throw the puukko away, but it was too useful. And, of course, the problem wasn’t the puukko; it was him.

  Sitting on the rocky beach on the north side of Long Island, staring into the gray sky above the gray-green water of Willapa Bay, feeling a vast distance from his wife and his children, seeing a future as bleak as the cold waters before him, Matti almost cried for the first time since he was a child.

  Already a little worried, because Matti should have been home by now, Kyllikki saw Aino at the front door of the house she and Matti had built on Ilmari’s land gift. Aino’s normally impassive public face telegraphed bad news.

  When Aino came in, she put her hands on Kyllikki’s shoulders and, looking into her eyes, said, “Matti stabbed Reder in a saloon. Reder’s alive, but Matti ran and probably doesn’t know it.”

  Kyllikki stood still, thoughts of Matti in jail, Matti killed by the police, her children without a father, her own dread for Matti’s life, and anger over the stupid stab
bing flooded through her. She took Aino’s wrists and pulled them together in front of her. Her eyes still fixed on Aino’s, she said, “Do you want coffee?” The time for sisu had come.

  After coffee and much speculation about where Matti had gone, Aino walked over to Ilmahenki and found Rauha lecturing Kullervo on the virtues of promptness. She and Rauha told Ilmari about Matti at lunch. No good would come from interrupting a morning’s work.

  Rauha sent Kullervo into Tapiola for news, but he learned only that a manhunt over Pacific and Nordland Counties was in progress.

  Over supper, the family tried to work out a plan. Until Matti made contact, not much could be done. It went without saying, Kyllikki and the children would never want for food and shelter. Ilmari would see what could be done with Matti’s current logging operation. Aino stayed the night with Kyllikki. The next morning, she helped with the children, then left to get back to Jouka.

  Just after Aino left, Sheriff Cobb came with a search warrant. Kyllikki sent the children to Rauha. She watched stoically as the sheriff and a deputy went through their belongings. Then Cobb put the deputy outside the door and explained to Kyllikki that the charges would be attempted murder and assault with a deadly weapon. If she cooperated, told them where Matti was, he would do all he could to reduce the sentence. Matti could be out in ten years, maybe less.

  Kyllikki offered him coffee.

  Two days later, a Chinook boy of about twelve arrived at the house with a piece of alder bark rolled into a tube. He told her a man had come out of the woods on Long Island and given him the bark along with a silver dollar. The man said if he told no one, he would get another silver dollar upon delivery. Kyllikki gave the boy the dollar and then the boy gave her the alder bark. Carved inside was a big oval with an X on the top left-hand side, a half sun with an up arrow on the left, and another half sun with a down arrow on the right. Matti would wait on the northwest shore at sunrise and sunset. She served the boy fresh bread with blackberry jam. She said bad men were looking for her husband, but if only the two of them knew the location, he could come every month for jam, cake, and a silver dollar. If he told anyone, she would find out and have him and his family killed.

  That night Jouka and Ilmari searched the woods to make sure no one was spying. Then, leaving the children with Rauha, Kyllikki rowed Ilmari’s boat to the bay and then south along the shore. When she could just make out Long Island, dark in the starlight to the west, she rowed across the channel to its north side where she beached the boat. Unable to drag it into the woods, she disguised it with driftwood.

  At sunrise, Matti woke her, kissing her on the face and neck. She reached up to him and they rolled together on the ground, holding each other as if for the last time.

  She told him that Reder was alive.

  “That’s good,” Matti said as he was wolfing down a whole loaf of rieska and nearly two pounds of cheese.

  “They’ll only put you away for ten years for assault.”

  Matti didn’t reply.

  “If you’d left the puukko at home …” She started, but he put his finger on her lips.

  “It’s not the puukko. It’s my hot head.”

  She realized this was as much of an apology as she’d get.

  That night she reversed course and reached Ilmahenki at dawn. A week later she made the same journey, this time with blankets, a hatchet, and a fishing line and hooks, along with the food. The next week, Aino made the journey. Matti, lean before, was now leaner but healthy. As he told her, fishing and trapping didn’t burn much energy.

  Kyllikki returned to Suvantola, where one by one, Matti’s loggers showed up to say goodbye and get their pay. It was the last of their cash.

  4

  When he arrived at Kyllikki’s door the second week in May, Reder still wore bandages and had trouble breathing. “You tell me where the son of a bitch is hiding!”

  “If you find out, let me know.”

  She looked over Reder’s shoulder and saw Sheriff Cobb and two deputies. “It takes four of you to ask me a question?”

  Reder turned to Cobb. “Read it to her.”

  Cobb pulled papers from his jacket pocket, unfolded them, and began to read. “The Espionage Act of Nineteen Seventeen,” he started. After a paragraph of government jargon, Reder cut in.

  “Just tell her about section four.”

  “On June fifteenth, we will have the right to arrest, imprison, fine up to ten thousand dollars, or deport anyone interfering or thinking about interfering with the war effort.”

  “That means your red sister-in-law,” Reder said. “And anyone the sheriff here thinks might be thinking about doing something to hurt the war effort.”

  Stunned, Kyllikki said, “I don’t believe it. You can’t arrest someone for thinking about a crime.”

  “When the country’s at war, you bet your bottom dollar we can,” Cobb said. “It’s a matter of national security.”

  Reder said, “You’ll for sure believe it when we start rounding up all you reds to send you back to Finland. Stockades are being set up all over the state right now.”

  “I am an American citizen and it’s unconstitutional.”

  The sheriff with his two deputies walked up to her. He held out a piece of paper. “This is a warrant to search your house. It’s constitutional.”

  “You already did that!”

  “We have reason to believe we might have missed something.” He brushed past her. She ran in behind him, jostling with the two deputies, and gathered up Suvi, Aarni, and Pilvi, holding them close to her as she watched the three men ransack the house.

  When they left, she followed them out. Lighting a cigarette, Reder looked at the burning match and then casually tossed it against the side of the house. “You tell me where he is and this all stops.”

  With fierce love in her heart and cold steel in her voice she said, “You go to hell.”

  Kyllikki left the children with Rauha and walked to Camp Three to tell Aino about the Espionage Act.

  Aino already knew. “National security. Bullshit. As if the kaiser’s army is about to storm our beaches. We went over there. Just like the stupid song says. Land of the free and home of the brave,” she said. “They throw away the land-of-the-free part the instant someone threatens them.”

  “Aino, I’m scared. For all of us.”

  “That’s exactly what they want.”

  “Well it’s working.”

  The two women alternated visits to Long Island to minimize suspicion, going on random days, always having a reason to be away from home and telegraphing it well. They planned their next six trips, three each, just in case they couldn’t meet.

  When Aino was visiting Suvantola after one of her trips to tell Kyllikki how Matti was doing, Kyllikki said, “I guess you heard that the Nordland AF of L has denounced you people as unpatriotic. You could be arrested if this Espionage Act goes into effect.”

  “Toadies,” Aino answered.

  “You grew up in a country governed by a foreign power. You underestimate American patriotism. Those AF of L workers in Nordland aren’t toadies. That’s the way they see you. They’re genuinely patriotic.”

  “As long as they’re getting their money and security,” Aino said. She whispered, as if to some spirit unseen, “I told them in Portland they’d hang us with this.” She turned to Kyllikki. “Patriotism is going to kill us.” She again looked out to the unseen spirit. “We have to kill patriotism.”

  “Blind patriotism,” Kyllikki said.

  Sheriff Cobb came with a new warrant every Monday afternoon. Kyllikki would put the house back in order, weeping. On the third Monday, Rauha waited with her. They watched the deputies destroy the interior of the house.

  Rauha spit at the sheriff’s heels as he left. He whirled on her. He was met by the hardest icy-blue eyes he’d ever seen. He was used to violence and not without courage, but this was a power with which he had never before contended. Quickly deciding that upholding the honor of his off
ice would prove counterproductive, he let the insult pass and walked away.

  The day after the Espionage Act went into effect, June 16, 1917, Sherriff Cobb came to the house with three deputies and another search warrant. He informed Kyllikki that he had reason to believe that material pertinent to the case was hidden in the garden. The deputies destroyed the garden, essential for getting through the winter.

  “Nothing, boss,” one of them reported.

  Cobb looked around. “Hmmm. Maybe we got the wrong garden.” He looked at Kyllikki and shrugged. Then they all left.

  Three days later, Reder came to the house, alone. He was breathing better and the bandages had been removed.

  “I assume they don’t give warrants to private citizens,” Kyllikki said.

  “They don’t,” he answered coolly. “We don’t need them as long as the police do our work.”

  “You smug bastard.”

  Reder chuckled. “That’s not very ladylike, Mrs. Koski.”

  “What do you want?”

  “I want you to come to your senses. They’re going to start rounding up you radicals by the carload now that the act is in effect.”

  “I’m an American citizen. I’m not a member of the IWW. My father is a businessman in Astoria and belongs to the chamber of commerce. My husband owns a logging company. We’re hardly communists. That oppressive act can’t touch us.”

  “That’s exactly why I’m here. Oh, we’ll get that red sister-in-law of yours, the instant we hear a single word that hurts the war effort. But you—we’ll have to get you another way. I’ve come here to give you one last chance.”

  “Or?”

  “When we do find him, we’ll throw the book at him. You and your children won’t see him for decades.” Kyllikki was glad her skirt hid her shaking knees. She reached for her sisu.