Aino had followed Vaino across an ocean and half a continent. She had endured the cramped ship, the crowded trains, and the uncertainty of building a life in a country where she barely spoke the language. But sleeping underground felt like something else entirely, a surrender of the very humanity they had worked so hard to establish.
“We came to America to rise up,” she said quietly. “Not to burrow down.”
Word of Vaino’s plan reached William Tanner’s ranch within the week. The cattleman mentioned it to his hands, who mentioned it to cowboys from neighboring spreads, who carried it to the general store in Buffalo, where men gathered around the pot-bellied stove to share news and gossip.
“The Finlander is digging a grave behind his cabin,” one cowboy reported. “Says he is going to sleep in it.”
“Maybe he knows something we do not about his chances come winter,” another joked. “A man works underground in Finland and probably thinks the whole world should live like gophers.”
The mockery was good-natured at first, but as summer wore on and Vaino’s excavation deepened, the tone shifted toward genuine concern.
A rancher named George Bellamy rode over in late August to see the hole for himself. He found Vaino 8 ft down, shoring up walls with timber.
“Colla,” Bellamy called down, “you planning to live down there or just visit?”
“Sleep down here. Live in the cabin above.”
“And when the spring melt comes? When groundwater fills that hole like a stock tank?”
“The site is on high ground. Gravel layer below the clay. Water will drain, not collect.”
“So you say.” Bellamy leaned on his saddle horn. “I have seen men try clever things in this territory. Windmills that blew apart. Irrigation ditches that froze solid. New ideas do not survive Wyoming winters. Only proven methods survive.”
“This is a proven method. Proven for centuries in Finland.”