An Amish Man of Ice Mountain (The Amish of Ice Mountain Series Book 2) (10 page)

Chapter Seventeen

Joseph longed for the chance to sit alone . . .
or even to be alone with Priscilla
. But the small waiting room of the Coudersport hospital was packed with Jude, Mr. Ellis, the bishop, and kindly Deacon Keim and his wife—all waiting as the hours ticked by. Mary had been feeling tired and Jude had insisted she stay on the mountain, and his sister had reluctantly agreed. Bishop Umble’s wife was watching Hollie, and again Joseph silently thanked Gott for Priscilla’s calm presence.

She was the only one who murmured occasional words of comfort, while everyone else, even Jude and Mr. Ellis, sat still and stoic in the oddly colored plastic chairs. Joseph understood that it was the
Amisch
way to wait and see what Gott’s will would be, but their quiet made him restless and irritable for some reason.

He was about to fetch a drink from the pop machine when Dr. Luke McCully came striding into the room. Luke was a friend to the
Amisch
community and was helping to oversee Mary’s pregnancy. Joseph trusted him completely.

“All right, we’ve run some scans and done some blood work,” the doctor began. “I’ve called in an oncologist friend of mine—a cancer doctor—to consult. It looks like Abner’s got lung cancer—stage four. But . . .”

He held up a hand to the listeners and Joseph felt himself clinging to the single word . . .
But
.

“But it’s only one nodule in the right lung. It doesn’t appear to have spread anywhere else. We can treat this.”

Joseph cleared his throat. “How?”

The doctor shot him a direct look. “Radiation. Then chemotherapy. It’ll mean coming here every day or possibly staying nearby for about six weeks initially.”

“My
dat
will never do it. He’s as stubborn as an ox.” Joseph spoke absently while words rang with aimless pain through his mind.
Cancer. Chemotherapy
. He looked at Priscilla, who met his gaze squarely.

“It’s the getting up that matters,” she said softly, reminding him of his words to her at the pond when they’d fished together.

He nodded.
She’s right . . . I can’t go into this from a beaten perspective. I’ll talk to Dat, convince him. We’ll work it out.
“Thank you, Doctor. Can we see him?”

“Sure.” Dr. McCully nodded. “He’s free to go home tomorrow actually. I’ve started him on some medicine that’ll help his breathing.”

“If he uses it,” Jude muttered, and Joseph looked at his
bruder
-in-law.

“I’ll see that he does,” Joseph replied.
Which ought to be as easy as wrangling a timber rattler ...

“Good.” Dr. McCully smiled briefly, then peered at Joseph. “I hear your ribs could probably use a once-over as long as you’re here.”

Joseph threw a sour look at Jude, who shrugged innocently, then glanced back at the doctor. “
Jah
, I suppose so.”

“All right, I’ll tend to you in a bit.
Gut nacht
, everyone. I’ll be seeing quite a lot of you, I expect.” Joseph watched the other man skim his eyes over those assembled, pausing momentarily on Priscilla, but he asked no questions—for which Joseph was grateful.

 

 

Priscilla passed the heavy brown door in the hospital labeled “Chapel.” She would have kept going, but she noticed that a bright light shone from beneath the door despite the relative lateness of the hour, and something drew her inexorably to put her hand on the metal knob. She heard the low rumble of a man’s voice inside and almost drew away, not wanting to disturb the person, but there was something familiar about the cadence of the tone. She gently opened the door and peered inside to find Joseph on his knees in the small, intimate room. She drew back and would have closed the door, leaving him to pray, but his voice stopped her.

“Priscilla—
kumme
in,
sei se gut
.”

She entered in surprise. “You didn’t turn,” she whispered. “How did you know it was me?”

He moved his broad shoulders, his back still to her. “I suppose I’ll always know.”

She had to be content with his strange words and moved to sit on the edge of one of the padded chairs. Joseph rose and came back to take a seat next to her, his hat in his hands.

“I have to thank you,” he said after a moment. “Your prayers that whatever ailed Daed would be brought to light were answered.”

She bowed her head. “I didn’t want them answered like this.”

“We rarely want what Gott chooses to give us, but that is part of being in relationship with Him. We take the gifts wrapped in bright paper and the ones in oil cloth all the same.”

“Being in—relationship with Him?” she asked curiously, not having heard things explained in quite this way before.

She felt the weight of Joseph’s gaze as he explained. “I suppose you could call
Amisch
living, an organized religion, with all of its rules, but I learned from Bishop Umble young that religion doesn’t matter much—it’s the kind of relationship you have with Derr Herr that means the most. So . . . I try to know Him, in the trees, the ice, in those I love . . .” His voice trailed off and she sat in the silence for a long minute, thinking of Heath and her father and the way they used fear to preach. But how Joseph spoke was a balm to some wound in her soul and she felt her eyes well with tears.

“Do you cry because you don’t have that feeling about Gott, Priscilla, or because you do? I cannot help but remember that you told me earlier I couldn’t pray for you.”

She drew a shaky breath. “I—I’m so angry with God, I guess.”

She felt him turn toward her, and his fingers carefully stroked her hair back from her face in exquisite tenderness. “Angry because you saw Him modeled by an earthly father who only hurt you, a husband who abused you? But I promise, He is much, much more.”

“Maybe,” she admitted on a sob, feeling that ice was melting in her veins, her heart.

He pulled her close to rest her head on his shoulder and she allowed herself to be truly still for the first time in forever.

“Thank you, Joseph,” she whispered. “I will keep praying for your
daed
.”

“Jah,”
he said on a deep sigh. “We must pray. I talked to him and he refuses treatment. He says he will go back to Ice Mountain to die in peace, and I cannot sway him.”

She lifted her head and saw his look of acceptance.

“But there must be some way to change his mind . . . to convince him . . .”

He smiled sadly. “Gifts in oil cloth, remember?”

And she leaned forward to let her tears fall on his dark coat.

 

 

Joseph stroked Bear’s thick fur as the dog attempted to huddle on the couch beside him. He’d finished a letter to Edward about Daed and now the cabin seemed strange and empty without his fater’s presence. Joseph wondered for the fourth time whether he should have stayed at the hospital overnight. But Mr. Ellis had promised to run Joseph back the next morning to pick up his
daed
, and Priscilla had needed to come back to the mountain for Hollie.

He thought about the time with her in the chapel, her genuine tears for his
fater
, for her own brokenness. It took strength to admit all that she had, and he knew that he admired her on a level unmatched by any woman. He shifted restlessly on the couch, exhausted but almost too tired to sleep. A warning growl from Bear made him look up, and soon a brisk knock sounded on the cabin door.

Joseph got up to answer the knock, wondering fleetingly if it might be Priscilla. But when he opened the door, holding Bear back with one leg, he discovered John Beider, an older neighbor and friend. John held a lantern high and spoke to Bear, and the dog soon wriggled in greeting.

“Joseph, Derr Herr convinced me, though the hour be late, to pay you a visit. I thought you might be having trouble sleeping and I’d spin you a yarn or two to help you drift off.”

Joseph smiled. John Beider’s talent in life was that he could literally talk a man to sleep with his stories, and Joseph welcomed him heartily.

“
Kumme
in, John. Should I make some tea?”

“
Nee
,
sohn
, just take a seat there on the couch.”

Joseph did as he was told and Bear soon resumed his position next to him. John sat with his back to the fireplace, setting his lantern on the floor.

The older man rubbed his hands together, as if conjuring the story he would tell, but first he dropped his gaze for a brief moment. “’Tis fair sorry I am about your
dat
, Joseph. The bishop passed our way and let us know.”

Joseph swallowed and nodded. “As Derr Herr wills.”

“Jah,”
John said dryly. “Easy to say—not as easy to accept . . . But I
kumme
here to tell you a tale. So, settle back and relax . . .”

John’s face took on a meditative glow as he began his story. “Now, a
gut
, unmarried
Amisch
woman went for a holiday to the seashore. She settled her bare toes deep in the wet sand, lifted her skirts, and walked along the beach. But soon she stepped on something hard and bent down to pick the thing up, thinking it might be a shell. Instead, she found an Englischer’s class ring—what they wear when they graduate high school. She read the name inscribed on the golden ring. It said Louis Clark—Remember Me.”

Joseph settled deeper in the couch, feeling lulled by the idea of the sea and its waves. John went on, his voice seeming to waver in time to the flicker of flame in his lantern.

“The
Amisch
woman put the ring in the pocket of her apron, hiding it away, for you know that we have no jewelry. And she returned to her home down Lancaster way, putting the ring far from sight in the back of an
auld
cupboard. Years passed, but the single
Amisch
woman could never find a man to suit her and when her
grossmudder
started to ail, the woman packed up
haus
and prepared to go and take care of the older woman.

“But when she moved the old cupboard, the ring fell to the floor and she picked it up, reading the man’s name and his decree to be remembered. She grew frustrated with the keeping of a childish secret like the ring and threw it in the compost pile before she left the
haus.
The next spring, a neighbor boy brought fertilizer to the grossmudder’s
haus
, and when the
Amisch
woman spread it around her kitchen garden plants, lo and behold, her fingers closed on the ring, hidden in the rich earth. She cleaned it with her apron and wondered why
en der weldt
she could not seem to be rid of the ring. She rose, deciding to take the ring to the creek and throw it in, and she went to the front yard. But suddenly, overhead, she heard a man’s voice and looked up to see a large orange hang glider, struggling to make a safe landing. She ran to help the man when he was on the ground, ignoring the way he studied her aged but still beautiful face. And, as she bent over him, the ring fell from her hand onto his chest. He lifted it in wonder, gazing at the inscription, then looked to her—and she knew.

“‘Louis Clark?’ she asked with a breathless sigh.

“‘Yes,’ he said with a smile.

“‘I-I haven’t tried to remember you, but your ring wouldn’t let me go.’

“‘I lost it long ago, as a marine at sea. But now . . . will you marry me?’

“‘But I’m
Amisch
,’ she gasped.

“‘Then I will become
Amisch
too. I have found you at last and I’ll never let you go.’

“He slipped the ring on her slender finger, a promise of a love that would endure for many years to come.”

Joseph breathed deeply, completely relaxed. He smiled at John.
“Danki,”
he said.

“Jah.”
John laughed. “But let me tell you the moral of the story . . . Sometimes things will pursue you, both
gut
and bad. But Derr Herr can turn them for good, for His glory. Be it a ring, a woman, or even a disease . . . He can turn them for good.”

Joseph nodded and adjusted the cushion under his arm, preparing to rise. John waved him back, picked up the lantern, and quietly left. Joseph sat in the dark, in the flickering light of the low fire, and reached into his pants pocket. He pulled out the bear claw necklace.
Sometimes things pursue you . . .
He stuffed the necklace away, pulled the afghan from the back of the couch, and drifted slowly off to sleep, knowing now what he had to do.

Chapter Eighteen

“Mary,” Priscilla whispered softly, patting the other woman’s back in the bright morning sunlight of a new day. “Please don’t cry so much. This stress can’t be good for your baby.”

Mary lifted her beautiful but tear-stained face to Priscilla and rubbed at her eyes with the backs of her hands. “
Jah
, you are right. And I promised Jude, if he went to teach, I wouldn’t cry.”

“And your
daed
wouldn’t want you to be crying either, I bet.”

“
Nee
. . . And I appreciate your caring. I’m due to go visit Grossmudder May today to see how the pregnancy is going. Would you like to
kumme
with me later?”

Priscilla smiled. “I’d love to. I’ve yet to meet this wonderful woman who is the healer of your community.”

“
Gut
. . . I’ve got another dress that I hemmed for Hollie when she wakes. It’s purple.”

“Thank you.” Priscilla bit her lip for a moment, thinking hard of how else she might distract her beautiful hostess from her worries over her father—then an idea came to her.
It’s a risk, but for Joseph’s sister, it’s worth it.
“Mary, I’ve been wondering what you would think about me starting to—well, starting to dress
Amisch
?” She went on hastily. “I mean it with the fullest respect and honor and thought maybe if you had an old dress, we could make it over or something.” She plucked at the leg of her worn jeans. “I don’t feel right in these somehow.”

Mary smiled in delight. “I have many things, thanks to my loving husband. And I think it’s a
wun-derbaar
idea, Priscilla.
Kumme
, let’s go look in the cedar chests.”

An hour later, Priscilla found herself standing on a sewing stool while Mary sat comfortably on some cushions on the floor, letting out the hem of a burgundy dress. Hollie was practicing tiny stitches on a pretty piece of cloth that Mary had given her and laughed out loud each time the needle missed her small fingers.

Priscilla smiled in remembrance. “My mother taught me to sew from the time I was Hollie’s age. I grew so proud of all of the pin pricks on my fingers.”

Mary smiled up at her. “You sound like an
Amisch maedel . . .
Can you quilt?”

“I suppose—though I doubt my stitches would match those of the women around here.”

“It doesn’t matter. You must
kumme
to my baby quilting. It’s supposed to be a surprise, but Jude cannot keep a secret from me for long.”

“I’d love to come,” Priscilla agreed. Then she wondered what it must be like to have a husband who told you everything, loved you enough that no secret could stand between you.
Certainly Heath didn’t reveal his true self until after we married, and Joseph, well . . .
She felt her face flush at the thought of linking Joseph with marriage. Hadn’t his whole attitude been one of standing apart since she’d known him?
Except for his kisses in the ER,
her mind whispered.

“You must be hot standing up there,” Mary said. “Your face is red.”

And Priscilla felt herself flush even deeper. “I’m all right.”

“
Nee
. . . jump down and help pull me up. I’ve finished with the hemline. Let’s add the apron and
kapp
and see how you look.”

Priscilla agreed, gently helping Mary up, then pausing to lift her skirts for a moment to scratch at her bare leg.

“Perhaps you shouldn’t go barefoot,” Mary said thoughtfully. “Your feet will get sore.”

But Priscilla shook her head. “It’s freeing. I’d like to try.”

“Yay, Mommy!” Hollie clapped, wiggling her own tiny bare toes.

Mary laughed and led Priscilla to the main bedroom, where she helped pin up her masses of red hair into an intricate and beautiful bun.

“Such hair,” Mary exclaimed in a complimentary tone. “It’s like all the colors of the sun.”

“Mary, aren’t you to guard against vanity as an
Amisch
woman?” Priscilla teased.

“We are friends,” Mary said simply.

Priscilla smiled as the words drifted into her heart . . .
I’m becoming bound here, to this place, these people, by cords of tenderness . . .

Mary pinned a prayer
kapp
into place to cover her handiwork on Priscilla’s hair, then held out a small mirror. Priscilla took it, staring at her image for long moments, seeing herself transformed, clothed with a dignity that she knew would please her mother, and she couldn’t resist giving Mary a huge hug.

“Danki,”
Priscilla whispered, then wondered with excitement what Joseph might think.

 

 

Joseph settled his
fater
into a comfortable chair, grateful that many of his daed’s
gut
friends had gathered to greet him upon his return from the hospital. In truth, his father was looking better than he had in days, his breathing eased by the numerous medicines that were lined up as foreign objects on the kitchen counter.

Joseph drew near when his
daed
called him close.

“
Jah,
Dat?”

“You’re anxious,
sohn
. I can tell. Itching to be about some errand or another.”

Joseph opened his mouth to protest and his
daed
held up a hand. “Go on with you,
buwe
. I’ve plenty of company here and I’m not dead yet. Besides, that big black gelding of yours has been eating his head off for want of exercise. Ben Kauffman’s
sohn
can barely keep him in rein when the lad comes over to run the beast.”

“All right, Daed.” Joseph pressed the old man’s shoulder with affection and made room for jolly Deacon Keim to have a spot as he took his leave.
Besides, riding Ned will make what I must do all the faster.

Soon, Joseph was astride the big black horse, putting fair distance between himself and his community, as he passed the graveyard and started to canter to the other side of the mountain, where the
Englisch
took cottages for rent . . .

 

 

“Are you sure you’d like to walk?” Priscilla asked Mary anxiously. “Isn’t it a bit far to Grossmudder May’s?”

“I walk every time. It’s
gut
for me and the
boppli
.” She rubbed her growing abdomen and gave Priscilla a pretty smile.

“What’s a
grossmudder
?” Hollie piped up as she filled her dress pockets with pebbles.

Mary laughed. “A grandmother,
kind
. But we call Grossmudder May ‘grandmother’ because she cares for all of us here on the mountain.”

“Will she be my grandma too?”

Priscilla felt the weight of Mary’s gaze and nodded faintly.

Mary smiled at Hollie. “Most surely.”

“Great!” Hollie danced ahead on the path.

“She is such a happy child,” Mary praised.

“I don’t know sometimes. She—well, she saw a lot of things that I couldn’t keep from her, even when she was much younger. My husband—he was a brutal man.”

Mary slipped her hand into Priscilla’s. “But you have Hollie.”

Priscilla couldn’t subdue the shudder that passed through her body when she thought of the night Hollie was conceived. It had been a nightmare that she tried not to relive, but it flooded back now and she swallowed hard.

“
Jah
, I have Hollie.” Her voice quavered.

Mary sighed. “Priscilla, sometimes it’s the bitterest water that gives life to the sweetest fruit. And surely, Hollie is such a blessing.”

Priscilla had to smile, though her eyes were damp with tears. “You’re right, Mary, and you
Amisch
seem to have a
gut
saying for every situation.”

Mary gave a delicate shrug. “I think we try to speak the truth.”

“And that, my friend, is exactly what I need. Sometimes, when you’ve lived with someone who hurts you, you start to believe that you’re not worth much, but here—I feel—I feel alive to possibility.”

“And with Joseph too?” Mary asked gently.

“Yes,” Priscilla admitted in soft tones. “With Joseph too.”

 

 

Joseph drew rein at the edge of the small cabin’s property. From where he sat on Ned, he could easily survey the eerily familiar garden, the front yard, and the porch with matching buckets of bright flowers.
Maybe I have the wrong place—the garden looks freshly worked. But I’d know the way here if I walked it blindfolded . . .

He slid down and tethered the horse to a large tree limb, then began to move toward the cabin. With each step, he felt his heart rate increase and his palms begin to sweat. Memories swept through his mind like the onslaught of flood water: dark, murky, and treacherous. Somehow, the words Priscilla had spoken to him about what had happened here seemed all the more striking in proximity.
Abuser . . . criminal . . . Who was really who?

He swallowed hard and put his booted foot on the bottom step. The cabin door creaked open and Amanda Stearn stepped out onto the porch. Joseph steeled himself to meet her eyes and then felt his mouth tighten with tension when she smiled.

“Joseph, you came.”

He reached in his pocket and produced the bear claw necklace, handing it out to her. He tried to ignore the blatant brush of her fingertips against his hand, wanting to jerk away. Suddenly, he felt a new clarity about the situation and wondered if she’d tricked him into coming to the cabin by using the necklace and the promise he’d made to be there if she ever sent it to him
. But what do I owe her . . . What can I gain from her? Forgiveness? Absolution? But only Derr Herr can truly give those . . .

“I came because you sent me a token of an old promise—one made by an ignorant
buwe
, Amanda.”

He watched her eyes narrow and realized how much older she seemed, older and almost malevolent.
How different from Priscilla . . .

“I can assure you that you were far from ignorant, Joseph.”

He shook his head at her insinuating tone. “I have the pictures . . . you have the necklace. Now tell me why you sent for me. ”
And tell me why I was foolish enough to come . . .

 

 

Priscilla thought that Grossmudder May’s cabin looked rather like a gnome cottage, perched on the edge of a thickly planted hill. Even Hollie appeared entranced by the mingled smells of fruit blossoms and herbs that filled the air and intrigued the senses.

“Oh, Mommy, it’s like the ice mine that Joseph showed us. I think the fairies live here too.”

Priscilla smiled as Hollie bent to attempt to tease a bright yellow butterfly from an apple blossom. The insect fluttered away and Hollie laughed, trying to jump after it.

“
Ach
, there’s nothing more blessed than a child’s laughter at my door.”

Priscilla looked up to see an aged
Amisch
woman standing on the cabin’s porch, a grin of wrinkles and dimples upon her old, intelligent face.

“Grossmudder May,” Mary said, slightly out of breath. “
Sei se gut
, meet Priscilla Allen and her daughter, Hollie.”

Priscilla almost wanted to look away from the keen eyes of the elder. She felt for some reason that her very soul was laid bare under the compelling gaze, and she wasn’t sure she liked the feeling.

Grossmudder May smiled. “Don’t fret, miss. I see only what Derr Herr gives me, and it looks as though you have some spirit and fight within you. ’Tis a
gut
thing, I’m thinking.”

Priscilla dipped her head in polite acknowledgment, very conscious of her
Amisch
dress, not wanting to be an affront to the healer. But before she could speak, Hollie bounced up the stairs.

“Hello. Are you the fairy queen?”

“Hollie,” Priscilla shushed in embarrassment.

But Grossmudder May waved a wrinkled hand, dismissing Priscilla’s concern. “Allow the
kind
a bit of fancy, for it fades soon enough in this world.
Nee
, child, I am no fairy queen but a daughter of a King just the same.”

Hollie frowned a bit in thought. “You mean God, don’t you?”

“
Jah
, I do. ’Tis bright you are.”

“My mommy’s mad at God.”

“
Ach
. . . well, we’ll have to see about that.
Kumme . . . kumme
inside, Mary Lyons and Priscilla Allen. The child can play in the back garden.”

Hollie let out a whoop of pleasure and darted behind the cabin while Priscilla followed Mary and the old woman inside, feeling a curious sense of expectancy.

 

 

“I find that I am short on money,” Amanda said stiffly. “I married since the time we were—together, but my husband died recently and I was left with very little.”

Joseph shrugged as casually as he could, though his throat hurt and he felt again a wave of uncertainty. Then he remembered Priscilla’s endless resourcefulness, and fishing with Hollie. He squared his shoulders. “Yet you rented this cabin, Amanda, and are still young enough to work.”

Her mouth dipped into a sneer, surprising him so that he nearly took a step back.

“I could have sent those pictures to your bishop. Have you thought of that, Joseph?”

“And I would have repented,” he realized aloud. “And the community would have accepted me.”

“Listen,” she hissed. “You owe me. Your silence. Your pleasure. Your money . . . Now when can I expect payment?”

He was opening his mouth, longing to deny her but still feeling shaken inside, when a clear whistling broke the moment. Joseph turned to see Dan Kauffman, Ben’s eldest boy, come striding to the garden with the ease of a regular visitor.