An Amish Match on Ice Mountain

by Kelly Long

  “Your fater loved you,” she whispered. “So much so that once, when you were little more than a babe in arms, he feared that your sleep was troubled by nachtmares . . . He called for Dutch Wolf, the auld healer of Ice Mountain, to kumme and see to you. Now, Dutch was a strange man, or so folks said . . . but when Ben told him about you, Auld Dutch came and took a broom and used it to sweep the four corners of the ceiling of your room. The healer said he was sweeping away all of the nachtmares that hung over your cradle.” Viola paused for a moment, seeing the old-fashioned twig broom laid against the ceiling in her mind’s eye. She smiled faintly. “And then there was the time you were teething real bad. Your fater sought out Dutch Wolf once more and the auld man told Ben to geh and kill the big yellow rattler that was sitting on a triangle-shaped rock by the stream and to bring back its rattles. Sure enough, there was a rattler, and sure enough, Ben brought the rattles home and pinned them on your tiny nachtgown because Dutch said the rattles would scare away the pain . . . Ach, Stephen, how I wish I could take away all of your pain now. As well as all of the pain I’ve caused you over the years . . . But there is no magical spell to break the lost time we haven’t had. And there is no fater anymore to seek comfort and a cure . . . If only you could know how very sorry I am. How wrong I’ve been . . .” She choked on a hoarse sob, then nearly startled when his dark head turned on the crisp pillow and he studied her silently with intense blue-green eyes.

  “Stephen—I—I thought you were asleep.”

  “Don’t . . . hide,” he whispered. “I hear the sorrow in your voice, Mamm. We can . . . start again.” His tan hand slid across the quilt top toward her and she took his fingers gently into hers. She laid her head down to wet his hand with her tears of gratitude and love.

  * * *

  Ella reentered the quiet bedroom once Stephen’s mamm had left and found him staring absently at the window.

  “Stephen? Are you all right?” She slid into the small chair beside the bed and leaned close to him.

  He nodded, and she felt along his forehead for fever, then sat back with a sigh. “Joel has brought the community together to pray for you out in the barn this evening. He just told me that they would pray for me and the baby as well. I am so blessed by your people—I do not even know where to begin saying thanks.”

  She watched his sea eyes focus, then narrow at her words, as if he was in pain, and she caught up a cool cloth to ease against his brow. He winced away when she dabbed too near the stitches on his temple, and she dropped the cloth back into the basin.

  “I’m sorry,” she murmured. “Would you like a cool drink of spring water?”

  “Nee . . . I want . . . you to know . . . They’re not just my people . . . Do you think of them as yours as well?”

  She looked into his eyes, bright with fever, and sought a way to tell him how much she wished they were her people. She began slowly, hesitantly. “Until our time here, I always thought that the sea was my home, but I know now that I want this baby to be born here, on Ice Mountain. But Stephen, what do you want? There’s no reason for you to stay here to hide me from my crazy family anymore, and you could go back to Coudersport to the firehouse and your work there.”

  She bit her lip, unsure of the mixed emotions on his face. “Do you—want to go back?” she asked finally.

  He shook his head, a brief movement, but one that still left her feeling uncertain because he did not speak.

  * * *

  Stephen felt frustrated that somehow she had not directly answered his question but had replaced it with one of her own. Yet hers was a fair question and one that expressed consideration for him. Do I want to stay? Until when? Does Ice Mountain feel like home? This last thought echoed in his consciousness, and he looked up into Ella’s concerned eyes.

  “I once told you that Ice Mountain no longer felt like home. But being back here, spending time with you and Joel and Martha, and even now, the promise I made to my mother to start anew—it all matters. It does feel like home . . . but it would not be complete without me telling you—that I love you. I love you, Ella.”

  He watched her dark eyes fill with happy tears, which she dashed away with a quick hand. “Oh, Stephen, I love you too.”

  He wanted to catch her close in a soulful embrace, but the best he could do with his injuries was reach out an arm, and she moved to cuddle as close to him as she could.

  It came to him as he held her lightly that he wanted no hurried wedding, even if she would consent; he knew it would be all too easy to rush into marriage because of the babe. Nee, he wanted more time to court and for her to think about what loving each other might mean—after all, she’d thought she loved Jeremy. And how could he marry her when she wasn’t Amish? It all made his head hurt, but his heart resounded with the truth that he loved her, and for now, that was more than enough.

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  “You really need to get some rest, Ella,” Martha said gently. “May Miller says that Stephen is out of the woods now.”

  Ella smothered a delicate yawn behind her hand and smiled tiredly. “I know, but I’ll give him his supper first, and then I’ll lie down. I promise.”

  Ella went along to the kitchen to scramble some eggs and heat up some nice pieces of sliced ham. She added a bowlful of strawberries, lightly sugared, and loaded everything on a tray and went back to the Umbles’ guest room, where she’d spent so many hours of late. Sophy went along with her, the little white dog now spry and happy after a week’s nursing from May.

  Stephen was propped up in bed, the quilts tangled around his lean hips. And tonight he looked especially handsome, even piratical, with his healing scars and the bandages removed from his tan chest.

  “Hello,” Ella said, almost shyly. He was like some big, lounging cat, with his tawny skin and glittering eyes, and she remembered with a slight shiver of delight what it was to have his clever mouth against her skin.

  “Are you cold?” he murmured. “Kumme, let me warm you.”

  “You need to eat first,” she admonished weakly as she brought the tray closer to the bed, but she soon saw that he had gained some measure of strength back when he shook his head at the tray, then grabbed a handful of the skirt of her dress.

  “Stephen,” she squeaked, quickly sliding the tray onto the bedside table and struggling to maintain her balance as his grip tightened by inches. She sat down on the edge of the bed and he let her dress go, only to run one of his big hands up and down the skin of her forearm. She stilled, drinking in his touch, and so very thankful to God that he was alive.

  “What are you thinking?” he asked softly.

  An onslaught of images and memories assailed her senses suddenly, and she felt a tightening in her breasts and belly. “I suppose I’m thinking about—us,” she managed to say in a high, breathy voice that made her swallow. I sound like some teenager, wild for the latest singer or performer . . . But Stephen was real—not some faraway fantasy man, and she was all too happy to lean in closer to him when a smile tugged at the corner of his handsome mouth.

  “Kiss me,” he said.

  She swiped her mouth quickly across his and then felt her spine tingle when he laughed low in his throat.

  “Ach, so meager a kiss. Do you forget how to play, or does that bear’s kiss turn my face from you?”

  “I hope you’re teasing. I neither forget nor do I mind the token of the bear—it serves to remind me how dear you are.”

  “Then, kiss me . . .”

  She leaned forward a bit more, then left such a kiss upon his lips that she thought it would surely set Ice Mountain ablaze, but his sea eyes merely held hers when she’d finished. She nearly huffed, but then she saw the pulse thudding in his throat and that his eyes had shifted to dark green in intensity. “I think I remember well how to play,” she whispered triumphantly, and he nodded.

  “Indeed you do, Miss Ella. But I think there might be a few more things that you could add to your—talents.” He gave her a wicked smile, and
she couldn’t control the thrill of anticipation that washed over her in honeyed waves...

  * * *

  “So, what are your plans?” Joel asked the question idly as he relaxed in the chair beside the bed.

  Stephen eyed him warily, knowing Joel well enough to understand that his best friend asked no questions without a purpose. “I thought I’d recover from the bear attack first.”

  “Having nachtmares, are you?”

  Stephen gave him a sour smile. “Yeah, Joel . . . ones where I can’t do what I want to do with Ella . . .”

  Joel laughed. “You forget that I am relatively newly married . . . there are lots of things I like doing with Martha.”

  Stephen sighed, thinking of the loss of little John. “Look, Joel, I’m sorry for being narrish . . . I don’t know what my plans are—except, late at nacht, when I pray, I believe I’m supposed to start a fire brigade on Ice Mountain—if some of the men would be up for it.”

  “I’m sure that they would. The last time we had a barn burn back a few years, I think the fire was way ahead of what we knew how to deal with.”

  Stephen relaxed a bit, feeling that Joel’s intuitive questioning was probably over—but he should have known that he was wrong.

  “So a fire brigade—which does great good but has nothing really to do with you and Ella . . . what about the two of you?”

  “Joel—what do you want me to say?” he snapped. “Do I want to leave? Could Ella ever want to become Amish? Do I love her?”

  “Do you want to leave?” Joel’s voice was gentle.

  Stephen set his jaw and thought hard. “Nee,” he whispered. “But how can I ever ask her to stay?”

  “Well, if having my approval makes it easier—I mean my approval as bishop that she may join our faith—you’ve got that. And I know the community would welcome her warmly, as they’ve done while she’s been staying here.”

  “Danki, Joel. That does help.”

  Joel sat upright and slapped his knees. “Gut! And I think the question about loving her is something you’ve already answered inside, many times over, my friend. You need only seek a marriage to—help things along.”

  Stephen swallowed, then smiled ruefully at the thought. “What’s it like being married?”

  “A whole lot more interesting than courting.”

  They laughed together as good friends do and Stephen began to plan how he might propose to Ella.

  * * *

  Ella was lying on the Umbles’ comfortable living room couch, catching up on sleep, when she began to dream.

  She was trying to walk between the great glistening sea and the intense height of a powerful mountain. She strained to fit between the two places, but her belly was too big, and she felt stuck. The sea called to her, lulling, comforting, and familiar, but she was held in check by the voice of the mountain and its strength. She lifted a hand to press it against the solid rock and felt it turn to palatial ice beneath her fingertips. She smiled and the sun caught on the display of ice and cast blue-green shadows on its form. She was comforted and loved by the subtle colors and suddenly knew that she was home . . .

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Viola packed her trunk with a calm surety. It was two days since she’d spoken with Stephen, and she knew what she had to do. One of Sol Kauffman’s buwes was coming over to help carry her things to an empty cabin near May Miller’s that the bishop said she might use. She folded one of her dresses, then looked up as Esther entered the room.

  “Whatever are you doing, Vi? It’s nearly time for supper.”

  “I’m packing. I’m leaving.” There, she’d said it. Straight out.

  “Leaving?” Esther’s voice rose, her tone incredulous.

  “Where do you plan on going?”

  “Somewhere where my sohn will be welcomed—just as he is—nee criticism, nee hatred, only love.”

  “You’re narrish,” Esther sneered.

  “Jah, I am . . . for ever letting you kumme between Stephen and me.”

  “Viola Lambert, talk some sense. That buwe is nothing but trouble, just like his fat—”

  “Don’t say it, Esther. Ben was a gut man. For whatever reason—perhaps jealousy on your part—you hated him and made me unsure of parenting Stephen.”

  “I came when that man died and helped you every way I could and this is how you repay me?”

  Viola met her sister’s cold eyes. “Here’s the truth, Esther—real love never needs repayment . . . Of this, Gott has made me sure . . .”

  * * *

  Stephen tested his pain level and strength as he walked along the woodland path that led to the Kauffman store. He felt pretty good, though Ella would likely snap his neck if she discovered he was gone from the Umble haus. He’d left her in a deep sleep, curled up on the guest room bed after some heated kisses that had relaxed her and ignited him.

  He breathed in the slight breeze that blew through the mountain laurel and it felt gut to be alive. He realized that he couldn’t remember the feeling from anytime in the past few years—unless it was when he was kissing Ella. But life for living’s sake had never been something he’d rejoiced in. His days as a youth had seemed to be made up of feeling cold, inside and out, no matter the season. And he wondered at his recent promise to his mother to “start over,” but even that felt right today.

  He entered Sol’s store and was surprised and grateful to be hailed by the men watching the checkers match in the back.

  “Hey, Stephen! Hiya! Wrestled any bears lately?”

  He smiled at these older men who were about his fater’s age, had he lived. They were exactly the right men to lead a fire brigade and encourage the younger men along.

  He walked deeper into the store, then stopped to cast

  his eyes over the wooden checkerboard to see who was winning. Then he looked to Sol.

  “I’ve been talking with the bishop, and he seems to agree with me that starting a fire brigade on Ice Mountain would be a gut thing.”

  Sol nodded in ready agreement while several other men muttered their interest. The checkers game was abandoned as the men turned to listen to what he had to say, and Stephen was struck by their willingness to learn from him.

  “The last fire on the mountain was Stolfus’s barn, I believe,” Stephen said. “I remember I was about sixteen and helped in the water relay, as did many teenagers and women, as well as the men. We lost the barn but Gott was merciful and the fire didn’t spread to the tree line.”

  “Jah.” Sol nodded. “Some folks dug a shallow trench to turn the fire from the forest.”

  “That’s right, and trench turning has been around since the eighteen hundreds.” Stephen paused to gather his thoughts. “I guess what I want to say is that Ice Mountain has worked as a community in the past and we will in the future. I’d just like to train all of you here so that you might geh out among your neighbors and train others to know what to do if there is ever a fire here in a cabin home.”

  “You mean like have a class, so to speak?” Pike Mast asked with interest.

  “Jah, a class. Maybe we could even use the schoolhaus, since the kinner are out for the summer. And anyone who wants to kumme can, and then they can geh on to teach others.”

  “Sounds gut, Stephen.” Sol patted his massive belly. “And I’ll bring some food and drink.”

  Stephen and the other men laughed together in response, and Stephen felt a flash of kinship that he’d never known before. It felt gut inside, and he had to leave the store quickly when his eyes filled with happy tears. What would it have been like to have a fater, especially now when I could use some advice about life, about Ella?

  He smiled to himself and took a path that led back to the Umbles’, pleased with the late morning’s events.

  * * *

  Ella looked up into May Miller’s face, trying to read the healer’s expression as the older woman examined her for the pregnancy.

  “Well,” May said finally with a smile, “everything seems quite right.
You should deliver within the next ten days or so.”

  Ella stared at her; the exciting reality of finally becoming a mother was difficult to grasp. Ten days seemed both a long time away and no time at all, and suddenly she just wanted Stephen to enfold her in his strong arms.

  To this end, she bid a rather hasty goodbye to May and went out into the windy air. The mountain seemed poised in expectation of autumn, and tawny hints of reds and yellows had already begun to tinge the tree leaves.

  Ella felt an exuberant burst of energy and almost wanted to spin on her toes at the smell of apples and cinnamon that she discovered Viola Lambert was brewing in a large kettle outside. To Ella’s surprise, Stephen stood there too, with his mamm, watching as she drew the long paddle through the sugary brown bubbles of apple butter.

  “This looks delicious!” Ella pronounced as she nestled close to Stephen, not even thinking of what his mamm might feel at her open affection.

  But Viola merely smiled and offered the tip of the paddle to Ella. “Would you and the boppli like a taste? But be careful, it’s quite hot.”

  Ella was about to reach out a hand when Stephen swiped a finger over the tip of the paddle then offered it to her lips. She was so surprised that she took a taste without thinking, licking the sweetness from his long fingers. “Mmmm,” she mumbled, unable to control the blush that she knew stained her cheeks.

  But again, Viola merely smiled and nodded her head. “Young love,” she said. “It is gut.”

  Ella heard Stephen laugh, low and exultant, as he caught her closer within the shelter of his arms.

  “It is gut, Mamm,” Stephen agreed. “Good indeed.”

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  A few days later, Stephen insisted he was well enough to begin to teach the fire brigade classes. And it was an especially sober time as news reached Ice Mountain of the worst school fire ever to take place in the United States. It was in the city of Chicago, and ninety-two children had perished in less than fifteen minutes.