The Amish Heart of Ice Mountain (13 page)

Chapter Eighteen

He studied her intently, the subtle rise and fall of her chest in the bluish hospital gown, the heavy braid of her now clean hair, and the deftly placed row of stitches along the top of her forehead. He recalled coming upon a fawn in the woods once, when he was young enough to be charmed by such things, and the memory filled him now and swelled his throat. Where was its mother? Surely some larger prey animal would take it, but to touch it would mean certain rejection from any of its kind—so he merely watched, until the brown hairs became Sarah's delicate brows, arched faintly, as if in pain....

“Edward?”

He heard Joe's voice from far away and chose not to respond
. I just want to watch her.... Can't they understand?

“Edward, you have to get some sleep or something to eat. I'll sit with her.”

“
Nee
,” he murmured quietly. “
Danki,
Joe. But
nee
. . .”

There was a distinct pause in the air, long enough for Edward to watch her breathe in and out again.

“Do you want your eye patch?” Joe asked after a moment.

Edward felt with curious fingers over his scarred cheek and then the empty eye socket. It was strange that all through the horrific
nacht
, he hadn't thought of covering his eye.... He sighed.

“Why was she out there, Joseph?” he asked aloud. “Was she looking for me?”

Joe pulled up a chair and sat down. “I don't know. But you—you can't blame yourself; it was an accident.”

Edward snorted. “Let's call it what it was, Joe—I was drunk. I didn't see her. It's the same as if I'd run her over with a car—drunk driving. But I made
Gott
a promise out there on that road . . . a promise. . . .” He let his voice drift off.

“Well, maybe she'd gone to try to help Deborah Zook. I heard the girl passed away during the
nacht
—some kind of woman's thing. . . .”

Edward frowned. “But Sarah was in her nightgown and far from the Zook
haus
. . . and Deborah, she was so young, may
Gott
have mercy on her family. . . .”

Joseph drew an audible breath. “I know, Edward. And we'll piece it together—what happened last
nacht
. The important thing now is that Sarah is going to be well. The concussion is not that bad, and that only her arm was broken after being trampled by so massive a horse is nothing short of miraculous.”

“Then why doesn't she wake?” Edward asked, idly sliding on the eye patch his
bruder
had handed him.

“She's in shock,” Dr. McCully answered from behind them. The
Englisch
doctor was a
gut
friend to the
Amisch
of Ice Mountain and had been practicing at the Coudersport Hospital for many years. “She'll wake when her body and mind are ready.”

“But it's been hours,” Edward insisted.

The older man shook his head. “The MRI was clean except for a mild concussion. She'll be fine, Edward, you'll see. . . .”

 

 

Mahlon clasped and unclasped his thick fingers as he sat in the quiet of the hospital's chapel. The silence was unnerving and he tried to refocus on praying for Sarah. He'd left Anne with the
kinner
back on the mountain but had felt an urge he couldn't explain to accompany his unconscious
dochder
to the hospital. Now, he wondered why he'd
kumme
. . . .

“Do I intrude, Mahlon?” Bishop Umble's voice echoed from behind him, and Mahlon startled, then leaned back in the cloth-covered chair.

“
Nee
, Bishop. I'd be glad of yer company, truth ta tell.”

The older man came forward and sat down beside him, sighing deeply. “Sarah still hasn't woken, but Dr. McCully seems confident things will be all right.”

Mahlon nodded, then asked the question that had been plaguing him for the past hours. “Bishop, do you think
Gott
would punish me for how I've treated Sarah? I mean, I think of all the times I might have had a kind word fer her and I let it pass, and the many times I've thought her . . . strange, or a hex even.”

Bishop Umble shook his head. “
Nee
, Mahlon, do not trouble yourself.
Gott
doesn't play games depending on how well we've loved one another, but He does give us room to start anew. When Sarah awakens, why not try to start a real and loving relationship with her? It comes to me that your
fater
may have never let you accept yourself, so you've had a hard time accepting the
kinner
for who they are. But it's never too late to do the right thing—never.”

“Ye're a wise man,” Mahlon said after a moment, drinking in the healing words like balm.

“And a busy one . . . I've sadly got to go back to the mountain for Deborah Zook's funeral, but your
dochder
lives on. See that she has a life full of love, my friend.” The bishop patted his shoulder and rose to leave.

Mahlon nodded, his eyes full of unshed tears. “
Jah,
I will.”

 

 

 

 

“Sarah?” Edward kept his voice low, level, as his wife's eyelids fluttered, then opened for the first time since her injury.

It was after midnight and he knew he should probably ring for the nurse, but he couldn't seem to move as he waited for Sarah to say something. Instead, she simply stared ahead, not moving, her gray eyes wide and blank in the dim overhead light.

“Sarah?” He sought for her hand beneath the covers and found her fingers chilled and limp. He tried to squeeze her hand, growing desperate for a response, but she didn't move.

Then he pulled away, got to his feet, and ran to open the room door. “Doctor!” he shouted into the quiet hall, careless of the answering rapid shushing and the hurried fall of footsteps as he swallowed back tears and returned to his bride's side.

 

 

“Catatonic state. I've seen it once or twice during my training,” Dr. McCully mused aloud as he shone his small flashlight into Sarah's eyes.

“What? What's wrong with her?” Edward asked in desperation, his hands clenching and unclenching the chair back near the bed.

Dr. McCully straightened. “The fancy name's catatonia, and I've seen it in patients with shock. It usually wears off in a few hours.” The doctor lifted one of Sarah's hands and then let go.

Her hand remained poised in the air in a strange waxen flexibility that sent a chill down Edward's spine. She was behaving like some weird doll.

“So, we just wait?” Edward asked. “I'm not very
gut
at that.”

Dr. McCully replaced her hand on the sheet and glanced at Edward. “Sit by her. Talk to her. I'll go make a phone call to a friend of mine back in Boston who might know more about this sort of thing.”

“All right.” Edward nodded and sat down next to the bed, drawing the chair close so that he could see the dark pupils in her wide gray eyes. “I'll try.”

 

 

Two days later, there'd been no improvement in Sarah's responsiveness and Edward was frantic.

“What did your friend in Boston have to say?” he asked the
Englisch
doctor for what felt like the fiftieth time.

Dr. McCully exhaled audibly, clearly frustrated himself. “Edward, there's a difference between the brain and the mind. Her brain is not injured, but her mind . . .”

Edward turned from the bed, where he'd been standing vigil, talking himself hoarse for hours. “You mean there's something wrong with her mind? That she's always going to be like this?”

“No, probably not, but her mind needs time and the right stimuli to recover.”

“Stimuli?” Edward whispered, then gave a decisive nod. “I'm taking her home to Ice Mountain.” To his surprise, Dr. McCully agreed with a faint smile.

“Yes, Edward, if ever there's a place that a person could heal, it would be Ice Mountain, but you've got to promise me that you'll bring her back if you have any new concerns. And I'd like physical therapy to assess her mobility before you go.”

“Fine. But tomorrow we leave.” Edward turned back to the bed, then looked over his shoulder as Joe entered and Dr. McCully left.

Joseph pulled up a chair. “Any change?”

“None,” Edward replied. “But I just got Dr. McCully's blessing to take her back to the mountain tomorrow.”

“Do you think that's a
gut
idea? How will you care for her?”

“I will,” Edward said simply, shrugging his shoulders. “How was the service today?” He lowered his voice, not wanting Sarah to hear about Deborah Zook's funeral and be unduly upset—
if Sarah could hear.
Her eyes were closed again, as if she slept, but he wasn't sure.

Edward decided not to take a chance and rose to motion his
bruder
out into the hall. “Did you discover anything about why Sarah was out on the road when I hit her with Sunny?”

Joseph nodded. “Maybe . . . Esther Zook brought Sarah's medical bag to the service. I dropped it off at your cabin. It seems that Sarah was at the Zooks' the
nacht
Deborah died, but nobody went into much detail, except to say she ran off without her cloak.”

“Why would Sarah run from an ailing patient?” Edward mused aloud.

“I don't know. Maybe
auld
man Zook scared her off. You know he seems a bit rough, and with his
dochder
ill, maybe he—”

“
Nee
, Sarah's more than tenacious when it comes to her patients. It had to be something else.”

Edward looked up when a sudden crash from inside his wife's room echoed in the hall. He ran to open the door and saw Sarah standing next to the bed, the contents of her previously untouched dinner tray lying on the floor.

Chapter Nineteen

Sarah stared out the window of Mr. Ellis's station wagon, the vehicle that would bring her back to the base of Ice Mountain. She watched the trees rush by in a blur and closed her eyes for a moment, ignoring the fact that Edward sat, solid and still, next to her—so close that she could catch his scent. But now there was no alcohol on his breath, only his own manly smell of pine and summer and things promised.
Things lost . . .

She jumped when he laid a tender hand on her knee and opened her eyes.

“Would you like to stop at the ice mine for a minute before we go up?” he asked softly.

She shrugged, feeling her shoulder touch his. “It doesn't matter.”

“
Jah
, it does. You know there's something about the mine that's . . .” She watched him pause, visibly struggling for words, which was so unlike him. But she didn't feel like supplying what he sought and waited.

“. . . like
Gott
is there,” he finished.

She stared at him. “
Gott?
” she asked. “Since when do you talk about
Gott?
”

His blue eye shone with steadiness. “Since now,” he said decisively.

She frowned. “
Jah
, well, as my
fater
would say, you're a day late and a dollar short.”
And Deborah's dead . . . and Deborah's dead . . .
The words singsonged in her mind until he reached for her hand and curled his warm fingers through hers. She looked down at their entwined hands and thought how strange it was for him to be so gentle, so considerate.

“Of course I'd be nice, too, if I ran my spouse over with a horse,” she muttered
. Not that I didn't deserve it . . .

“What?” he asked solicitously.

“Never mind.” She pulled her hand away, then looked up as Mr. Ellis spoke.

“We're home, folks, or at least I am. You sure you're going to be able to make it back up the mountain?” their
Englisch
friend asked.

“Joseph and some other men are to meet us,” Edward explained. “But I'll carry her,” he said dismissively.

Like I'm a bushel of dry potatoes
, Sarah thought hotly.
But that's just how I feel inside....

“I'm sure I can walk.”

“I'll carry you,” Edward repeated.

She glanced ruefully at the lean bulk of his arms beneath his light blue shirt and had no doubt he'd have more than enough strength to carry her the mile trek up the mountain; but right now, she wanted to be left alone.

They got out of the station wagon, thanked Mr. Ellis, and then Edward swung her up into his arms without so much as a word.

“Hey,” she squeaked.

“What?”

She could see the skin of his throat and hear the easy pulse of his heart that beat, slow and steady, and she could also feel her right breast pressed tight against his hard chest. It was all too close for her comfort and state of mind.

“Put me down,” she said, trying to sound authoritative.

He smiled, a flash of white teeth, as he bent his head to look at her. “Just relax. I've got you.”

“That's half the problem.” She sighed, reluctantly slipping her arms, cast and all, around his neck.

“You don't have to touch me, Sarah,” he said suddenly, as if the thought had just occurred to him.

She gazed up at him, surprised to see him so serious. “I . . .” She paused, unsure of how to continue. She said the first thing that came to mind. “My head hurts.”

He lowered his mouth and placed a quick, chaste kiss on her brow. “
Kumme
,” he said, beginning to take long strides. “We'll go into the coolness of the ice mine for a moment and you'll feel better. The sun seems hot today, and besides, there's something I have to say to you, Sarah.”

She wondered dully if he would ask to leave her, though it was not her people's way. But Edward kept his own ways—she felt a roaring in her ears and couldn't seem to concentrate.

Then they were at the entrance to the mine, and he set her carefully on her feet and turned to remove the blocking boards from the cavelike mouth of the mine. She shivered in spite of herself, crossing her arms and rubbing her hands up and down the sleeves of her gray dress as she felt the chill burst of air from inside the cave, blowing outward. Usually, she found it refreshing and tantalizing to the senses, but today it was only cold.

 

 

Edward turned up the kerosene lamp that hung inside the cave, then lifted it high, standing inside the shadows while he watched Sarah for a moment; he noticed her shiver and set the lamp down and moved to lift her into his arms.

“Edward, I'm fine.”

“The ground is still slippery in here with the ice melting. I'll hold you.”

He carried her into the mine and glanced for a moment at the deep hole that ran a
gut
eighty feet down, where men had mined for silver, not expecting to find ice. He held her a bit closer. “It's strange, isn't it?” he whispered.

“What?”

“The ice . . . how it grows dry in the winter but is so thick in the summer?” He swallowed, unused to being so serious but determined to say what was on his mind. “The ice is miraculous—like you, Sarah.”

“Wh—what are you talking about?” she stammered.

“
Gott
made this ice mine—the place pulses with life—and
Gott
made you. I realized that night on the road—you're the color in my blood. I love you.” He felt his eye well with tears, but the words were freeing in a way he never could have dreamed. He waited anxiously for her response and was unprepared for the anger in the luminous gray eyes she lifted to him in the lamplight.

“You don't love me, Edward King. You love whiskey and you feel guilty about what you did to me. . . . Well, forget that it happened. I survived.” She lifted her casted arm slightly. “A knock in the head and a broken arm are hardly causes for declarations of love. Now put me down—
sei se gut
.”

He obeyed, feeling speechless, as if he'd just had the wind knocked out of him. But then he realized how sudden his words must seem to her and lightly reached out to touch her arm. “Sarah, I . . .”

But before he could finish, he watched as she bent to lift the lantern and then stooped to study something on the ground.

“What is it?” he asked, bending over her hunched shoulder.

“Wolfsbane,” she whispered, barely loud enough for him to hear, and then she said more clearly, “It's a sign—a sign that I'm right.”

He heard the odd note in her voice and bent closer. “Wolfsbane—you mean belladonna. Even I know that's poisonous, Sarah. Don't touch it . . . and right about what?”

She lifted one of the dark berries of the plant, cradling it in her palm in the circle of light. “It's deadly poisonous and proof from
Gott
that I should never practice healing again.”

Edward knocked the berry from her hand without thinking and she sobbed aloud, a keening, awful sound. He gathered her close, feeling her helpless resistance, and then she collapsed in a heap against his legs.

 

 

“Your
fater
's here to see you, Sarah. Shall I let him
kumme
in?” Edward asked softly.

She glanced listlessly at him from her bed and shrugged. “It doesn't matter.”

She watched his broad shoulders sink a bit at her words and knew he was probably growing weary with her after a long day at home. She'd sobbed in his arms the whole way up from the mine, but he'd allowed no one else to carry her. And once home, she'd continued to cry until her eyes were red and swollen. She'd finally slept in his arms, not wanting his touch but not seeming to be able to pull away. She heard his words from the mine again and longed to purge them from her mind....
I love you. . . . I love you
. . . .

“Sarah? Be thee well, child?”

She stared at her
daed
's weather-beaten face, seeing pain and anguish and something light and raw and new there at the same time.

But she was in no mood to be compassionate and steeled herself against her thoughts and discernment.

“What does it matter if I'm well,
Fater?
” she asked.

He cleared his throat, and she knew he was taken aback by her question. “It—it matters a great deal, Sarah. What would the mountain do without its healer?”

She laughed faintly. “Hasn't Edward told you? I'm the healer no more. . . .”

He was quiet for so long that she had to turn her head to peek at him, and she found his gray eyes, so like her own, bright with unshed tears. “What I should have said, Sarah, was . . . What would I, your
fater
, do without you?”

She swallowed. She'd never heard such words from her
daed
and the power of them resonated to her heart. “I don't know,” she choked at last, then hiccuped on a sob. “I never thought that I mattered much to you,
Fater
.”

“A grave sin on my part, child. Very grave. I feared you—truth to tell. Afeared of your power and your light . . . I didn't know best how to love you before, but I'm gonna learn, if you'll let me, Sarah.”

She nodded, the only thing she could do, and he rose to awkwardly bend over the bed and press a kiss to her forehead. His long beard tickled her cheek with alien softness as she watched him pull back.

It was a moment to remember for always....

 

 

Mahlon cleared his throat as he entered the kitchen from the bedroom. He stared at Edward, sitting, staring over a cup of coffee at the small table.

He approached the empty second chair but didn't sit. Instead, he let his rough hand fall on the
buwe
's shoulder. Edward looked up with his keen blue eye.

“How is she?” he asked hoarsely.

“She needs rest, I think . . . and so do you . . .
sohn
.”

“
Sohn?
” Edward blinked and Mahlon shifted uncomfortably.

“
Jah, sohn
. I've never called you that before, have I? But it appears ta me that we both need ta be changed men and we might fare better off as friends—if you'd have it?”

Edward lifted a strong hand upward and Mahlon wrung it wordlessly, more of the ice going out of the river of his once-cold heart.

“I'd best be going,” he said finally. “Let us know whatever ya might need.”

Edward nodded, rising to see him to the door.

Mahlon left, staring out into the autumn dusk, feeling like he'd just discovered his soul.