An Amish Courtship on Ice Mountain

by Kelly Long

  She’d gone to sleep with the chill disappointment of having pushed Joel away and was still in a tearful lassitude when a bold knock sounded on the door of her room. She went to open it automatically, never stopping to think that no person had ever knocked at that door in all her time of sleeping in the pantry.

  She’d stared up at Judah and hastily wiped at her eyes, not wanting him to see any weakness in her.

  “I’ve kumme to court and I see that you are ill prepared, as one might expect.” He reached a menacing finger out to knot itself in her loose hair, then shut the door behind him.

  She backed away from his stone-cold eyes, wrenching her hair from his grasp, regardless of the pulling pain in her scalp.

  He brushed past her, and she was unable to help comparing Judah’s unholy scent of slain animals with Joel’s refreshing soap. But even in the seconds that this thought passed through her mind, Judah had already stripped off his coat and hat, throwing them casually on the bed and turning back to her.

  Then she saw that he held a Bible in his hand, and fear licked at her consciousness with a dreadful tongue.

  “Kneel,” he said coldly.

  She wet her lips, thinking desperately of the vulnerability of her sleeping family in the small rooms next door. Dear Gott, what does he want of me . . .

  “Now.”

  She lowered herself cautiously to her knees on the floor before him, trying hard not to shake from the frigid floorboards.

  He gave her an impassive look, then thumbed through the Bible with purposeful intent. He found the passage he sought and held the Book out to her. She took it with shaking hands.

  “Read the thirteenth verse and then repeat it aloud.”

  Martha stared down helplessly at the array of letters in the dim candlelight. “I—I can’t,” she whispered finally.

  He grabbed a handful of her long hair and nearly lifted her off the floor. Her eyes filled with silent tears.

  “Read it,” he hissed.

  “I can’t,” she gasped, frantic not to cry out as he shook her. “I can’t read.”

  * * *

  Martha kicked disconsolately at an exposed pinecone, her eyes welling as she came back to the moment. She found that her heart was pounding with distress, and she was furious that Judah could so affect her, even when he was not present. She paused on the edge of the woods, taking a moment to compose herself before crossing the path to Sol Kauffman’s general store. The store kept no regular business hours and was usually open from dawn until dusk except when closed on Sundays.

  Martha steeled her resolve, lifted her head high, and walked out of the woods.

  * * *

  Sol Kauffman’s store was the hubbub of social talk for the Ice Mountain Amish community. And there was no such thing as too early for a game of checkers or a chat around the woodstove or in the aisles.

  Joel leaned against a back counter and listened to the sonorous snoring of the older-than-time Deacon Troyer, who was interrupted occasionally with grunts of appreciation by the onlookers when a proper move was made on the hand-carved checkerboard.

  He idly saw women on the periphery, in the aisles, and at the dry goods counter and couldn’t help but wonder what Martha was doing. Probably caring for everyone at home but herself . . . He realized instinctively that she was the type of person who would always put others before herself, yet she also knew how to refresh herself or have a bit of play—like bathing in the creek . . . The thought made him shift uncomfortably, and he almost jumped when Sol’s normally booming voice came out softer and more gentle than usual.

  “Wal now, Martha Yoder, what can I do fer ya this fine morning?”

  Joel looked up to see Martha standing not more than five feet away, and he blinked at the vision she made even in a tattered cloak and slightly flattened bonnet.

  “I’d like an onion,” she murmured, and Joel wondered how a word so prosaic as “onion” could become beautiful when it came from her mouth.

  She pulled her hands from beneath her cloak and laid three pennies on the counter.

  “Here, let me,” Joel said quickly, without thinking.

  “Nee, danki.” She lifted her chin, and he realized he’d trespassed on her sense of pride—and, more than that, Sol Kauffman was giving him a dirty look in case Joel might be scaring away a customer.

  Joel moved to stand behind her, trying to focus on the checkers game while the fresh mountain scent of her teased and tantalized his senses. He watched Sol take the three pennies and hand her a small brown bag. She nodded her thanks and turned round, only to run smack dab into Joel, and he steadied her with hands that automatically sought the gentle curves of her waist for a moment.

  Her eyes lifted to his, and he heard the question as if she had spoken it aloud. What are you doing?

  He smiled and half shook his head, letting her go and stepping out of her way so that she might pass. He expected to follow her out of the store, but to his surprise, she paused at the dry goods counter where Sol’s dochder, Lucy, did a brisk trade.

  Joel watched the few other Amish women present move aside to speak in hushed tones as Martha began to gently finger the fabrics that were scrap yardage in an open basket on the counter. He watched her slender forefinger stroke a pink flannel, and he thought of how strong yet tender any dochders of hers would surely be. Then she touched black wool, and he swallowed, remembering her enveloped in his heavy coat. He also realized that she was touching the fabric textures for the sensory experience and that she appreciated beautiful things. But at the last piece of fabric displayed, he felt her hesitation as her hand hovered over a rich blue, and he realized that this was the color of a typical bride’s dress for an Amish girl. Without thought, he let one of his hands lace over hers, and their fingertips brushed the blue together.

  Martha half turned, clearly confused, and whispered in a strained tone, “What are you doing?”

  “I’m courting you, Martha Yoder,” he whispered back. “In broad daylight . . . You’d look beautiful in this shade of bridal blue. Do you know that?”

  Her mouth tightened, and she practically wrenched her hand from his touch. “Nee,” she gasped. “I don’t know it and never will.”

  He watched her eyes fill with unshed tears, and he ached to hold her close, but she had turned away and was half an aisle away from him already.

  He hurried after her, heedless of the women’s inquisitive looks, and he reached the large store front door just as Martha did. He was surprised when its weight was pushed from the outside and Martha stepped back in the presence of Bishop Loftus, who was looking decidedly more grim than usual. Joel stood behind Martha as the bishop shut the door so that it rattled, and the store took on an ominous quiet.

  “I fear I have bad news,” the bishop intoned in his ringing sermon voice. “I’ve been up to the high timber and found that Dan Zook has been shot dead. I’ve also discovered the murderer . . .” For an eerie second, the bishop’s shark-black eyes seemed to zone in on Joel’s own, then moved on. “Stephen Lambert shot auld Dan, without a doubt.”

  Joel’s head pounded at the accusation against his best friend and the apparent death of the beloved mountain man. Could this be the meaning of his strange vision when he was in the woods with Dan? He swallowed hard, then broke the silence. “How do you know Stephen Lambert was the one who did this?”

  The shark eyes were back, boring into him. “Do you question me, Joel Umble?” The bishop’s voice was deceptively soft, and Joel nodded, sensing Martha’s tension as she stood in front of him.

  “Jah, I question, as we all should, to be very sure of who could have done this to Dan.”

  The bishop turned away from him. “Of course you want to protect your friend—commendable. But there will be a meeting at the schoolhaus in one hour to question Lambert himself. And then burial preparations must be made for Dan Zook. Being shunned, he cannot be buried in the local Amish cemetery, of course.”

  Joel felt a red haze burn behind his eyelids
, and he had to restrain himself from actually laying hands on the aulder man. He was about to speak up when Martha’s voice came out clear and true, even though it was absolutely not a woman’s place to speak in that moment.

  “Auld Dan Zook was a gut man. Many has been the time he’s fed my family. He would want to be buried in the high timber, where he loved to live.”

  “Silence!” the bishop hissed. “How dare you, woman? Get thee home to tend your family and pray that nothing worse befalls your haus because of your wicked tongue.”

  Joel watched Martha hurry out, and then he gave Bishop Loftus a cold glare. “What Martha Yoder spoke was truth, not wickedness, and I begin to question whether you are always able to discern the difference.”

  The bishop gobbled wordlessly; then Joel, too, quit the ugly tension of the store.

  Chapter Nine

  Martha heard Joel calling her name but she ran on, as fleet as a doe, trying to lose him in the myriad paths of the forest. Nonetheless, he caught up with her, and she didn’t bother to hide her sobs.

  “Martha, don’t cry. What the bishop says is not worth your tears.” He gently took her forearms in his large hands and stroked the skin revealed by her dress.

  She shook her head. “Nee, I endangered my family because of my impulsive words.”

  She felt him lean in close, his blue eyes dark in their intensity. “Martha, no evil can come from speaking the truth. The bishop was only trying to frighten you.”

  “I know that, and I know Gott gives us the truth, but Bishop Loftus has the power to shun, and that means starvation and—” She broke off, realizing she’d said too much.

  “Do you think, as long as I have breath in my body, that I’d ever let you starve?” He pulled her closer. “And I don’t care if you decide to court me or not. I’d never let that happen.”

  She felt more tears fall afresh when she thought of Dan Zook. “Auld Dan—he fed us.”

  Joel nodded. “I know.”

  Then she thought of something. “Joel, I think I’d feel right if gentle hands prepared him for burial, and more than that, perhaps if we—I mean you—went to his cabin, you might find something to prove Stephen’s innocence.”

  He caught her hand in his and took her bag from her. “We’ll drop the onion off at your haus and tell them where we’ll be, but we’ll have to hurry. I think the bishop is allowing only an hour until the meeting at the schoolhaus so that no one can do anything to help Stephen.”

  “But why Stephen? Why accuse him?” she asked as they began to run along the trail.

  “I don’t know, but as you say, maybe we can find out.”

  Martha hurried beside him and couldn’t prevent the feeling of warmth inside of her that he valued her words and ideas highly enough to act on them.

  * * *

  Joel was unprepared for the rush of emotion he felt when they reached Dan Zook’s cabin. He realized that he was probably in shock . . . He found the small place to be the picture of neatness, and the ax in the log outside and the hide tanning in the wind each bore testament to a life interrupted. But Joel understood that, murder or not, Gott knew when it was a person’s time to die, and this brought him a measure of comfort.

  “Should we geh in?” Martha asked gently, and he felt her studying him as he swiped a hand across his eyes.

  “Jah. But I’ll take a look first, if you don’t mind.”

  She smiled sadly at him. “There are worse things to look upon in life than death itself. Please don’t worry for me.”

  He nodded, once more admiring her inner strength and purpose.

  They walked forward, and Joel eased open the door. The scent of blood drifted to him, and he saw Dan lying in his bunk, seemingly peaceful but for the wounds in his chest and the blood splattered nearby.

  “Shotgun.” Joel murmured the grim fact. “He was probably asleep when he was killed.”

  He felt Martha’s steady presence beside him and then went to kneel beside the body of his auld friend. “Maybe—maybe I might have prevented this,” he choked out.

  He felt Martha touch his shoulder. “What do you mean?”

  “I know I sound narrish, but—the last time I saw Dan, I saw sort of a . . . vision . . . of death and blood and—”

  “You have the second sight. That’s all.” Her clear voice was calm, and he half turned to look up at her.

  “The—second sight?”

  “My grandmother speaks of it at times. It’s a gift, Joel Umble, even if it means seeing things as hard as this.” Her slender fingers tightened on his shoulder, and he turned back to Dan’s body.

  “I know Stephen like I know myself,” Joel whispered. “He couldn’t have done this.”

  “Do you think Bishop Loftus will contact the Englisch authorities?”

  Joel shook his head. “Nee, he’s too arrogant a man. And you know things tend to be handled among us without outsiders. Stephen will be shunned . . . That will be deemed punishment enough.”

  “As Dan was shunned . . .” she murmured, and he felt the gentle firmness of her fingers move to stroke the back of his neck.

  “Jah,” he whispered, bowing his head for a moment as he felt for one of his auld friend’s big, cold hands. “Like Dan . . .”

  * * *

  Martha moved to help Joel wrap Dan’s body in the bedclothes that surrounded him, but as she lifted the edge of the patchwork quilt, something thudded heavily to the floor at her feet. She bent down and picked up the black Bible, automatically handing it to Joel.

  He paused, and she watched him look down at the inside flap and then flip through the pages. “It must be Dan’s. There’s no name inside—not that that’s unusual.”

  “But Dan’s Bible is here.” She indicated the small bedside table. “He told me once that he used colored threads to mark his favorite passages.” She thought for a moment. “Perhaps that one belongs to Dan’s murderer.”

  “Jah,” Joel said slowly. “It’s possible.” She watched him slip the Bible into his coat pocket, and then he bent to help her finish their ministrations to Dan’s body.

  * * *

  The schoolhaus was crowded with the Amish men of the community. Joel arrived in time to stand far in the back of the small room and saw that Stephen stood hatless and grim at the front, near the teacher’s desk and behind Bishop Loftus. Judah seemed to be nowhere, and Joel had the brief thought that his bruder’s absence seemed odd, but then he was consumed by the tension around him. There was an air of suppressed excitement among those gathered, and Joel could feel it. Like some crazed hex hunt . . . He reined in his thoughts as Bishop Loftus began to speak.

  “We are here to discuss the murder of Dan Zook. Although he lived under the bann, he was still a brother. A brother killed by another of us. I myself saw Stephen Lambert near the path that leads from Dan’s cabin. And he looked like this . . .”

  The bishop gestured to Stephen, who opened his black coat with a defiant air. His white shirt and suspenders were covered in blood. There was a rumbling among those watching.

  Joel frowned heavily and elbowed through the throng until he was halfway up the school aisle. Then he met Stephen’s gaze and knew once more the strange chasm of thought and vision that had opened before him that nacht in the woods with Dan. He saw Stephen bent over the lifeless form of a deer, seeming to work frantically with a knife . . . But Dan was killed with a shotgun . . . His thoughts became a futile cry as the crowd of men gathered gave low-voiced consent to whatever sentence Bishop Loftus seemed to have pronounced. Joel caught hold of the man nearest him—Abe Mast. “What did he say? What did the bishop decide?”

  Abe frowned behind his thick beard. “Quiet down, Joel Umble. The gut bishop said that Lambert is shunned and charged with the burying of ole Dan. The buwe’s getting off easy, if you ask me.”

  Joel watched as Stephen exited the building through the back door, followed by a solemn silence. Joel wanted to scream, to tell what he knew to be truth, but he also knew how he might better
serve his best friend and turned to head home for a shovel.

  * * *

  Martha returned home from Dan’s cabin with a prayer in her heart for Joel. She knew that he had been distracted and grave, except when he’d given her a warm, hard kiss goodbye.

  She shivered with pleasure at the thought and mounted the rickety steps to her family’s cabin. Immediately upon entering, she caught the smell of pretzel and potato soup—something she could recall from childhood.

  “Grossmuder—who’s been here?” Martha indicated the shiny kettle on the fire—definitely not belonging to them.

  Her grandmother rolled a baleful eye. “Anne Mast kumme with the soup, but what she really wanted was a nasty piece of gossip—about you, dearie.”

  Martha stopped short. “About me?” Then realization dawned . . . My words in Sol Kauffman’s store to the bishop are already being bandied about. “Ach.” She lowered her voice. “Did she speak to Mamm and Daed?”

  “A lot more than she talked to me . . . And I tried her soup . . . Hah, the pretzels were that much soggy.”

  Martha smiled faintly, then took slow steps to her parents’ room.

  Her mother was sitting up, and Martha looked at her with concern. “Mamm . . . Daed . . . are you both well at the moment?”

  “As well as one can be, Dochder, after drinking mushy soup.” Her daed’s snort of disdain made Martha breathe a sigh of relief.

  “Not that we shouldn’t be grateful for the soup,” her mamm said softly. “It’s the gossip that stirs me.”

  “Jah.” Martha’s fater roused himself upright for a brief moment. “Gossip and lies. Saying that our maedel would speak so to the bishop, of all folks.”

  Martha drew a deep breath then voiced the truth. “It is as she says, Fater. I—I wanted to defend Dan Zook, and I spoke before I thought.”

  “As if the dead need defending, girl. Could you not have held your tongue?” Her fater’s tone was mild and hurt her more than if he’d been outright angry.

  A vivid image of Judah passed through Martha’s mind, and she shivered. Joel may promise never to let us starve, but what of Judah ? He’d probably be the first to burn the potato bin . . .