The Amish Bride of Ice Mountain Read Online Free PDF Page B

trouble.”
    “I thought you would take the matter up with the bishop first, but I wasn’t in the mood to wait,” Jude explained. “I should have let your community handle it maybe.”
    “ Nee , we’ve looked aside many a time, given the boy many chances over the years. He’s started fires, run moonshine, everything, and now this . . .”
    Jude felt surprise yet again at the ways of the Amisch of the Appalachians. They were so much more a morally driven people than some other cultures, balancing right and wrong, trying to find ways to help their young along but without over-coddling. If Abner said Mast had been given chances, it had been more than a few.
    “Good.” Jude gave his father-in-law an impassive stare. “An attempted rape—I hope he runs to the devil or I’ll see him in prison where he belongs.”
    Abner nodded. “I guess I’ll go back to the cabin, then; calm the buwes . They wanted to track Isaac down like a deer.”
    “I heard that, Abner King, and I tell you that my buwe had better come back soon and with no problems about it!”
    Jude glanced at the wooded path and saw Mahlon Mast stomp toward them. The tall Amisch man was Isaac’s fater and had never been receptive to Jude’s presence on the mountain. Other members of the community described Mahlon as “overly conservative” and a family leader who kept his son and wife away from many community gatherings.
    “That ‘boy’ is a grown man who nearly raped my wife,” Jude said with an even calmness he wasn’t feeling. The elder Mast had a wild look in his eyes, something driven and fervent, that must have transmitted itself to his son.
    Mast gave Jude a hard poke in the chest. “You done married a witch; it’s hexed ya are, and you can’t see nor feel it.”
    Jude took a step nearer to the belligerent older man, only to have Abner King come in between them. “Mahlon Mast, I’ve knowed you since we was buwes and I know ye fear the hex of a witch, always have. But that’s my girl ye’re talkin’ about, and a gut and honest woman she is. Beauty don’t make no witch of a person, and mebbe ye’re a mite jealous that yer own ain’t that but homely.”
    Jude had to hide a grim smile. His new father-in-law could hit the mark when he wanted and Mahlon Mast struggled visibly to control his temper.
    “Now, go on wi’ ye,” Abner growled, finishing the encounter and dismissing the other man. “Else Derr Herr may bring upon you all that you fear.”
    Mahlon’s face took on a reddish hue as his eyes darted furtively about. Then he turned and stomped off back into the woods.
    “That’s a strange man,” Jude observed.
    “ Jah . Always was. But it’s nuthin’ to trouble Mary about. I’ll go on home now.”
    Jude cleared his throat and nodded. “Mary and I—we’ll be over today for a visit.”
    “Gut.” Abner frowned up at him. “ Gut , then.”
    Jude wanted to say something to the other man, something about what a wonderful daughter he’d raised, but found the words wouldn’t come. So he waited until he was alone once more, then set about gathering the rest of the eggs for breakfast.

Chapter Five
    Mary felt the cool earth of the worn path beneath her bare feet and soaked in the sensations of the bumps and roots, the pressed grass and the soft moss. Her husband followed her as they made their way to her home—her old home. She knew a clutch of anxiety in her chest as they approached the small, hardwood cabin. It was here that she’d been born and her mother had died, here that she’d grown, knowing every knot in the wood of the brief front porch, and here that she’d depart for other places, another home, for as long as she could hold her husband . . . She pushed away the thought. Nee —she must not worry about keeping him but about building a wedding into a marriage like Grossmuder May had said.
    He caught her fingers in his warm hand as they came in view of the cabin. Mary sighed. The place appeared unkempt, unlike the