The Amish Bride of Ice Mountain (15 page)

Chapter Twenty-Seven

“I’m only an intern,” Kyle said, his young voice strident. “But I am also an epidemiology geek.”

Jude grunted as they walked through the snow. “A disease geek? That oughta get you some dates.”

Kyle nodded beside him. “You’d be surprised.”

Jude led the way to Rachel Miller’s house and he remembered the mermaid
fraktur
the woman had given them as a wedding gift. He couldn’t believe she was gone.

One of Ben Kauffman’s sons was there outside, his arms full of cats. “Hiya, Professor Lyons. My
Dat
says to gather up
Frau
Miller’s cats and bring them over to our barn.”

“That’s good,” Jude murmured, bending toward a black kitten.

“Don’t touch it,” Kyle shrieked.

Jude straightened. “What?”

“Don’t touch that cat and, young man, put those animals down and come here and disinfect your hands.” Kyle produced a bottle of clear liquid from his backpack.

“What’s wrong?” Jude asked.

“There are beaver skeletons here. Two of them.” Kyle indicted the ground near him with a grimace.

“So?”

“Beavers can transmit
Giardia lamblia
to other animals and then on to humans. Of course, I’ll have to run some tests, but . . .”

Jude racked his brain. “You mean
giardiasis
?”

Kyle nodded, squeezing out disinfectant. “That’s right, Professor. Sometimes called ‘Beaver Fever,’ the parasite, along with influenza, would be enough to dehydrate and drain anyone—even to the death.”

“Can you cure it?”

Kyle gave him a lopsided grin and shook the disinfectant bottle. “You betcha.”

 

 

Mary opened her eyes slowly. The light from the window hurt her eyes . . . not like the light in her dream. She gazed to her right and saw Jude fast asleep in a bedside chair. He opened his eyes immediately, though, when she stirred.

“Jude?”

“Oh, Mary, thank God.”

“Why . . . where . . .” She felt strange and wasn’t sure how to begin with her questions.

“You’ve been very ill. Joseph wrote to me and I came.”

“
Ach
. . . Rachel Miller died. I remember now.”

“Yes, I’m sorry.”

She gazed into his concern-filled blue eyes. “You had a twin.”

He blinked once. “What? What did you say?”

“I saw it . . . in the light in my dream. You were holding hands, but with another you . . . I suppose it sounds strange.”

“It sounds true,” he whispered and bowed his head. “My father told me the night you left.”

She blinked back sudden hot tears, remembering why she’d gone. She drew a deep breath. “You didn’t have to come.”

He lifted his head. “Mary—I know you saw my notes about you.”

“I did.”

“Well, I—”

A quick knock on the door interrupted him, and Mary watched a young
Englisch
woman in a dark blue sweater and white coat, come in.

“Jude, how is she?”

Mary saw Jude rise and go to engulf the woman in a hug. “She’s better. Oh, thank you, she’s better.”

The
Englisch
woman slipped from Jude’s arms and came to the bedside. She laid a cool hand on Mary’s brow and gave her a bright smile.

“So you’re back, hmm? Had me worried for a few minutes, but . . . I’m Dr. Matthews from the CDC in Atlanta.”

“Atlanta? You . . . came with Jude, then?”

“Yes, I and my intern, Kyle. He’s the one who actually discovered the root cause of your illness.”

Mary nodded, feeling sudden exhaustion. She longed to close her eyes but felt it would be impolite
. Here’s the right kind of match for him . . . an
Englisch
woman, a doctor. His equal . . .
She drew a strained breath and felt her eyes closing against her will.

“She’s going back to sleep,” she heard the
Englisch
doctor murmur.

“Good,” Jude said and Mary could imagine the smile on his face as he spoke. Perhaps he wanted time alone with this woman doctor . . .

 

 

Jude accepted the hot mug from Joseph and took a grateful sip.

“Why not go and lie down in our room?” Joseph asked while Edward nodded in agreement.

“It sounds like a tempting offer,” Jude said. It was the first time he’d been able to relax in days and he knew he was running on pure adrenaline.

“There’s nothing to do right now,
sohn
,” Abner pressed, turning from the stove where he was frying ham slices for lunch. “That Dr. Matthews said she was going around to finish the last of the flu shots, and the others who were sick are all improving. I heard this morning over at Ben Kauffman’s store.”

“What happened to Rachel’s cats?” Jude asked tiredly.

“All of them got a
gut
dose of something too, I heard. The ones that were feral went back to the woods, but the rest are living cozy in Ben Kauffman’s barn. I bet there’ll be a cat from Rachel Miller in every house come this spring.”

Jude heard the lighthearted note in Abner’s voice and rejoiced in it on some level.
Mary is safe . . . thank God. Thank you, God . . .

He decided that an hour or so of sleep wouldn’t hurt and went to lie down in Joseph’s bed.

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Jude awakened to find the window in the cabin room pitch dark but for the light of the moon. He rubbed a hand over his face and groaned.
I must have been asleep for hours.

He got up, pulled on his boots, and walked out into the kitchen. Dr. Matthews was asleep on the couch in the living area and Kyle snored on the floor. The door to Abner’s room was closed, but Mary’s showed a crack of light shining beneath the portal. He went and knocked with a quiet hand.

Mary’s soft voice bid him enter and he was surprised to discover her sitting up, propped against pillows. She looked infinitely better than she had a few hours before, and he couldn’t believe how much she had improved in such a short time.

“Hello,” he said, taking the chair next to her bed. “You look so much better than this afternoon.”

She smiled at him. “This afternoon? They tell me you’ve been asleep for two days straight now.”

“What?” He moved to pull his cell phone out of his pocket, then remembered there was no service. He glanced at the wind-up clock on her small bedside table. A bit after twelve . . .

“Only past midnight. You must have been so tired.” Her tone was sympathetic.

He ran a hand through his hair, then touched his scruffy chin. “Yeah, I’ve never slept so long.”

She eyed him quietly and he noticed, up close, that she still appeared frail. He put out his hand to cover hers, glad when she didn’t withdraw.

“Mary, I wanted to talk to you about those notes you read.”

“
Nee
, it’s of no matter.”

“It’s why you left, isn’t it?”

She shook her head slightly and he frowned.

“Mary, please, talk to me.”

“I cannot.”

“But why?”

He was startled to see her beautiful eyes well with tears. “Because Dr. Matthews calls you Jude, because she’s far more
schmart
than I’ll ever be and is a better match for you, because . . .”

“Wait, whoa!” he whispered in a frantic tone. “Dr. Matthews? Julie?”

Mary swiped at her tears with the back of her hand like a small child.

“Sweetheart, you’re exhausted, and I promise you that there is nothing, I repeat, nothing, between Julie Matthews and me—I don’t even know her.”

“Well, you could get to—maybe she wouldn’t be a research project in your eyes.”

He thought for a minute, then slid his chair back. “Will you give me a moment to get something out of my backpack? I think it might clear things up a bit . . .”

He hurried out of the room through the shadows and grabbed his pack from the kitchen, then lugged it back to her room.

Rooting inside, he came up with a single yellow sheet of paper and handed it to her with a faint smile.

 

 

Mary stared in bleary-eyed disbelief at the words on the page—“Mary as Research Project. ”
How dare he?
She slapped it into his hand with as much force as she could muster.

“Did you ever read the back?” he asked, and she heard the tenderness in his voice. It made her want to cry more.

“The—back?”

He took the page and straightened his glasses, then began to read. “I suppose I should be grateful that my hand was literally forced in being bound to her. Yet . . .” She felt his brief gaze as he flipped the page. “Yet there is so much more than gratitude in both my heart and mind where Mary is concerned. She is so special—wise, beautiful, and kind. I can only learn the best about myself when I am with her, and I am so simply happy when I am with her. To have been given this gift, Mary as my wife, even if it does turn out to be only for a short time, will be one of the greatest things that’s ever happened to me in my life.”

There was a distinct moment of silence.

Mary covered her flushed cheeks with her hands. “
Ach
, the back.”

He smiled. “
Ach
, indeed.”

He seemed about to say more when a pitiful howling sounded outside her window. Jude looked at her.

“Where’s Bear?”

She shrugged, worriedly grasping at the quilts. “Joseph said he wanted to go out earlier.”

“I’ll go check.”

She waited for what seemed like an eternity, then caught her breath when Jude reappeared in the doorway, his hands and shirt covered with blood.

“It’s Bear,” he spoke rapidly. “I think he tangled with a real bear and got the worst of it.”

Mary put her hand on the covers and he raised a bloody finger. “Do not get out of that bed, Mary Lyons. I’ll wake up Dr. Matthews—she probably can do some minor surgery or something . . . I’ve got to hurry, and I mean it—stay there. I’ll keep you posted.”

He was gone and she heard him raising the household and felt the chill of the front door opening and closing. She began to pray.

 

 

Jude grabbed the sheet off Abner’s bed while the older man stood shivering and dressing fast.

“If we can get this sheet under him, we can all lift him and get him inside,” Jude explained, but the amount of sticky blood on his hands made him wonder if there was time.

He returned to the kitchen to see Kyle setting up all the kerosene lamps and candles that he could find near the table while Julie rummaged, mumbling aloud, through her supplies.

Joseph and Edward were already outside and Jude hurried after them. The ominous puddle of blood in the snow at the side of the dog reflected eerily in the light of the brothers’ lanterns. There was a heavy, musky scent in the air as well.

“Bear, a real bear,” Joseph said, helping Jude slide the sheet under the dog. “And I don’t like the idea of a wounded bear roaming the community.”

“It’s not roaming,” Edward said suddenly, standing a few feet away, his lantern held high. “It’s here, dead, and there’s an arrow in its side. The dog must have killed it, though, praise
Gott
. Any one of us could have run into it out doing chores in the morning.”

Jude laid a hand on the shaggy black fur of the dog that had become his friend. “Good boy, Bear. Good boy.”

He got a whimper in response and then they hefted the sheet up and began to walk back to the house.

Jude was glad he’d closed Mary’s door when they laid the animal on the kitchen table. Even Dr. Matthews seemed nonplussed for a moment at the gruesome sight of the dog’s multiple injuries, but then she snapped on some gloves.

“Right, let’s get started. It would not be good for my patient to lose her dog, so we’re not going to lose him, got it? I can’t risk giving him anything to knock him out, though, because of the blood loss. Could one of you hold his head? He may bite.” Her gaze swept the group.

Abner blew his nose and Jude saw Julie frown.

“I’ll do it,” Jude offered. “He won’t bite.”
Please don’t bite me, Bear.

“Okay then, the biggest problem is blood loss, and I see the main reason. There’s an artery here in the neck area . . . Kyle!”

Her intern hastily slapped a metal tool in her hand and she bent carefully over the open wound for a few minutes. “There,” she said with satisfaction, lifting her head. “Now we’ll disinfect and suture the major scratches. Let’s hope the real bear didn’t have rabies, but . . .” She paused for a second. “You all don’t vaccinate dogs up here, do you?”

“I did!” Jude cried, and the debacle of his visit with Bear to the vet in Atlanta suddenly became worthwhile. “I had all his shots done about two weeks ago.”

“Wonderful.” Julie resumed her work.

A full hour later, the operation was over.

“Now, we wait and see,” Julie said, stripping off her gloves and reaching to rub her lower back. “Infection could set in, though I’ve given him a heavy load of antibiotics. We’ll have to watch.”

“And pray,” Abner added.

Jude saw Julie’s slight smile. “It certainly couldn’t hurt.”

 

 

Mary looked up from the Bible Rachel had given her as her door was eased open and Jude and her brothers came carrying an inert Bear through the doorway on a sheet. “We’ll keep him in here on the floor. He can probably sense your presence and it’ll keep him calm.”

“What happened exactly?” Mary asked in a low voice. “Bear wouldn’t go after a bear without reason.”

“Somebody poaching,” Joseph said in anger. “Got an arrow in the bear but then didn’t track it. The dog saved us from what could have been a deadly tangle with that animal.”

“
Ach
, Bear . . .” Mary whispered.

Jude nodded. “He’s a hero for sure, and he’s going to get better.” He met Mary’s gaze. “Dr. Matthews says so.”

Mary knew an inward pang at the sin of her jealousy of the woman who’d helped to save Bear. She would have to talk to her as soon as she could, but now, with Bear’s heavy breathing sounding in the room, she felt like she couldn’t keep her eyes open.

Jude smiled down at her and she was awash in the gentleness of the look.

“Go to sleep, sweetheart. I’ll keep watch over both of you.”

Mary knew he would and sank down beneath the quilts, her heart full.