Harmless as Doves
Authors: P. L. Gaus
A PLUME BOOK
HARMLESS AS DOVES
PAUL LOUIS GAUS
lives with his wife, Madonna, in Wooster, Ohio, just a few miles north of Holmes County, where the world’s largest and most varied settlement of Amish and Mennonite people is found. His knowledge of the culture of the “Plain People” stems from more than thirty years of extensive exploration of the narrow blacktop roads and lesser gravel lanes of this pastoral community, which includes several dozen sects of Anabaptists living closely among the so-called English or Yankee non-Amish people of the county. Paul lectures widely about the Amish people he has met and about the lifestyles, culture, and religion of this remarkable community of Christian pacifists. He can be found online at:
www.plgaus.com
. He also maintains a Web presence with Mystery Writers of America:
www.mysterywriters.org
.
Other Amish-Country Mysteries by P. L. Gaus
Blood of the Prodigal
Broken English
Clouds Without Rain
Cast a Blue Shadow
A Prayer for the Night
Separate from the World
AS DOVES
P. L. G
AUS
PLUME
Published by the Penguin Group
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Penguin Books Ltd., Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England
Published by Plume, a member of Penguin Group (USA) Inc. Reprinted by arrangement with Ohio University Press.
First Plume Printing, July 2012
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Copyright © P. L. Gaus, 2011
Excerpt from
The Names of Our Tears
, copyright © P. L. Gaus, 2013
All rights reserved
REGISTERED TRADEMARK—MARCA REGISTRADA
The Library of Congress has catalogued the Ohio University Press edition as follows:
Gaus, Paul L.
Harmless as doves : an Amish-country mystery / P.L. Gaus.
p. cm
ISBN: 978-1-101-58880-2
1. Branden, Michael (Fictitious character)—Fiction. 2. Amish—Fiction.
3. Amish Country (Ohio)—Fiction. I. Title.
PS3557.A9517H37 2011
813’.54—dc22
2010054588
Printed in the United States of America
Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise), without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.
PUBLISHER’S NOTE
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
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ALWAYS LEARNING
PEARSON
Dedicated to my mother, Ollie Marie
(Mrs. Robert Louis) Gaus, who has asked me several
times to tell what became of Sara Yoder after her
rescue in
A Prayer for the Night.
P
REFACE AND
A
CKNOWLEDGMENTS
SALT CREEK Township Lane 601, in north-central Holmes County, Ohio, skirts a crest overlooking a wide pastoral valley in the hills south of Fredericksburg, and on a three-mile stretch of that simple country lane, one finds a curious assortment of Amish farms and English homes. The mix of cultures is fascinating, and the range and variety of religious persuasions among the Plain People is likely to be surprising to those who have not frequently traveled the region. Like much of the rest of Holmes County, this is a place set thoroughly apart, and typical of most complex religious tapestries, there is great variety among the various Schwartzentruber and Old Order Amish peoples who live there.
The Amish enterprises on this short stretch of road are also greatly varied. There is a sawmill, a carpenter’s shop, a stove factory, a harness shop, a sewing shop, an old gasoline engine repair shop, and two one-room parochial schools, one nearly eighty years old and the other quite new and modern, in a peculiarly
Amish modern
way. Cars, trucks, and horse-drawn buggies, surreys, hacks, and wagons share the road on any given day, and occasionally in summer, one sees kids out with pony carts, too, pacing along serenely, where little of the spectacle of modern America ever intrudes. In fact, it is so quiet and remote there that the high ground to the south is still a good place to see the night stars, because there are so few electric lights to dim the display of the heavens. So, this sheltered corner of Holmes County seemed to me to be the perfect place to set this story, with characters who rarely get to town, who rarely have any contact with the ignoble circus of modern American culture, and who typically have scant knowledge of modern law enforcement protocols involving arrest and Miranda warnings.
For the portion of the story that takes place in greater Sarasota and Manatee Counties, Florida, I am indebted for hospitality to David and Ann Chatlain, as well as for nautical expertise to Seaman Richard M. Royal, BM3, U.S. Coast Guard, Cortez Station. I also thank Laura McKee for spiritual insight.
But my greatest thanks go to David Sanders, who mercifully convinced me to abandon the first draft of this story and start completely anew. Over the years, his insights into my stories and characters have been a steadfast and accomplished source of instruction and inspiration.
Behold, I send you forth as
sheep in the midst of wolves:
be ye therefore wise as serpents
and harmless as doves.
Matthew 10:16
1
Wednesday, October 7
4:30
A.M.
WELL BEFORE dawn, Bishop Leon D. Shetler was coaxed from sleep by the whispers of his morning chores, and he rose up and sat on the edge of his bed, honoring his custom of thanking God for the peace that rested over his household. He knew that the worries of leadership would soon find him, but for the moment, as he sat in the dark, the blessings of his life were the focus of his thoughts. It was like that every morning for him. There was peace before daylight, and as was his habit, he sat still for a long moment to enjoy it.
Beside him, Katie stirred in her sleep and then settled deeper into her pillow. She was as familiar to him as his own thoughts, as comfortable in his life as his most intimate prayers, and he thanked God for her, wondering how many men still knew to thank God for their wives. He tried to teach the men about this at the Sunday meetings, but he often asked himself how many of them really understood.
As he sat and prayed, he felt a cool draft over his toes, the night air spilling in over the sill, and he wondered how many men knew to let their houses breathe this way, with the health of fresh air drifting in through the screens.