Separate from the World

Table of Contents

 

 

 

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
.

PLUME

Published by the Penguin Group

Penguin Group (USA) Inc., 375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014, U.S.A. Penguin Group (Canada), 90 Eglinton Avenue East, Suite 700, Toronto, Ontario, Canada M4P 2Y3 (a division of Pearson Penguin Canada Inc.) ● Penguin Books Ltd., 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England ● Penguin Ireland, 25 St. Stephen’s Green, Dublin 2, Ireland (a division of Penguin Books Ltd.) ● Penguin Group (Australia), 250 Camberwell Road, Camberwell, Victoria 3124, Australia (a division of Pearson Australia Group Pty. Ltd.) ● Penguin Books India Pvt. Ltd., 11 Community Centre, Panchsheel Park, New Delhi ￚ 110 017, India ● Penguin Group (NZ), 67 Apollo Drive, Rosedale, North Shore 0632, New Zealand (a division of Pearson New Zealand Ltd.) ● Penguin Books (South Africa) (Pty.) Ltd., 24 Sturdee Avenue, Rosebank, Johannesburg 2196, South Africa

 

Penguin Books Ltd., Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

 

Published by Plume, a member of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

 

First Plume Printing, March 2011

Copyright © P. L. Gaus, 2008

Excerpt from
Blood of the Prodigal,
copyright © P. L. Gaus, 1999

All rights reserved

REGISTERED TRADEMARK—MARCA REGISTRADA

 

The Library of Congress has catalogued the Ohio University Press edition as follows:

Gaus, Paul L.

Separate from the world : an Ohio Amish mystery / P.L. Gaus. p. cm.

eISBN : 978-1-101-51326-2

1. Branden, Michael (Fictitious character)—Fiction 2. College teachers—Fiction. 3. Amish Country (Ohio)—Fiction. 4. Amish—Fiction. I. Title.

PS3557.A9517S47 2008

813’.54—dc2

2008013987

 

 

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.

 

The scanning, uploading, and distribution of this book via the Internet or via any other means without the permission of the publisher is illegal and punishable by law. Please purchase only authorized electronic editions, and do not participate in or encourage electronic piracy of copyrighted materials. Your support of the author’s rights is appreciated.

 

BOOKS ARE AVAILABLE AT QUANTITY DISCOUNTS WHEN USED TO PROMOTE PRODUCTS OR SERVICES. FOR INFORMATION PLEASE WRITE TO PREMIUM MARKETING DIVISION, PENGUIN GROUP (USA) INC., 375 HUDSON STREET, NEW YORK, NEW YORK 10014.

Dedicated to the memory of my friend Gary Gale. If height were governed by kindness and decency, he would have towered over us all.

Wherefore come out from among them, and be ye separate, saith the Lord.

2 Corinthians 6:17

The characters in this story are fictional, and none is meant to be a representation in kind, part, or whole of any person, living or dead. The places are real, but they have been used fictitiously. Millersburg College in the Amish-Country Mysteries is fictional, though several people have assured me that they know right where it is.

Calmoutier (pronounced locally as “Kal-Mooch”) is as much a concept in the Amish mind as it is a place. It can be found on some maps, but it is not a city, a town, a burg, a hamlet, or even a crossroads. It is the indefinable area surrounding the old St. Genevieve Church erected by French Catholics in 1836. It lies on the north side of Holmes County Road 229, just east of the Mt. Hope Road and west of where it changes to Nisley Road, in Wayne County.

I have used this area for the story because it is so quintessentially Amish. The story takes place on two Amish farms on a stretch of straight, level road. Purists will note, however, that there is no stretch of 229 that is either straight or level.

LITTLE ALBERT ERB, four years old and dressed Amish to match all the men of his congregation, tackled the steps to the back porch of his house one at a time in the dark, with his most serious frown in place. In his nostrils there lingered the confusion of an unfamiliar odor. Was that how the English smelled, he wondered? Never mind. There were more urgent things to worry about.

Albert stopped to catch his breath on the porch landing, pushed through the heavy back door, and pulled off his blue denim waistcoat in the mudroom. He hung his coat and round-brimmed black hat hastily beside the door, on one of the low hooks for children, and marched into the busy kitchen, thinking he needed to ask again about Mattie.

Why wasn’t he allowed to play with her anymore? Something had changed. He wasn’t sure what it was, exactly, but he wasn’t supposed to see her anymore, and he didn’t like that at all. And did they know about the woods—how he went there every day to play with her? Yes—remember to ask about Mattie, he thought.

How could it be wrong to play? Was it the secret they kept that made it wrong? Is that why his father spoke so? Why he felt so ashamed? Albert’s thoughts wandered to the woods where they met to play. Mattie always brought one of her puppies. They had fun. He stood in the kitchen, surrounded by family, and puzzled it through in his mind. Why did he have to be secret about playing with her? He knew he did, but why?

Then Albert remembered his uncle Benny, and his puzzlement about Mattie retreated from his thoughts. Uncle Benny was the more important problem right then. Yes—Uncle Benny. Talk to
die Memme
about Benny.

At his mother’s side, Albert gave a soft tug on her dress and looked up with innocent brown eyes, searching for her acknowledgment. When she turned to look down at him, he waited for her to speak, as any youngster should.