P. L. Gaus - Blood of the Prodigal

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Table of Contents

A PLUME BOOK BLOOD OF THE PRODIGAL

PAUL LOUIS GAUS lives with his wife, Madonna, in Wooster, Ohio, just a few miles north of Holmes County, where the worlds 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.

To my wife, Madonna

PREFACE AND

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

All of the characters in this novel are purely fictional, and any apparent resemblance to people living or dead is coincidental.

Many of the places in this novel are real, and the author has strived in those cases to make them as true to life as possible. For Holmes County, in particular, most of the descriptions and locations are authentic. The same is true of the Bass Islands area of Lake Erie, near the towns of Port Clinton, Lakeside, and Marblehead. For those interested, the best Holmes County map can be obtained at the office of the County Engineer, across the street from the Holmes County Court House and the old Red Brick Jail. Millersburg College is entirely fictional. Leeper School is still in use, but it is not located in the Doughty Valley.

I am grateful for the kind and valuable assistance of Seaman Anthony Muccino, U.S. Coast Guard, of Holmes County Sheriff Tim Zimmerly, and of Wooster, Ohio, Police Chief Steve Thorn-ton. Thanks also to Pastor Dean Troyer, Eli Troyer, and Kathy Chapman, as well as to Tony Hillerman for encouragement and advice. The author also most gratefully acknowledges the kind and expert assistance of the late Professor William I. Schreiber, whose excellent book Our Amish Neighbors, 1992 by William I. Schreiber, can still be obtained through the Florence O. Wilson Bookstore, The College of Wooster, Wooster, Ohio 44691.

All scripture cited in this novel is taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version, copyright 1973, 1978, 1984 by the International Bible Society, and used by permission of the Zondervan Publishing House.

Music verse courtesy of Ian Tyson, Slick Fork Music.

Friday, May 22
4:30 A.M.

LIKE all Amish children of ten, Jeremiah Miller had known his share of sunrises. Morning chores had long since taken care of that. Every day brought the same duties. His grandfather had made it clear. Children were for working. Life was supposed to be hard. Generally, for Jeremiah, it was.

But lately, Jeremiah had discovered something new and wonderful in his dawn chores. Something exhilarating. Also a bit frightening, because he suspected it was forbidden. It was so simple, he thought, who could object? If he arose before the others and slipped out quietly, he could be alone, drawn awake early by the allure of a solitary Ohio dawn.

It had begun last winter. None of the other children had understood. After all, who would choose to be alone? So he kept it to himself, now. Even Grossdaddy didnt know. It was Jeremiah Millers little secret. At so young an age, he had already discovered that the dawn could give him a sense of identity separate from the others. And this was his first act of nonconformity. Among the Gemie, that was considered evidence of pridefulness. And pride was surely the worst of sins. He worried that it could eventually brand him a rebel. Like his father.

Hed dress quietly in the clothes his grandmother had made clothes that were identical to those of other Amish children. Long underwear and denim trousers with a broadfall flap. A light-blue, long-sleeved shirt with no collar. A heavy denim jacket. Suspenders. And a dark blue knit skull cap. If he escaped the house before the others awakened, Jeremiah Miller was free.

In the barns before sunrise, only the Coleman lantern kept him company, hissing softly as he drifted among the animals, in and out of the stalls. In winter, there was the enchanting, billowing steam his breath made in the crisp air. The delightful crunching of his boots in the snow. There was, especially, the peace and the solitude, and at only ten, Jeremiah Miller had come to reckon that dawn would always be his favorite part of the day.

Today, late in May, it was nearing the end of a season still often raw and bleak, the usual for a northern Ohio spring. Some days were almost entirely awash in gray. Yesterday, there had been only the barest hint of a sunrise, delicate shades of pink as he had worked alone at morning chores. Then an afternoon drizzle had developed into a steady, all-night rain as a storm front moved in off the great lake, a hundred miles to the north.

Jeremiah slipped out from under the quilts and sat, wrapped in his down comforter, on the edge of the bed. He listened there a while for sounds of his family stirring. Hearing nothing, he drew the ornate quilt around his waist, eased lightly across the plain wooden floor to the window, pulled back the long purple curtains, and peered out. Yesterdays rain had slackened to a cold drizzle. He saw no hint of sunlight at his window, but as he was about to release the curtains, the headlights of a rare car flashed on the foggy lane in front of his house. He briefly thought it strange, and then, hitching up the comforter, he let the curtains go slack.

He sat on the edge of the bed and pulled on his shirt and denim trousers. He glided down the hall, the wooden floor cool beneath his stocking feet. He passed the other bedrooms carefully and crept down the stairs. He eased through the kitchen unerringly in the dark, lifted his jacket from its peg, pulled the heavy oak door open, and slipped through the storm door onto the back porch.

There would be no supervisions on the rounds of his morning chores. No instructions if he worked alone. No corrections. No reminders to conform. The hours before dawn were his alone. The one time of each day when he owned himself entirely. Jeremiah had discovered that solitude was personal. More personal than anything else he had known.

On the back porch, he stuffed his feet into his cold boots and laced them, hooked his suspenders to the buttons on his plain denim trousers, and closed the hooks on his short, denim waist jacket. Reaching down for the green Coleman lantern, he gave the pump several adept strokes and lit the silk mantle with a wooden match. Then he rolled his thin collar up and stepped off the porch into the rain.

School would close soon for summer, he thought. He set the lantern on the muddy ground outside the massive sliding doors to the red bank barn. School wasnt so bad. And summers could be long. So why did Grossdaddy speak so bitterly of school?

He set his weight against the sliding door and forced it heavily sideways on its rollers. Grandfather would like the teachers, if only hed come to visit the school. It was just down the gravel lane, less than a mile. Teacher stayed late every day, and they could talk. If only Grandfather would. The other men thought well of teachers, so why didnt Grandfather? Jeremiah only knew that something had happened long ago. Something that would never be discussed. He suspected it had something to do with his father.

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