Clouds without Rain: An Amish Country Mystery

By P. L. Gaus

Written in the tradition of Tony Hillerman, in Clouds without Rain, P. L. Gaus once again provides compelling intrigue and insight into Amish culture and tradition alongside contemporary American life.

In the wake of a fatal accident involving an Amish buggy and an eighteen-wheeler, Professor Michael Branden, working with the Holmes County Sheriff’s Department, becomes suspicious about the true nature of the crash. His suspicions only grow when the trustee of the dead man’s estate disappears a few days later.

Faced with Amish teenagers in goat masks robbing buggies on dusty lanes, land swindles involving out-of-town developers, several mysterious deaths, and the disappearance of a bank official, Branden realizes that there is far more to the story than a buggy crash on a sleepy country road.

This new edition of Clouds without Rain  features an exclusive interview with the author, reading group materials, and a detailed map and driving guide to Holmes County, Ohio with everything one needs to visit the iconic scenes depicted in the story.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Ohio University Press
• Release date: Feb 1, 2020
• ISBN: 9780821440629

P. L. Gaus

P. L. Gaus is the author of seven books in the Amish-Country Mystery series. He lives in Wooster, Ohio, an area that is close to the world’s largest settlement of Amish and Mennonite people. Gaus lectures widely about the lifestyles, culture, and religion of the Amish. Visit his website at P. L. Gaus

Book preview

Praise for P. L. Gaus’s

AMISH COUNTRY MYSTERIES

In this compact and tautly written mystery, the third in the series, Gaus portrays vividly the clash of traditional Amish values with the forces of land development and greed. . . . Gaus has structured his novel Dragnet style, relating events day-to-day, moment-to-moment, while the plot unfolds with deceptive simplicity from the initial gruesome accident.

—Publishers Weekly

Gaus is a sensitive storyteller who matches his cadences to the measured pace of Amish life, catching the tensions among the village’s religious factions.

—New York Times Book Review

Gaus . . . combines drama and bewilderment in just the right proportions.

—Kirkus Reviews

Set among the Ohio Amish, this murder/mystery is more worldly than one would expect with such a backdrop. . . . How [Branden] unravels more than one mystery makes for interesting reading, particularly as he has to tread delicately between two parallel cultures.

—The Jerusalem Post

So many modern mystery novels feature crime fighters who seem every bit as sick in the head as the criminals they seek to put behind bars. Author P. L. Gaus’s mystery series set in Ohio’s Amish country features a college professor, not a tough private eye or a rogue cop, and a cast of Corn Belt criminals who are just as deadly as the big city variety.

—The Advocate

"Clouds Without Rain uses believable characters to tell a carefully detailed story in an unhurried fashion. Gaus’ style is deliberate but never slow-moving and aptly fits the subject."

—Medina Gazette

CLOUDS WITHOUT RAIN

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

Harmless as Doves

CLOUDS WITHOUT RAIN

AMISH COUNTRY MYSTERIES

P. L. Gaus

Ohio University Press

Athens

Ohio University Press, Athens, Ohio 45701

© 2001 by P. L. Gaus

Printed in the United States of America

All rights reserved

New revised paperback edition 2020

Paperback ISBN 978-0-8214-1081-3

Ohio University Press books are printed on acid-free paper ™

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Gaus, Paul L.

Clouds without rain : an Ohio Amish mystery / P.L. Gaus.

p. cm.

ISBN 0-8214-1379-1 (cloth : alk. paper)—ISBN 0-8214-1380-5 (pbk. : alk. paper)

1. Amish Country (Ohio)—Fiction. 2. Amish—Fiction. 3. Ohio—Fiction. I. Title.

PS3557.A9517 C58 2001

813'.54—dc21

00-054536

because of my wife, Madonna, and dedicated to our daughters, Laura and Amy

Jude 12

These men are blemishes at your love feasts, eating with you without the slightest qualm—shepherds who feed only themselves. They are clouds without rain, blown along by the wind; autumn trees, without fruit and uprooted—twice dead.

Thursday, July 6, 2000

Associated Press

For the first time in at least 20 years, the average price of farmland in Ohio exceeds that of all the other Corn Belt states. The steady development of houses and shopping centers in rural Ohio eventually pushed the state into the top spot, an agricultural expert said yesterday. In the past, farmland was owned by farmers for agricultural purposes, said Allan Lines, an agricultural economist at Ohio State University. What we’re seeing now is we have all these other interests there in owning a piece of the real estate.

Contents

Preface and Acknowledgments

Map of Walnut Creek Route

A Journey to the Heights at Walnut Creek

Clouds without Rain

Q & A with Author P. L. Gaus

Discussion Questions for Reading Groups

Preface and Acknowledgments

Not all of the places are real, but all are as authentic to Holmes County, Ohio, as I know how to make them. Any resemblance to persons living or dead is purely coincidental, and any reference to legal and trust practices is my own fabrication, as are the events in this story. I have moved and altered the description of the psychiatric ward at Aultman Hospital. The ritual barn was located in Panther Hollow, not Walnut Creek Township. It has been destroyed. The weather in this story is more reminiscent of the summers of 1988 and 1989 than of 2000.

Thanks go to the excellent staff at the burn unit in the Children’s Hospital Medical Center in Akron, Ohio, especially Julianne Klein, RN, BSN, and Mary Mondozzi, RN, MSN, as well as to Mark A. Harper of the Akron Fire Department, Ed Gasbarre of R. W. Gasbarre and Associates, Inc., surveyors, and Dr. Wayne M. Weaver of the Joel Pomerene Memorial Hospital in Millersburg.

Many thanks to Amish and former-Amish friends who do not wish to be named, and also to Chief Steve Thornton, Tom Kimmins, Esq., Ray and Kaye Fonte, Pastor Dean Troyer, and Eli Troyer—good friends, able advisors.

Most important, I wish to acknowledge the support, creative input, and careful editing of David Sanders and Nancy Basmajian, as well as the efforts of the other fine professionals at Ohio University Press.

Map by Brian Edward Balsley, GISP

A Journey to the Heights at Walnut Creek

This journey will start in Wilmot, Ohio, at the intersection of US 250 and 62, in the southwestern corner of Stark County. If we follow US 62 west from there into Holmes County, for a short 0.2 miles, there is the sprawling Amish Door Market and Village, with its gift shop, hotel, and restaurant. For the more modern end of the Amish experience, this is worth a stop. Then if we travel further west on 62, over the winding road and open countryside, there are farmer’s markets, homemade baskets for sale, a bicycle shop, a floor design establishment, and advertisements for Amish dolls. After 4.4 miles, Winesburg comes up, with several church buildings, a general store, three or four antique shops, gift shops, and several bed and breakfast opportunities. From Winesburg, angle further west to follow 62, and after one additional mile, take Ohio 515 south through Trail. Along the way there are several businesses, including a farm selling fresh eggs, a sewing machine store, a cycle shop, and Yoder’s Amish Home, which lies a total of 8.1 miles from our original starting point in Wilmot.

Farther south on 515, the location that I chose for the truck-buggy crash comes up, and after a steep and winding route, the community of Walnut Creek sits at the top of its hill. There are several fun shops and restaurants, a chocolate shop, and a bakery here, but be sure also to pull into the top parking lot for Der Dutchman and park at the railing at the back of the lot. This vantage point offers vistas of the picturesque Goose Bottoms lowlands. The Carlisle Hotel is worth a look, and for more modern accommodations, there is the Wallhouse Hotel, at the intersection of 515 and Ohio 39.

From here it is possible to turn around and retrace the route back to Wilmot. Or one can head west on 39 toward Berlin (pronounced BUR-lun since World War II). I don’t recommend a trip through Berlin, since it is so completely overrun with commercialism. Instead, before 39 takes you into Berlin, turn north on Holmes County 77, which comes up 14.0 miles after the start in Wilmot. The Amish and Mennonite Heritage Center is located 1.0 mile after the turn from 39 onto 77, and this is a good place to visit. After this, head north again on 77, and turn east on US 62 to go back to Wilmot. As in all of Holmes County’s Amish country, more interesting shops will appear along the way.

CLOUDS WITHOUT RAIN

1

Monday, August 7

4:15 P.M.

PROFESSOR Michael Branden, driving a black Amish buggy, worked his horse at a walk along Walnut Creek Township Lane T-414, just north of Indian Trail Creek in Holmes County, Ohio, on a sweltering Monday afternoon early in August. Coming up to one of the short stretches of blacktop laid in front of a house to cut the dust, he slowed the horse and rolled gently onto the pavement. The buggy rocked and swayed from side to side on its light oval springs, and the iron wheels cut sharp lines through the tar blisters in the blacktop. The horse’s hooves gave hollow plopping sounds that switched back to a lighter clicking in the dust and gravel after the blacktop played out beyond the house. The sky was cloudless, the sun hot, and beyond the thin line of trees that bordered the lane, the fields seemed withered and spent, the crops stricken with thirst.

Branden was dressed to outward appearance as an Amishman. The Amish clothes and broad-brimmed straw hat with a flat crown were his own, bought two summers before, when he had worked on a kidnapping case involving an Amish child. He was wearing shiny blue denim trousers over leather work boots, a dark blue shirt with the sleeves rolled up to his elbows, and a black cloth vest, unfastened in front.

Under his vest, he had hooked a deputy sheriff’s wallet badge over the belt he wore instead of the traditional suspenders, a concession to English style so that the heavy badge and three pairs of handcuffs would ride securely at his waist. The belt also held a beeper, though locating a phone in those parts of the county would be a task.

The professor brought the rig to a stop, took off his straw hat, poured a little water from a plastic bottle over his wavy brown hair, and rubbed at it vigorously. Then he laid his hat on the seat, and while he dried his tanned face and neck with a red bandanna, he straightened the rest of the gear riding beside him.

There was a black radio handset from the sheriff’s department, turned off for the task at hand. A Holmes County map from the county engineer’s office, folded to the square of Walnut Creek Township. An elaborate Contax RTS III SLR camera with a long Zeiss lens, tucked securely into the corner of the buggy seat. On the floorboards under the seat, a Smith and Wesson Model 60 .357 Magnum revolver in a black leather holster.

With a light slap of the reins, Branden started the horse again. About a hundred yards further up the lane, he pulled into the drive of a new two-story Amish house and stepped the horse to a stone watering trough. A door on the upper floor opened as he stopped. Lydia Shetler, dressed in a plain, dark-blue dress and black bonnet, came out onto the top porch of the house and asked, Any luck, already? with the classic Dutch accent of the region.

The professor shook his head and said, Mind if I water the horse?

Lydia intoned, If it suits you, and leaned over with her elbows on the porch rail to watch.

The porch, set on tall posts, was level with the second floor of the house. The area under this high porch was latticed in front with a rose arbor, which made a shady breezeway at ground level. The family’s laundry was hung out for the day, drying on clotheslines in the breezeway.

Branden climbed out, and as the horse snorted and drank water, Lydia asked, How much longer do you figure to make these rides, yet, Herr Professor?

Till we get them, Branden said and laughed. He slapped his hat at the dust on his ankles and added, Or until the sheriff gets bored with the idea.

Lydia nodded as if to say that she understood the sheriff’s impulsiveness well enough, and asked, Are you sure only our two families know about your business?

Why? Have you heard anything on the gossip mill?

Not a word.

Then I suppose I’ll still keep riding. As long as nobody at either end lets it slip.

I haven’t heard any mention, Lydia repeated, and went back inside. Branden mounted into the buggy, swung around on the wide gravel lane, and walked her out to T-414 again, continuing east toward the little burg of Trail.

This was his fifth afternoon drive in two weeks, traveling the northern edges of Walnut Creek Township on the center-east edge of Holmes County. His assignment was to be the decoy in Sheriff Bruce Robertson’s strategy to catch the two Amish-clad teenagers who were making a reputation for themselves that summer by robbing the Peaceful Ones. Disguised in rubber goat’s-head masks, they rode up to the slow-moving buggies on their mountain bikes and demanded money. Surprisingly large sums had been involved, and Sheriff Robertson now had his decoy in place. Professor Michael Branden, Civil War History, Millersburg College, a duly sworn reserve deputy, with a buggy, a costume of Amish clothes, a radio, an ample supply of handcuffs, and a very expensive camera. Also a revolver, just in case.

As the professor rattled along slowly in his buggy, a pickup shot by in the opposing lane. In the cloud of dust left in its wake, two Amish teenagers passed from behind on mountain bikes. Branden took up his camera and fired off several frames on motor drive.

Branden tensed a bit, wondering what he would actually do if the young bandits ever did approach him demanding money. He wasn’t at all certain that the sheriff was right about this one. Amish or English, they wouldn’t be that easy to apprehend. They’re Amish, Mike, Robertson had said. They’ll just stand there when you show them your badge. And if he took their picture or stepped down from the buggy to confront them? What then? They’d take off on their bikes.

That’d be it, Branden thought dourly. They’d scatter, and he wouldn’t have a chance of chasing them down in the heat. The professor shook his head, laughed halfheartedly, and wondered about the ribbing he’d take from the regular deputies if the sheriff’s little game should play out as he suspected it might, with him giving chase through fields or over hills, losing them both.

Chagrined, Branden rode the rest of his shift haphazardly back and forth along T-414, radio off so as not to give him away. As the supper hour approached, he headed south on T-412 to return the buggy to its owner. As he brought the buggy into the Hershbergers’ drive, one of the middle sons, Ben, stepped out of a woodshop at the side of the property, slapping sawdust off his long denim apron. He waved to Branden and came down the steps to a hitching rail beside the gravel drive. The drive curved gently around a well-tended volleyball court and dropped with the slope of the land into a wide valley, passing the north side of a weathered white house. Three stories and gabled, the historic building had a round sitting room and cone-shaped roof set at the corner, where a large covered porch began at the front and wrapped around the side. Grandmother Hershberger sat peacefully in an oak rocker on the elevated porch, a small mound of potatoes on the floor at her side, peeling long, curling skins into her lap. Branden tipped his hat, and she glanced briefly at him with reserved acknowledgment. As Ben came forward and took the horse by the bridle, Branden turned on his handset radio and heard Sheriff Bruce Robertson shouting, Two ambulances. Maybe three! Hell, Ellie, send five.

Fire’s on their way, Sheriff, Ellie Troyer said, her voice frayed with tension.

It’s a mess, Ellie, Robertson’s voice cracked staccato over the radio. One buggy, maybe more. Can’t tell yet. A semi jackknifed. Cab upside down in the ditch. The trailer has taken out at least one car and it’s burning now, followed by, For crying out loud, Ellie, where are my squads?

On their way, Ellie said, managing to sound calm.

Schrauzer’s unit is up there right in the middle of the whole thing, Robertson shouted into the microphone. Can’t see him anywhere. Going closer, Ellie. Get those fire trucks down here NOW!

The mic clicked off for a minute or so and then Robertson called in again, more subdued. Get the coroner, too, Ellie.

Branden pulled his buggy up sharply, set the hand brake, scrambled down onto the driveway, and took the radio off the buggy seat. He paced in a circle on the drive as he made his call. This is Mike Branden. Over.

Ellie’s voice came back. Signal 39.

Township 412 at the Hershbergers. As he spoke, he gathered his things from the buggy and walked quickly to his small pickup.

It’s right there, Professor, Ellie said. You’re practically on top of it. 515 south of Trail.

Roger that, Branden said and started his engine. 515 south of Trail. Ellie, I’ll be right there!

He pulled the door closed, fish-tailed on the gravel lane, waved at Ben, and heard Robertson come over the radio.

Mike, you come in from the north. South of Trail. That’ll put you on the other side. I’m farther south, the other side of the pileup, and I need someone on your side to stop traffic.

I’m coming up on Trail now, Branden said, steering with his left hand, holding the handset to his ear with the right.

Turn right at Trail, Mike,

Reviews for Clouds without Rain

[thornton37814 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Professor Michael Branden, who works on the side with the sheriff's department, is trying to catch a couple of Amish youth who are robbing Amish buggies while wearing masks. As he is returning the borrowed buggy, he hears a call to the scene of an accident involving a truck and a buggy. The accident leaves more questions than answers, including the question of whether it could have been murder. Real estate developers have been less than honest in their dealings with many Amish and will soon foreclose on a number of Amish farms. A new bishop is concerned about the effects on his flock. All the angles of the story work together to create a satisfying read (or listen). The audio version is narrated by George Newbern who does a commendable job.

[condorena · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

The title of this book comes from the Bible. It is from Jude who refers to people who are self-involved. These shepherd to feed only themselves. They are clouds without rain, blown along by the wind; autumn tree's, without food and uprooted – twice dead.

Specifically it refers to JR Weaver who has been killed in an buggy accident. He had become a very liberal member of the Amish faith and had become a real estate developer. He used electricity, telephones and fax machines but still drove a simple horse and buggy.

There has been a new more conservative Bishop elected who wanted to change back to the old ways and there was some dissention about who of the group would chose to stay. There were also rumblings about shady land deals which were costing many families their farms and Weaver was behind this. Was there more to the fatal accident?

Professor Michael Braden, Pastor Cal Troyer and Sheriff Robinson work together to find the answers. It is a difficult path that the Amish must follow as farms become too expensive to own and keeping the faith becomes increasingly difficult when these folk must pursue jobs in towns or in doing work that is tourist oriented.

This is an excellent series and I learn a bit from each book. In one scene a woman scrubs her floor with a strip of 2x2 wood covered with cloth wrapped around it so that a new area of cloth is available when an area becomes soiled. I might just try that.

[maydacat_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

In "Clouds without Rain," P. L. Gaus has again written a superb mystery wrapped around a social concern. Land is important to the Amish for farming, for food and a modest living; it is important to developers to generate money and for a profit, the bigger the better. In this mystery, the two worlds collide, and the result is disastrous. The Amish cannot believe one of their own would treat them unfairly in his lust for money. But seems to be the case, or is it? When the ownership rights to eight farms are threatened, the Amish feel they have little recourse. Add to this mix an unstable Amish man, an English woman intent on turning a huge profit on some not-quite-legal land development, and an unscrupulous businessman threatened with the loss of his business, you the makings for one fine tale.

[khiemstra631 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Gaus has written another Amish mystery. In this one, the driver of a buggy is killed when a semi-trailer rig hits the buggy as the buggy driver makes a left turn into his own driveway. The county sheriff is seriously burned in the aftermath while trying to rescue a deputy sheriff who was also killed in the accident. Professor Mike Branden sets out to unravel the events of that day while also going undercover as an Amishman to try to catch some kids who are robbing Amish buggy occupants of large sums of cash. Missing is the professor's wife, Carolina, who is off visiting relatives in Arizona. Perhaps that was why this entry in the series seemed slightly weaker than the others. Caroline is usually an important part of Mike's investigations. Nonetheless, it's still an enjoyable read, and its short length makes it a quick read if that is what is desired.