Synopsis
TOLEY’S ODYSSEY is the story of a slave, from birth on a Louisiana plantation, through the death of his mother at the hands of their sadistic master, his growing up as a lonely slave on a leeched out cotton farm in Mississippi. When he is about thirty years old, the Master marries a rich widow [strictly for her money] who has a teenage daughter and a teenage slave girl who is both servant and companion to the white girl. Toley and the slave girl, Bertha, fall in love, but before they can ‘jump the broom’, the master tries to rape the young black girl only to have Toley catch him in the act. Toley pulls the master off Bertha and slams him across the room, breaking the master’s neck. Toley must run, leaving his beloved Bertha behind. Toley makes good his escape and joins up with the Union army, becoming an orderly and the colonel’s right hand man. When the war is over, the colonel takes Toley to Texas with him and Toley spends the next twenty years as the colonel’s hired hand on a Texas cotton farm. In a surprise ending, Toley and Bertha are reunited and return to the Louisiana farm where Toley grew up.
About the Author
Growing up in a two room log cabin in Lyon Co. Kentucky, Howard’s first toys were a tobacco stick horse and a six gun fashioned from a forked stick. By the time he entered first grade in a little one room school, he had learned to read comic books by the light of a kerosene lamp. He would read and re-read Roy Rogers comics borrowed from a neighbor boy, and he never missed an episode of The Lone Ranger on the battery radio that stood on the library table in the corner of the tiny living room/ bedroom. By age nine, Howard was writing poems and short stories he shared with his schoolmates and teacher. Although many of his teachers urged Howard to pursue a career in writing, he left school early to seek adventure in the ‘wild’ west. He began working his way west, but got sidetracked in Iowa, where he met and married his soul mate, Lois Akin of Winterset. He and his new bride settled in the small town of Anamosa, Howard working as an electrician, and Lois in early childhood development Retiring at age fifty five, Howard returned to writing, penning a weekly newspaper column, Fishing in-trails, combining his love of writing with his love of fishing. The humorous and informative column quickly caught on with readers, and became a favorite with the town folk. After umpteen friends and neighbors said, “you ought to right a book”, he has done just that! Returning to his first love, the old west, he has written the sometimes funny, sometimes poignant, but always intriguing Line rider of the Valley Grand’e. The second book of the series, Cattle Baron of the Valley Grand’e is also available and may be ordered through Barnes & Noble and other outlets or order on line from Amazon.com.
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