The Harlie

Book One: 'The Aching Tooth'

'The Aching Tooth' is the first book of a four volume set entitled 'The Harlie'. The setting is post Civil War Americana where we are introduced to eight treasure hunters who, along with an aging deputy with a wild imagination, ride off into the mountains in search of a lost gold mine. Among them are Elmo Cotton, a local black sharecropper from Harley with a shadowy past and a talkative mule, and a psychopathic army colonel with a personal agenda and a taste for immortality. His name is Horace 'Rusty' Horn, but most just call him Red-Beard. Together they share a deep, dark secret rooted in bloody and violent past and face an uncertain future, as seen through the microcosmic eyes of the treasure hunters and the myopic lens of a mad man, each in his own unique and discriminating way.

Book Two: 'The Motherstone'

'The Motherstone' is the second book of a four volume set entitled 'The Harlie' which chronicles what happens along the way to the lost gold mine, providing further insight into the lives and minds of the characters, and dark relationship between Red-Beard and the Harlie. When they reach their final destination, the secret is revealed: Elmo Cotton is a 'war-child, Red-Beard's own illegitimate son conceived when his mother was raped by Colonel Horn some years ago during the war. It's a secret the Harlie refuses to believe. In a final cataclysmic event perpetrated by Red-Beard himself, they all die; except for Elmo Cotton who, along with his loquacious mule, escapes the secret intake, and something else... something that falls from blood-stained hands of Colonel Horn when he is gunned down by an unseen assassin. It's what Red-Beard had been searching for all along; and it will drive Elmo Cotton ever closer to his destiny... and the truth.

Book Three: 'A Raccoon on the Run'

'A Raccoon On The Run' is the third book of a four volume set entitled 'The Harlie'. Shortly after returning from the doomed expedition, Elmo Cotton is suspected of not only murdering Colonel Horace (Red-Beard) Horn but responsible for the deaths of the others as well, including the old deputy whom he loved. He is thus forced to flee, becoming a 'raccoon on the run' and living in the wild where he encounters a lost tribe of Native American Indians who live on the Island of Long. There in the wooded sanctuary he is ceremoniously proclaimed a demi-god – The Great Raccoon! and the answer to an ancient prophecy. He soon learns that he is not alone, and has been followed ever since he'd left Harley by a mysterious dark figure wearing animal skins, a beard, and bi-focals.

Book Four: 'The Miracle-Maker'

'The Miracle-Maker' is the fourth book of a four volume set entitled 'The Harlie'. Before leaving his wife and child flies on his front porch, of a man Elmo hears, mostly from his Uncle Joe, an old black farmer with a talent for catching called the Miracle-Maker. His name is Willie B. Wright, and he runs a church down in Old Port Fierce called Miracle Temple and Barbecue Pit of Avenue 'D' where he serves barbecued pork ribs after each and every service. He could be the answer to all of the Harlie's problems. But sill, Elmo refuses to believe that he is a war-child, and convinces himself that this man they call the Miracle-Maker is actually his real father, Ezekiel Harley, who ran way away just like he did; and for that he must die. Along the way to the old port city to find the Miracle-Maker, Elmo meets up with an old acquaintance, Sherman Dixon, another local sharecropper who on his way to the same fated city to sell his crop of Harley beans to a local merchant who is on a mission which will eventually land him, the 'Harlie', and the Motherstone, on a mysterious Island in the South Pacific where Elmo's destiny ultimately lies. Together, the two 'Harlies' share several adventures that will bring them not only closer to that destiny, but closer to the truth they eventually find at the end of the book which culminates and climaxes in a totally new and unorthodox celebration of the Eucharistic Mass from an African American point of view. What they find is God.

Author's Biography