The image shows two fugitives scrambling up a rock outcropping in a moonlit forest, while above, a Native American urges them to hurry. Original art by Kamila Wojciechowicz-Krauze, at Kama-Arts.com. Copyright 2023 by Kamila Wojciechowicz-Krauze and Timothy Shaull. All rights reserved. Please do not email me about the mice.
Hello. On this page you may download the five books of the WhippoorwillO story for free, for your personal use. Each book will be offered in PDF format regular size type, PDF format large type, and eventually in EPUB format. A short outline of each book preceeds the download link.
In Book One, Olusayo, the eventual mother of our hero Jed, meets and falls in love with Jed’s father Bodua in a small native village on the western bank of the Ogun River, in the area that is modern-day Nigeria. This relationship does not turn out well, except for Jed, and Olusayo flees to Lagos, where she meets Jed’s stepfather Korede, a young blacksmith.
In Book Two, Jed is born and grows to manhood, trained as a blacksmith by his stepfather. Jed falls in love with three wonderful and enticing women, and eventually, with the help of Oleon the Gardener, marries all three at once. Unfortunately these relationships also do not go well, and Jed must give himself up to be a slave so that he might accompany his wife Zoh, who is captured on board an European slave ship. Zoh is pregnant with their child. When Jed’s mother Olusayo learns that he intends to volunteer as a slave, she gives him the charge to find and destroy the Demon of Slavery, when he gets to the White Man’s world, thus establishing the basic quest at the heart of the WhippoorwillO tale.
In Book Three, on the slave ship, Jed meets the unusual woman Koffee Olay, a harlot from Dakar, who gives him valuable information about the Demon of Slavery. Jed also begins to learn about the world beyond Lagos. He befriends the ship Cook, a Black man from Trinidad, who tells Jed about Islam, the art of reading, the printing press and books. This is a revelation for Jed, never having seen a book in Lagos, and he forms a plan to defeat the Demon of Slavery. He hopes to learn how to read, write and print books, return to Lagos with this knowledge and with the help of his parents and wives, write books to tell the world that the industrious citizens of Lagos are not livestock to be enslaved, but humans like everyone else. However, his plan runs into a few snags almost immediately, as does the slave ship itself, which turns out to be ill-manned and eventually burns and explodes in the Baltimore harbor, which possibly might be symbolic.
In Book Four, arriving in Baltimore Maryland USA, Jed and Zoh escape the conflagration, are re-captured immediately and sold as slaves all over again to Bull Masterson, a wheat farmer living west of town along the Patapsco River. Here Jed and Zoh settle down to await the birth of their child. On the Masterson farm, they make many new friends, earn some new scars, learn new skills and have many adventures. However, circumstances indefinitely delay Jed’s plan to return to Lagos in order to create books. He is frustrated in carrying out his mother’s charge, and his life seems to be stuck in limbo.
Book Five jumps to another perspective, that of Yoziahkeomi, a Black woman born on Sugar Island in the Caribbean Sea. She is about the same age as Jed. When her world falls apart, she is sold to a passing ship, and she also arrives in Baltimore. Being a resourceful and intelligent woman, Yoziahkeomi gets on at a crab and ale joint, where she meets the young and unconventional White woman, Ruth Bennett, who wears her hair in a ponytail, walks about town alone and dabbles in crime. Yoziahkeomi falls in love with Ruth, and with the help of a reptile on the loose, connives her way into becoming Ruth’s maid, lover, and lifelong friend.
Ruth’s prosperous father Wesley Bennett is a banker, and one day a personable young Christian man named Adam Masterson comes to Wesley’s bank to apply to refinance the family farm, which he has inherited after his father’s recent death. Wesley and Adam hit it off. Wesley, perceiving Adam as a prime suitor for his unmarried daughter Ruth, invites Adam to the house for dinner. Ruth and Adam fall in love at first sight and eventually marry. Thus Ruth, taking Yoziahkeomi with her, moves to the Masterson farm on the Patapsco River. Here Jed and Yoziahkeomi meet and begin a tumultuous relationship, which also does not work out well. Yoziahkeomi becomes romantically involved with Jed’s good friend Bending Reed, a unique Native American, hanging on to the fringes of American civilization by virtue of his unique skill at timber framing. The four friends, Yoziahkeomi, Jed, Ruth and Bending Reed, pool their knowledge and take up the challenge set by Olusayo, to defeat the Demon of Slavery.
WhippoorwillO 