In the bleak world of today's religions, one person stands out. William Willard Williams strikes at the core of non-believers with hammer and cycle. Millions of people are slain as they flee to the old western states. Thirteen new states have been established in order to host solely white believers. The new states are currently being cleansed of sinners and non-believers, leaving only their kind to live in a new form of manufactured peace.
Alone In the Dirt begins with a daring escape from one of the hundreds of ditches housing millions of dead sinners who refuse to follow William's Christian principles. A teenage lad is on the run after obtaining his miraculous gift of life, owing to his executioner's inability to hoist the hefty rifle provided to him as an entry into the ranks. The adolescent murderer aims, fires, and misses his target. Billy Wayne's bellicose cellmate gets hit in the shoulder by a misdirected gunshot, causing his arm to swing wildly and knock him into the cavern of doom, unharmed.
The story is divided into separate tales, on the one hand, Billy Wayne and his daughter who he adopted after killing her father, the other being that of Jean Windsong and her friend Stella, as their well-planned escape into Canada goes awry. The two women and their collective children's lives are thrown into a flux after a long-time pest who has for years tried unsuccessfully to become Jean's lover, tries to kidnap them as his own personal pets. Fortunately, they too manage to escape their captor.
As the characters face gangs of redeemers attempting to take their lives, the paths become increasingly complicated. Billy Wayne stumbles across a pristine Eden in the Adirondacks, while Jean and Stella experience nightmare after nightmare. While Jean and Stella continue a vicious murder spree that can only lead to their apprehension, Billy Wayne is enjoying his secondary life. Stella sensibly goes solo, alleviating pressure on Jean, who then isolates herself from Stella and begins on her own less brutal killing spree while moving north to the safety of Canada.
Hell hath no fury like a mother whose child has been cruelly murdered by an unrepentant redeemer. Stella is furious as she bashes the son of her daughter's killer in the head. This is only the beginning of a woman's madness. It is this enraged mother's lethal attempts that precipitates the church's swift downfall. She shows no mercy as redeemer after redeemer perishes in a terrible death. As she kills her way through the new states, other women take up her mantle and fight back against Willian Willard Williams' misogynistic supporters.
Then there's Jason Bates and his friend, a woman he saved from a life of servitude when he kills the man who has put a claim on her. Jason, not your every-day innocent has a history of death and does not want any more of it, so he chooses to leave the pursuit of Stella and her friends to the tall Scraggy who is more than glad to do the Patriarch bidding. Lying and stalling, he keeps William's at bay while working his way to Canada and freedom.
In upper New York, the heroes and villains collide head on, and when the dust settles, just a few survivors remain. At the same moment as Williams is flying to freedom, the stories of the hunters and the prey come to their predictable ends. Some survive and find happiness, while others are slain; nonetheless, there is a trio who successfully escape the new country.
Walter Eastwood started writing at the age of 72, and this is his third novel. He never thought he would be able to sit still long enough to have accomplished this! He's strived, at the insistence of his editors, to grow and expand his thoughts to include things outside of his "-isms." His enthusiasm for writing is evident in his work. He's on a mission to, as they said in the 60's, "write on!"
