Purgatory: The New Confederacy, #2

By Marella Sands

Getting away from the farm is all Hollis Fairfield can think about. But when the only job she can find is doing laundry at Camp Pinewood, she becomes a witness to horrific events she never dreamed could be real. Powerless to change anything, she despairs until her attention is snared by a young girl whom she vows to help. But what can one woman do when so much stands against her?

Delilah Thorn is stuck in Atlanta engaged in diplomatic work and is desperate to get back into the field. She's had no word from her fellow agents for weeks and there's nothing she can do for them from afar. Now a prominent Confederate family is looking for assistance, and wants her to find their missing daughter. Thorn will have to go against orders to sneak back into enemy territory on a mission of mercy, unsanctioned by superiors and worth a court martial, even if she succeeds.

Both women will have to face their deepest fears and come together in an act that will help forge the fate of nations.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Untreed Reads
• Release date: Nov 30, 2023
• ISBN: 9798888601440

Book preview

CHARACTERS

Alicia Fowler—a Congressional representative from Atlanta

April Canton—a Tensaw girl who got pregnant before marriage and was abandoned by her boyfriend, Bart Sparks

Bart Sparks—the boyfriend of April Canton and the father of her baby; abandoned her when he found out she was pregnant

Captain Lynne Johnson—a Free States special forces member tasked with infiltrating, and then cooperating with, the Underground Railroad

Captain Scott—officer in charge of Camp Pinewood

Charity Lange—a Tensaw farm girl who would like to marry Everett

Clive Higgins—MI-6 agent, embedded with the Underground Railroad near Birmingham

Chrissy—Rook’s live-in girlfriend

Dane Rook—Union agent from Kentucky; currently on leave due to ill health after his time of internment in Camp Burdette

Delilah Thorn—Union Field Agent Grade One, formerly her job was in video surveillance, originally from Ohio

Elisha—member of the Tensaw Underground Railroad unit

Everett Dobson—a Tensaw farm boy that would like to marry Hollis

Governor Randolph—the governor of Georgia

Hezekiah—a member of the Underground Railroad whom Thorn had previously met in Arkansas

Hollis Fairfield—laundress at Camp Pinewood

Jabez—young boy in the group Hollis is teaching

Janelle Watling—the Union’s Undersecretary of Free States Affairs, Thorn’s boss

Laymont Johnson—a leader in the Free States’ suffrage movement; a colleague of Nadine Monroe’s

Lucy Monroe—daughter of Nadine Monroe

Luke Dobson—Everett’s brother who has taken a job as a deputy

Malachi—a member of the Perdido unit of the Underground Railroad

Meshach—member of the Tensaw Underground Railroad unit

Miss Maisie—a black worker at the camp, a leader in the Underground Railroad, has the code name The Mechanic

Miss Clementine—a black woman who sometimes helps at the Fairfield house and is part of Miss Maisie’s unit

Miss Tansy—a black woman who sometimes helps at the Fairfield house

Morris—a member of the Underground Railroad whom Thorn met in Arkansas who is currently operating near the Alabama border with Georgia

Moses Wilcott—a black man of Tensaw’s colored section, who was beaten by deputies as an example to others

Mrs. Gammon—one of Hollis’ school teachers

Nadine Monroe—Lucy’s mother, who asks Thorn for help; a pro-suffrage leader and colleague of Laymont Johnson

Neil—Hollis’ uncle who once suffered from trench foot

Nelson—a white Alabama man sympathetic to the Underground Railroad

Olivier Crandall—a black man who helps finance the pro-suffrage group Nadine Monroe and Laymont Johnson are a part of

Pastor Acuff—the preacher at the church Hollis’ family attends

President Zane—the president of the Free States of America

Robert—member of the Underground Railroad unit east of Birmingham

Samuel—member of the Underground Railroad unit east of Birmingham

Sheriff Dooley—the sheriff of Henry County, Alabama, who assisted in the abduction of Lucy Monroe

Tallulah—leader of the Underground Railroad unit east of Birmingham

Vinita Fairfield—Hollis’ aunt, a spinster, who remained on the family farm

Yancy—Morris’ adopted father; was imprisoned in Camp Burdette with Dane Rook

STATES AND MAP

States of the Union

Colorado

Connecticut

Delaware

Illinois

Indiana

Iowa

Kansas

Kentucky (Occupied Territory—captured from the West during the Great War)

Maine

Maryland

Massachusetts

Michigan

Minnesota

Missouri

Montana

Nebraska

New Hampshire

New Jersey

New York

North Dakota

Ohio

Pennsylvania

Rhode Island

South Dakota

Tennessee (Occupied Territory—captured from the West during the Great War)

Vermont

West Virginia

Wisconsin

Wyoming

STATES OF THE FREE STATES OF AMERICA (FORMERLY THE EASTERN CONFEDERACY)

Florida

Georgia

North Carolina

South Carolina

Virginia

STATES OF THE WESTERN CONFEDERACY

Alabama

Arkansas

Louisiana

Mississippi

HISTORY

The rout of Gettysburg in early July 1863 almost saw the end of the Union, but Lee was unable to capitalize on his success and did not capture Washington, D.C. However, the public was so dismayed by the performance of Lincoln and his generals that George McClellan went on to win the 1864 presidential election. By 1865, the McClellan-Davis Accords had brought an end to the war and the dream of a unified United States.

The Union realized that leaving its capital on the banks of the Potomac overlooking Virginia was strategically unsound, and so the capital was moved to Philadelphia, and then, finally, to New York City. The country continued to build its industrial base, and with ports on the East Coast and access to the St. Lawrence Seaway, trade with other nations continued much as it had before the war. Treatment of minorities remained poor for some time, especially toward the Native Americans in the western half of the nation, but ultimately, civil rights were extended to all. Yet a lingering paranoia about British influence coming across the Canadian border, and a deep-seated fear of the Confederacy, kept the Union on its toes. Security became a national obsession.

Meanwhile, the Confederacy split into two parts shortly after the war over the issue of slavery. The Eastern Confederacy gradually abolished the institution, though minorities were required to live in designated zones and could not vote, attend university, or serve on juries. Eventually, minorities were allowed to open their own universities and hospitals. The Western Confederacy, with its weak central authority based in Birmingham, became more and more insular. Slavery continued well into the twentieth century.

When the Great War broke out in Europe in 1914, the Union allied itself with the Austro-Hungarian Empire, and the Confederacies with the British Empire. Trench warfare came to Kentucky and Tennessee. Though Kentucky had not seceded during the Civil War, its citizens had never been happy as part of the Union, and many joined the British cause. By the end of the war, the Union had regained control of Kentucky, and had captured Tennessee from the Western Confederacy. Kentucky and Tennessee were labeled Occupied Territories, and New York dedicated an entire governmental agency to those restless states.

The twentieth century passed in relative peace and quiet, with the British, the Germans (the successors to the Austro-Hungarians), and then the Japanese, jockeying for territories and control over trade. By the 1980s, German scientists were rapidly closing in on the secret of nuclear power, though several catastrophes meant sections of Europe became radioactive.

The Eastern Confederacy renamed itself the Free States of America in the late 1990s. Minorities gained the right to vote in local elections, and universal suffrage became a national movement.

Without the financial ability to fund national defense, and four squabbling state governors to contend with, Birmingham had to feel its way carefully into the twenty-first century. Enmity with the Union, especially over the loss of Tennessee, continued to rankle, while the world’s empires looked for ways to exploit the area for their own good. Birmingham was increasingly isolated in an evolving world where it could exercise little power. But what power it had, it would try to use.

1

HOLLIS

The smell of death hit her before she even came in sight of the camp. She’d been warned, but somehow, she hadn’t really understood what Captain Scott had meant by you’ll smell it before you see it .

Well, he’d sure been right.

Hollis did her best to ignore the stench, which was even now, in the early spring, nearly unbearable. She couldn’t imagine what this would be like by high summer.

Maybe she’d have another job by then. It wasn’t like she was really interested in working at Camp Pinewood. But jobs were scarce. The port of Mobile was almost completely inactive now, and that meant people who’d previously been employed as sailors or dockhands or any of a hundred other port jobs were out of work and looking. An eighteen-year-old farm girl from Tensaw wasn’t going to be able to compete with someone who had a good working background and lots of experience.

Except no one really wanted to work at the camp. Heck, no one even wanted to talk about the camp. It was the sort of thing everyone knew about, but no one could quite recall how they’d found out it was there. Like a blight, the presence of the camp squatted on the surrounding landscape; it was impossible to be ignorant of it, but no one wanted to discuss it except in whispers.

All that Aunt Vinita had been willing to say was that the camp was taking care of a problem that no one wanted to deal with. The camp was cleansing the Confederacy; when the cleansing was done, the Confederacy would be strong again. It was like pulling a tooth: something wretchedly painful, agonizing even, and yet necessary. After it was over, you’d be glad it had been done, even if you’d cussed out the person extracting your tooth while it was happening.

Hollis could see that. The Confederacy had been too soft on the coloreds for far too long, as her father and grandfather liked to say. Her father liked to pontificate that they couldn’t be trusted, bred like rabbits, and would plot the deaths of every white person in the state if you didn’t keep them in their place. Pastor Acuff often said the same, with the added fact that coloreds were the cursed descendants of Ham. God himself had declared them sub-human way back in the days of the Flood, and had destined Ham’s wretched descendants to be under the control of the white man. And what God had decided, no man might oppose.

Everyone Hollis knew was clear: the camp was the Lord’s work, and it was good in His eyes.

The stench coming from it indicated otherwise.

Hollis steeled herself. She’d never been near an odor this vile, but if the guards at the camp could stand it, so could she. This was her one chance to get off the farm. Her one shot of seeing something of the world besides Tensaw, even if it was just Mobile or Montgomery. Even Birmingham seemed too exotic and far away to dream of, but that didn’t mean there weren’t other places, closer to Tensaw, she might go, if she could just save a bit of money.

If she remained on the farm, she’d either stay forever and be a spinster like Aunt Vinita, spending her life obsessed with canning, chickens, and farming peanuts, or she’d marry Everett Dobson, who’d been asking for her hand since they were both ten, and live on a farm no more than three miles from the farm where she’d grown up.

Everett was handsome enough, but his ambition was to stay on his family’s farm, marry a woman of Tensaw, breed a passel of kids, and die on the land on which he’d been born, never having even been as far as Mobile. The world outside the farm, outside Tensaw, did not interest him in the slightest. Even the tales of the camp Hollis could now smell, didn’t mean a thing to Everett. It was miles away, and had nothing to do with decent people like his family.

Hollis knew that, if she left, Charity Lange would be more than willing to take Hollis’ place in Everett’s heart. Charity wanted exactly what Everett wanted, which was, in Hollis’ mind, nothing at all. What good was staying on the same tiny farm holding for the entirety of one’s life? Cooking, taking care of children, canning the vegetables, feeding the chickens . . . nothing was wrong with those things in and of themselves. But doing nothing else for life? Hollis’ soul balked at the thought. The world was huge; even the Confederacy, tucked away on a tiny bit of the North American continent, was still much larger than any of her relatives could imagine. The world itself was beyond them entirely.

But not Hollis. She’d found some maps in a disused schoolroom and had spent hours poring over them until Mrs. Gammon had caught her and made her write I will not go where I am not supposed to be three hundred times on the chalkboard after school.

The next time Hollis had sneaked into that room, the maps were gone. But she still remembered the smell of the brittle paper, and the enticing lines that showed entire continents, and country borders, and rivers, and mountain ranges, and even Alabama. Which had been no bigger than the end of her thumb on the large curled-up sheet of yellowed paper.

Alabama, it turned out, was tiny. The world was huge. And Hollis had to see it somehow, or at least some piece of it. Which meant leaving the farm.

Which meant getting a job. Thus, the camp.

Hollis did her best to ignore the pungent scraping at the insides of her sinuses and trudged down the gravel lane. The morning was chilly and she could see her breath, but the day would be pleasantly warm by noon. She’d worn her good sweater, the one Granny Fairfield had knitted her the last winter of her life, but now she regretted that. The sweater would no doubt reek of the camp by nightfall. Hollis should have been prepared to be cold for a few hours. But she hadn’t considered the power of the odor Captain Scott had referred to in his interview with her.

Hollis soldiered on and wondered how long it would take to get the odor out of her sweater after today. Maybe Aunt Vinita would have a solution to the problem.

In the meantime, Hollis had to be sharp for her first day of work. She was to be at the camp by nine a.m. and would be on shift until six. Captain Scott had warned her that her hours might be expanded if they got a fresh influx of guests.

The way he’d said guests made Hollis very uncomfortable, as if cold water had infiltrated her bones. A shiver had gone down her spine, the way it did every harvest when father brought out his best ghost stories to tell by the fire. As if the dark, which, in her father’s stories, was full of vengeful spirits and demons, was in Captain Scott’s very voice, even on a bright sunny day in late March.

Hollis had ignored the gooseflesh and the shiver. She needed a job, and Captain Scott was the only one interested in hiring a farm girl with no work experience outside the family home. He’d wanted to know if she could wash, scrub, and cook. She could certainly do all those things, and now, she’d be paid to do them. That was one step up from chores at home.

She shouldn’t have to worry about extra hours at work for now, though. Captain Scott seemed to think that there wouldn’t be more people brought to the camp any time soon. Which was good; if she had to work extra hours, Hollis wouldn’t have time to walk between work and home before it got dark.

She rounded a slight curve in the gravel road and stopped as she got her first glimpse of the camp.

Weathered lumber formed the framework of a fence, set in the soggy soil several feet apart and strung together with barbed wire. Ahead of her was the gate, which was, like the rest of the fencing, just a framework of warped lumber supporting rusty metal wire. The entire contraption looked as though it could be pushed over with a decent shove. Yet behind it were gray-clad guards and a solid guard tower squatting over the shorter buildings like some kind of mutant hen overseeing her clutch.

What grabbed her attention after the first moment was something she’d never thought to see in her life. At first, her brain refused to take it in. Captain Scott’s vague warnings about it looks more alarming than it is, and it can be upsetting when you first see it, but it’s necessary slid away in the face a scaffold and a gallows, from which dangled a body, for goodness sake. The head was covered in a black cloth, the feet still twitched. The execution must have just happened recently. Public executions had been outlawed in her grandparents’ time, back when hanging coloreds from trees and having a picnic beneath their slowly strangling bodies had been a Sunday afternoon’s entertainment. Hollis had never known such a thing in her own life but she’d heard the stories. Her grandmother had decried the lack of proper picnics and opined that making them illegal had made the coloreds too big for their britches. Her father had snorted in derision. If you can’t hang ’em, how you gonna keep ’em in line?

Hollis had never had a reason to doubt her family and pastor in the matter, but now, watching the twitching body at the end of the rope, she wondered how anyone had ever deemed this a good thing to watch while eating. To make a spectacle of.

Hollis swallowed back the bile that threatened to rise in her throat and she thought she might vomit her breakfast right here in the road. She swayed slightly and wrenched her eyes away from the sight.

Now that she had stopped looking at the camp, Hollis noticed the cleared field around the fence was full of low mounds of earth. The one nearest her sported yellowed bones sticking out at odd angles around the base. Most of them seem to have been gnawed on by forest creatures.

Hollis felt faint. For an instant, she wondered how her father and grandfather and Aunt Vinita and Pastor Acuff could be wrong about the camp. How could anyone support the deaths of enough people, even if they were the Sons of Ham, that it would take to fill all these mounds? Even if the person at the end of the rope hadn’t, technically, been executed in public, wasn’t executing them at all still illegal? And then tossing the dead in graves without any kind of marker or care?

Common sense reasserted itself and her knees stopped shaking, at least somewhat. The sight of the camp and the graves was shocking, certainly, but if everyone said this was necessary, then it was necessary. The Confederacy had put up with too many coloreds for too long. Something had to be done. Everyone agreed, from her father to the sheriff to the pastor to the governor to the president. Who was she to doubt any of these God-fearing men?

She opened her eyes and continued walking. The guards at the fence spotted her and one of them gestured her forward. Hollis kept her eyes from the dangling body. She could do this. She could walk forward, go through the gate, and simply not look at the body or the graves, or . . . and now she could see other guests of the camp sitting dispiritedly on the ground, covered in sores and dried blood. She could remember Pastor Acuff’s last sermon