He had grown so used to seeing death,
walking among the dead, sleeping among them . . . that it seemed
no longer dark and mysterious.
(See Important Quotations Explained)
Summary
Inman and Veasey come across a saw lying by a felled tree.
Veasey steals the saw, justifying his actions by claiming that God
shows little respect for property. The travelers eat the pods from
a honey locust tree. They continue their journey, stopping to help
a man who wants to remove a dead bull from a creek. Veasey unsuccessfully tries
shifting the carcass according to his theory of fulcrums and leverage.
Inman intervenes and uses the saw to dismember the bull. The men
remove the body from the creek piece by piece. In gratitude for
their help, the man offers Inman and Veasey dinner and lodging, which
Inman accepts on condition that the man takes the saw. On their
way to the man’s home, the travelers stop and share tales over a
bottle of liquor. The man identifies himself as Junior and tells
a salacious story about his roving youth before complaining about
his promiscuous wife and her two sisters.
The men arrive at Junior’s tilted house, which has slipped
its foundations. Inman and Veasey drink more and meet Junior’s daughter,
Lula. Inman stands on the porch and looks at the planet Venus before
Junior introduces his wife Lila. Junior leaves to check on a horse,
and Inman drinks earthy-tasting liquor with Lila and her sisters.
He thinks that the children look “stunned.” The women remove loaves
baked in the shape of men from the fire. Lila explains to Inman
that the disembodied light he sees in the forest is the ghost of
a man Junior decapitated. Inman starts feeling dizzy and hides his haversack.
The women serve up an unidentifiable joint of meat for
dinner “too big for hog, but too pale for cow,” which Inman has
difficulty carving. Lila tries to seduce Inman, but Junior walks
in with his gun and says that he has brought the Home Guard. Inman
and Veasey are arrested and bound to a line of other captives. Before
the group leaves, Junior forces Veasey to officiate a marriage between
Inman and Lila.
The men march eastward for days without food. Inman is depressed
at the thought of retracing his steps. One night, the guards decide
to line up the prisoners and shoot them, but Inman suffers only
a superficial wound to the side of his head. Inman drifts in and out
of consciousness before he is pulled from his shallow grave by hogs.
Inman uses a stone to cut the rope binding him to Veasey’s corpse.
He commences walking westward and meets a slave, the yellow man,
who gives him a melon. The slave offers the exhausted Inman a ride
back to his owner’s farm. Inman accepts. When the two reach the
farm, the slave hides Inman in the fodder. There, Inman rests and
loses track of time. When he decides to leave, the slave warns him
to head north in order to avoid Confederate patrols, which are out
looking for Federals. The slave draws Inman a map, explaining that
his master has taught him to read and write. Inman thanks the man
and regrets that he has no money to give him.
Inman returns to Junior’s house, retrieves his haversack,
and kills Junior by beating him in the head with his pistol. Inman
walks westward all night and rests the next day under a tree in
which three crows nest. Inman watches the birds and dreams of a
world in which a man could transform himself into a crow and “fly
from” or “laugh” at his enemies.
Analysis
This central chapter of the book is concerned with repetition,
rotation, and rebirth. Inman’s identification of the planet Venus
echoes Ada’s identification of the same planet in the previous chapter.
Frazier uses this detail to indicate how the couple’s stories mirror
and intertwine. More importantly, Inman changes his cardinal direction twice,
sees Veasey die, and narrowly avoids death himself. Inman experiences
a second resurrection when he is exhumed from his shallow grave.
(His first resurrection was his extraordinary survival of the wound
he took at Petersburg, related in “the shadow of a crow.”) Inman
is a changed man following his directional reversals and his near
death. Not only does he commence his journey westward, he does so
with a clear desire for vengeance. Inman’s decision to kill Junior
constitutes a moral climax in which Inman recognizes his need to
kill in certain situations.
