Unnamed Deputy Sheriff

This unnamed deputy recounts the second and last section of "Pantaloon," but much of the language used to characterize him serves to undermine his authority as a narrator. He is "spent" and "a little hysterical too" after both the manhunt for Rider and the lynching (252), and his wife shows no sympathy at all for him or for the story he's trying to tell her. Instead, she offers the narrative’s only portrait of the deputy sheriff: "You sheriffs! Sitting around that courthouse all day long talking. It's no wonder two or three men can walk in and take prisoners out from under your noses. They would take your chairs and desks and window sills too if you ever got your backsides and feet off of them that long" (252). As one of the two perspectives from which the story depicts Rider, his is explicitly racist: "Them damn niggers," he says; "they ain't human" (252). He clearly 'sees' a different Rider than the earlier narrative has revealed. But at the same time, he's obviously been unexpectedly moved by Rider's life and death.