In the novel's second account of Ab Snopes' 'war wound," he is shot by "somebody who didn't even own the horses" he was trying to steal (32). That is all the novel says here, but it seems likely that Faulkner is thinking of a Confederate who was standing guard over the horses, the kind of task a 'picket' might have been assigned - in The Town it is a "picket" who shoots him (5). On the other hand, in "Barn Burning," where Ab's wound first appears in the canon, he is shot by a "Confederate provost's man" (5).
Ratliff brings this "fellow" into the novel in his account of how Ab Snopes burned De Spain's barn: according to this account, he bases his description of the rapid "gait" at which De Spain rode his horse from the barn to the cabin where Ab was living on this "fellow who heard him passing in the road" (19).
Ratliff brings this "fellow" into The Hamlet in his account of how Ab Snopes burned De Spain's barn: according to this account, he bases his description of the rapid "gait" at which De Spain rode his horse from the barn to the cabin where Ab was living on this "fellow who heard him passing in the road" (19). Throughout his account of Ab and De Spain (essentially a re-telling of the short story "Barn Burning"), Ratliff describes events he did not witness firsthand, but this is the only point at which he explains how he 'knew' what happened.
