Airfield in "Death Drag" (Location)

On his 1946 map, Faulkner places this location slightly south and east of Jefferson alongside the road that runs to Mottstown, and labels it the "Airport," which is also the word the story's narrator uses the first time he mentions the location (185). But the rest of the time the narrative refers to it as the "field" (186), and that is a much more accurate word. As the narrator acknowledges, Jefferson's airfield is "still in an embryonic state": a regraded cotton field "with an X-shaped runway into the prevailing winds" (186). The working farm on one side and the "grove of trees" on the other often make clearance difficult for the few planes that take off or land there.