The Digital Yoknapatawpha Project

Nate's wife appears in the novel only as another voice in the darkness at their cabin, when readers hear her telling her husband to "let them white folks alone" (80) - suggesting she has more authority over Nate than Gavin Stevens does.

A Negro farmer who lives in a cabin near the path to Lonnie's camp, and the owner of the "Negro voice" that "answers" Stevens when he asks him to let people at the nearby store know if he, Stevens, isn't "back by daylight" (79). In response to his wife's misgivings, Nate "murmurs something" - but readers never hear what Nate himself says, either to Stevens or to her (80).

At the end of the story "the sheriff of the county" visits Stevens to wrap up the details of Stevens' unofficial investigation. He tries to get Stevens to confirm that Joe murdered Boyd Ballenbaugh. Stevens does not take the bait.

This agent for the insurance company that issued the policy on Lonnie's life willingly follows Gavin Stevens’s instructions to help capture his killer.

The insurance company doctor who examines Lonnie Grinnup in Mottstown "had never seen Lonnie Grinnup before, but he had known Tyler Ballenbaugh for years," and so has no qualms about qualifying Lonnie for the policy that Tyler pays for (77).

Boyd Ballenbaugh is Tyler Ballenbaugh’s younger brother. After a brief career in Memphis, where he worked as a hired guard during an industrial dispute and then got involved in undisclosed but apparently criminal activities with a set of "associates," he returns to his brother's house in Yoknapatawpha to hide out (76). A drunkard and a braggart, he is hotheaded and violent. Because he resents having to work for his brother "about the farm" (76), he comes up with what he thinks will be a quick - and murderous - way to make money.

Tyler Ballenbaugh is "a farmer, married and with a family and a reputation for self-sufficiency and violence," and for having won large "sums" as a gambler (75). That reputation returns with him from the time he spent "out West" (75). After his return to Yoknapatawpha, he continues to gamble, by speculating in "cotton futures" and even betting on Lonnie's Grinnup's life expectancy (75). He is cool and levelheaded in comparison with his younger brother Boyd.

One of the four men - the others are Ike, Pose, and Matthew - who load Lonnie Grinnup’s body onto a wagon for transfer to Tyler Ballenbaugh’s truck.

One of the four men - the others are Ike, Pose, and Jim Blake - who load Lonnie Grinnup’s body onto a wagon for transfer to Tyler Ballenbaugh’s truck in "Hand upon the Waters."

One of the four men - the others are Ike, Matthew, and Jim Blake - who load Lonnie Grinnup’s body onto a wagon for transfer to Tyler Ballenbaugh’s truck in "Hand upon the Waters."