Child of God

Fall arrives. Lester is now more solitary and more bitter than before; some in the county say he’s gone “insane.” He spends his days patrolling Frog Mountain, cursing the hunters with their dogs and whiskey who churn up dust as they pass him in their trucks.

On a cold morning, Lester finds an unconscious woman in a sheer nightgown at the Frog Mountain lookout. He tosses rocks at her to see if she’s alive then touches her. She awakes furious and smelling of whiskey. Lester asks if she’s cold; she backs away and throws a rock at him. Lester hits her, and she says, “I knowed you’d do me thisaway” (49). He tears off her nightgown and, clutching it under his arm, leaves the cursing woman naked on the ground.

In the next chapter, another first-person narrator identified as John recalls riding with Sheriff Turner to the Frog Mountain lookout. The Sheriff surprised a couple having sex and asked the man to step out of the car. The man looked crazy with his pants on inside-out. The Sheriff let the couple go. To John, this showed that the sheriff is a reasonable man.

A toothless man named Darfuzzle goes to Lester’s cabin to warn him that the Sheriff wants him in connection with the woman at the lookout.