Intruder In The Dust

The men arrange for the bodies to be cleared away. Together with Gavin, Charles accompanies Jake Montgomery’s body to the town morgue. In town, people are still gathered outside the jail. Charles suspects that the reason that the crowd did not explode into violence is because the Gowrie family already knew that Vinson was killed by Crawford. The crowd watches the car arrive, noticing who is inside. Seemingly displeased, the crowd disperses. Their slow departure confuses and then angers Charles, who keeps repeating his astonishment that “they ran.” The Gowries would have allowed an innocent man to be killed, even though they knew that Lucas was not the killer.

After picking up Charles’s mother, Gavin drives them both home. As they idle in traffic, Charles thinks about Miss Habersham. She played a vital role in Lucas’s acquittal. Even though her defense of the African American man earned her nothing and put her at great risk, she did it anyway. Many people, Charles suspects, would consider this to be a waste of time. The car pulls up to the house and Charles jumps out, hurrying to his room. Inside, feeling tired, he listens to his uncle explain the need for the South to abandon the racism of the past.