Birdsongs

In "Pantaloon in Black" as both a story and a chapter in Go Down, Moses, the man Rider kills belongs to the large Yoknapatawpha family of Birdsongs; the deputy sheriff tells his wife how large it is: "It's more of them Birdsongs than just two or three. . . . There's forty-two active votes in that connection" (148). As voters the men in the family have a lot of influence with the county sheriff, but it's clear from both what the deputy says and the events of the story that as a clan the Birdsongs aren't going to rely on the law to punish Rider for killing one of their own.