Nub Gowrie

Nub Lowrie's appearance in Intruder in the Dust is memorable. His name - Nathan Bedford Forrest Gowrie - comes from a former slave-dealer who was also one of the Confederacy's most effective generals and a founder of the Ku Klux Klan; his nickname - "Nub" - combines the initials of his first names with the fact of his missing left arm. How he became handicapped is not explained, but the loss doesn't diminish the force of his character. He is "a short lean old man with [pale] eyes . . . and a red weathered face"; his voice is "high thin strong [and] uncracked" (156). He is also a "fiery tyrant of a father" to his six sons (160) whom most of Yoknapatawpha expects to waste no time lynching the Negro accused of killing his youngest. When he finally comes face to face with him, Chick is surprised to see that this "violent foulmouthed godless old man" has a "heart capable of breaking" (158). His later appearances are minor ones. At least, we assume that the "Mr. Gowrie" (375) who sells a bottle of moonshine whiskey to Charles Mallison in The Town is the same man. In The Mansion, Mink Snopes claims he sold his cow to "one of the Gowrie boys up at Caledonia Chapel" - the place where Chick meets him in Intruder (11). Houston identifies the "boy" to whom Mink supposedly sold the cow as "Nub" (15), who is a moonshiner.