Site of Bayard's First Accident|Nine-Mile Branch in Intruder in the Dust (Location)

In Yoknapatawpha "branch" is another name for creek or stream. The rest of the name of the Nine-Mile Branch derives from the distance between Jefferson and the bridge over which the road crosses it. It is "a broad ditch" that is full of rushing water "during the winter and spring rains," but in May "a thin current scarcely an inch deep" (168). Its course is indicated by "the willow-and-cypress bottom" land along it (146). The bushes that also grow there, and the quicksand that lurks under the bridge, make it a wild enough place in which to try to hide two bodies.