Unnamed Sheriff 13

While the sheriff of Yoknapatawpha never appears in person in "Knight's Gambit," Robert Markey mentions him when he tells Gavin Stevens that "your sheriff will have to send someone" to help take Max Harriss into custody (232). Later Stevens mentions a different officer of the law when he instructs his nephew to send a message to the Memphis police that includes this phrase: "use police per request Jefferson chief if necessary” (214). While the county sheriff is a familiar character in the Yoknapatawpha fictions, there is no other mention in them of a "chief" of police. Presumably Stevens uses that term as one the police in Memphis would be more likely to respect. In any case, Gavin is never shown speaking with such an authority before sending the message. (Unnamed county sheriffs appear in fifteen different Yoknapatawpha fictions. Obviously in some of these cases - at least when the stories are set at more or less the same historical moment - Faulkner may be thinking of the same unnamed character, or one of the half dozen "Sheriff Hampton"s who also appear in the fictions, but from the texts themselves there is no way to establish that.)