Unnamed Third Man

In Light in August, when Sheriff Kennedy and Deputy Buford go into the cabin at the Burden place to interrogate the black man that Buford and "two or three others" have seized (291), this "third man" is there too (293). The interrogation consists mainly of Buford whipping the Negro until he tells Kennedy what he wanted to know: who had been living there before. The striking thing about this unexplained "third man" is that all along he knew the answer to the Sheriff's question, and in fact tells Kennedy that "any man in Jefferson" with the smell of whiskey on his breath could have told him who lived in the cabin - but he withholds that information until after the black man has been whipped into revealing it (293).