Valley Road in Flags in the Dust (Location)

The "valley road," as the narrative calls the main road out of Jefferson going north, is perhaps the physical center of the novel's narrative, partly because it leads from town to the Sartoris plantation, and partly because Young Bayard spends so much of his time on it restlessly driving the sports car he buys after returning from the war. It is described as "smooth . . . and winding" (142), as it descends from the town, crosses the valley with "cultivated fields" along both sides, then rises into the "shimmering hills" to the north (218).