Unnamed Negro Woman Boon Shoots

This "Negro girl" in The Reivers is shot by Boon on Courthouse Square when he is trying to shoot Ludus (14). Her wound seems serious - not only is she "screaming" but also "bleeding like a stuck pig" - but the Sheriff decides Boon's white friends can resolve the situation by giving her father five dollars and her "a new dress . . . and a bag of candy" (14-15). When he mentions the new dress, Lucius as narrator notes that "there wasn't anything under" the dress she was wearing when she was shot (15). Faulkner had described this event in two earlier texts, "Lion" and Go Down, Moses. In both these texts she is called a "woman" (189, 223), and Boon accidentally hits her in the leg; there is no description of what happens to her next, expect that the novel adds: "Major de Spain paid for that" (223).