The boy narrator of "Two Soldiers" calls him "the Law" (89). The employee at the bus depot calls him "Mr. Foote" (89). He's probably the night marshal in Jefferson. He finds the boy alone at dawn in the empty town square, takes him to the depot, and turns him over to the town's informal social service system - "two ladies in fur coats" (90).
As he waits for Dr. Schofield to amputate his injured leg in "The Tall Men," Buddy McCallum recalls the time he was wounded during World War I: "there was a heap" of American soldiers lying "outside a field dressing station" waiting for medical attention (51).
As Gombault notes in "The Tall Men," as the last military act of the Civil War "Sheridan's cavalry" blocked the road from "Appomattox to the [Shenandoah] Valley" in April, 1865, forcing Lee to surrender (54).
In "The Tall Men," when Buddy McCallum thinks that his sons are being called up for active duty in wartime, he tells them to obey their "sergeants and officers," adding, "The Government done right by me in my day, and it will do right by you" (53).
When deciding if he can safely amputate Buddy McCallum's leg in "The Tall Men," Dr. Schofield realizes that to anesthetize his patient, "I'll need my nurse to help me" (51). The nurse in question is never sent for, though the operation is performed.
Neither Buddy's wife nor her parents appear directly in "The Tall Men." Mr. Gombault notes that Buddy's wife isn't buried in the McCallum family graveyard: "Buddy's wife wanted to be buried with her folks. I reckon she would have been right lonesome up here with just McCallums" (60).
The memory of Mr. Pearson's unnamed grandfather is the first point in "The Tall Men" where he begins to identify with the McCallum family. When Pearson enters the bedroom where the injured Buddy McCallum lies, he sees beside Buddy's bedside a "big, old-fashioned, wicker-covered demijohn" like the one in which his grandfather kept his own whiskey (49).
Neither Buddy's wife nor her parents appear directly in "The Tall Men." Mr. Gombault notes that Buddy's wife isn't buried in the McCallum family graveyard: "Buddy's wife wanted to be buried with her folks. I reckon she would have been right lonesome up here with just McCallums" (60).
While waiting on Dr. Schofield to amputate his leg in "The Tall Men," Buddy McCallum recalls another doctor and a more unbearable wait during the First World War. He remembers, "It took a long time for the doctor to get around to all of us, and by that time it was hurting bad." Presumably American and most certainly overworked, this doctor patiently treats the "heap" of injured soldiers "racked up along a bank outside a field dressing station" (51).
There are several references in "The Tall Men" to "county agents" in general. This is "the county agent's young fellow" who visits the McCallums periodically to explain the new federal programs that regulate agricultural production (57). He works for the federal government as part of the Roosevelt administration's efforts during the Depression to improve farm practices in places like the deep South. To the McCallums, this is the "the Government" that wants to "interfere with how a man farmed his own land" (55).
