Light in August: Chapter 14 Summary & Analysis

Burford tells the sheriff that Lena is living in the cabin, and that Byron is sleeping in a tent nearby. He says that Lena recited her story to him as if it were a prepared speech, and then repeats that story to the sheriff. He says that Byron then took him outside and explained that Brown is the child’s father, but that he has changed his name from Lucas Burch. Byron explained how Lena came all the way from Alabama on foot. He then explained that he is keeping the whole affair with Christmas, Brown, and Joanna secret from Lena, and that he had been intending to tell the sheriff about Lena when he got a chance.

The sheriff suggests that they leave the whole thing alone for now, and that he’s more focused on the “husband” Brown had in Jefferson (Christmas) than any wife he left behind in Alabama. Burford laughs, and comments on Brown’s crazed desperation to get the $1000 reward.

At 3 am on Wednesday, a man comes to the sheriff directly from a service at the black church where he worships. He says that earlier yesterday evening, a white man entered carrying a gun and grabbed the throat of the minister, Brother Bedenberry. As soon as the congregation saw that the man who entered was not black, they began to scream. Chaos ensued; the women were shrieking that the man was the devil, while Brother Bedenberry unsuccessfully tried to subdue him.

After knocking Brother Bedenberry and several others aside, the white man (Christmas) climbed into the pulpit with his hands held aloft “like a preacher” and started shouting and cursing. At this point one of the congregants, a six-foot-tall man named Roz, tried to kill Christmas with a razor. The congregation did their best to overpower Roz, and eventually managed to drag him out of the church. At this point they realized that Christmas had escaped. The man speaking says that he rode straight to the sheriff from church. The man does not know that after this, Christmas fractured Roz’s skull by hitting him with a bench leg, causing him to pass out.

As soon as he hit Roz, Christmas jumped out onto the dirt outside the church. He sees that the undergrowth below him “is full of negroes” and can feel their eyes looking around without seeing him. Standing against the wall of the church, he lights a cigarette and watches the witness ride off to tell the sheriff what happened. Christmas is standing against the wall, still holding the bench leg in one hand. Once he is finished with the cigarette, he throws it into the undergrowth, so that the search party there sees a lit cigarette butt flying as if from nowhere. No one sees Christmas run off.

The sheriff arrives at the church at 8 am the next morning, with the dogs in tow. Immediately, they find a piece of paper which they soon see is a flattened, empty cigarette paper. On the paper are the words: “Didn’t I tell you?” Brown, who is also there, immediately begins shouting, and the sheriff threatens to take him back to jail again. They find the man’s footprints, and even some hand- and knee-prints from when he was kneeling in the soil. It’s clear that it’s the same person who murdered Joanna, and the search party are once again surprised by how little effort the murderer has gone to in order to cover his tracks.

They follow the footprints, and realize that the murderer is likely in a “negro cabin” just ahead. The sheriff warns the search party to be careful, as the murderer has a gun. They surround the house, but only find a black woman and child inside (although the woman is wearing the murderer’s shoes). They search a nearby cotton house and similarly find nothing, but can see from footprints that the murderer was there.

Christmas feels that he is being “hunted by white men at last into the black abyss which had been waiting, trying, for thirty years to drown him.” Now he has succumbed to the abyss. He has barely slept since he entered the church on Wednesday and has not eaten since Friday. He has lost track of the days since he fled Joanna’s house. At one point he knocked on the door of a cabin and asked the woman who answered what day it was, scaring her to death. At another point, he fell while running, and instead of getting up stayed asleep for six hours. At first he was unbearably hungry, but then the hunger faded, although he still forced himself to eat any rotten fruit he found.

Christmas comes across two young black children and asks what day it is, but they run away. He falls asleep by accident, and wakes to the sound of people riding past in a wagon. He thinks that they could have easily captured him, at which point he would have told them: “I am tired of running of having to carry my life like it was a basket of eggs.” However, he is not captured, and sneaks back into the bushes. He then sees another wagon, and asks the black man driving it the same question. The man replies that it is Friday, and although the wagon driver offers him a ride, Christmas disappears into the woods again without even bothering to decline the offer.

By 12 pm, Christmas has walked eight miles. He sees yet another wagon; this time, the driver is going to Mottstown, the next town over from Jefferson, and Christmas decides to hitch a ride. When they arrive, Christmas thinks about how he has finally broken out of a circle in which he has been trapped all his life, and traveled farther in the past week than he has in the previous thirty years.