ROBERTOREG'S NOTES

Chapter 1 

In the opening scene of the novel DEVIL MAKE A THIRD, the reader is introduced to young Buck Bannon behind his plow "blinded by the sun" and sweat stinging his eyes and burning as it soaked  into the raw places on his neck chafed by his mule's reins but none of that mattered because "he was eighteen  and he was following a mule for the last time." Popping a sweat in the early morning sunshine reminded Buck that it was time for this "dirt road sport" to leave the farm and try his luck in town. He had a twenty dollar gold coin burning a hole in his pocket and the time had come for him to make his big move. Buck was heading to Aven, the new boomtown a few miles away from the Bannon farm which simply consisted of a railway station with a small row of tin-roofed stores and unpainted houses. 

Turning his plow out of the soft dirt of the field, Buck looked between his mule's ears for the last time to see his mother rocking on her porch as he aimed his mule toward the sandy hard-packed clay of his Mama's meticulously swept yard. Buck rejoiced at his coming freedom from the drudgery of his parents' farm. In an act of both rebellion and celebration, Buck reined his mule  in concentric circles as he plowed up the bare-earth of his Mama's front yard. Slapping his mule with the looped ends of his lines, Buck yelled, danced and kicked up his heels while imitating the movements of his mule. Finally, he calmed down enough to speak and when he did, he imitated a square dance caller,"ROUND AND ROUND, swing yore partner and do it again."

The entire time he was plowing and rejoicing at his anticipated freedom, Buck kept his eye on the second most important character in this novel: his mother, Jeanie McPhearson Bannon,  pregnant with her thirteenth child, who sat rocking on her front porch, dipping snuff and observing her oldest boy showing off.  After he finally finished tearing up her carefully groomed yard and telling her he was heading to Aven, Jeanie remarked, "Them pickpockets'll fight over you."

 

The novel's second scene occurs inside the Bannon family home after the evening meal with Buck preparing to get a ride to Aven  that night with his younger brother Jeff driving him to town in the Bannon's flat-bed wagon. As Buck prepares to leave the farm for the last time, the reader is introduced to two of Buck's brothers and his father Joe. The other Bannon children are present but the reader only gets important information describing Buck's younger brothers, Jeff and Hearn. These five characters described in this first chapter (Buck Bannon, Mrs. Joe Bannon, Joe Bannon, Jeff Bannon and Hearn Bannon) are the ones from which most of the action in the novel grows.

The novel's third scene describes Buck and Jeff's evening journey to Aven and the reader gains insight into Buck's personality as the monotony of the wagon ride produces a stream of images from his consciousness which causes the young man to recollect scenes from the rural life he is abandoning and producing the first feelings on homesickness.

Rather than having Jeff cross a creek with his wagon, Buck jumps off the wagon, bids goodbye to his little brother and walks the remaining half mile into Aven. In the last paragraphs of Chapter 1, the reader is finally told that the scene of the action in the novel will mostly occur "in a small corner of Alabama [that] wasn't lying fallow any longer, but was heavy with the germ of a town."