In Mississippi, a youth and a man walk by a river path looking for a fisherman named Lonnie. By Lonnie's hut, they run into Joe, a deaf and cognitively regressed man, who runs to avoid them. The man and boy find a trotline with a huge tug. When they examine it, they find Lonnie's body, who drowned on his trotline.   At the coroner's, Stevens, the county attorney, examines Lonnie. Yoknapatawpha county was founded by three pioneers, and Lonnie is a descendant of one of them. Stevens thinks that Lonnie wouldn’t care much for his inheritances, because he was altruist and charitable, welcoming anyone into his riverside hut. At a gristmill, the coroner sign’s Lonnie’s death certificate, and his body is taken for burial.   Later in the afternoon, Stevens feels like something is missing since the case was so strange. As Stevens drives by the wagon with Lonnie’s casket, he sees a truck with two men speeding after it. Stevens follows it, finding two men standing in the road beside the wagon. Stevens recognizes them as Tyler Ballenbaugh, a notorious farmer and gambler, and his younger brother Boyd. Stevens sees that Tyler wants to take Lonnie, and helps to “swap him.” Nine days later, Stevens is looking for the company that sketchily issued Lonnie a policy for accidental death with Tyler as his beneficiary. When he finds out Tyler filed his claim, Stevens seeks to arrest him.   When Stevens finds Tyler and Boyd in Lonnie's camp, Boyd reveals he is Lonnie's murderer, motivated by the easy money of Tyler’s policy insuring Lonnie's life. When Stevens confronts them, Boyd first shoots Tyler, who had tried to stop Boyd, and then Stevens. Then, Joe appears and kills Boyd. Stevens wakes next to find news that Boyd was murdered, and it was most likely Joe, who suspended Boyd's body from the same trotline that previously held Lonnie. He lies to the sheriff that he doesn't know how Boyd got on the trotline, refusing to implicate Joe in Boyd's death.