Section 1
- The story opens with a striking image: Rider, an African American man taller than six feet and heavier than two hundred pounds, is shoveling dirt to bury his wife Mannie.
- He's beside himself with grief. When he's done, he tells the others he's going home.
- One of the people there tells him he shouldn't go home because the dead don't leave the earth right away, and Mannie's sure to be haunting their house. Rider leaves anyway.
- We learn that Rider rents his house from Carothers "Roth" Edmonds.
- Rider's been a hardworking man who's made good money at the sawmill.
- He used to be a drinkin', gamblin', sleepin' around kind of guy, but the moment he saw Mannie six months ago, he decided to give up his old ways.
- They got married and Rider lit a fire in his hearth like he heard Uncle Lucas Beauchamp had done forty-five years ago.
- They settled into a happy routine, he going off to the sawmill, she taking care of their home.
- He comes home from the burial and starts thinking about his life with Mannie.
- Suddenly he looks up and sees Mannie standing in the kitchen door.
- He takes two steps and she fades away.
- Rider tries to eat, but the food seems tasteless. He can't stay at home any longer, so he walks to the mill. Soon, the rest of the men show up.
- They start work, and Rider's tossing around huge logs with superhuman power.
- His aunt's husband shows up at work and gives him some food that his aunt made.
- He tries to convince Rider to go to their place. Rider refuses and goes back to work.
- He lifts and throws the biggest log he's ever handled. The men think he's going to kill himself working like that.
- At sundown, when work's over, he goes walking in the river swamp.
- He decides to buy some whiskey from a white bootlegger. He grabs a gallon jug, but refuses to pay the guy. Rider simply walks away from the startled bootlegger.
- He starts to drink. He's got a gallon of whiskey.
- He sees his aunt's husband who's been looking for him, but Rider doesn't want to talk.
- When he can't drink anymore, he stops by his aunt's place. She tries to convince him to pray, but he doesn't see the point.
- He drinks the whole jug, and finally goes to a dice game run by Birdsong, the white foreman of the mill who cheats the black workers by running a crooked game.
- Rider keeps saying, "Ah'm snakebit and bound to die." He knows he's doomed.
- Birdsong realizes Rider's drunk and tries to make him leave, but he refuses.
- The game starts, and the men keep losing to the foreman. Rider can't take it anymore. He grabs Birdsong's hand, dislodging the hidden extra pair of dice, and Birdsong reaches for his pistol.
- Rider grabs a razor hanging inside his shirt, flicks it open and just as Birdsong fires his pistol, Rider hits Birdsong with his fist. End of Birdsong.
Section 2
- Rider's body is found a few days later, hanging from a bell-rope in an African American schoolhouse near the sawmill. He's been lynched.
- The sheriff's deputy in charge of the case tells his wife about it.
- He starts out by saying he thinks African Americans aren't humans.
- His wife's busy cooking and doesn't want to hear about it.
- He tells her how Rider's wife died and it seemed like he wasn't grieving her death at all. Right, what would the deputy know?
- He says the cops thought Rider would run away, but decided to go by his house just to check in anyway.
- Rider was there. He confessed his crime and asked them not to lock him up.
- They took him to jail. An old woman (probably his poor aunt) asked the police to not take him anywhere, so they took her to jail as well.
- When they locked the two of them up, Rider ripped the door off his cell.
- The cops let the other prisoners fight him. He threw them all off and kept saying he just couldn't quit thinking.
- The deputy's wife doesn't care a bit about this story, and tells him to shut up and eat.