- A driver named Sam Radcliffe agrees to take a boy named Joel Harrison Knox from Paradise Chapel to Noon City. Joel is moving from New Orleans to Noon City to live with his father.
- Joel shows Sam the letter from his father, which explains how he can get to Skully's Landing, where he lives, from New Orleans.
- They head out.
- Joel and Sam ride in Sam's Ford pick-up along the highway.
- Sam asks Joel to hand him a match from the back of the truck. While he's rummaging for the match Joel finds a bullet and swipes it before he lights Sam's cigarette.
- Joel asks Sam if he knows his father, Mr. Sansom. Sam says, yes, he's the guy who married Amy Skully, but that he's never actually seen Mr. Sansom.
- Sam starts gossiping about Skully's Landing, where Joel's dad lives, and tells him they've got a couple of "n*****s" there, and also mentions "the cousin." He won't elaborate.
- They pull into Noon City, and Sam tells him that he'll have to find another ride out to the Landing.
- Joel gets out and walks through town with his suitcase.
- A one-armed barber offers Joel a nickel if he'll catch a little redheaded girl (not the little redheaded girl) who's been terrorizing him.
- The girl, Idabel Thompkins, comes whooping and hollering down the road, and Joel declines the job offer.
- He goes into R. V. Lacey's Princely Place for a cold drink. A woman calls Miss Roberta takes his order, and he asks how far it is to Skully's Landing. She asks her sidekick, Romeo, and he says it's two or three miles, but that she wouldn't go there if she were Joel.
- Someone says that Jesus Fever could give Joel a ride.
- The redheaded girl saunters in looking for her sister, and Miss Roberta kicks her out for being dressed like a tomboy.
- Romeo takes Joel to where Jesus Fever is parked, and Jesus explains that Miss Amy sent him to pick up Joel.
- Joel gets into Jesus' wagon and they slowly roll out of town.
- Riding through the night, Joel hears a couple of girls singing. One of them is Idabel, and he offers them a ride as the wagon passes them.
- The other girl introduces herself as Florabel Thompkins, and she notices that Jesus Fever is asleep. Idabel won't take a ride, and Joel thinks that he likes Florabel the best.
- While they ride Idabel disappears out into the woods. Joel worries about her, but Florabel acts like she's used to it.
- Idabel jumps out of the bushes and scares Joel and Florabel to death. Jesus Fever is asleep at the reins and doesn't even flinch.
- Florabel jumps off the wagon when it passes her house, and the girls disappear into the darkness.
- The wagon pulls into the Landing and Jesus Fever wakes up. A woman comes out to look at Joel, who has fallen asleep.