After a brief respite, Ed continues to ascend the cliff, thinking about how he will kill the man. Ed realizes that he understands the man and knows exactly what the man will do. At the top of the cliff, Ed looks for the place from which the other man could shoot down at the river. He climbs up a nearby tree and waits. A man with a shotgun comes along.

Ed is uncertain whether it is the man who was going to rape him, but when the man sees Ed in the tree, Ed decides to move fast and shoots the man with an arrow just as the man shoots at him. Ed falls out of the tree, landing on the point of his other arrow, and passes out. When he wakes up, he cuts the arrow out of his side. He then follows a trail of blood and finds the man dead. Ed throws the man’s gun into the river and riffles through his pockets. He finds five rifle shells and a card with the name “Stovall” and “honorary deputy sheriff of Helms County” printed on it (186). He is ultimately uncertain whether this is one of the men who assaulted him and Bobby, but he lowers the body down from the top of the gorge with a rope.