The Orchard Keeper is the first novel by the American novelist Cormac McCarthy. It won the 1966 William Faulkner Foundation Award for notable first novel. Plot The Orchard Keeper is set during the inter-war period in and around the hamlet of Red Branch, a small, isolated mountain community in Tennessee. The story revolves around three characters: Uncle Arthur Ownby, an isolated woodsman, who lives beside a rotting apple orchard; John Wesley Rattner, a young mountain boy; and Marion Sylder, an outlaw and bootlegger. The novel begins with Marion picking up a hitchhiker named Kenneth Rattner, who attacks Marion with a tire iron, attempting to murder and rob him. After a struggle, Marion strangles Kenneth to death. Marion dumps the corpse in a gravel pit on Arthur Ownby's property, as he knows the land well from his frequent pickups of bootleg whiskey. Arthur soon discovers the corpse, but rather than inform authorities, he covers the pit over to keep the body hidden. As time passes, Kenneth's wife, Mildred, and son, John Wesley, come to accept he has likely been killed, and Mildred makes her son vow one day to take vengeance upon his father's killer. One night, as Marion picks up a whiskey shipment hidden on Arthur's property, he witnesses Arthur unloading a shotgun into a tank the government installed on his land. Unnerved, Marion collects the whiskey and leaves the property, fearing Arthur might do him harm. Arthur passively watches Marion's car drive off into the night. Marion's car careens off the road and into a stream. John Wesley happens to be checking some traps in the area and, hearing the crash, comes to Marion's aid, helping the injured man to land. John Wesley is unaware Marion is his father's killer, and Marion does not recognize John Wesley as the son of the man he killed. Grateful for his help, Marion gives John Wesley one of his dogs, and the two develop a friendly, almost father-and-son relationship, with Marion teaching John Wesley how to hunt. The local police discover Marion's vehicle in the stream, its whiskey cargo mostly destroyed, as well the defaced government tank. John Wesley becomes a suspect and is threatened with criminal charges if he doesn't admit Marion was driving the whiskey-filled car. John Wesley refuses to cooperate. The police then go to Arthur's cabin to question him. As they pull into his yard, Arthur emerges from