A resourceful and fiercely independent young man from Red Branch, Tennessee. Born in 1913, Sylder left home at nineteen and returned five years later with money and a gleaming Ford coupe. He works variously as a carpenter, fertiliser plant worker, and bootlegger, running whiskey from the mountains to Knoxville. Lean-hipped and tall, he is generous with friends but dangerous when cornered, capable of both tenderness and lethal violence.