This story perhaps featured dust more prominently than even Flags in the Dust did.
This story was interesting because of the fact that the story it features around is a rumor and the "Truth" as it would appear is never given. There is also the hint of Will is dead and has been killed by these men but it is never explicitly stated.
The rumors of his demise have been greatly exaggerated.
For such a short story, Faulkner deals with a few large issues. The idea that a Southern man must always accept Race before the person. Hawkshaw is doubtful that Will did anything to Minnie Cooper. The rest of them don't care if he did or if he didn't. The rumor is enough justification for them to make an example of Will.
The dust serves as a reminder that something came before this. This world that is established wholly in this story alone comes from somewhere else. There was a time before and it has fallen. The people are now surrounded by the dust of the past.
The fact that Mayes works at an "ice plant" is interesting. In the middle of a heat spell in the South, the fact that Mayes works at the place where these Men get the ice to cool them off is interesting. It also suggests that Mayes comes from somewhere cooler and is not as hot-blooded as these men. It also ties him symbolically to Minnie Cooper because the ice is the only thing that can calm her at the end of the story.
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I agree about the dust. I also found the juxtaposition of temperatures to be quite interesting. Notice how at the beginning of the story it seems like we're in Hell's kitchen's toaster oven? And as soon as we leave the setting of the story's climactic action, things begin to read cooler, until the very end of the story when all is silent and surrounded by "the cold moon and lidless stars."
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