As Milkman stumbles through a forest headed toward a "big crumbling house," he recalls his airplane flight from Michigan to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and then his bus ride from Pittsburgh to Danville. He also relives his last conversation with Guitar before leaving home and the series of events that prompted his hunt for Pilate's gold.
Upon arriving in Danville, Milkman encounters an old, oddly dressed black man, who tells Milkman that Reverend Cooper can help him locate Circe, Macon and Pilate's caregiver, who, Milkman hopes, will lead him to the cave containing Pilate's gold.
At Reverend Cooper's, Milkman receives a warm welcome. He learns that the reverend remembers Macon and Pilate as the children of the town's local hero, Macon Dead, Sr., the creator of Lincoln's Heaven, and that Reverend Cooper's father made Pilate's brass earring. Milkman meets many of the town's old black men and listens to their stories of when they were young and personally knew Milkman's father and grandfather. As he listens to these stories, Milkman begins to feel as if something is missing from his life. For the first time, he is able to visualize his father as a young man and to envision the loving relationships that once existed between his father and aunt and between his father and grandfather. Sensing that the men are hungry for news of Macon and Pilate, Milkman indulges them with his own stories, embellishing the truth to satisfy their curiosity and preserve their cherished memories of Macon Dead, Sr., and his two children.
When Milkman tells Reverend Cooper that he wants to visit the site of his grandfather's farm, named Lincoln's Heaven, the reverend's thirteen-year-old nephew (called "Nephew") drives Milkman to it, from which Milkman sets out for the old Butler mansion, the house where Circe worked and where she hid Macon and Pilate after their father was killed — ironically, we learn, by the Butlers.
