Who does Fern meet on the road as she returns home from consoling Caldonia over her loss for the past five weeks?

Fern is on her way home from Caldonia's, after staying with her for five weeks, and meets a freed black man who claims that Ramsey, Fern's husband, owes him five hundred dollars in a gambling debt. Fern insists the debt is not hers and suggests the man wait for Ramsey to return home.