Sin and expiation in K A Porter's Noon Wine

Picking up from yesterday's post on Katherine Anne Porter's novella "Noon Wine," I went back and re-read the ending and clarified some thoughts. If you haven't read it: toward the end, a repugnant bounty hunter, Hatch, shows on the Thompson farm in search of the hired man, Helton, who's wanted for a long-ago murder; Thompson becomes outraged (why? because he has grown to like and trust Helton? or because Helton is his source of well-being, exploited labor?) and scuffles with Hatch. Helton comes rusing in (why? to protect Thompson, who's treated him miserably for years?) and Hatch appears to stab at Helton with a Bowie knife; Thompson kills Hatch with an axe. Jump forward in time: Helton dies in captivity; Thompson is cleared after a murder trial, then feels he has to visit all the neighborhood families to assure them he's not a murderer - and Ancient Mariner-like urge to tell the story and seek absolution. Realizing that none believe him, he ultimately shoots himself. So what is there to this story - yes, in a way, it's a kind of Christian expiation and redemption for Thompson, but in a dark way, he has no great vision or sense of hope or salvation. He's a ruined man, and for what? As he himself says, he didn't have to kill Hatch. It's a very odd story that, as noted yesterday, doesn't provide answers but pulls us, taunts us, to meet it more than half-way: Is Thompson a good man who made a terrible mistake and suffers for his sin? Or a violent, exploitative man who got what he deserved? And in the end - does the difference matter? It's hard, almost impossible, to feel any sympathy for Thompson, but it may be that the one noble action of his life was trying to defend his hired man, and his action turned out to doom all of them: Helton, Hatch, himself.