Midnight Robber

During their final farewells, Chichibud gives Tan-Tan her knife—the one that she used to kill Antonio—and Benta grooms her dreadlocks. Abitefa and Tan-Tan watch the douens leave in clusters.

Then, the A.I. narrator intervenes, addressing the unborn Tubman while describing Tan-Tan and Abitefa’s struggles alone in the bush. Their lack of food and heat inspires Tan-Tan to seek out a human village.

Tan-Tan discovers a place called Begorrat, where an indentured woman with a “ball and chain” attached to one leg fears her “Boss” will find Tan-Tan with her in the cane field and encourages her to leave (285-86). In another village, Corbeau, Tan-Tan trades her ring for supplies and food; she gives some of the latter to a poor family.

Tan-Tan wants to stay in the next village, Babylon A-Fall, but Janisette arrives there in the jeep. Tan-Tan escapes detection by hiding in a well. She has a cape made to cover her seven-month pregnant belly in Poor Man Pork, another village, and notices “little girls playing at Robber Queen in the settlements” (288).