Summary

The narrator, a seventeen year old black girl, tells how she died in 1848. She claims it was love that brought her to the place where she died. The girl has been running from three men and their dogs regardless of the fact she is in labor. The men following her believe that she has killed a man but she is innocent.

The girl’s contractions become so hard she has to stop and push the baby out of her. When it does not cry, she thinks it is because the baby knows she has to be quiet so they can live. The dogs attack the girl. She struggles to save her baby. There is a gunshot and the girl tries to keep from falling on the baby.

Even though she is dead, the girl is able to see herself lying on the...