Black Leopard, Red Wolf

Tracker demands written proof that his testimony is compulsory before telling a final story. A girl walks to the Malangika—the “secret witches market” (536)—with a baby, as if someone is following her. Spirits try to approach her but she wards them off with a nkisi.

Tracker stops her with a knife to the neck, but she claims, falsely, to be the baby’s mother. After wresting the baby from her, Tracker asks again about its mother and makes do with the location of where she was going to sell the baby. He kills the girl and finds some milk for the baby.

At midnight street—the location given up by the girl—Tracker covers himself with clay that camouflages him. He opens a magical door, walks down a cliff, and enters a house filled with books, jars, and cages filled with animals and babies. Two “mad monkeys” (542) fight with Tracker, but he defeats them with his axes and enters a room with a man, woman, and child around a table, eating afterbirth.

When he kills the family of the baby seller, Tracker reveals that “white science” (545) grew the family. he then asks about a lightning bird who buys women’s hearts. The heart merchant points Tracker to the road of blind jackals.