In another flashback scene, four white outsiders—"schoolteacher, one nephew, one slave catcher and a sheriff"—ride authoritatively toward 124 Bluestone Road. Alert to the value of slaves captured and returned alive, they survey the family scene.
Baby Suggs fans her face while Stamp Paid chops wood. But Sethe has already seen the white men coming and sprung into action. Too late, the foursome stare at the woodshed where Sethe has murdered Beloved, wounded Buglar and Howard, and threatened to bash Denver's brains. Stamp Paid rescues Denver before Sethe can swing the infant into a plank wall.
Schoolteacher partly blames Sethe's extreme reaction to his presence on the "nephew who'd overbeat her and made her cut and run." Faced with a crazy mother, two injured children, and an infant with no wet nurse, schoolteacher realizes that this brood will not profit Sweet Home. The horrific scene impresses the nephew who took Sethe's breast milk, and he trembles as the sheriff takes charge. Schoolteacher and his companions also conclude that too much "freedom" has reduced these slaves to African savagery.
Before the sheriff places Sethe in custody, Stamp Paid tries to take Beloved's corpse from Sethe’s clinging hands and give Denver to her mother. Baby Suggs hurries to aid the wounded boys. Sethe relinquishes Beloved and holds Denver to her blood-stained nipple. Denver swallows milk along with her sister's blood. Sitting up straight in the sheriff’s wagon, Sethe is taken away amid the wordless humming of onlookers. A red-haired boy jumps out of an approaching cart and gives Baby Suggs a pair of shoes to repair.
