While living on her native Navajo reservation, Katie Reynolds develops an interest in veterinary medicine when she helps Dr. Colgrave an extension veterinarian find the connection between animals on the reservation and the death of tribal members. Katie enters school intending to return to Dinétah, the Navajo homeland to serve her people after graduation, but her heart gets in her way, and she finds herself in a quandary when she falls in love with Rory, a white fellow entirely unaccustomed to her way of life. Although leaving her world for college and veterinary school is scary Katie finds support and guidance into the bilagáana's, the white man's world from Ellen, Dr. Colgrave's wife. Excelling in her undergraduate studies, Katie accepts a place into the elite and prestigious University of California veterinary college at Davis. When they meet in veterinary school Rory is instantly enamored while Katie is the opposite. But veterinary school takes four years, and the small class of veterinarians gets close during their tenure. It is during veterinary school Katie's love quandary unfolds. That's when she develops feelings for Rory Evans, a bilagáana not of her culture. Given Katie's segregated upbringing this was entirely unexpected, with common sense tugging her back while conditions of the heart propel her the other way. Katie eventually gives in to Rory's persistence as slowly, but surely he becomes her man. There are severe disruptions as they grow together, but that's what makes life complicated and books interesting. As her love for this bilagáana called Rory develops, Katie must seek guidance through her Navajo traditions, her mother, Rose, and ultimately from Rory himself. Rory needs to grow too, but unlike Katie he is hesitant to look to friends for guidance, still seeking those with more knowledge than a contemporary would possess. Although this emotional railroad engine came as a surprise to Katie, her mother initiated the first foray by marrying a bilagáana herself; Katie was only half-Navajo. But the mixing gave her daughter an incredible head start advantage to try to forge a deeper way into the bilagáana world. She could bring badly needed knowledge back to her people.Katie moves in with Rory once they find common ground, and they take trips to the redwoods and California's bayou country during breaks from school. On these excursions Rory begins to understand the side of Katie that compels her to return home to the reservation. But, for him, the 'rez' is a foreign and dangerous place, and he hesitates to commit to a move there. When he finally agrees to visit Katie's homeland she shows him the beauty and majesty of the Havasupai Reservation, where the turquoise waters of Havasu Creek tumble over one-hundred-foot ledges before mixing with the muddy waters of the Colorado River. Rory's maturity accelerates when René, a handsome Basque, whose history and family security offers Katie the confidence she is seeking herself becomes an attractive alternative suitor. Being educated away from her people, Katie's path inexorably draws her away from her tribal goals, the very ones she has clung to during the first part of her life. Suddenly, because of unexpected love, rigorous education, and exposure to a different culture, Katie realizes her carefully constructed world is disintegrating. To maintain both their sanities, Katie must decide whether she will enter Rory's world or stay within the confines of her homeland. Finding composure, Katie agrees to take Rory hiking to the Blue Waters. Rory finds a cave next to Havasu Creek and excitedly shows Katie his discovery. However, the cave is a place of evil and Katie collapses inside. When Rory goes out to find help, a log falls over the entrance. Meanwhile, dark forces within the cave cause Katie to miscarry their unborn child.