Ayah is an elderly Navajo woman who lives in her family’s ancestral hogan (a traditional Navajo structure) in New Mexico. Unlike her husband Chato, she speaks only Navajo, and she is suspicious of contemporary American society as a result of the losses she has suffered; her eldest son Jimmie died while serving in the U.S. Army, and her two younger children, Danny and Ella, were taken from her by the government after testing positive for tuberculosis. Ayah remains proud and defiant in the face of her grief, thanks in large part to her ongoing sense of connectedness to her ancestry, culture, and homeland. Nevertheless, the loss of her children to white America, as well as the broader encroachment of American society on Navajo life and culture, compromises Ayah’s understanding of the world and her place within it. It is only as the story ends that she recovers some sense of equilibrium, reconciling with her long-estranged husband and easing his way into death the way a mother sings her child to sleep. 

Chato is Ayah’s husband of forty years. He speaks both English and Spanish, and he has spent much of his life driving cattle for a white rancher. Ultimately, however, his faith that he can make his way in white society proves misplaced when the rancher fires him when he grows old.