The Thought-Woman, Ts’its’tsi’nako, who is narrating the entire story, is introduced in the initial pages of the book. The only means by which one can stave against disease and death and resist evil is via stories. The narrative starts at dawn. Pueblo guy Tayo awakens in his bare ranch house while having delirious dreams about various events in his life. Tayo has a particular recollection that haunts him: while his Uncle Josiah was wearing a Japanese uniform during World War II in the Philippines, he was prevented from beheading a Japanese soldier. In contrast to the humid Philippines, Tayo’s ranch in New Mexico is currently experiencing a drought, which Tayo attributes to his alleged request for the rain to stop while he was in the forest during the war.

Tayo narrates a tale of Corn Woman reprimanding Reed Woman, who in her ensuing rage takes the rain away. Tayo recalls how he felt like a white spirit upon leaving the Veteran’s Hospital in Los Angeles and how he was unable to swallow anything. Although though Tayo doesn’t enjoy drinking, his friend Harley, a fellow war veteran, persuades him to ride with him to the closest pub when he arrives riding a burro. Tayo considers his cousin Rocky, who enlisted in the army alongside him but passed away in battle, as they ride the burro. Tayo vomits and falls off the donkey when he thinks of Rocky. The action goes back to shortly after Tayo returned home from the Veteran’s Hospital in the previous chapter. Auntie takes care of Tayo instead of sending him back to the Veteran’s Hospital, but Tayo understands that Auntie resents him as much as ever for his mixed blood.

Tayo’s grandmother wants to consult a medicine man to help him recover from his illness, but Auntie believes that since Tayo is not a true Pueblo, the medicine man won’t be able to heal him. Grandma puts an end to Auntie’s whining about Little Sister (Tayo’s mother) having affairs with white men but still calls Ku’oosh the medicine man. Tayo is told that the world is delicate by Ku’oosh, who visits him at his hospital bed and only speaks in his native Laguna language. Tayo understands that something needs to be done to repair the harm the conflict has caused to the globe. Tayo can finally maintain a food in his stomach when Ku’oosh departs. Tayo begins assisting Robert, the spouse of Auntie, with ranch labour as he gradually gets healthier.

To ease his suffering, Tayo goes out drinking one night with some other veterans of the war. Emo, Harley, and Leroy, the other veterans, share tales of the white ladies they had sex with while on leave during the war. As a result of hearing these stories, Tayo becomes enraged and starts to rant about how Native Americans are once again losing respect, but the other males merely want to relive their glory years. Tayo remembers being taken prisoner by Japanese soldiers. Rocky was already dead when he was carried by Tayo, but the Japanese forces had him leave Rocky’s body behind and transport Tayo to a prison camp instead.

As Harley lifts Tayo up from the ditch where he wound up after a night of drinking, the story shifts back to Tayo’s present. Tayo notices how dusty the land is owing to the drought, and remembers Uncle Josiah teaching him how droughts happen when people forget their duty to the place they come from. The narrative then shifts to the tale of a community that ceased maintaining their mother corn altar because everyone was so preoccupied with practising magic. Because of their disregard, The Corn Mother banishes all rainclouds from the town. The two men eventually arrive at the bar and turn back to Tayo and Harley. Tayo is sipping a beer and thinking back to a time when he went deer hunting with Rocky.

Rocky doesn’t pay attention to these antiquated customs, whereas Tayo honoured the deer for its passing. Rocky, who excelled academically and on the football field at their boarding school in Albuquerque, felt that in order to succeed, he needed to put aside his old habits. Tayo’s musings are interrupted by Harley, who reminds him of the last time they went to a bar and he nearly murdered Emo. Tayo recalls that evening. Emo starts ranting about how they all have earned the right to take white women as restitution for all white people have stolen from Native Americans. Emo then makes fun of Tayo for having a white mother. Emo pulls out a bag of teeth that he claims were taken from Japanese POWs.(Prisoner of War)

Tayo stabs Emo in the stomach as he is intoxicated and agitated and breaks a beer bottle on the table. Tayo and Rocky’s military enlistment is briefly mentioned in the book. Rocky first refers to Tayo as his brother as they sign up together. Tayo was regularly reminded by Auntie that he was not a family member because of his white blood as a child and that they were not close friends. Tayo believes that Auntie stopped trying to assist Little Sister, Tayo’s mother, since Auntie’s Christian values set her apart from the local tribe. Hummingbird informs the populace of a procedure that will enable them to bring the rain back in the Corn Woman tale. A fly is produced by the ritual.

This fly visits the fourth realm with the hummingbird to speak with the Corn Mother. Auntie is upset that Tayo wants to leave the ranch to assist Josiah with ranch maintenance in favour of joining Rocky in the military. Josiah recently purchased some new cattle; he claims that they are a special hybrid breed that will be able to endure a drought. Josiah visits the Mexican dancer named Night Swan in Cubero, who assisted him in purchasing the cows. Before the cattle took over his leisure time, Josiah visited Night Swan frequently after falling in love with her. Auntie thinks a drought will occur as retribution for Josiah having a Hispanic woman for a lover. Corn Mother instructs Hummingbird and Fly to ask Old Buzzard to purify the town so that she can deliver rain once more in Corn Woman’s tale. Fly and Hummingbird are instructed by Buzzard to acquire tobacco for Buzzard as an offering. Tayo reflects on his trip to Gallup with Robert, where he saw homeless individuals of different racial and ethnic backgrounds living beneath the bridges. For the first four years of his existence, Tayo and his mother lived beneath a bridge where Tayo saw the other helpless kids and ran away whenever his mother brought men back to their hut. Rocky and Tayo threw pennies down the Gallup bridge after they enlisted.

Rocky prayed for Tayo’s homecoming to be safe, but Tayo made no wishes at all. Tayo ultimately wishes for a safe return as he and Robert stand on the bridge after returning from the war.Grandma and Auntie sent Tayo to Betonie, a medicine man in Gallup, after seeing that Ku’oosh’s rites only partially cured Tayo. Betonie, like Tayo, has green eyes and lives in a hogan close to the city’s poorest neighbourhood. At a new ceremony that will help right the wrongs that white men have done to the land, Betonie informs Tayo that he must do his bit to help repair the earth in order for his disease to be cured.

Betonie tells a story about a boy who lived with bears and had to be carefully called back to his life with humans. Betonie leads Tayo through a ceremony that will bring him back to life, a ceremony that includes Mexican and white power as well as Native traditions. In the Corn Mother story, Fly and Hummingbird go back to Corn Mother to ask where to get tobacco. She sends them to caterpillar. In Tayo’s present, Betonie sends Tayo on a journey to find his uncle’s cattle and heal the drought. Tayo heads off on foot, but Harley and Leroy soon see him and pick him up.  A youngster who lived with bears and had to be gently brought back to his life among people is the subject of a tale told by Betonie. Tayo is guided by Betonie through a ceremony that combines Native American traditions with Mexican and white power in order to bring him back to life.

Fly and Hummingbird return to Corn Mother in the tale of the Corn Mother to inquire about where they might buy tobacco. These are given to caterpillar by her. To relieve the drought and find his uncle’s cattle in the present, Betonie sends Tayo on a quest. Tayo starts to walk away, but Harley and Leroy quickly catch up with him and pick him up. They all go to a pub with a Native American woman named Helen Jean. In favour of some Mexican males, Helen Jean departs from the Native American men. As Harley creates a fight, Leroy and Tayo are expelled from the pub. Tayo abandons Harley and Leroy to proceed on horseback with Betonie’s mission. Tayo encounters a woman while looking for the cattle, and she extends an invitation to stay with her so he can recuperate. The caterpillar provides the Hummingbird and Fly tobacco in the Corn Mother tale.

After spending the night with the woman, Tayo dreams about his uncle’s livestock. The following morning, Tayo walks along a barbed wire fence until he spots his uncle’s cattle off in the distance. He then makes a hole in the fence so he can later herd the cows through it. He observes a mountain lion passing by as he pulls over for the night and scatters yellow pollen in its path. The following morning, Tayo gallops off, but some white guys catch up with him. Tayo hurts his head after falling from his horse. As they notice mountain lion prints, the men release Tayo from their captivity at gunpoint and go after the mountain lion to kill it for its pelt. Tayo loses consciousness.

When he awakens once more, snow is falling. Tayo overhears a hunter singing a traditional Laguna hunting song. The Hunter returns Tayo to his residence, which also happens to be the residence of the woman with whom he had a previous relationship. Her brother is the man. Also, the woman is nearby the house with some of Uncle Josiah’s livestock. Robert and Tayo travel to the woman’s house to collect the cattle that spring. Tayo looks after the livestock on his uncle’s ranch throughout the spring while he observes how much happier and healthier he feels. The woman eventually reveals her identity to Tayo when she pays him another visit: Ts’eh. If Ts’eh isn’t present, she asks Tayo to gather a specific plant for her.

Ts’eh must depart that fall, and Tayo comes back to the community to complete his healing ritual among the other veterans. When Harley and Leroy pass him on the street, they pick him up once more. They have been drinking a lot, and they persuade Tayo to join them. When Tayo awakens from his truck-induced coma, Harley has vanished. Tayo takes out a screwdriver and proceeds to walk in Harley and Leroy’s footsteps. Tayo enters a closed uranium mine as he considers the atomic bomb that wreaked such havoc. He observes Emo and a few other veterans dragging Harley into the mine and beginning to torment him for allowing Tayo to escape the truck while he is inside the mine.

Tayo wants to use the screwdriver to kill Emo because he is disgusted by his evil deeds. But, Tayo is able to regain control over the witchery’s hold over him and decide against bringing more evil into the world. Tayo exits the mine and gathers the last plant for Ts’eh, then begins to travel back to his Aunt’s house. Hummingbird and Fly give Old Buzzard tobacco to purify the community as the Corn Mother tale comes to a conclusion. Corn Mother cautions the populace not to become sidetracked by magic any longer as the storm clouds return. Tayo shares the entirety of his tale with Ku’oosh and the other men, and Ku’oosh claims that Ts’eh is the Reed Woman who will bring back the rain. Emo subsequently makes her way to California when Harley and Leroy are discovered dead. At the conclusion of this tale, the grandmother wonders whether she hasn’t heard this tale before under a different name. The novel is concluded by a sunrise.