Johnny Narbona and Sam Tsosie are two Navajo Indian uranium miners who are among the many that contracted lung cancer. Suspecting that something was wrong in the mines, they contact an attorney at Navajo Legal Services. The subsequent investigation reveals a government conpiracy, which includes refusal to make the mines a safer place to work and conducting tests on the miners to determine how much radiation they can stand. The novel is set between 1950 and 1970 in New Mexico, and is partly based on fact. It includes an investigation that breaks through the "classified information" barrier, a romance, a scalping, a trial, and a fair amount of Navajo lore.