Sections 1 - 4 Summary

The Dark Wind by Tony Hillerman is a story of narcotic traffickers operating in the Hopi Reservation area of central Arizona. The story unfolds with a covert drug delivery by a light aircraft to a remote dry wash in the Black Mesa area. The airplane crashes just near a vandalized windmill being staked out by Navajo Tribal Policeman, Jim Chee, who inevitably becomes involved in the Federal investigation into the missing cocaine. Chee has also been assigned cases involving the identity of a mutilated corpse of an unknown Navajo and the recovery of some pawned silver from the Burnt Water Trading Post. His unraveling these seemingly unrelated cases takes him from interviews with traditional Hopi elders through the maze of the arroyos in the mesa country and to the Santa Fe State Penitentiary.

Three Hopis are crossing the Wepo Wash on...