Joe Leaphorn is retired from the Navajo Tribal Police, but is occasionally asked by former colleagues for his help in solving puzzling crimes. This time the problem is with an old case of Joe's that he couldn't solve involving a priceless, one-of-a-kind Navajo rug that was supposedly destroyed in a fire. Now what looks like the same rug has appeared in a magazine spread, and the man who told Joe about the photo has gone missing.