Lena's rough childhood—and the suspicion that her parents may have been members of a cult—keeps her hackles raised. So when Chelsea, the ex-wife of Harold Slow Horse, a close friend, joins a "new thought" organization called Kanati, Lena begins to investigate. She soon learns two communes—polar opposites of each other—have sprung up nearby in the Arizona desert. The participants at Earth Way follow a rigorous dietary regime which could threaten the health of its back-to-the-land inhabitants, while the more pleasure-loving folk at Kanati are dining on sumptuous French cuisine. On an early morning horseback ride across the Pima Indian Reservation, Lena finds an emaciated woman's body in the desert. "Reservation Woman" lies in a spot close to Earth Way, clad in a dress similar to those worn by its women. But there is something about her face which reminds Lena of the Kanatians. While investigating, Lena's memory is jolted back to that horrible night when her father and youngest brother were among those murdered by a cult leader named Abraham, who then vanished. Lena begins to wonde rif either Earth Way or Kanati could be linked to that night and to her own near-death. Could leaders of one or both shed light on what happened to Lena's mother, who vanished at the same time as Abraham?