Lieutenant Joe Leaphorn takes on the case of Ashie Pinto, stands accused of Delbert Nez's murder. Although Pinto confesses to being "ashamed," he says nothing else and doesn't confess to the crime. Even so, the case against him is persuasive -- but Pinto happens to be a kinsman of Leaphorn's wife, Emma who wants her husband to check out puzzling leads that may prove Pinto's innocence.

Born in northeastern Oklahoma to a Cherokee family, Wes Studi grew up speaking Cherokee as his first language. He served in the Army in Vietnam and worked as a teacher, reporter, and translator before breaking into films. In Dances with Wolves he played the Toughest Pawnee, earning Entertainment Weekly's accolade as scene-stealer of the year. In The Last of the Mohicans, he was the rapacious Magua, and he was the title character in Geronimo: An American Legend. In addition to being an actor, he is a musician, sculptor, director, community activist, and author of two books for children for the Cherokee Bilingual/Cross-Cultural Education Center.

In Hillerman's words: There was nothing Joe Leaphorn dreaded more than this -- this unpleasant business of pretending to help people he could not possibly help. But those involved today were a family in Emma's clan, his in-laws, people from Bitter Water clan. By the Navajo's extended definition of kinship, they were Emma's brothers and sisters. He'd rarely heard Emma speak of them but that was beside the point.

Coyote Waits, Chapter 2