The story of young John Grady Cole, the last of a long line of Texas ranchers, who, along with two companions, sets off on an idyllic, sometimes comic adventure, to a place where dreams are paid for in blood.
Looking for some diversion, a bored rancher drives to the town of Sleepy Gulch little knowing that some amazing things are happening to his wife and ranch during his absence.
When T?a Dolores, the beloved aunt who has cared for the Montoya family since the death of their mother, announces that she is planning to leave, Josefina and her sisters try to find a way to change her mind.
Josefina hopes to become a "curandera" or healer like T?a Magdalena, and she is tested just before her tenth birthday when a friend receives a potentially fatal snakebite.
