Dance Hall of the Dead

Chapter 1

• A Zuni boy runs along a trail to get in shape.

• He has been selected by his people to play the role of the Little Fire God during the upcoming Shalako celebration.

• In eight days, the Shalako will come from the Dance Hall of the Dead to bless the Zuni people.

• The Fire God must be in shape and avoid anger for the celebration.

• Thinking about anger makes him think of his Navajo friend, George.
• George has asked questions about sacred Zuni spiritual practices.

• By telling George things, the Zuni boy fears he has broken a taboo.

• George also encouraged the Fire God to steal arrowheads from an anthropological dig site.

• Now the boys aren't allowed to hang around the dig site anymore.

• The boy expects his friend to be waiting for him at the end of the trail with his bicycle.

• Instead, the Zuni boy finds Salamobia, an ancestor spirit seen only when one is about to die, with a wand raised high.

Chapter 2

• Lieutenant Joe Leaphorn of the Navajo Police is in a meeting with Zuni Chief of Police Ed Pasquaanti, Cipriano "Orange" Naranjo from the County Sheriff's Office, and J.D. Highsmith of the State Police.

• Pasquaanti explains that there may have been a murder, which is rare, on Zuni land.

• They are to look for two boys: fourteen-year-old George Bowlegs and twelve-year-old Ernesto Cata.
• Cata has been missing since yesterday.

• A large amount of blood was found at the end of Cata's running trail, and his bicycle is missing.

• Leaphorn learns that Cata was to be the Little Fire God at the upcoming Shalako festival.

• Because George is Navajo, it is Leaphorn's job to find him.

• George Bowlegs was last seen at school that morning but has disappeared.

Chapter 3

• Leaphorn visits George's father, but Shorty Bowlegs is too drunk to provide any assistance.

• When Leaphorn blows a tire on the rough terrain, he meets George's little brother, Cecil.

• Leaphorn stresses their common bond of being Navajo in asking for help to locate George.

• Cecil explains George is running from a Zuni spirit called a kachina, not the police.
• According to Cecil, George and Ernesto did something to offend the kachina.

• George had left the trail where he was waiting for Ernesto because the kachina appeared.

• In the morning, George looked for Ernesto at school.

• When George learned that Ernesto was missing, he ran away from school.

• Cecil says that his brother and Ernesto Cata weren't real friends because Ernesto is Zuni, and that Zunis shun Navajo.

• Cecil tells Leaphorn that Ernesto stole something from the dig site and that George is friends with a blond girl at a nearby hippie commune.