It stars Lou Diamond Phillips as Jim Chee and Fred Ward as Joe Leaphorn.

As Officer Jim Chee (Lou Diamond Phillips) watches a windmill, trying to catch the vandal repeatedly sabotaging it, a small plane crashes nearby.

Thus begins a tangled story involving not only the vandalism and the crash, but also murder, drug smuggling, and burglary.

Robert Redford was executive producer, hoping for a series of films, but he was unhappy with the production and director.

In an article on the successful adaptation of Skinwalkers in 2002, Redford said of The Dark Wind, "That was a false start.