Initially treated as a slave, he eventually comes to earn the respect of his captors and is adopted by Toshaway, the man who kidnapped him.

A series of misfortunes eventually hits the tribe, including an outbreak of disease which kills Toshaway and the rest of Eli's Comanche family.

After fighting for the Confederacy in the American Civil War, he steals a bag of gold which he uses to buy land and amass a fortune.

The resulting slaughter leads to multi-day riots where the remaining Spanish families in the surrounding area are murdered or forced to flee.

Peter is haunted by his actions and becomes estranged from his wife, who sees nothing wrong with the incidents, and his sons who participated in the slaughter.

When her three older brothers go to fight in World War II, she is told by her uncle Phineas that her father is a weak man who is playing at being a cattle rancher while losing hundred of thousands of dollars.

Hank later dies in a hunting accident and she lives out the rest of her life amassing money and lovers and feeling her children are failures.

He eventually is able to prove that Peter is his great-grandfather, but despite knowing that he is speaking the truth, she calls the police on him, only to fall and hit her head.

[4] Will Blythe writing for The New York Times called the novel "masterly" and compared it to Cormac McCarthy's Western Blood Meridian.

[5] Ron Charles writing for The Washington Post praised the book's wide-ranging scope and called it a "monumental novel".