Native American culture infuses Dry Run, Oklahoma with a unique perspective to the Depression. A young Comanche girl is thrown into a world she despises when she's forced to attend a boarding school far from home. Later as a young woman, Belle Tahsuda begins a desperate search for her best friend from Chilocco Indian School. Her journey includes hitching a ride with a surprising outlaw and hopping a freight train with a young hobo. Once reunited, Flora finds Belle employment at the tuberculosis sanatorium where she works. Belle falls into an impetuous marriage that proves to be a disaster. A Choctaw medicine woman speaks strange prophesies into Belle's life that come to play out. Set against the backdrop of the Depression, Belle's struggle to survive-and love-shines against the dust-bowl grime of this time period.