In 1919, Constable Palm Springs was a young man named Riley. The city was still a sleepy little village before the age of the celebrity approached its doorstep. Citizens were hardworking earthy people who learned to live in the harsh climate among a tribe of mostly obedient Indians. But there was a shadow over the city, and the children disappeared under its cloud. Mostly the shadow remained over the Tahkit canyon, hanging there as a warning not to enter. Legend has it that when the shadow is in the canyon, everything is safe, because the witch is in her arms. But on cloudy days or at night, when the shadow is everywhere, you should beware - the witch is gone!
In the story, Riley was asked to lead a squad into the canyon after the disappearance of a small Indian girl who is the daughter of a maid of one of the city’s elite; An early auto mechanic named Zaddi Bunker.
Zaddi brings together a dozen city leaders in the main store of Lakken, now a historical site where everyone shares their history with their personal feelings or confrontations with the Witch. Newspaper man Randall Henderson tells the most exciting story about how, almost 30 years ago, a boy was kidnapped and forced to eat his friend before he could escape. It was a generation previously created by a detachment to capture the Witch, who, in their opinion, they had, and send her to the famous federal prison Hume in the middle of the desert of the desert. Unfortunately, the trainer on the stage where she was on has never done this, and all her cavalry escort dragoons are mysterious.
Thus, Riley leaves to catch the witch of a half dozen white settlers, an ancient Indian medic (Pedro Chino) and a young Indian boy named Jesus. Along the way, Pedro tells the boy about the earlier events of the tribe and their interaction with the Witch. Her name is Mena, and she was not always bad. Hundreds of years ago, it was brought by Spanish explorers in search of gold. She called for the gods to escape and a husband who would protect. The mountain god responded by destroying the Spanish boat that they were looking for in the north, like the original Salton Sea, in a hail of lightning. She swam ashore and slowly walked to a high mountain peak where she could see the distance, and when she saw the canyon and the medical man Tahkits who lived there, she knew that she had found a house.
For a long time, she and her man helped Cahill. But over time, the medicine became bitter, and their most famous spell, sucking bad people, began to attract the whole soul of their patients and thereby prolong their life. Sometimes Mena deceived and killed Tahkitsa, who continues to lie as the eternal spirit of Kahilla.
The detachment finally reaches its camp and kills it, although not without prejudice to its group. One member, Big John, is left to watch the burning witches burn, because this is the only true way to know that she is dead. But before it turns into ashes, coyotes and other animals pursue it.
