Tayo Timeline and Summary

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• Alone on the ranch, Tayo's has a hard time fighting off the nightmares about his war experiences in the Pacific.
• In particular, he can't stop thinking about the day they had to shoot a group of Japanese soldiers. One of them appeared to him as his Uncle Josiah.
• Then there's the memory of the forced march through the jungle to the POW camp. A flash flood causes Tayo to drop the body of his dying cousin Rocky.
• After the war, Tayo went to a Veteran's hospital in Los Angeles, where drugs numbed his painful memories. On the way home from the hospital, he passed out at the train station and a group of Japanese women helped him.
• Tayo's friend Harley has been drinking a lot more since the war. Harley shows up at the ranch and convinces Tayo to ride a mule to the nearest bar.
• After the hospital, Tayo stays at Auntie's house, where he grew up. Auntie raised him, even though she resented the fact that his mother had gotten pregnant by a white man.
• Old Ku'oosh, the local medicine man, comes to Auntie's house and treats Tayo with a ceremony. But the ceremony hasn't been effective in helping the other men who've come back from the war.
• Tayo stops caring whether he lives or dies. He starts to go out drinking with a group of war veterans who like to tell stories about their glory days in the army. Tayo tells a sarcastic story, full of bitterness about how white people just use the Native Americans.
• On one occasion Emo pulls out a sack of human teeth that he knocked out of the corpse of a Japanese soldier. Tayo is disgusted by Emo's sadistic stories. He tries to kill him by stabbing him in the belly with a broken beer bottle. Emo survives, and Tayo is sent back to the hospital.
• Tayo recalls the day that he and Rocky enlisted in the army. Rocky said they were brothers so they could stay together.
• Auntie used to tell Tayo shameful stories about his mother. When he was a kid, she took the only picture he had of her and never gave it back.
• Before the war, Tayo would help Josiah with the spotted cattle he bought from Ulibarri.
• The summer before the war, Tayo went to the spring to pray for rain. He honored the earth and the animals, and the next day the rain came.
• Josiah sent Tayo to the Night Swan's apartment with a note saying he'd be busy because of the rain. Tayo ended up going to bed with the Night Swan. She told Tayo to remember this day, because he would recognize it later. He is a part of something mysterious.
• Back in the present, Tayo can't find Harley, so he walks from the bar to the Night Swan's old apartment in Cubero. The Night Swan is long gone, but seeing the place makes Tayo feel better.
• Tayo tells Robert he's feeling better, but Robert says the old men insist he go see another medicine man.
• Robert takes Tayo to Gallup to see old Betonie, a Navajo.
• As a small child, Tayo lived in a shantytown under a bridge with his mother, who was a prostitute. He has hazy memories of surviving on his own whenever she was taken away by the police.
• Tayo tells Betonie about his nightmares and feelings of guilt and anger. Betonie tells him that his sickness is about something larger than himself. Betonie teaches him that witchcraft has caused white people to oppress Native Americans.
• Betonie performs a Scalp Ceremony for Tayo to return him to life and happiness. But the ceremony isn't over. Tayo needs to be careful because the witchery will try to prevent him from completing it.
• Tayo leaves to go searching for the spotted cattle, but he is distracted by Harley and Leroy, who take him drinking.
• Back on track, Tayo sees the constellation Betonie told him to look for in the sky and follows it to Mt. Taylor.
• At the bottom of the mountain, Tayo meets a woman. He spends the night at her house and they make love. The next morning, Tayo offers a prayer to the sunrise, which becomes a significant tradition for him.
• The next day Tayo rides up the mountain and finds the spotted cattle on a white man's ranch. He realizes that he had never imagined a white man would steal the cattle because he had been taught to believe that only brown-skinned people steal things.
• Tayo cuts a hole in the fence and lets the cattle escape, but he falls while trying to flee from a couple of cowboys who are guarding the ranch.
• The cowboys are distracted by mountain lion tracks and abandon Tayo. He escapes down the mountain and finds that the woman has captured the cattle. Tayo returns later to collect them.
• Tayo returns to Auntie's, where he spends a lot of nights dreaming about the woman from the mountain.
• Tayo goes to stay up at the ranch and finds the woman camping nearby. Her name is Ts'eh Montaño. They camp out together all summer, and she teaches him about plants.
• Robert comes to warn Tayo that Emo is spreading rumors that Tayo has gone crazy.
• Ts'eh has a vision that Emo is bringing the authorities after Tayo to try to take him back to the hospital.
• Tayo runs from Emo and the authorities, knowing that if he can continue to escape them through the night of the fall equinox, the ceremony will be complete.
• Tayo gets picked up by Leroy and Harley. At first he is grateful, but then he realizes they have betrayed him and are taking him to Emo. He escapes.
• Tayo and Emo have a showdown in an abandoned uranium mine. Emo tortures Harley, and Tayo almost kills Emo, but at the last second he stops himself.
• Tayo's retreat means he has been victorious over the witchery, which wanted him to continue the cycle of violence.
• When Emo and his gang leave, Tayo starts walking home. He has a vision that Josiah, old Grandma and Rocky are carrying him. He does a victory run across the river at sunrise.