On a family trip to hunt turtle eggs, Opi mentions that the government wants to sell Waorani lands to oil companies. They see a plane land while they are hunting. When they return to the village, they learn that government officials visited and had locals sign a paper in exchange for food and promises of anything they want. Opi believes the document is a fraudulent consultation record for oil drilling. This sparks a fierce argument between Nenquimo and her mother, who defends the oil companies, hoping they will bring jobs and money. Angered, Nenquimo decides to leave. That night, her father burns a dollar bill, calling it “cowori sorcery,” and asks his children to tell the oil companies the Waorani do not want them. 

Back in town, Nenquimo overhears Kichwa women from the community of Sarayaku discussing the government’s oil auction, known as the Ronda Petrolera, set to take place in Quito. The auction is for the entire south-central Amazon. Nenquimo finds Opi drunk and publicly embarrassing himself. When he finally falls asleep at the table, she turns to the Kichwa women and commits to joining their protest in the capital.

In Quito, Nenquimo joins Alicia Cawilla, another Waorani woman, to protest the oil auction. As Alicia gives an interview to a journalist, Nenquimo impulsively tries to enter the corporate building where the auction is being held but smashes her face into a large glass door. A policeman calls her a “stupid Indian.” 

Humiliated, Nenquimo wanders away from the protest and sits alone in a plaza. There, she is recognized by Connie, the American linguist her brother Opi works for. Connie expresses her outrage at the government’s auction and praises Opi’s idea that preserving the Waorani people’s stories is essential to keeping the rainforest alive and resisting the oil companies. She invites Nenquimo to her home to listen to an interview Opi recorded with their father.

At Connie’s house outside Quito, Nenquimo accepts a job transcribing the recorded stories of Waorani elders for a dictionary project. While working, she listens to an interview in which her father laments that the missionary Rachel Saint made their people weak and predicts an inevitable war with the uncontacted Taromenane people. 

Soon after, Opi calls with grim news. The Taromenane have killed two Waorani elders, Ömpure and Bogenëi, because they could not fulfill the Taromenane’s impossible demand to turn off the industrial noise of the oil company. Opi fears the company will arm the elders’ family to seek revenge. 

Opi’s fears are realized, and he calls to report that a Waorani war party has massacred the Taromenane, capturing two young surviving girls. The night before Opi’s call, Nenquimo saw one of the captured girls in a vision and felt a deep connection with her. She resolves to travel to find the girls, ignoring Opi’s warnings that the military has taken over the region.

Nenquimo travels to the Maxus oil road, sneaking past a military checkpoint to reach the village of Yarentaro. Along the way, she is disturbed to see Waorani women begging for water from a company hose, their traditional sources having been contaminated. 

In the village, Nenquimo confronts Kaguime, the son of the slain elders. When he threatens her with a spear, she fearlessly responds that he should attack the oil companies—the true source of their misery. He reluctantly allows her to see the two terrified captive Taromenane girls. The older girl, who is six, describes the massacre of her parents and the other villagers. Nenquimo hugs the girls but is unable to persuade Kaguime to let them go. 

Afterward, a Waorani man named Boya, who works for the Repsol oil company as a community relations officer, gives Nenquimo a ride to the town of Coca. At the Hotel Auca, she meets Mitch “Michi” Anderson, a white American writer and activist. Their conversation is interrupted by Boya and Mendoza, an anthropologist on the oil company payroll. Boya mocks Nenquimo’s missionary past and suggests that her accusations toward the oil companies are delusional.

Michi walks Nenquimo back to her hotel. He commends her bravery, tells her he would like to help save the Waorani people, and gives her his phone number.

Nenquimo returns to Connie’s house. Connie guesses that Nenquimo has fallen in love. Nenquimo refuses to acknowledge her feelings about Michi, concluding that she cannot have a relationship with a white man.

Nenquimo returns to the building plot in Shell where there is now a small settlement of her people. She builds a small shack on the plot she reserved for herself. One day Michi calls her, revealing he is working with Opi building water systems for the Waorani. He urges her to join them. 

Nenquimo travels to her Granduncle Dabo’s home in the village of Tobeta. On seeing Michi again, Nenquimo realizes she loves him and wants to make chicha for him. Michi explains that he is from California, where most of the oil from the Amazon is shipped. He wants to help Indigenous people because he recognizes his people are destroying their way of life. Dabo reveals that it is no longer safe to go hunting as the Taromenane are furiously searching the forest for their missing girls. 

That night, Nenquimo sees a pit viper outside Michi’s tent. She wakes him and urges him to kill it, convinced that it was sent by sorcery. She then tells him to burn the snake’s head in the fire, recalling how her mother did so to send “a message to the spirits” (241). 

After they establish the water system, Michi returns to the USA. Nemonte misses him, but he does not return her calls. Months later, Michi calls her, explaining he has been seriously ill. He is now documenting a catastrophic oil spill in the Aguarico River near Lago Agno. Nenquimo agrees to join him. 

Nenquimo is horrified to see the Aguarico River black with oil. Emergildo, one of the Kofan people, explains that the oil company gives them a meager supply of groceries as compensation for polluting the river. Emergildo’s wife, Romelia, cries, revealing that her children died because she let them play in the river and unknowingly gave them contaminated water.

Nenquimo and Michi begin a relationship. She tells him she wants to establish a water system for her own people on the Maxus road. When analysis of the water from the Aguarico River comes back negative for contaminants, Michi realizes the labs are “in the pockets of the oil industry” (253). 

Nenquimo and Michi attend a yagé ceremony led by the Siekopai shaman Delfin Payaguaje. After consuming ayahuasca, a hallucinogenic plant, Nenquimo has a powerful vision. A jaguar spirit appears, stating that she is “the jaguar’s daughter” (262) and that her destiny is to lead her people against the oil companies.

Accepting this new purpose, Nenquimo travels with Michi to Nemonpare. Her family accepts Michi after he proves his worth by hunting a crocodile with her brother, Emontay. Nenquimo then tells her family about the contamination she witnessed and proposes her vision: to form an alliance between the Waorani and other Indigenous peoples to defend their territories.