1-5
The novel begins with a young man named Joseph Wayne asking his father for a blessing to go find a land he would inhabit and own. His father reluctantly gives him the blessing and Joseph arrives to the green hills of California. He finds a valley called Nuestra Senora or Our Lady and decides to start making a home there.
The workers who will help him build his home soon arrive and Joseph decides to build a house near a large oak tree. While preparing to build the house Joseph gets a letter from home saying that his father is dead. Joseph is not sad because he suddenly gets a feeling that his father is in that big old oak tree. He writes a letter back to his family inviting them to live with him.
The Wayne family comes to live in the valley of Our Lady with Joseph as the head of the family. The Wayne family includes Joseph's brothers Thomas, Burton and Benjy with their wives and children.
Analysis
Joseph upon arriving to this new and luscious land gets a strange connection and love for it. The feeling of his father being inside the old oak tree is the key to the land and Joseph's connection to it.
6-10
The land Joseph inhabited is blooming with fertility and life. Joseph finds himself in need of a wife. Juanito, Joseph's friend and worker, brings them to a hidden pine grove with a large moss-covered rock in the centre of it. Joseph feels a strange mystical power of the place.
Elizabeth McGreggor is a new teacher in the valley of Our Lady. Joseph wants her for his wife. She dislikes his lacks of manners.
Joseph and Elizabeth are seeing each other often and planning their marriage. Joseph makes Elizabeth sit on the old oak tree and gets a warm feeling of gladness at the sight.
Joseph and Elizabeth get married. On the marriage ceremony Elizabeth becomes overcome with affection for Joseph so much that she starts seeing Christ in his image and starts praying to her husband. On their way to Joseph's home valley Elizabeth is overcome with a strange fear of leaving her old life behind and becoming a woman.
Analysis
Joseph is frantic with the need of his land to grow, to expand and be rich with life. The strange groove with a stone holds a strange mystical power and Joseph decides to remember the place in a case of need.
Joseph has a strange effect on people, as seen at the wedding ceremony where Elizabeth mistakes him for Christ. This isn't the last time that this would happen where Joseph awakens worshipping feelings in the people around him.
11-15
Upon arriving to his house Joseph gets news that Benjy is dead and that Juanito stabbed him because he caught him in bed with his wife. Rama, Thomas's wife takes care of Elizabeth while Joseph goes to the place of the moss-covered rock where Juanito awaits him.
Rama tells the story of what happened to Elizabeth and what type of a person Benjy was. She also decides to warn Elizabeth against Joseph telling her that she will never be able to know his dreams. Elizabeth concludes that Rama is in love with Joseph. Joseph talks to Juanito and Juanito decide to leave until the deed is forgotten.
Joseph starts giving offerings to the oak tree in form of cattle's ears or pig's blood. His religious brother Burton is worried for the behaviour of Joseph.
Analysis
Joseph's love for the old tree gets a ritualistic form where he talks to the tree, confides and seeks for advice for his actions and even starts giving the tree sacrificial offerings.
16-20
There is a preparation for a fiesta on Joseph's land and a lot of people from the valley come to party. The fiesta gets a strange delirious turn where the people start frantically dancing and Burton is in pain because it looks like devil worship to him. Dark clouds gather and it starts to rain bringing the fiesta to an end.
Elizabeth announces to Joseph that she is pregnant. Joseph goes to talk to the tree and Burton approaches him and warns him against what he is doing. Days pass and Elizabeth nervous because Joseph went on a trip and feeling idle in her pregnancy decides to go to the pine trees where the moss-covered rock is stationed; Elizabeth doesn't know about the rock. She somehow finds the path to it and is at first struck by the beauty of that place. This soon passes and the place and the rock suddenly start looking threatening making Elizabeth afraid so she leaves the place.
Elizabeth goes into labour and Joseph decides to be the one to deliver the baby. After birth Elizabeth tells him about the rock and how it frightened her.
Elizabeth and Joseph sit in front of the oak tree with their baby son and Joseph suddenly wants to put the baby on the tree. Burton sees this and gets angry with his brother and his strange actions. Burtons decides to leave the place with his family. After Burton leaves Joseph notices that the oak tree is dying and finds out that Burton destroyed it before he left.
Analysis
The strange frantic dancing at the fiesta gets and appearance of a ritual that calls for rain. Indeed the dark clouds soon gather and the rain starts. The groove with the rock is ominous and threatening towards Elizabeth-possibly a foreshadowing of what's to come.
With the death of the old oak tree Joseph feels the death of the whole land, the magic of the place is gone and Joseph is worried of the possible consequences.
21-26
Elizabeth is persistent in her intention to go back to the place with the moss-covered rock. She keeps having nightmares of the place and determined to convince her mind that what she saw the previous time there was the result of her pregnant state and her mind playing tricks on her she decides to go back to the place with Joseph. They arrive at the place and Elizabeth gets a strange need to conquer the beast of the rock so she decides to climb it. She slips and falls. Joseph quickly goes to the stream to get her some water but upon seeing her state gives up. Her neck is broken and she has no pulse; Elizabeth is dead. Joseph takes her body back home to prepare for the funeral. Rama decides to comfort Joseph and fulfil her long-time desire for him on the same night his wife died.
Terrible drought struck the valley of Our Lady. Seeing that he has no other option Joseph makes a decision to move with his family and cattle near the shore.
On their way from the town Joseph and Thomas stumble upon a place near the sea cliff blooming with greenery and life. They meet an old man who lives there isolated. Joseph finds a common ground with the man in their mutual strange sacrificial behavior to appease the land. Upon returning home Joseph tells Thomas that he can't leave his land behind and that Thomas should take the family and cattle and move near the shore.
After his family and cattle leave Joseph has a sudden feeling of loneliness. He decides to go to the moss-covered rock to see if the stream there is still flowing and alive. Indeed the place is still alive and it is the only place where drought hasn't crawled to.
Joseph starts living in the pine groove constantly making sure that the moss on the rock is alive. Juanito visits him one night and concerned for his mental well-being convinces him to see Father Angelo. Joseph reluctantly agrees. Father Angelo tells Joseph how he knew the tree will fail him one day and that he should seek refuge with Christ. Joseph tells him to not worry about his soul and to only pray for the rain to end the drought of the valley of Our Lady. On his way back home Joseph visits Juanito and discovers that Juanito's son is named after him.
Upon getting back to the pine groove Joseph stumbles upon a young calf and he takes it with him to the rock. The water by the rock is gone as well so in a desperate attempt Joseph sacrifices the calf to it. That doesn't seem to work so he climbs the rock and cuts his wrist veins to bleed out. A strong rain starts. While bleeding out Joseph becomes aware that he is the rain and land and that this is what he had to do all along.
The last chapter involves Father Angelo listening to rain and hearing the mob going to the ritualistic dancing. Knowing what they do is wrong according to his religious beliefs he gets angry but soon accepts that he can't do anything about it, only give them penance later.
Father Angelo is glad thinking that his prayer had something to do with the rain and thinks that Joseph Wayne must be very happy in that moment.
Analysis
In a climactic chain of events the land starts to die with the death of Elizabeth and the death of the oak tree. The land could be seen as a reflection of Joseph or Joseph reflecting the land; he realizes that he is the land and the land is him at the end.
