When the Navajos were taken from their land by the federal government in the 1860s, thousands lost their lives on the infamous Long Walk, while those who eluded capture lived in constant fear. These men and women are now dead, but their story lives on in the collective memory of their tribe.

Gus Bighorse lived through that period of his people's history, and his account of it--recalled by his daughter Tiana and retold in her father's...