Dakotah was the child of fifteen-year old-Shaina Lister, who left Dakotah with her parents in Wyoming after she gave birth. Shaina’s parents Bonita and Verl, each in their late thirties, owned and operated a ranch. Verl is disabled. He was injured by his cattle. It was a lot for Bonita to be an early grandmother and run the ranch without much help from her husband. She does not blame him for his accident though sometimes she wishes he would see himself in half when he chops down trees. One day Verl finds a cow dead in a ditch and he calls her tits up in a ditch.

Times became hard for the family. They looked to hire help. 

Verl always dreamed of being a radio man. 

Bonita and Verl have a neighbor rancher named Wyatt Match who comes from generational wealth and privilege. Match calls Verl a trash rancher. Wyatt Match always wanted to get into the state legislature. He now is. 

As she grew up, Dakota was not interested in ranch activities. The family struggled to get by and Verl’s health seemed to decline. Bonita sometimes resented taking care of him. Dakotah longed for affection that she did not receive at home. 

Bonita essentially ran the entire ranch on her own and took care of domestic affairs. Verl was often self-pitying.

Wyatt Match felt that Verl’s ranch hurt the reputation of all Wyoming ranchers. It is true that Verl’s animals were not in the best conditions, however. 

Verl and Wyatt are always polite when they run into each other in public. Verl especially detests Wyatt’s second wife who calls Wyoming people lazy. 

Wyoming suffers frequently from chest pain which confuses his doctor. In kindergarten, Dakotah is unsure of her birthday and has a hard time making friends. She asks her grandparents about her birthday. They say it is April 1st, though they don’t buy much into birthday stuff. 

Verl is sent to Salt Lake City for advanced medical testing. Bonita goes with him. Dakotah, who is seven, is to stay with Pastor Alf Crashbee and his wife Martha. 

The Crashbee’s had a bunch of things that Dakotah had never seen. Like bowls of candy, trashcans that had foot pedals, and microwave ovens. 

Verl and Bonita return. Verl has severe arthritis and a bruised heart from where a bull trampled him. Verl and Bonita sometimes leg-whip Dakotah. 

At school, Dakotah is considered slow. She is not especially pretty compared to her mother. Dakotah receives a cat from the Matches’ daughter Sherri, but Verl takes it away, claiming to be bringing it back to the Matches. After apologizing to Sherri Match, she claims Verl never brought back the cat.  It is likely that Verl killed or abandoned the cat, though Dakotah is unsure. 

Dakotah goes through high school and becomes enamored with a quiet, lanky boy, Sash Hicks. During their senior year, he proposes and she agrees. She drops out and he finished high school. Bonita and Verl actually approve of the marriage as they think it should keep Dakotah out of trouble. The school counselor urges Dakotah not to drop out, but Dakotah is eager for freedom. She gets a job as a waitress at a diner and rents a small apartment. Once they get married at the courthouse, Sash moves in but is finishing school in the hopes of becoming a computer programmer. They fight a lot and Dakotah is quite stubborn and will not be ordered around by Sash. They divorce and Sash goes to join the army after failing his finals. Dakotah realizes she is pregnant but is too stubborn to tell Sash. She is fired from the diner because she is pregnant. She gives birth but her grandparents discourage her from giving up the child. She goes to Sash’s family for child support. No one knows where Sash is in the army. 

Verl and Bonita are more loving which surprises Dakota. They encourage Dakotah to join the army, receive education and good pay, and then return with a career and the ability to care for the baby. They say they will care for the child while she is gone. Verl surprisingly is supportive as some time before he was not supportive of women having jobs. 

She joins the army but promises to come back for her child.

She chooses combat medic as her specialty. She is intimated by the other people who seem to be better at it or have more experience. She makes friends with Pat Moody and Marnie Jellson who are two other girls in her specialty.

She is homesick for the ranch she long disliked. She buys a camera and sends it to her folks. They send her back pictures of the baby. She goes places and tries new things. She wonders if perhaps her mother was not crazy but curious about the outside world. She went to a new station for training in New York but stayed in touch with her friends. 

Things changed a lot at home while she was gone. She heard about all sorts of things through letters from Bonita and her old high school counselor Mrs. Lenski. 

She goes to Iraq with Marnie. They both become military police. They become extremely close. Marnie says they are in love. They dream of getting a house and raising the child together. 

One day there is an explosion and Dakotah loses her arm. She asks where Marnie is. She was sent to Germany with other wounded soldiers, and then eventually, she winds up at Walter Reed where she is greeted by Bonita who is crying as Dakotah has never seen anyone cry before. 

Her child, Baby Verl, was killed while riding in the bed of Verl’s truck. 

Dakotah freaks out. She sees a grief counselor. She stays in an apartment connected to the hospital struggling to understand the paperwork, allowances, and her prosthesis. She learns that Sash is also wounded and in this hospital in a child support letter. 

A volunteer comes to see Dakotah and insists that she see Sash, who is still legally her husband. Sash has suffered memory loss and the doctors wonder if his seeing Dakota will jog his memory. 

Dakota does not really want to see him. She goes through so that she does not need to see this rich volunteer woman. 

She sees Sash who is extremely wounded and disfigured from combat. He suffers from brain damage. Her visit does not appear to do much. She goes back to the ranch. She wonders what will happen when she sees Verl. 

They pass the Match ranch on their way to the ranch. It is unchanged. 

When she sees her grandparents inside, they all hug and cry. Dakotah doesn’t feel anything which she takes as a sign of healing. There is a large color photo of her baby on the wall. She thinks her grandparents must’ve taken him to the Walmart photo studio. 

The Hicks’ send dinner but no one can eat. The Hicks’ can’t afford to go see their son and want Dakotah to tell them anything she knows. Dakotah does not know how to say how much worse things have gotten. 

The next day they can drink coffee and spend time together. That night, the Hicks’ stopped by. They want to talk to Dakota. They say they received the official letter that he had come home but they do not know what happened to them. The silence is their answer as grief overwhelms everyone. Dakotah tells them that Sash is tits up in a ditch.