Many years ago a couple married, the man, as is the custom, went to live in his wife's mother's house. Everything was well for a time, but soon the man began to feel that someone was watching him. Even though he could see no one doing so, he still felt watched. The mother's house was built upon a mesa overlooking the village cemetery where the dead were buried with a proper ceremony; wrapped in blankets, and their face covered with cotton, and some pottery bowls smashed upon the grave. Presently the young husband noticed that some of his wife's relatives were dying off, even though they were young and hard-working. This continued for a long time, and the husband grew more disturbed.

One night his wife asked him to find her mother. It was late and she had not returned to the home. As he was searching he came near the edge of the old cemetery where, suddenly, a figure leaped onto his back and locked its legs around his hips. A whisper said. "It is my turn to bring in a new member to the two-heart's meeting," and he heard, "and I have chosen you to become one of us." "You can't do that," he protested. "I'm studying to become a kachina priest and then they will protect me." But the rider insisted and beat him on the ears, until at last in defeat he followed its directions to the Two-Heart meeting. All the while he prayed to the kachinas, asking for their help and rescue. Soon they reached a giant rock, whereupon the rider slipped from his back and knocked on it four times. The rock opened and inside he saw a group of people, many of whom were known to him, sitting around a council fire. In the dim light he could see that his rider was his wife's mother. But he also saw the Sun God kachina which was the strongest of all the good kachinas. "Go home," the Sun God told him, and off he went. When he returned home he told his wife that he had been unable to find her mother. Later that night he heard the mother-in-law steadily enter, and slip into her bed. From that day on, though, the wife's mother withered and shriveled. The young members of the family that had been dying off grew strong and healthy as she wasted away. Within the year she died.