Angela Montenegro, on vacation in the Navajo desert reservation, asks Brennan to come over alone: someone left a human skull with the local sheriff Ben Dawes. She she fears that it may be her long-time, long-distance boy friend Kirk Persinger, who went missing with his female guide Dhani Webber, the sheriff's sister. She finds a bullet-wound and convinces Booth to investigate, unofficially. The skull is Kirk's and has traces of the local drug peyote, according to Angela supplied for ritual use only by local artist Wayne Kellogg, who won't divulge the secret traditional plantation sites, and identifiable bite marks from a coyote. Then Alex is found at home, beaten to pulp, probably by fellow Navajos for selling peyote to outsiders, and Kirk's bones plus camera with film in the wilderness. Atypical engraving plates Bones noticed at Kellogg's place lead to a surprising crime connection.
—KGF Vissers