Najaway, a Navajo woman, survived 20 years of domestic violence at the hands of two husbands—one Native, one non-Native. Now in her early 50s, she still can’t get the nightmare out of her head.

“I remember my daughter looking at me after I was beat down and covered with bruises, saying, ‘Mom, you should go away and not come back, because Dad might kill you,’” Najaway recalls. “She was all of six years of age.”

“It’s not safe. There’s no safety. You can’t trust anybody. You got to protect yourself,” Rebekah Apachito says. As one of about 1,600 tribal members who live in the Navajo community of To’hajiilee, 90 miles west of Santa Fe, she has good reason to be afraid: According to federal crime data, Native American women are 10 times more likely than the average American to be murdered. Even more shockingly, approximately one in three Native American women will be raped in her lifetime.

Although Nelson attempted on several occasions to find help from various agencies, not one provided assistance until the Begays told their story to SFR through their niece, Patsy Chacon, who translated from Navajo.

At 18, Nick Montoya, a member of the Taos Pueblo, exuded health, he says. But that changed after a year of duty in Vietnam, where he was exposed to Agent Orange. Since 1969, Montoya has dealt with post-traumatic stress, alcoholism, depression, diabetes, kidney disease, a heart attack and, last September, open-heart surgery.

Just because we are homeless doesn’t mean we can’t do anything,” Sophia Cranmer says as she watches over her four children, Jerrmy Jr., Debrah Lynn, Michael and Brandon, ages 2-10. The Cranmers are staying temporarily with their friends Bryan and Marlene in a small, two-bedroom apartment in southeast Albuquerque.

“Winter is coming,” Freddy Begay says, looking out from where he and his wife Atnáábaah are sitting at the expansive, sage-brushed landscape that stretches west to the mountain range Navajo people call Blue Mud Mountain.