Story from the musical:
»Frank's happy to hear from her and that she has become spiritually alive. And she's decided she wants to meet up with them in their journey, and she wants to know where to do that. And so Frank kind of just says out loud to himself, "Oh, Dineh Bekeya, that's where she can meet us." The minute that Frank says "Dineh Bekeya," Lefty says,"Wow, it's been a long time since I've heard that word." And Ivory says, "What do you mean you know about that word? That was a place that Frank and I made up when we were kids." And Lefty says, "No, Dineh Bekeya is a place just southwest of here. That's where the Navajos call home. Because "Dineh Bekeya" means "land of the people." They're heading to the land between the four sacred mountains. Frank sends the eagle back to Clare then to tell her that. They're all kind of blown away that Dineh Bekeya is a real place. And as they're talking, Ivory, you kind of get the idea that he's a little bit of a flesh pot, and of course he's been trying to work his way through this. But he says to Frank, "Wow, I wish I had a woman coming to meet me in Dineh Bekeya." And Lefty says, "Well, I happen to know about a beautiful woman down there, but you have to have a really big dowry in order to marry her, because that's the way the Navajo would do it. The man would give the dowry for the wife, because they were matriarchal culture. And Ivory says of course, "Well, I have no money," and Lefty says, "Well, I'll give you all of this gold that I've been hoarding all these years, because I no longer want it, and it will do you some good. So they take off for Dineh Bekeya, and on their way there, they run into this band of Navajos, and when they do, Lefty begins to speak with them, and he happens to know these people. And you find out in the conversation that Lefty became bitter, because of Hashti Nashdoi who is the leader of this particular band of Navajos ... He was married to his beautiful daughter, and she had been killed by the Billegana (or the white soldiers) when the Navajos were rounded up and put in Bosque Redondo, a little part of American history not everybody might know. Concentration camps were not invented by Hitler, but I think they've been around for a long time. And these people had escaped, Hashti Nashdoi and his little band of Navajos had escaped from Bosque Redondo and were trying to get back to Dineh Bekeya, and soldiers of course were chasing them. And so Ivory at this point has the gold, and he says to Hashti Nashdoi, who is the leader of the Navajo band ... he says, because Hashti Nashdoi says, "We'll never get back there, because the soldiers are right on us, we have nothing to defend ourselves with, and we're starved." So Ivory says to him, "Well, we have all this gold, and we passed a trading post not too far back.
Why don't you go get some food, some blankets, some supplies to fight with, etc. And when he says that, Rhoda, who is this beautiful Indian woman, recognizes the generosity of all this, and she begins to talk with Ivory about "Why would you do something this kind for us, you don't even know us?" And he begins to talk to her about why he would. And in the course of doing this, they fall in love. And so this beautiful Indian woman, this beautiful Navajo woman becomes the fourth creature that surrounds the throne of God. The fourth creature around the throne of God is a human, and so Buzz has his calf, Clare has her eagle, Lefty is there with the mountain lion, and now after all of this time, finally Ivory connects with the gospel that would be the most meaningful to him, which would be the gospel that is most human, which for us Protestants would be Mark, for the orthodox people it would be Matthew, but you know, you gotta make a choice here. So not only are the animals Biblical, that are around the throne of God and therefore represent those things that we've already established, but these characters are now synonymous with their animal creature counterparts. St. Francis is now surrounded by his own band of disciples as it were, much like Jesus had the four gospel writing disciples. So, the song "Love is Strong," represents this new relationship between Rhoda and Ivory. Lefty gave him his gold, and then he gave the gold... actually he sends Lefty and Buzz back to the trading post to get all the stuff, and so they're gone. This gives him the opportunity to spend the day with Rhoda. And this is typical in a musical. They instantly fall in love and it does turn out that she is the beautiful Navajo woman that Lefty was talking about.«