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the last rung on the ladder, he heard the phone ringing. He swung his body through to the roof and headed through the open doorway. His broad-rimmed black hat skimmed the door frame. After hanging up the phone, Louis Paul Jahata took off his hat and dark glasses and walked silently into his cool workroom. The conversation terse, no emotion in the voice of the Zuni woman working at the Gallup hospital. Tito, his son, was alive. A good boy, non-drinker. A candidate to someday become one of the tribal priests or A:shiwani . In an instant the spirit world had ended Tito’s dreams of becoming an Air Force pilot.
    Jahata’s mind grappled with the scant facts he had just received—a white man, a doctor, saved him. He listened to the wind.
    The breeze fluttered a line of clothes outside his home in the pueblo. A modest home, like all the others. Sepia adobe walls colored by layers of fine sand-based mud, floors the same. In a tiny closet-like space off the sparsely furnished front room, his work bench sat in front of the only window. Buckskin pouches filled with stones, some with silver conchos, were piled to one side. Bundles of dried mountain tobacco hung from a nail. Medicinal herbs hung from a viga above. A shelf contained a row of bear fetishes. His wife of twenty-five-years belonged to the bear clan. Like all Native American men, he joined his wife’s clan. The small carvings made from antlers, shell, turquoise or coral would fit in the palm of his hand.
    He reached for a fetish, the most primitive, carved by nature with only a minimum of human intrusion, strengthened the bear shape. An arrowhead bound to its back by a fine leather thong gave it strength. The critical insertion of a red coral heartline added great power.
    Louis Paul smoothed back his long black hair. A premature white streak ran on the right side of his crown. He wore a tan leather vest over a collarless denim shirt. Worn jeans, silver belt buckle. Scuffed boots. A large pale turquoise ring. Settled on a goatskin, he raised the fetish to his lips and breathed in, inhaling the spirit. As he settled into a trance, he imagined a silver strand extending from each corner of the room to his solar plexus. He prayed silently, using the fetish as a messenger to the spirits that could intermediate to help a humble human.
    The prayer began: “Thou art stout of heart and strong of will...”
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    Bordering marshes at the edge of a lake, Jack passed a cluster of buildings on the right. Three miles further, at the outskirts of the pueblo, he spotted children playing in a dreary stream strewn with bottles, cans, and empty Budweiser cases. He stopped beside the single gas pump at a general store. Flies buzzed over a puddle, a yellow dog strained against a tethered chain. He wagged his tail. Stirred up dust. He opened the screen door and tentatively stepped inside the rock building. Several older men stood huddled at one side of the store, smoking, talking in low voices. The place smelled strongly of mothballs and piñon smoke.
    He walked across the creaky floorboards past a black potbelly stove in the center of the room over to an old wood and glass counter. The cases weren’t heavily stocked, nor were the shelves above. A few cans of lard, Spam, corn, hominy, salt. A hand-painted sign read: BUY. SELL. TRADE. LIVESTOCK. PAWN. It was obvious that despite all the natural beauty of the reservation, the lack of jobs kept the Zunis in a state of poverty.
    Jack’s mother, an aristocrat by birth, had immigrated with her new husband to the United States before WWII. Nic, her first-born, was conceived in Italy but born in America. Despite her pedigree, Rose knew all about rationing and poverty during the war in northern Italy. Especially Piedmont, the family estates.
    Her younger brother, Danielle, was a member of the Resistance. Formerly an officer in the Italian Army, he refused to join Mussolini’s ‘Republican’ army. A long-time anti-Fascist, Danielle learned the