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hazards of guerilla warfare: hit and run attacks from alpine hideouts, constant fear and hunger in the severe winters of 1943-45.
    Jack read the letters: hunger governed all. Forced to live like animals. Only food mattered. Food for the children. Food for his wife. Food for himself. Food at the cost of depravity and human debasement. Could this be happening here? In the United States? What the hell happened to Johnson’s war against poverty?
    A grey-haired man with a long ponytail approached. Weathered skin, deeply tanned. Only the skin exposed by his unbuttoned collar was pale by comparison. He wore a plain two-inch-wide silver bracelet on his wrist. No attempt to greet Jack, nor did his rheumy eyes blink.
    Finally Jack said, “Could you tell me how to get to your hospital?”
    “Three miles back, at Black Rock, by the lake.”
    Outside, in the blinding sun, Jack looked at the trickling stream and the pollution. The Zunis have us white doctors segregated, he thought, miles from the pueblo.

    10

    F our-thirty. He par ked in front of a rock building bearing a small sign: U. S. Department of Indian Affairs. He spotted a windsock a short distance away, and suspected an airstrip must be nearby. The sock was limp, the dirt streets empty. A dark stone building at the center of the square turned out to be the U. S. Public Health Hospital, but it looked deserted, definitely not a hotbed of activity. Why the rush-rush in Albuquerque?
    Houses encircled the plaza, adobes or rock, in general, a tacky hodgepodge. Jack parked the Willy in front of a pink adobe and walked back to a newer-looking home where he had seen an Indian woman standing outside. As he got closer to her he realized that the grass in front of the house was strewn with dirty dishes.
    She wore a long pleated purple skirt, a denim jacket with a corduroy collar and a pork pie hat, and was holding a garden hose. She looked up and said, “Too nice to work inside.”
    He introduced himself. Continuing to blast the dishes with freezing water, she replied, “I work for the top doc. This his house.”
    And those were his dishes.
    There were no patients in the waiting room. A nurse, a pretty, young Native American wearing a white cap was on the phone, speaking in her native tongue. He waited, taking in the blue-grey walls, peeling trim, the yellowed wax on linoleum floors. He was familiar with the antiseptic smell, but the place also smelled of Pine Sol. The florescent lights blinked, then buzzed, aggravating the tinnitus in his ears. He shut his eyes for a full minute.
    A clipboard hit the countertop. “Can I help you?”
    “Doctor D’Amico reporting.”
    “You’re late. Follow me.” She escorted him down a hall to an office crammed with three government-issue grey metal desks. The first was occupied by Dr. Bill Newman, who was busily signing a foot-high stack of forms.
    Newman looked up. “Thank God, I’ve been worried ‘bout you, thought you’d be here by noon.”
    “A little trouble on the road, Sir. Jack D’Amico, reporting for duty.”
    “None of that ‘Sir’ shit. I’m Bill.” He pointed to a chair. “I’ll give you a quick rundown on the place.”
    Bill’s words were drawn out in a slow twang, making for a relaxing conversation, whether you wanted to relax or not, definitely not Chicago rat-a-tat-tat. About Jack’s height, over six feet, and lanky, handsome in an aw-shucks sort of way. He had grown up on a West Texas ranch outside Marfa. Bussed into town for school in the winter. Cowboyed every summer. University of Texas grad, and proud of it.
    Basic rules. Night call rotation—flexible. Mornings—open clinics, first-come, first-seen. Rounds—in-patients before lunch. Usually six to twelve patients, mostly new moms. Afternoons—specialty clinics.
    “Broken bones, cast changes, eye injury follow-ups, obstetrics and so on. You’ve got to be more than a good doctor out here. You have to be part-sociologist, part-historian, even