By the time pieces of Delphina’s life had been taken into evidence; by the time her friends and relations had sorted through the dead woman’s belongings and skimmed off what they wanted, Dan knew that there would be precious little of her dead mother left for Angie to cling to-nothing but that one single photo that he had managed to salvage.

And how did Dan Pardee know this? Through bitter experience-because that was the way it had been for him.

Someone probably still had copies of school yearbooks that showed his mother as she had been when she was in high school. And he dimly remembered there being photos of her in their apartment before she died. Those had all been head shots she’d had taken when she was still hoping to find work in Hollywood and going out on interviews and auditions.

He didn’t remember the photos in any detail. What he did remember was that his mother had been beautiful back then-with surprisingly narrow features and a winning smile. None of those pictures, however, had survived the police investigation in the bloodied apartment living room. Or, if they had, none of them had come into her son’s possession once the investigation was over.

Dan had only two things left from his mother and from that time. One was the faded letter, written on a scrap of notebook paper, that Rebecca Pardee had written to her parents back home in Arizona, asking for their help. It was the same letter Micah Duarte had carried in his shirt pocket the day he had come to L.A. to collect his grandson.

The other was a fragment of a set of Spider-Man sheets Dan’s mother had bought for Dan’s bed and had given him for his birthday. It was the same top sheet that anonymous cop had wrapped the little boy in when he had plucked the sleeping child out of his bed. The cop had used the sheet to cover the little boy’s face so he wouldn’t see the awful carnage in the living room and his mother’s blood-spattered body.

Maybe the cop had hoped that if Dan didn’t see it, he wouldn’t have to remember it, either.

Hilda, his foster mother, had washed the sheet, folded it, and put it in Dan’s paper bag the morning Micah had come to fetch him. That and the letter were the only two things Dan still possessed that he knew for sure his mother had once touched. He had treasured the sheet and slept with it in his bed night after night until it was little more than a frayed rag. Before he went to Iraq, he had cut a small piece of it out of the hem-the only part that still held together. He had placed that faded scrap of material inside the envelope along with his mother’s letter to her parents. Dan then placed the envelope inside his wallet. That treasured envelope had gone with him to war in the Middle East and it had come home from the war. It was here with him now.

Taking the photo from his pocket, he opened his own wallet. He thumbed through the contents until, tucked in among his credit cards, he found the envelope with its now-illegible address. He slipped the photo of Delphina and Angie Enos into the fragile envelope next to the faded letter and that precious scrap of material. Then he returned the envelope to his wallet, closed it, and put it away. He would keep the photo safe. Someday he would give it to Angie. It would be the one meaningful gift Dan Pardee could give the little girl-a photo of her mother smiling down at her.

Sitting there in the waiting room, Dan couldn’t help wishing that someone had done the same for him.

Just then the clerk reappeared behind her desk. “Dr. Walker will see you now,” she said, gesturing them toward a swinging door. “Right this way.”

Sells, Tohono O’odham Nation, Arizona

Sunday, June 7, 2009, 12:00 a.m.

71º Fahrenheit

Lani’s first patient that night had been a snakebite victim. Jose Thomas of Big Fields had been out cutting wood two days earlier. He had picked up a dead mesquite branch only to be bitten on the hand by a rattlesnake lurking in the cooler earth underneath the branch.

“Only a little rattlesnake,” he mumbled over and over. “ Ali Ko’oi.”

The snake may have been little, but the damage wasn’t.

Snakebites were commonplace on the reservation. As a result, the hospital at Sells maintained a constant stock of antivenom. Most of the time, people who had been bitten came to the hospital as soon as possible after the incident. As long as they received antivenom treatment immediately, few of them suffered long-term ill effects.

While still in high school, Lani had worked at the Arizona Sonora Desert Museum both after school and during summer and winter breaks. She knew, for example, that Arizona is home to seventeen different kinds of rattlers, five of which are found in and around the Tucson area. Their venom came with varying strengths of toxicity, the most poisonous of which was the Mojave. When treating patients, medical professionals needed to know which kind of snake venom they were dealing with. That wasn’t always possible, especially when the victims were young children. Then the doctors involved just had to make an educated guess.

The problem with Jose Thomas was that he was an old man who lived alone.

Make that a stubborn old man, Lani thought grimly.

And he hadn’t come in to be treated right away. In fact, if it had been left up to him, he wouldn’t have come to the hospital at all. He had treated himself by lancing the wound, pouring some tequila on it, and then pouring more of the tequila down his own throat. By the time Jose’s grandson had stopped by to see him, Jose was in bed, delirious and barely conscious. He was running a dangerously high fever. The damaged flesh surrounding the bite was beginning to rot and fall away.

Once he was in the ER, Lani’s first goal was to bring down the fever by bathing him in ice. Then she ordered him plugged full of liquids and antibiotics. At this point, he had developed secondary infections-including pneumonia-that were more serious than the bite. She treated the bite itself as best she could, but her initial examination told her that it was more than likely that Jose would probably lose the hand. That wouldn’t happen until after he was stabilized. Until then, surgery of any kind was out of the question.

As Mr. Thomas was wheeled into the ICU, the ER’s admitting clerk, Dena Rojo, came into the cubicle. “We’ve got a problem out there,” she said, nodding toward the door.

“What kind of a problem?”

“A Border Patrol officer with a little girl. She’s got some cuts on her face, feet, and legs. I don’t think it’s serious enough for you to bother, but…”

“An illegal?” Lani asked.

Indian Health Services was generally exactly that-for Indians only. Exceptions were made in emergencies, when other patients could be given access to immediate care regardless of race or nationality. Border Patrol officers often found injured and dying immigrants on the reservation. During the summer, dehydration was a killer. So far this year there had already been fifteen immigrant deaths among illegal immigrants attempting to cross the border, and that was with the summer months just now heating up.

That was the basis of Lani’s inquiry. Dena shook her head.

“Indian,” she said. “Her name is Angelina Enos. We’ve treated her before. She has a chart.”

“What’s the problem then?” Lani asked.

“The guy who brought her in is no relation of hers,” Dena said. “He just found her out in the desert somewhere and brought her here.”

“Where are her parents?” Lani asked.

“Her father’s been gone for a long time,” Dena replied. “Now someone has murdered her mother.”

“Who’ll be responsible for her long-term?” Lani asked.

Dena shrugged. “Probably the grandparents. I think they live out at Nolic, but they don’t have a phone.”

Lani winced at that. She knew the village of Nolic, The Bend. That was where she had come from a long time ago, before she became Lani Walker. The fact that Lani’s blood relatives had rejected her was what had given her this other life-and a chance to be here at Sells in her scrubs, ready to help some other unfortunate child.