Leo Ortiz

Leo Ortiz, the younger son of Fat Crack Ortiz and Wanda Ortiz, is defined less by public prominence than by constancy: he helps Delia Ortiz care for her father, builds a life with her, and stands with his brother Richard Ortiz as their family faces separation and bereavement. His story also reveals how much of Delia’s return to the reservation and her later family life rests on practical acts of support rather than grand declarations.

Identity and Family Setting

Leo lives within a closely connected family whose work and homes gather around the Ortiz Compound. By the time Brandon Walker visits, the former gas station has become the Indian Oasis Mini-Mart. Richard runs the mini-mart and gas-station operation, while Leo and two helpers work as mechanics. Behind the business, three double-wide homes surround a dirt-floored ramada shaded by ocotillo stalks and chicken wire. One home belongs to Fat Crack and Wanda; another to Richard and his wife; the third, now empty, was Leo and Delia’s. The household’s physical arrangement makes visible the closeness of the family, but the vacant home also marks the distance created by Delia and Leo’s departure.

Leo is Fat Crack and Wanda’s younger son. The family’s expectations and attachments are not limited to the two brothers: Delia’s pregnancy had made her expected child the first grandson to carry the Ortiz name, a fact that made Wanda especially distressed when Leo and Delia moved away. Yet the family’s bonds are not always easy. Delia’s public disagreement with her father-in-law over tribal funding for Lani Walker’s medical education caused tension that persisted in her interactions with Fat Crack and Wanda, and her resentment toward Lani was partly bound up with her sense that Leo was being pushed aside within his own family.

Courtship and Practical Devotion

Leo’s relationship with Delia grows through everyday work. After Delia’s father, Manny Chavez, became a disabled invalid requiring constant care, responsibility for him fell to Delia and, by his own choice, Leo. When Delia moved into a house in Sells, Leo helped carry furniture and boxes and built a wooden wheelchair ramp so Manny could visit after leaving rehabilitation in Tucson. He also helped Delia find a caregiver and drove Manny to medical appointments. His involvement did not end with a single favor: it made the ongoing labor of caring for her father something Delia did not have to manage alone.

That steadiness stood out to Delia against her earlier experience with Philip Cachora. Leo was patient with both her and Manny, and Delia noticed the difference. Their bond developed through shared obligations as well as affection, until she fell in love with him. The contrast between the brothers’ ways of courting Delia is also part of the story. Richard had remembered her from childhood and tried to learn about her Saab; he repaired it and later replaced its air-conditioning compressor. Leo, meanwhile, made himself indispensable through his presence and help. Delia did not understand the full shape of Richard’s feelings until after her divorce from Philip was final and she and Leo announced their engagement.

The night before the wedding, Fat Crack brought his sons together and insisted that they share the Peace Smoke. The ceremony allowed the brothers to put their dispute behind them. Richard later married Christine, while Leo married Delia; the reconciliation joined their separate futures without erasing the earlier rivalry. Fat Crack’s influence continued to hold the brothers and their children together, even as the family’s circumstances changed.

Marriage, Distance, and Family Tension

Leo and Delia’s marriage carries both intimacy and strain. A family dispute led them to leave the compound and move into a house that had belonged to Delia’s aunt, Julia Joaquin, in Little Tucson. Wanda was heartbroken by their departure, particularly because Delia was pregnant with the child expected to continue the Ortiz family name. The move turned a family disagreement into a lasting change of home and made the limits of Fat Crack’s household authority visible.

Delia’s resentment toward Lani Walker further complicates the family landscape. She viewed Lani and Davy as outsiders whose closeness to Fat Crack threatened the place of his biological sons, especially Leo. Delia’s own history with Fat Crack made the conflict difficult to reduce to simple hostility: he had hired her and brought her back to the reservation years after she and her mother fled Manny’s home in Sells. She understood that conflict with Lani could worsen her relationship with her father-in-law, even as resentment continued to shape her reactions. Leo’s position in this tension is therefore significant even when he is not the one arguing: Delia’s fear that he is being displaced is one of the forces influencing her conduct toward the people closest to his father.

The text returns to the couple in the ordinary details of pregnancy and shared life. When Leo notices Delia’s swollen ankles and asks whether she is all right, she tells him she has been on her feet and is fine. At another dawn, after an embedded tale about Mr. Coyote ends, Delia wakes as Leo tells her the baby has arrived and says he must go. The brief exchange places his family responsibilities within the rhythms of the larger household, though it does not specify what happens afterward.

Fat Crack’s Death and the Family’s Farewell

When Fat Crack dies, the number of cars around the three homes tells Brandon what has happened before he enters. Leo and Richard are already there. Brandon has brought back the tamales and tortillas Wanda gave him earlier, and the brothers direct him toward their mother. Delia initially appears ready to turn him away, but Wanda calls from inside and permits him to enter. The moment shows the family gathering around Wanda while grief and old friction remain present at the doorway.

Richard later tells David Ladd that their father died that afternoon and that he and Leo will dig the grave the next day at the cemetery in Ban Thak. They ask David to help. For David, Fat Crack’s godson, the request is an honor connected to an earlier grave he helped dig for Nana Dahd. For Leo, digging beside his brother is also an enactment of the reconciliation their father had secured. The sons’ shared labor makes their bond tangible at the very place where they prepare to bury him.

At the funeral in Sells, Delia sits between Leo and Wanda, uneasy about her public disagreements with Fat Crack and dissatisfied with the eulogy. She had not planned to speak. As she approaches the lectern, she stumbles, and Richard—whom she had rejected—steadies her. Leo and Richard both encourage her with a nod. Delia then recalls that leaving the reservation had enabled her and her mother to pursue education, and that years later Fat Crack offered her a job back at home when she was struggling in Washington, D.C. She describes him as a careful, serious medicine man and an honorable person whom she will miss. Leo pats her knee as she returns to her seat, offering support without taking the moment from her.

The funeral feast extends that support into work shared by the family and community. After the last diners have passed through the feast house, the exhausted cooks and servers clean up. Leo and Richard load the washed pots and pans into a pickup. Seeing Delia sitting with her feet raised, Leo asks whether she wants to ride home with them, but Wanda decides to take Delia herself so the brothers can finish unloading. The exchange is modest, but it shows care continuing through practical decisions after the formal mourning has ended.

Narrative Role and Significance

Leo’s importance lies in the continuity between care and kinship. His help with Manny is part of how Delia comes to trust and love him; his marriage to her then links her life outside the reservation to the family that Fat Crack helped her rejoin. His relationship with Richard also changes from romantic competition to reconciliation, marked first by the Peace Smoke and later by the brothers’ work digging their father’s grave. These are not separate gestures: they show a family held together through repeated acts of assistance, ceremony, and labor.

Leo is also a quiet counterweight to the family’s more visible conflicts. Delia’s disputes with Fat Crack and her jealousy of Lani complicate her sense of belonging, while Leo’s steady presence supplies a practical bond among Delia, Manny, and the Ortiz family. At his father’s funeral, he supports Delia as she speaks and remains beside her as grief gives way to the work of the feast. Through him, the family’s inheritance appears not only as a name to pass on, but as responsibility shared across generations.