Wanda Ortiz

Wanda Ortiz, the wife of Fat Crack Ortiz and godmother to Lani Walker, is portrayed through acts of care and practical responsibility. As Fat Crack’s health declines, Wanda becomes a point of contact for worried family members; after his death, she organizes the funeral and communal feast. Her role joins intimate family ties to the public obligations surrounding a respected community figure.

Family and the Ortiz household

Wanda shares a home with Fat Crack at the Ortiz Compound, a family-centered property behind the Indian Oasis Mini-Mart on the north side of Highway 86. Their sons Richard Ortiz and Leo Ortiz have distinct roles in the family business: Richard runs the mini-mart and gas station, while Leo works as a mechanic. The compound includes three double-wide mobile homes arranged around a ramada, with Wanda and Fat Crack’s home at its center. When Brandon Walker visits, Wanda welcomes him inside and leads him through the house to the backyard, where Fat Crack is sitting. A sturdy wheelchair ramp has replaced the steps at the back entrance, an ordinary feature of the home that also signals the changes accompanying Fat Crack’s declining health.

Wanda is also part of an extended network of care. She and Fat Crack are godparents to Lani, who has been especially close to him since childhood. Their relationship helps explain why Lani, away at the University of North Dakota, is so anxious about his illness. It also sits within a complicated family landscape: Delia Ortiz recognizes the importance of what she owes Fat Crack, yet resents the attention he gives his godchildren, fearing that her husband, Leo, and his brother are being displaced. That resentment is Delia’s perspective, not evidence of a dispute initiated by Wanda, but it shows how the godparent bond extends beyond the couple’s household and into the family’s tensions.

Fat Crack’s illness and Lani’s worry

Fat Crack has diabetes and refuses care from Indian Health Service physicians, preferring to manage his illness through diet, exercise, and a regimen shaped by both Christian Science and Native American practice. Wanda’s own approach is presented through what she tells Lani: in a note, she says Fat Crack is fine and urges Lani not to worry. Lani remains unconvinced. She tells her instructors that an ill family member may require her to take exams early, abandons plans to attend graduation, and looks forward to coming home and staying there. Wanda’s reassurance cannot remove the distance between them or resolve Lani’s fear; it is one family member’s report against the signs that Lani finds alarming.

That concern affects the family’s plans. When Lani comes home for Christmas and learns of Fat Crack’s diagnosis, she wants to remain in Sells to look after him. Brandon Walker has to persuade her to return to North Dakota and finish her senior year. Later, while Lani is still away, she asks Delia for news and says she could come home early if Fat Crack worsens. Wanda’s earlier attempt to reassure her therefore belongs to a continuing exchange of concern, in which the people around Fat Crack manage illness and separation in different ways.

Death and the work of mourning

When Fat Crack dies, Wanda responds by making arrangements. Asked about a service, she tells Brandon that the funeral will take place at four on Monday afternoon in the high school gym, conducted by the minister from the Presbyterian church. The family plans to bury Fat Crack at Ban Thak, near the graves of his parents and his aunt Rita Antone. Her brief acknowledgment that he was ready accompanies this practical account; grief does not stop the decisions that must be made.

Those decisions extend well beyond the service. Fat Crack’s standing—as a former tribal chairman and the acknowledged successor chosen by Looks at Nothing—means that both the funeral and the feast afterward will draw a large crowd. Wanda summons her daughter, her daughters-in-law, and other able-bodied female relatives to the family compound to prepare the food. The work is substantial: hundreds of tamales and tortillas, along with vats of chili and beans, must be made. In this sequence, Wanda’s care is expressed through organization and labor. She coordinates what the community will need in order to gather, rather than treating mourning as separate from the work of feeding people.

At the funeral in the Baboquivari High School gym, Wanda sits with Leo and Delia in the front row. The service disappoints Delia, who feels that the minister’s words fail to honor the man the community knew. At Ban Thak, the funeral cortege reaches the cemetery after sunset; Leo and Richard help Wanda drop the first shovelful of earth onto the casket. The burial is followed by the feast. At its entrance, Wanda offers a blessing that connects sorrow with the necessity of continuing to live, then opens the door to the waiting community. Groups are admitted in turn, while women and children head to the feast house and the men complete the burial. Wanda’s actions link the ceremony, the grave, and the meal into a sequence of communal care.

Community presence and later action

Wanda’s responsibilities are not confined to the funeral. After Brandon visits, she comes out to the ramada and asks Fat Crack to go inside because it is getting hot. He says he is fine, and she returns to the house, leaving him where he is. The moment shows a familiar exchange between them without suggesting that Wanda can control his choices. That same day, Fat Crack has shared the Peace Smoke with Brandon as a farewell and given away his medicine pouch and sacred tobacco; Wanda is not shown arranging these acts, but they take place within the household and family life she shares with him.

Later, Wanda appears in a different urgent family scene. When Kath Fellows and Lani stop their Buick at the roadside while Delia is giving birth, Wanda pulls her Dodge Ram alongside them and maneuvers it so its headlights shine through the Buick’s back door. The light lets Lani see the baby beginning to emerge and prepare to help. Wanda’s contribution is immediate and concrete: she arrives and makes the scene visible enough for Lani to act.

Across these episodes, Wanda is characterized less through extended speech than through what she does: receives visitors, tries to reassure a worried goddaughter, organizes the labor of mourning, and responds when family members need help. Her actions place domestic care and community responsibility in the same frame, from the Ortiz Compound to the funeral feast at Ban Thak and the roadside birth.