“He was a very great man. Very intelligent, very kind. He worked so hard to help people. He thought medicine was a gift. If you had the gift of medicine, you had to share. He never thought of money. Many patients never paid him at all, or they would give him tortillas, or a pig, or a load of bricks. He was disorganized and his hair was always a mess and he would put on the wrong clothes always, things that didn’t go together. He could remember everything he read in his medical books, but he could never remember anyone’s name. I learned all the names of our patients. I would say their names when they came in so the doctor would know them. He thought everyone was basically good inside. He was on the side of the revolution, which was a good revolution at first until people like Pancho Villa got too much power. It took me a long time to convince him that there are men like Villa in the world, men with no good in them at all. When Dr. Hodgson first came to Mexico, he thought Villa was like Robin Hood. Fighting the big planters and the banks, the U.S. corporations that wanted to run everything in our country. Someone had to fight for the people against all those things, but Villa did as much harm as they did. He was evil, but Dr. Hodgson never wanted to see evil, not even when it was right in front of him.”

“And you married him.”

“Yes, but not until I had been his nurse for a very long time. First we worked in my village, then in Chihuahua city for two years, then Mexico City. It was very exciting there, he had famous friends. The painter Frida Kahlo and her husband, Diego Rivera. He helped to care for Frida after she was terribly hurt in a bus accident. He said he never saw anyone endure so much pain. They loved him because he was an American and a doctor and he tried to help the Mexican people. After we had been together for twelve years, he asked me to marry him. We had only a few months as man and wife before he discovered he had tuberculosis.”

“The same disease that killed Velma.”

“Yes. Now we have both lost someone to this disease. He remembered Wyoming, the way your brother talked about it. We moved to Sheridan for the clean air, but it didn’t help. He died.”

“That’s when Ezra brought you to us, after Doc Hodgson died and you couldn’t get hired as a nurse. I’m awful sorry to hear what happened to you, Juanita. It’s terrible, the things human beings will do to one another.”