Nefti - Don Kenne

Nefti is a blue-eyed bastard Navajo girl raised exclusively by her mother on a Navajo Reservation in the Four Corners region of New Mexico.  She rises above both poor schools and tribal abuse.  She does not know her father.  She earns entrance to U of New Mexico and ends up studying in Pre Med.  Through a series of events while in college, she reunites her family and in doing so gains new insight to her own prejudice towards her people.  She graduates, begins Med School at U of NM.  Due to her achievements, she is drawn into  the Hantavirus crisis of 1994 which killed many Navajo.  She is placed on the CDC field team.  Through a 'miracle' she discovers her father and Nefti and her father are key to the team solving the cause of the outbreak.  The story ends with Nefti in her Medical Residence meeting the hero of my sequel novel Tommy.  Nefti is very faithful in capturing the true crisis involved with this disease outbreak including the time line and the severity of Hantavirus which remains true to this day.