In New Mexico: Privacy Without Reservation

"I assume you believe in something, I some God, something?" the Pueblo councilman Domingo Atencio was saying in a voice as soft as the surrounding terrain: New Mexico.

"I occasionally hear a church bell," the visitor said, immediately thinking what an insolent thing that was to say, given these or any other circumstances.

Atencio brushed the dust off the toe of a moccasin—sensible footgear, the color of bare earth after rain—and in the doing he seemed to dismiss the impertinence. He continued gently, "If you are sitting in church praying and someone knocks at...