They found him under a big cottonwood tree. His Levi jacket and pants were faded light-blue so that he had been easy to find. The big cottonwood tree stood apart from a small grove of winter bare cottonwoods which grew in the wide, sandy, arroyo. He had been dead for a day or more, and the sheep had wandered and scattered up and down the arroyo. Leon and his brother-in-law, Ken, gathered the sheep and left them in the pen at the sheep camp before they returned to the cottonwood tree. Leon waited under the tree while Ken drove the truck through the deep sand to the edge of the arroyo. He squinted up at the sun and unzipped his jacket. It sure was hot for this time of year. But high and northwest the blue mountains were still deep in snow. Ken
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"It's getting late, Father. I've got to go."
When Leon opened the door Father Paul stood up and said, "Wait." He left the room and came back wearing a long brown overcoat. He followed Leon out the door and across the dim churchyard to the adobe steps in front of the church. They both stooped to fit through the low adobe entrance. And when they started down the hill to the graveyard only half of the sun was visible above the mesa.
The priest approached the grave slowly, wondering how they had managed to dig into the frozen ground; and then he remembered that this was New Mexico, and saw the pile of cold loose sand beside the hole. The people stood close to each other with little clouds of steam puffing from their faces. The priest looked at them and saw a pile of jackets, gloves, and scarves in the yellow, dry tumbleweeds that grew in the graveyard. He looked at the red blanket, not sure that Teofilo was so small, wondering if it wasn't some perverse Indian trick or something they did in March to ensure a good harvest, wondering if maybe old Teofilo was actually at sheep camp corralling the sheep for the …show more content…
In the stories Old Man of the Temple by R.K. Narayan and The Man to Send Rain Clouds by Leslie Marmon Silko are two short stories that use culture and religion to develop the plot.
The Old Man of the Temple is set in India where their culture has many connections to Hinduism. The Hindu religion believes in reincarnation and many gods. In this short story, there is a scene where a young man has a flashback envisioning an old man walking out of a temple. The main theme of the story is that life is lived in the future, not the past. The reason is that the old man is continuously referring to past events. Until the taxi driver realises this and helps the old man's spirit, he is condemned to the same cycle of events unless he embraces the
"It's getting late, Father. I've got to go."
When Leon opened the door Father Paul stood up and said, "Wait." He left the room and came back wearing a long brown overcoat. He followed Leon out the door and across the dim churchyard to the adobe steps in front of the church. They both stooped to fit through the low adobe entrance. And when they started down the hill to the graveyard only half of the sun was visible above the mesa.
The priest approached the grave slowly, wondering how they had managed to dig into the frozen ground; and then he remembered that this was New Mexico, and saw the pile of cold loose sand beside the hole. The people stood close to each other with little clouds of steam puffing from their faces. The priest looked at them and saw a pile of jackets, gloves, and scarves in the yellow, dry tumbleweeds that grew in the graveyard. He looked at the red blanket, not sure that Teofilo was so small, wondering if it wasn't some perverse Indian trick or something they did in March to ensure a good harvest, wondering if maybe old Teofilo was actually at sheep camp corralling the sheep for the …show more content…
In the stories Old Man of the Temple by R.K. Narayan and The Man to Send Rain Clouds by Leslie Marmon Silko are two short stories that use culture and religion to develop the plot.
The Old Man of the Temple is set in India where their culture has many connections to Hinduism. The Hindu religion believes in reincarnation and many gods. In this short story, there is a scene where a young man has a flashback envisioning an old man walking out of a temple. The main theme of the story is that life is lived in the future, not the past. The reason is that the old man is continuously referring to past events. Until the taxi driver realises this and helps the old man's spirit, he is condemned to the same cycle of events unless he embraces the