Eleanor Gates

“ Padre Anzar raised his shoulders, strode over to knife and trowel and caught them up. “Move her as thou wilt,” he said grumpily, “and the farther the better. Tony is proper for us, pretty and songful. But that parrot,”–he shook his tools as if they were Loretta–“how altogether useless and ugly and noisy and blasphemous and good-for-naught!”
With this he departed into the shrubbery.
Sounds were still coming from the kitchen–Gabrielda’s cracked voice, Loretta’s cries, the sullen yowling of a cat. Nodding sadly, Padre Alonzo waddled to the perch, vacant and formed like a cross. ”

“ The padre’s look travelled from the scattered flowers to the vacant perch, from the perch to the naked branches swaying against the trellis, from the branches to the wide, warm top of the ’dobe wall. And there was Loretta, patrolling in unconcealed apprehension. ”

“ II High at the garden’s centre, nailed to a massive tree of wood, stood out the Sacrifice. From behind, fir and pine thrust their long green boughs, as if eager to screen that torn and unclad shape. From below, jasmine and geranium, carnation and rose, sent upward an unfailing incense. ”