The River, The Corn, and The Coyote

From p.1:

At the end of a long and dusty road, where mongrel dogs scavenged and sun-dried old men rocked and nodded in the noonday heat, Rafael Dominguez stood in his doorway wiping sweat from his brow and squinting into the heavens. There was not a cloud in the sky, nor had there been for many weeks, and the well he had helped two men from the village dig last year had stopped giving. Even the river had gradually grown narrower, thinned to a small stream, then, with time, had simply vanished.

From p. 2:

There it was, again. The sound of a coyote, long and wailing in the darkness. When he moved to the window, he saw the coyote’s thin shadow as it stood near the old saguaro cactus that had stood for time eternal on a hill overlooking the village. He stepped carefully over Conchita and the children, closed the decrepit, wood door quietly behind him, then walked down the path he and others had worn with their feet and sandals over the years that led to the banks of the river.

“This is where I will make my confession,” Rafael Dominguez spoke softly. “No priest; only God will hear my words tonight.”