Fall
There is a vivid description of nature, fall and winter, of the year the narrator's brother died. It appeared that the summer would last into winter and the fall of that year's been brief. The narrator makes a detailed description of the sudden season change into fall-the nature turned its usual golden and gloomy colors, mosquitoes disappeared and the stars lost their shine. Along with fall came the sharp winter and the day their father sent them to take care of the cattle and the day the narrator lost his brother.
Bird imagery
There is vast bird imagery in the novel. Aside from the obvious-horse's name being Bird, there are actual bird mentions, like the narrator comparing his emotional distance to a hawk, there was also a hawk flying above on the night his brother died, to the imagery of a magpie coming to watch the narrator as he struggles to free the cow out of the mud. At the end, the narrator is wearing a necktie with an image of two mallards that belonged to his father.
