What could happen as a result of the character interaction? How do the characters advance the plot?
Are there any changes or conflicts that occur in the characters? How do these changes or conflicts develop a theme?
Demetrio awoke with a start. He waded the river, following its course which ran counter to the canyon; he climbed the crags1 laboriously as an ant, gripping root and rock with his hands, clutching every stone in the trail with his bare feet.
When he reached the summit, he glanced down to see the sun steeping the valley in a lake of gold. Near the canyon, enormous rocks loomed like fantastic skulls. The pitaya trees rose like the tapering, gnarled fingers of a giant; other trees of all sorts bowed their crests toward the pit of the abyss. Amid the stark rocks and dry branches, roses bloomed like a white offering to the sun as smoothly, it unraveled its golden threads, one by one, from rock to rock.
Demetrio stopped at the summit. Reaching backward, with his right arm he drew his horn which hung at his back, held it up to his lips, and, swelling his cheeks out, blew three loud blasts. From across the hill close by, three sharp whistles answered his signal.
In the distance, from a conical2 heap of reeds and dry straws, man after man emerged, one after the other, their legs and chests lambent3 as old bronze. They rushed forward to greet Demetrio and stopped before him.
“They’ve run me out of my house,” he said.
A murmur of insults and threats rose among them.
Demetrio let their anger run its course. Then he drew a flask of water from under his shirt and took a deep swig, wiped the neck of the bottle with the back of his hand and passed it around. It passed from mouth to mouth; not a drop was left.
