Where he reached the river it made a broad sweep out of a canyon and carried down past great stands of carrizo cane. Downriver it washed up against a rock bluff and then bore away to the south. Darkness deep in the canyon. The water dark. He dropped into the cut and fell and rolled and rose and began to make his way down a long sandy ridge toward the river. (p. 32)
Only McCarthy would describe the landscape as a man is running for his life.
This seems to bother some people. The tie that McCarthy has with the land that makes it so important in his stories. I love it. The canvas, the field, the necessary plane on which all life and color move.
The Lost Children: A Charity Anthology