The Crossing

The narrative shifts to the perspective of the she-wolf, who has traveled from Sonora after her mate bit her, “standing with one forefoot in the jaws of a steeltrap and snarling at her to drive her off […]” (24). She is pregnant, starving, and alone, and she knows that she cannot stay in one place for long. Drawn by the scent of another wolf, she finds the traps and digs one out from where it’s been buried.

Billy and his father find the traps and reset them, but the wolf keeps digging them up again. They go to the SK Bar and borrow more traps, which Boyd prepares the next morning. Billy offers to convince their father to let Boyd come along, but when their father invites him, Boyd refuses until Billy forces him to accept. They hide the traps and end up snaring a cow, who escapes. The next day, Billy and Boyd ride out to find the cow. When they do, Boyd rides after it and lassos it, but the cow bolts, causing Boyd to be thrown from his horse as his saddle slips off and is dragged by the cow until it’s destroyed beyond repair.

Billy sets the trap lines alone, and when it snows overnight, he tells his father he’s going to see where the wolf has been. His father gives him his rifle, and Billy rides out into the new-looking snowy mountains. He follows wolf tracks to where the wolf chased some cattle and brought down a young heifer. After stopping to study what the wolf has eaten, he continues following her tracks all day and arrives home after dark. He and his father intend to run trap lines on Saturday and Sunday, but his mother insists they observe the Sabbath. That night, Boyd admits he's had a recurring dream of a dry lakebed on fire with people burning in it. He insists something bad is going to happen.

The trapping continues, to no avail. Billy and Boyd ride out (with Billy in a new saddle and Boyd using Billy’s hand-me-down) and find a large dead heifer. Billy suggests they do not tell their father. Billy revisits Echols’s cabin, then rides out to Animas, where he visits an old man, Don Arnulfo. A woman hesitates to let Billy in, as Arnulfo is sick. She relents, and Billy asks Arnulfo about trapping wolves.

Arnulfo speaks to Billy in Spanish. When Billy admits he is from La Charca and Arnulfo doesn’t know him, the man says “Hay una historia allá […] Una historia desgraciada” (there’s a story out there [...] A disgraceful story, 44). Billy asks Arnulfo about Echols’s scent mixture for bait. Arnulfo insists that all the wolves are gone, then speaks philosophically of wolves in Spanish. He says wolves are hunters who understand death better than men do, and that Billy’s desire to catch the wolf is foolish, because “If you catch it you lose it. And where it goes there is no coming back from” (46). As Billy leaves, Arnulfo tells him he will find the wolf in a place where “[…] God sits and conspires in the destruction of that which he has been at such pains to create” (47).

The woman tells Billy that Arnulfo is losing his memory and was accused of witchcraft. She warns him that Arnulfo is an old, distant relation of hers, that no one cares for him except for her, and that the same could happen to Billy.

After more failed trapping, Billy finds evidence that the wolf dug up a vaqueros’ campfire. He sets a trap in the remains of their fire, leaving them a warning note. At home, his father chides him for arriving late, then tells him he must remove the trap first thing in the morning, as the vaqueros likely can’t read.

In the morning, Billy rides out to the campsite where “the wolf [stands] up to meet him” (53). Her leg, though unbroken, is snared by the trap and exposed to the bone. The wolf regards him warily, and Billy debates what to do. Finally, he lassos the wolf, and manages to tie her, muzzle her with a stick, and free her from the trap. His horse runs off during the dangerous work. The wolf struggles to escape but tires, and Billy tells her “It aint no use to fight it” (57).

As Billy tries to recover his horse, a man in a Model A truck rides up, and Billy pins the wolf down to keep her from struggling. Billy tells the shocked man that he intends to take the wolf home to Mexico. The man hesitantly helps Billy recover his horse before driving off. Billy pins the wolf down and gives her water through the makeshift muzzle, then rides for an hour with the wolf trailing slowly behind. Billy reaches a crossroads: To the north is Cloverdale, where he might turn the wolf in for a bounty and return home. To the south is the open country and the mountains of Mexico. Billy rides rides south.