The Crossing

Billy rides back toward America, passing through ruined towns with hundreds of years of history. In Bacerac, a household takes him in and feeds him wordlessly, and in the morning, he thinks he sees his father’s horse. Finding no one, he writes his thanks in a dusting of flour and leaves, riding back through Bavispe and Colonia de Oaxaca, where he stops to spit on the alguacil’s house. He rides through the border crossing at Douglas, Arizona, where a guard named John Gilchrist loans him a half dollar. Billy promises to repay him when he returns home and asks Gilchrist how he likes America. Gilchrist says “I like it fine,” and Billy responds, “I do too” before riding off (163).

Billy rides through the night to get back home, but no one is there. He learns from Sanders there’s been an attack, and he turns his parents’ mattress over to find a large bloodstain, which causes him to weep.

Billy sleeps in the wilderness, then goes to the sheriff’s office, where he hears what the authorities think happened: In the night, Indigenous men slit the dog’s throat and killed Billy’s parents with a shotgun, stealing the horses and whatever else they could. Boyd ran away, and the dog survived but is mute. The sheriff produces documents recovered from the house, including a birth certificate for Margarita Evelyn Parham, Billy’s deceased sister. Billy wants to get Boyd, but the sheriff says that Boyd won’t be released into Billy’s custody. The sheriff asks what Billy traded his rifle for. Billy replies, “I aint sure I could put a name to it” (170).

Billy rides to the house Boyd is staying in. With no argument, Boyd helps Billy steal a shotgun and supplies from his hosts and rides out with him doubled up on Bird. The mute dog follows them and stays with them throughout their journey. Camping that night, Boyd mentions they’ll be hunted for robbing the family, and Billy says, “Maybe you better just get used to the idea of bein a outlaw” (172). Boyd tells Billy that the men who killed their parents knew his name. In the morning, a man rides out to them. Billy says they’re going to Douglas, Arizona, and the man says he’ll tell his boss they were just drifters, not the Parhams. In reality, the boys are going to Mexico to hunt the people who killed their parents.

On their journey, the two brothers are testy and questioning of each other. Billy sees an intense sadness in Boyd but doesn’t know how to address it. At the border crossing, Gilchrist isn’t there, so Boyd leaves a half dollar for him. When Boyd gets offended that Billy re-counted the change that Boyd handed him, Billy makes a point of saying it won’t happen again.

They get supplies and ride further South, with Billy trying to reassure Boyd that they’ll be okay. They ride for a week until they reach Bacerac and see one of their stolen horses, Keno. Billy makes Boyd ride Bird and Keno out of town while he sees who’s in the house, leaving the shotgun with Boyd. Inside, a funeral is going on. Billy confronts a man about Keno and learns the man is a German doctor with legitimate papers of ownership.

Billy returns to Boyd and tells him that he told the German doctor the truth. The German doctor has borrowed a new horse to hunt the men who sold him the stolen Keno. Billy believes they need to go to Casas Grandes next, and they go into town for directions. An old man draws them an elaborate map, but locals mock him after he leaves and tell Billy that the map is nonsense. Two locals debate whether a false map with good intentions is better than no map at all. As the two continue to argue about the philosophy of maps and that all journeys lead to the grave, another man takes Billy and Boyd out of town and shows them the path they need to travel through the mountains, saying the trip will take four days.

The two boys ride into the mountains. That night, they bicker about whether the horses know they’re in Mexico. The next day they find a pasture to camp in, then wash their tattered clothes in a spring and sleep while they dry. They wake to find members of the Tarahumaras tribe watching them. The Tarahumara feed them without speaking to them and move on. Billy and Boyd ride on, passing the ancient ruin of Chichimeca, which is inhabited by squatters, then on to Casas Grandes.

Sitting at a café under the first electric lights they’ve seen on their journey, Boyd worries that getting Keno back was too easy. They camp outside of town, then in the morning go to the offices of a ganadero (rancher) named Soto. There, Billy encounters a man named Gillian. Billy says he’s looking for the man who provided Keno to him to sell. Gillian is suspicious and sees Boyd outside. Billy brings him in. Gillian questions Boyd, who tells him the story. Gillian doesn’t believe them, thinking himself an accomplished judge of the people who sell to him.

Gillian presents documents saying Keno was purchased in a lot at auction from La Babícora ranch. Gillian says the man who stole their horses may work for the owner, Hearst, and advises Boyd and Billy to return home. Billy listens to the man, but Boyd is angry. Gillian warns Billy that Boyd “is young enough to believe that the past still exists […] that the injustices within it await his remedy” (202). Billy doesn’t reveal his intentions to Gillian, but they leave.

They take the road to San Diego and pass a young woman who is crying. Billy offers her a ride, and she declines, and Boyd and Billy bicker. Later in the night, they pass her again, and Billy offers her a ride once more, which she again refuses. Further on, they encounter two men headed in the opposite direction, and they decide to wait to see that the woman is okay. When she doesn’t appear, Billy wants to go back.

They find the woman sitting with the two men by a fire. The men are unfriendly and make Boyd take the horses away from the camp. Then they question Billy’s intentions, ask how old he is, and try and get him to drink their mezcal. One of the men implies that they intend to rape the girl. Billy takes the bottle of mezcal and drinks most of it at the same moment Boyd makes all their horses run through the camp. Boyd charges in with the shotgun, and they rescue the girl, riding off into the night. The next morning, they wake to find that she has started the fire and made breakfast for them, though she doesn’t speak English and hasn’t spoken.