The Crossing

Content Warning: This summary section contains mention of sexual assault.

Billy buries the wolf, then wanders on horseback for several weeks, relying on a homemade bow and the kindness of others to stay alive. In one village, a man calls him an orphan and warns him that he must “cease his wandering and make for himself some place in the world” (134). Billy ignores his warning and continues to drift through the half-settled wilds that are home to Indigenous and rural Mexican communities.

He comes to a destroyed town that was leveled by a terremoto (earthquake) and encounters a man who claims to be the caretaker of the church there. He invites Billy inside the ruined church, which is occupied by many cats. He declares that Billy is lost and feeds him. Then he launches into the story of why he came to this ruined town “seeking evidence for the hand of God in the world” (142):

The caretaker came to follow in the footsteps of a man from the town of Caborca. The man once lived in Huisiachepic with a wife and son. He took his son to Bavispe to stay with his padrino, and the boy was killed in an earthquake.