The Crossing is the second novel of the Border Trilogy. In the years around the Second World War, Billy Parham, a boy from New Mexico, crosses into Mexico several times, first to return a trapped wolf to the mountains, and later in search of his family's stolen horses and his lost brother. Each journey tests him and brings meetings with strangers who offer stories about fate and God. The novel is slow, grave and richly written, and it explores youth, grief and the uncertain meaning of a life shaped by chance.
Quotes
The road has its own reasons and no two travelers will have the same understanding of those reasons. If indeed they come to an understanding of them at all.
We think we are the victims of time. In reality, the way of the world isn't fixed anywhere. How could that be possible? We are our own journey. And therefore we are time as well. We are the same. Fugitive. Inscrutable. Ruthless.
Billy asked him if such men as had stole his eyes were only products of the war but the blind man said that since war itself was their very doing that could hardly be the case.
If you could breathe a breath so strong you could blow out the wolf. Like you blow out the copo. Like you blow out the fire from the candela. The wolf is made the way the world is made. You cannot touch the world. You cannot hold it in your hand for it is made of breath only.