This is Volume Two of the "Border Trilogy". '"The Crossing", together with its predecessor "All the Pretty Horses", towers over most contemporary fiction. An American epic infused with a grand solemnity' - "Sunday Times". Set on the south-western ranches in the years before the Second World War, "The Crossing" follows the fortunes of sixteen-year-old Billy and his younger brother Boyd. Fascinated by an elusive wolf that has been marauding his family's property, Billy captures the animal - but rather than kill it, sets out impulsively for the mountains of Mexico to return it to where it came from. When Billy comes back to his own home he finds himself and his world irrevocably changed. His loss of innocence has come at a price, and once again the border beckons with its desolate beauty and cruel promise. 'McCarthy writes prose as clean as a bullet cutting through the air and constructs tales as compelling as any you will read ...They are stories about people as real as the land they ride and as disturbing as the rituals they enact' - "Daily Telegraph".