A comment on the Border Trilogy. The books of Cormac McCarthy's Border Trilogy, in order of publication, are All the Pretty Horses, The Crossing, and Cities of the Plain. But the books are not a story in sequence and are not sequential even in theme. Rather, they are three pieces of a large puzzle, a picture of the American Southwest, specifically an area of the border with Mexico that runs from Laredo, Texas, to Tucson, Arizona. McCarthy is presenting a picture of that vast desert, grassland, and mountain region where the last of the pioneers settled.
The three books can be read in any order because each enhances the story and expands upon the themes of the others. The Crossing is in many ways parallel to All the Pretty Horses. The main character in The Crossing, Billy Parham, goes to Mexico the first time alone, to take a pregnant, injured wolf back to its home in the mountains after its mate has been killed. Parham begins this difficult task at the end of the 1930s and is away for some time. When he returns, his parents have been murdered and six horses stolen. So he leaves with his younger brother, Boyd, to return to Mexico and retrieve the horses. Billy (about 17 years old) and Boyd (almost 15 years old) travel several weeks and find the horses, but they lose most of the horses again, and Boyd is wounded on their return trip. Billy finds a kind old doctor who saves Boyd's life, but Boyd insists on Billy going to find the young girl who had accompanied them on part of their journey in Mexico. After he is well, Boyd and the girl run away together, and Billy travels around for several months and can't find them. So finally, he returns to the United States alone. World War II has begun, and he tries to enlist but is rejected several times for a minor heart defect. He decides to return to Mexico after finding one of their horses at a ranch; instead of finding Boyd, he finds Boyd's grave. Billy digs up his brother's body and brings his remains home.
