Billy Parham is the protagonist of The Crossing. At the beginning of the novel, Billy, 16, is eager to prove himself to his father and has adopted many of his father’s traits: stoicism, a dogged work ethic, and a methodical approach to problem solving. As the novel is rendered largely in a third-person objective point of view, and because Billy is a boy of few words, he is often opaque as a character, and the reader must make inferences from his behavior and interiority.

Billy’s decision to return the wolf to Mexico is a turning point in his life. By making this independent choice, Billy attempts to take agency over the world and, in some ways, from his father. His journey is motivated by the desire to rectify what he sees as an injustice in the world: The wolf is where she does not belong, which does not warrant her death. Over the course of his travels with the wolf, he bonds with her through caring for her, though, importantly, the wolf is still depicted as a wild animal who perceives Billy as a threat. The naïveté of his rationale is revealed to him when the constables confiscate his wolf, teaching Billy that he cannot enforce his own notion of justice on the existing structures.