The Crossing

Billy crosses back into America in Columbus, New Mexico, and learns that America has entered World War II. He tries to enlist at the recruitment office, where the officer says he needs a next of kin’s signature, since he isn’t yet 18. Billy explains he has no kin, and the officer tells him to get his mother’s signature “if she has to come down from heaven to do it” (336), giving Billy tacit permission to forge the document. He does so, but not with his mother’s real name.

The medical examiner reveals that Billy has a heart murmur and rejects him. Billy wanders around New Mexico for the next several months, working as a day laborer or ranch hand and applying for the army at different recruitment offices. He is always rejected. When a doctor asks him why he’s so determined, he says “If I’m going to die anyway why not use me?” (341).

He goes to visit the SK Bar ranch and talks with Sanders, who is dismayed by the state of the world and his own aging. Billy hires on with another ranch for several months. In a bar, he’s mocked by a soldier for not being in the army.