An Unlikely Friendship

Within this overly long winded writing, in the first part of the novel, we embark on a journey. What the reader does not expect is to read roughly 100 pages about this “wolf hunt” which ends up being almost non-existent. I found it slightly moving to see the bond that Billy forms for the wolf.

I think the challenge the wolf brings to its huntress allows for a respect to be born. I also believe that the freedom to roam, discover, and risk lends to creating a bond between Billy and the wolf. His ability to provide for her and care for her well being make him form an attachment, give him a purpose. I believe that the bond began after trapping her, when he viewed her in her most vulnerable state, not necessarily as a killer, but something in need of compassion and care. “He talked to her a long time and as the boy tending the wolf could not understand what it was he said he said what was in his heart” (105).

Then the text goes on to explain perhaps what forms the strongest bond between the wolf and Billy and it reads, “She watched him with her yellow eyes and in them was no despair but only that same reckonless deep of loneliness that cored the world to its heart" (105). In my opinion that sentence explains it all.