McCarthy sets the novel on a literal and metaphorical border: The Parham land is not far from Mexican territory, and their way of life similarly abuts a watershed moment in the region’s history. McCarthy marries physical and temporal setting to explore the transition from life on the American frontier to a new sense of national and geographical identity. Hidalgo County, New Mexico was established in 1920, and the Parham family arrived soon after to settle the land and begin ranching there. They are the generation at the tail end of what is considered as the Old West, the period when the Western and Southwestern states of America were first settled. The Old West is defined by tension between lawlessness and order, history and possibility. Hidalgo County is in transition toward civilization and modernity, which is apparent in many ways: The tension between the wandering Indigenous man and the Parham boys in the opening pages of the novel demonstrates a resentment toward settlement; horses and Model A trucks mingle on the road; and, symbolically, the wild wolves have been driven to extinction in the Animas Valley.

Hunters like Echols engaged in the practice of trapping and hunting for wolves in order to make the valley safe for ranchers.