A younger ranch hand at Mac's ranch who teases the other cowboys and runs errands for Mr Johnson. He is observant and mouthy.

A cowhand at Mac's ranch who is Billy's friend and companion. He favours large women, tells war stories, and is a steady, good-natured presence among the hands.

The cook and housekeeper at Mac's ranch. She prepares breakfast for the hands each morning, watches over the household with the careful attention of someone who has been at the ranch longer than most of its current inhabitants, and is devoted to the men whose meals she keeps.

An elderly man living at Mac's ranch who shuffles into the kitchen for coffee and sugar. JC says he has been getting eccentric since his daughter died, but Billy insists there is nothing wrong with him.

A New Mexico ranch boy who crosses into Mexico three times, each journey marking a deeper loss. First to return a wolf to the mountains, then to find his brother Boyd, and finally alongside John Grady Cole on the ranch near the border. Taciturn, solitary, and haunted by everything he has witnessed and failed to prevent.

The last in a line of Texas ranchers, John Grady Cole is sixteen years old when his family's ranch is sold after his grandfather's death. A gifted horseman with an almost supernatural understanding of animals, he rides south into Mexico with his friend Lacey Rawlins in search of a life that is rapidly disappearing. He is principled, stubborn, and incapable of compromise - qualities that bring him both love and destruction.