Bearstone features just a few characters, and only two are really important: Cloyd and Walter. Susan, Cloyd's social worker/housemother, is the only female with any real involvement in Cloyd's life, especially since he is separated from his grandmother, but she is strictly a secondary character. Rusty, Walter's hunter/trapper friend, figures into some of the action, but he provides excuse and motivation for what Cloyd does rather than existing for his own sake. The blue roan horse, "Blue," given to Cloyd by Walter, becomes Cloyd's initial confidant. Boy and horse develop a relationship based on initially tentative respect, but their relationship strengthens until Blue deliberately suffers a nasty fall in order to protect Cloyd from more serious injury. This sacrifice on the part of the horse mirrors Cloyd's own response to Walter's injury later—despite the wariness with which Cloyd initially encountered...