Content: 94

Summary:

"When Two Trails Become One" takes place in 1972, with flashbacks to 1940, and mainly centers on Jessie and Clayton as they essentially find each other again after about three decades. A loveless marriage and a less than fulfilling "relationship" start Jessie looking back on her past, which begins to virtually overlap with the present. In numerous twists and turns, the story explores the complexities of human nature, highlighting qualities relating to identity, beliefs, and love in various forms. The story opens with Jessie feeling "annoyed that her seclusion is in danger of being interrupted by 'some city slicker' on horseback who wouldn't have the foggiest notion of how to find his way back down the mountain after dark." Her feelings about Jace Edwards, her live-in lover, take something of a turn, and saying "I'll be back in two weeks," she heads out for a ride up on Cry Baby Mountain to the cabin she and Clayton had discovered all those years ago. Over the last thirty-one years thoughts of Clayton had surfaced at random and usually at the most inconvenient times. Her father viewed Clayton as a 'worthless drifter' and had told Jessie she was never to lay eyes on him again, and Clayton felt Jessie didn't stand up for him. As the narrative moves back and forth in time marking certain experiences that may lead to a reunion, Jessie and Clayton strive to reconcile their individual motivations and responses. When she goes missing, a rescue team takes action and the sheriff commences an investigation into 'who attacked Jessie up on Cry Baby Mountain.' In the concluding pages of the story, the sheriff focuses a degree of attention toward Dakota Jay, a longtime friend of both Jessie and Clayton. A journal entry from Clayton furnishes some potentially unexpected information, and Jessie ponders whether or not, in her overzealous quest to find Clayton, maybe she had overlooked some important details. With elements of suspense and emotion, this offering is designed to capture the imagination as well as to provoke thought. The possibility of a sequel is left open with Jessie heading down "a dirt road with Clayton's blue hand-painted truck just ahead" and thinking to herself, "sometimes love isn't so much about what you give as it is what you don't give."

Chapters: