Crossroads

Content Warning: This section of the guide includes discussion of illness and death.

When Indya returns to the ranch, she meets resistance, including from West, who does not know Indya’s intentions and thinks that she is there to disrupt his life. Her presence leads West to confront not only his own failures but also the painful truth that the ranch has deteriorated into near bankruptcy. West cannot forgive himself for the mistakes that led to its downfall, weighed down by regret as he reflects, “I wished I had done things differently” (55). The ranch’s demise wasn’t the result of just one failure but a series of unfortunate choices: his parents’ divorce, Courtney’s scam, the ill-fated land purchase, and Curtis’s stubborn refusal to change. All these factors created a slow collapse that West could not prevent, but he feels responsible for them, nevertheless. For West, the combination of guilt and grief is immobilizing: He sinks into despair, unwilling to believe that the ranch has a future. Indya, meanwhile, does what he never could—she gives the ranch a second chance. Through her determination, stubbornness, and loyalty to her father, Indya is able to transform the ranch into the place it always deserved to be.