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When Ty goes to pick up a set of horses from an especially sketchy fellow, he meets Dakota who is basically a freeloader who goes from ranch to ranch helping with tasks in order to earn her stay. Dakota convinces Ty that she is just going to hitch a ride with him. What Ty doesn't know is that Dakota has put among his horses her own favorite horse which she does not own. Ty, Dakota and the stolen horse travel to Ty's ranch in Kansas.
Once in Kansas, the two are taking care of the horses, completely platonic but slowly developing a relationship. Eventually (not instantly which was nice because it was more realistic) the two end up becoming intimate. As they are growing closer, both Ty and Dakota are struggling with telling one another their own personal secrets and both are dancing around the inevitable. Ty is keeping his past to himself and Dakota is not mentioning there is a stolen horse in the barn.
Shortly thereafter, the sketchy horse trader, Eddie, and his customer come out to Ty's ranch to see some of his horses and see if they want to buy any. The customer is someone who Ty recognizes - his friend Harney from childhood who he committed the assault with. Ty can tell that Eddie and Harney are not really there to buy a horse because of the way they are acting and Ty knows it is coming close to him having to face his past.
While Dakota is out, Ty comes home from the fields the next day and is assaulted by Harney and his crew because it is their horse that Dakota has stolen and Harney holds additional resentment from the past. Harney kills the horse, stabs Ty with a pitchfork, steals the rest of the animals and runs off. Dakota finds Ty, brings him to the hospital where he holds on by a thread and waits for him to recover.
Once he recovers, Ty faces the facts that he has to go home to Nebraska and make peace with his past. He and Dakota travel back to Nebraska where he stays with his father. His father and he also have a past history of resentment and abuse between them. His father blamed him for his younger brother's death and vice versa. His father is now dying of emphazyema and Dakota helps take care of him.
With Ty being back in town and Harney being head of the bank in town, the two face off again. Harney is a sick and twisted character and we learn that he is just plain demented and violent. However, to the rest of the town he looks like an upstanding citizen and Ty is the one who looks like the son of a drunk rancher and a vagrant.
Through a series of events, Ty and Harney end up back in court for the assault charge that Harney put all on Ty years before. Ty ends up being forced to tell Dakota about the senseless violence he committed against two Native American boys with Harney that night. But we come to see he was just a dumb kid (which he does not excuse himself for) and Harney is the true sick mastermind behind the whole thing.
When they face justice again, they are both found guilty but the court sees that Harney holds more of the responsibility and he is forced to make stiffer reperations and lose his good reputation in town. The book ends with Ty and Dakota finding Harney trying to harm Ty's horses in his barn but being kicked to death by the horse before he could.
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Sometimes the relationships in the book get a confusing and you have to backpedal a bit to see who is who, but that is what makes it endearing as well. Life is confusing and real relationships are complicated. The relationships in the book could be an actual slice of life. You see raw emotions from the characters. When they feel panic, you feel panic; when they feel anger, you feel anger.
The slice of life reality in The Weight of Dreams coupled with an interesting story and characters you care about make it an enjoyable read. Despite its four hundred plus pages, it can be read in a week because it holds your interest.
