Wednesday, November 4, 2020

An abused wife tries to escape her brutal spouse

Rebecca Quinn, with a black eye and a battered body, awakens in an unfamiliar room. She is in the Salt River Inn, owned and run by Gaby, her aunt's former college roommate. We learn that Becca has escaped from her abusive husband back in New Jersey. Thus begins Wild Horses on the Salt by Anne Montgomery.

Montgomery's earlier novels are The Scent of Rain and A Light in the Desert. As a freelance or staff reporter on six publications she's written features, movie reviews, archeological pieces, and about sports. She taught communications and journalism in a Phoenix high school for 20 years. 

The Salt River Inn on—what else?—the Salt River is surrounded by the Tonto National Forest, east of Phoenix. It's the fifth largest national forest in the United States offering mountains, the Sonoran Desert, and to the north the Mogollon Rim. A wild and stunning land. The Salt River, because it is relatively close to Phoenix, is a popular rafting and boating river; the four dams on the river have formed lakes that are also popular for boating and fishing.

Among the Forest's wildlife—desert raccoons, black bears, coyotes, Arizona skunks, bobcats, white-tailed deer, desert mule deer, ring-tailed cats, pronghorns, javelinas, roadrunners, prairie falcons, bald eagles, long-eared owls, Western red-tailed hawks, great blue herons, North American cougars, barn owls, and kestrels (birdwatching plays a part in the novel)—wild horses are both an attraction and a nuisance. They get on the road, they get into farmers' fields; they are targets for gun-happy delinquents. 

Early in the novel, a careless driver hits a wild stallion who is injured. The "Salt River Wild Horse Volunteers" capture the stallion, have a vet treat him, and bring him to Noah's ranch to recover. The stallion escapes from Noah's corral and as thread through the book follows the stallion's adventures as he seeks to rejoin his band of mares. 

(By the way, it's possible to volunteer for the Salt River Wild Horse Management Group which raises money, monitors horses on the river, fixes fences to keep horses off the roads, and more. Just one of the elements that roots Montgomery's novel in a real place.)

Becca, suffering from post-traumatic syndrome, meets the rest of the novel's cast: Noah, a youngish, single, beekeeper/rancher/hydrologist (a big deal in arid Arizona) . . . Walt, a middle-aged blacksmith-sculptor/cook/handyman and Gaby's significant other . . . and Oscar, a retired psychiatrist and avid birdwatcher.

Back in New Jersey, Becca had grown up in a home filled with abuse as her father knocked her mother around, frightening young Becca. When Becca's lawyer husband begins abusing her, she takes it as almost expected. She lies to friends and excuses her husband. Although she found art the most rewarding subject in college, she submitted to her parents' wishes and is herself a lawyer working in her father's firm

Surrounded by desert and mountains, protected by Gaby and Walt, and rediscovering her love of—and talent for—painting and watercolor, Becca's physical bruises heal. The psychic bruises are taking longer however and when, as the reader has to suspect from page 2, her estranged, psychotic husband shows up at the Inn Becca has to make some serious choices.

Wild Horses on the Salt paints a picture of the land, the flora and the fauna attractive enough that it sent me to look up the Tonto National Forest and the Salt River. The Salt River Inn may not exist in Arizona (there is one in Missouri), but my search found a number of appealing places to stay along the river. Perhaps when Covid-19 has passed into history . . . . Meanwhile, we have the novel.

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