Blue Horse Dreaming

Sad sad sad sad story of two lives scarred and doomed by man's inhumanity to man. Double your dose of medication for this streaming narrative of savagery and loss. You won't soon forget it. Be prepared for strong imagery and vivid descriptions of the destructive effect of violence, the unforgiving landscape, and the terrible consequences of fate that befall both protagonists. It's worth reading and reflecting on this book, especially as it bears on current events. How easily we can misunderstand and want to eradicate others than ourselves. It works both ways.

Abigail Buwell sits by her blue roan and thinks: "I could have said this, that I was born, truly born, under a sky of shooting stars, beside a herd of grazing horses wearing moonlight on their coats. That the air smelled of water and juniper, and that I was born like this, whole. That I had lived only for some four years: that was the span of my true life." Totally against her will, Abigail Buwell was redeemed from Indian captivity by an abusive brother-in-law whom she feared and hated. Her lawfully wedded husband - in name only - had died four years before, on the day she was captured. Three Indian braves were traded for Abigail and another woman - one who was glad to be rejoining "civilization." Almost nine months pregnant, Abigail was forced to leave behind her small child, a man who cared for her, and the People, the only family she had ever really known. While one woman hated her captors and simply endured, Abigail found kindness, love and laughter for the first time in her young life. She left the tribe with the child in her womb, her magnificent blue roan, and the name given to her by the Indians, "She-Who-Was-Dreamed-By-The Blue-Horse." US Military Outpost 2881 stood at the furthest edge of the frontier under the command of Major Robert Cutter, a Civil War veteran. There upon the barren, desolate plains, guarding a hostile somber-colored space, dwelled a contingent of military men, two women - the doctor's sick wife and the washerwoman, Maria - and a greedy sutler. It was to this place that Abigail Buwell was brought, and where she said, "I will not live among you." Major Cutter was the only one who heard. She didn't speak again. Seemingly forgotten by mankind, and perhaps by God, the fort had been rife with illness. The Quartermaster and many others had died during an epidemic of meningitis. Almost all the food and fresh water were gone and no supply wagons in sight. There had been insubordination and desertion in the ranks. The men were in a stupor, unshaven, filthy, infested with vermin - shadows of their former selves. And the major, who had never fully recovered from the war, was unable to take control and improve conditions, if that were a possibility. Cutter had totally fallen apart - alienated, isolated, living in his own grim inner world, inhabited by ghosts, unable to cope with the even darker realities of the outpost. Among his papers was found, much later, a disturbing list he devised of "Good" and "Evil" - a telling example of his state of mind. He felt a kinship to Abigail, but her silence, emotional withdrawal and open hostility, pushed him further into himself and provoked hallucinations. He knew that neither of them had a future. The soldiers were immediately suspicious of Abigail, especially when her fellow hostage, the other woman who had been rescued, called her a "savage." Violence threatened to break out. Mutiny was in the air, but the men were too weak to act - for the moment Melanie Wallace's insights into

I am not normally a reader of frontier or western novels, but I picked this up because a good well read friend raved about it. She was right! It is beautifully written, so beautifully that the enormous amount of detail about military life on the frontier is neither tedious nor boring, but rather fascinating and engrossing. It is easy to sympathize with the main character, whose mental and spiritual deterioration is the axis of the plot. One really feels his pain, yet the pain is redeemed by the quality of the prose, which, in my case, at least, inspired me to eagerly read on to the novel's depressing but unsurprising conclusion. For all lovers of fine writing!

. . . I haven't read the book. I include the rating or my comments won't be posted and I want to be fair to the author.But I may not have to read her book. In the review below, Luansos cordially offers the entire plotline, a little too much of it. I may just read the last 2-3 pages of the book to find out how it all comes out, though I think I know already.Anyone who wants to read Ms. Wallace's book, which looks very good indeed, would do well not to pre-read Luansos detailed and overly helpful Cliff Notes.

Every so often a book comes along that captures a time and place so perfectly, that I am reluctant to turn the last page. In the case of Blue Horse Dreaming, that was my experience, for the novel beautifully blends plot with human shortcomings in a manner that is both painful and believable. Successfully channeling the post-Civil War era, author Melanie Wallace portrays soldiers and citizens alike in all their threadbare grief, suffering a lack of adequate supplies and a paucity of spirit in the unfriendly territory they occupy. On the far edge of nowhere, the sad drama unfolds. Four years earlier, two women were taken captive by Indians and not seen since. However, when the soldiers capture three Indian braves on a foray into the wilderness, an exchange is arranged and the women are returned to their people. The women are significantly different, both in captivity and after their return to "civilization". While one hates her captors and endured through spite, the other, Abigail Buwell, appears to have found renewal and a home within the tribe. In an unwelcome homecoming, Abigail's only comfort is the blue roan she rides proudly into the outpost. She is noticeably pregnant, a fact that registers with the already disgruntled soldiers, as Abigail rebuffs any effort to communicate.Only two men are allowed near Abigail and the blue roan: Cole, the smithy, also an outcast because of the color of his skin, and Major Robert Cutter, the officer in charge. Cutter's senses have been blunted by the physical and emotional rigors of war. His mind ravaged by loneliness and inner turmoil, Cutter is, in his way, as isolated as the pregnant young woman. Cutter's leadership abilities are compromised and his control over his charges disintegrates with each passing day. Ignored by all, save Cutter, Cole offers Abigail and her horse shelter.Life is daily more brutal, more desperate, as those inside the outpost endure their privations. The soldiers eye Abigail suspiciously, convinced she is haunting the outpost: "Sentries shuddered on night duty... they thought strangers danced on their graves." Inhabiting what they believe is the most isolated place on earth, the men blame their unease on Abigail Buwell, as bizarre images poison their thoughts and drunkenness is their sole relief.Blue Horse Dreaming offers a poignant retrospective of a difficult past, Wallace's prose filled with luminous insights and an acknowledgment of human dignity. While skillfully rendering the survival mentality within the fort, Wallace also engineers Cutter's emotional collapse and Abigail's purposeful withdrawal into the chambers of her memory. As the soul-weary and ineffectual senior officer, Major Cutter models the enormous price a man pays in pursuit of war. His emotional failures are mirrored in his men, as they all spiral downward. The great and unexpected gift of Blue Horse Dreaming is hidden carefully within Abigail's heart. Before captivity, Abigail was passed from man to man, to ea