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Excerpt, page 50:

“Eli’s life had been filled with soiled nests, and the easiest solution had always been to leave the old behind and start anew. But men like Eli Brandt don’t ever truly find new beginnings. Perhaps their backs are too rigid, their minds too set and their necks too stiff to ever really start fresh. The old ways, the old habits and the old demons that are just as much a part of life as breathing out and breathing in, are always there to pull the Eli Brandts back into the muck. And all they leave behind are scars.”

Intrigued by the title, and being acquainted with some of his other writing, I was anxious to read Nolting’s first novel. 

The story is set in late 1880’s Oklahoma Territory. Cowboy Eli Brandt joins in the Oklahoma land rush and stakes a claim to his parcel, beginning a homestead and then marrying a young woman of Cheyenne/Mexican descent, Maria Sanchez-Little Wolf, eleven years his junior. It turns out, if he’s married to someone with Cheyenne blood he’ll be qualified for the next rush and a larger parcel, when the government opens up the Indian Nation land to homesteaders. Brandt knew this going in.

The story journeys through two decades as Brandt moves the family from Oklahoma to Kansas, Kansas to Arkansas and back to Kansas, usually to escape problems of his own making. Maria and their young children (and Brandt’s horses) all the while suffer greatly at the hand of this hard man.

Early on, Charlie Davies, a cowboy of good character, makes contact with the Brandts and the reader gets a sense there’s hope for a good outcome. Make no mistake though, this is not some cookie-cutter western novel. Nolting’s deft portrayal of this abusive, profane character incurs the reader’s immediate loathing for Eli Brandt and I soon got a sense from where the title originated. Nolting illustrates an ugly circumstance that all too often exists and shouldn’t be covered up. “And all they leave behind are scars.” Scars that become a legacy.

As I read …By The Way They Treat Their Horses, I was reminded of Michael McGarrity’s fine novel, “Hard Country”.

Nolting’s “By the Way They Treat Their Horses”, struck a chord which reverberated within my soul and which I could not silence. It chimed, “One more sentence, page, chapter!” His intricate melding of characters, actions, and topographic detail held me spellbound for two days. 

His insight into the intense aspects of human character and its emotive effect on one’s surroundings is rare and engulfing. I can hardly wait to share another sliver of his soul. Bravo! Encore!

Wow!! Lots of thoughts. I was immediately struck by Eli’s character; the rage and anger that presented itself at the beginning and remained throughout the story. I was astounded at the portrayal of this incredibly horrible person. Eli is the perfect villain that you love to hate!! And Maria is the quintessential victim. And the children who just try to placate. I’m sure many others will identify as well; and not just within the western lifestyle. I liked how the story moves quickly, spanning years at a time, yet encompassing all of it. I think the story flowed well, and took me from hate to hope quite a few times. I enjoyed it immensely and found it well written and easily absorbed.

At six years old, Jacob Cain had already learned to always keep a little distance between himself and his papa. He did not yet know or understand the cause for Eli’s sudden flares of violence and rage, but he had learned that it was best to avoid being seen or heard. When Eli was away, Maria would dote over her firstborn. She entertained him with sticks and crude blocks that she fashioned from irregular pieces of wood found near the chopping block where Eli split firewood and where she would often behead a fat hen for a fried chicken supper.

Both Jacob and Maria reveled in the times they spent together. When Eli was away, there was laughter and foolishness, singing and light-heartedness. When Eli was home, Maria was constantly shushing Jacob as she scurried about the soddy like a chickadee flitting restlessly among the sparse branches of a prairie cedar. On this day Eli was gone, as was quite often the case, and Maria was building corrals for Jacob from long splinters of cedar. Inside the miniature corrals stood a cloth horse that Maria had made by twisting and tying pieces of cloth until the cluster of knots and twists somewhat resembled a horse. Jacob held the makeshift toy in his small hand and pranced the pony around the cedar corral giggling with joy as Maria clapped her hands and shouted, “Run, pony, run!”

Evie would reluctantly join the playtime after considerable coaxing from Maria. Most often, she preferred to be off by herself, quickly tiring of whatever games that Maria introduced for the children’s amusement. Evie was her papa’s little princess, jumping to her feet and running to greet him whenever she heard Eli’s arrival. He would sweep her up in his arms, heft her up across his shoulders or cradle her in one arm while tickling her under the chin with his free hand.

But Jacob had learned that when the nicker of his papa’s horse was heard coming toward the yard, Mama’s laughter stopped abruptly, toys were hurriedly stuffed behind the wood box, while rag ponies and laughter were replaced with gruffness and rough handling. Eli defended his rough treatment of Jacob by declaring that it would “someday make a man of him instead of turning him into a runny-nosed runt of a Mama’s boy.” But Jacob treasured the time spent with his mother and dreaded the darkness of the times spent with his father. And although he had learned these early-life lessons well, it was to be a lifetime before he understood how the two separate worlds shaped him in ways not unlike the twisted and knotted pony his mother had made for him.

Maria heard the horses before either Jacob or Evie were aware of the men shouting outside the door.

“Brandt! Eli Brandt! You to home?” hollered the cowboy, who appeared to be the leader of three men that reined in their horses in front of the pine door.