Wild Horses On The Salt

3

3Becca collapsed following the steamy hot shower. When she finally awoke under the soft bedding in her room, the world had turned dark. And though she ate a huge lunch, the smell of smoking meat lured her from the bed.

She noticed a brown sweatshirt had been folded and placed on a chair by the door. It read Salt River Inn and featured a black horse with a wild mane and a white blaze on its forehead. She slipped the sweatshirt on. The mirror lured her, but again Becca declined to view the damage. It was easier that way.

Becca opened the door and was greeted by a night sky so dazzling with stars she paused and sucked in a breath. The sky had never appeared so dark and sparkly in New Jersey. With the brilliant lights of New York City and the area's almost 18 million people, light pollution blotted out all but the brightest of the heavenly bodies.

A bat swooped low and darted away. Becca watched the animal disappear into the night, then gazed back at the stars. It was then she realized almost half the sky was obscured. Something massive and dark blocked her view, a jagged demarcation etching the boundary where earth met sky.

The smell of smoking meat distracted her again. She walked up the rocky path to the front of the inn, noting the multi-colored river-rock border that reached from the walkway to the bottom of the inn's evenly spaced windows. Lightbulbs encased in what looked to be old-fashioned oil lamps cast a golden glow. A brown, battered screen door twanged on a screechy hinge and gave way to a solid inner door with six glass panes. Becca pushed the door open, and entered a foyer with a registration desk and small store. Display shelves featured silver and turquoise jewelry, earth-toned Native American pottery, and local photographs that had been turned into note cards.

Silverware clanged on a ceramic plate.

An entryway led to a massive, high-ceilinged room topped with dark beams. But it was the immense fireplace constructed of the ever-present river rock that made Becca pause. The chimney reached to the rafters, narrowing in its ascent. The heads of two antlered deer gazed with marble eyes. The fireplace was open on four sides so that anyone in the room could see the blaze from wherever they might be sitting. The river rocks, blackened by almost a hundred years of smoke and periodically buffed with boiled linseed oil, shone like polished obsidian.

Becca blinked, unaware that the room had gone quiet. She noticed an ancient upright piano—wood as dark as the fireplace rocks—with yellowed keys. A gold-framed oil landscape depicting jagged mountains and a wild river hung above on a rough-paneled wall. A tiny wooden stagecoach with a driver and horses and rolling wheels sat atop the piano, a homemade child's toy from another time. The instrument rested between two built-in bookshelves bearing an untidy collection of tomes and carvings of birds. One bright-red wooden cardinal stared from its perch.

“Becca.” Gaby approached, her face creased with concern.

“Oh.” Becca focused on the woman.

“How are you feeling? You slept a long time.” Gaby's silver earrings swung back and forth and sparkled in the smoky firelight.

“Jet lag,” Becca mumbled, before pasting on a smile. What was she doing here in this strange lodge in the middle of nowhere?