Doralice

Chapter 20 – The Desperate Race

It was almost four o'clock in the morning when they began to hear the sounds. Horses whinnying, voices talking, even an occasional laugh. They were traveling through the hills in Tamaulipas, Mexico, and the noises were coming up from the valley that lay right below. Bart stopped Noble and they sat and listened for a few seconds. It was a Federale patrol, out at the time of night when patrols were never out, and they weren't that far away. Bart was picking up bits and pieces of the conversations, and he heard both "Americanos" and "Disfrazado de Policía de Texas" and knew it had finally been discovered that he was a fraud.

He looked at Doralice and put his finger to his lips. Noble stood still, without making a sound, but the other horse decided at that moment to snort and whinny, and all of the Federales heads turned as one in their direction. He pointed west and slapped Doralice's horse on the rump, and the animal took off at a gallop in that direction. Bart let out a yell and kicked Noble forward, emerging from the hills and heading north as fast as the gelding would go. The patrol likewise yelped and turned, immediately spotting Bart and following him. They'd gone about half a mile when Noble started gaining ground on the Federales, doing his best to outrun the poor tired, worn-out mounts of the police. Once it appeared that the fleeing gambler was going to elude them the guns came out and they started shooting at him.

Bart rode low on Nobles neck and kept leading them away from Doralice. He finally pulled his own Colt and fired off several rounds, hitting one of the patrol leaders and knocking him off his horse and wounding another one. He was almost out of range of their guns when he felt a searing, stinging pain in his back that burned its way through his whole body. It was the most terrible thing he'd felt since the knife wounds in Carson City, and suddenly he was gasping for breath. He knew he'd been hit, but the only thing he could do was keep riding and hope he could outrun any more bullets.

Noble was moving as if he'd found a gear he'd never used before, and Bart was clinging to the gelding's neck for dear life. Another bullet nicked his arm, but he barely felt it with the massive pain raging inside his chest. The patrol came to a halt, stopping to retrieve their fallen leader, and soon they were out of sight, lost in his horse's run for the border. He could feel the wetness spreading through his shirt and jacket as he bled, and the cloth quickly became warm and sticky.

All he could do was ride, hoping that the patrol would continue to tend to its wounded and not follow him. He finally slowed Noble to a walk and reached down tentatively to feel the spot where the bullet had emerged and he almost screamed with pain. His only thought was to keep going, riding north and hoping Doralice could avoid the Federales, circle back around and find him, although he assumed he'd be dead by the time she did so. Slumped over the front of his saddle, he tried to lay his head on Noble's neck, but the ride was just too bumpy. The gelding kept walking as long as his rider clung desperately to him and finally stopped in his tracks as Bart lost consciousness and slipped from the saddle.

The big horse turned his head back and nuzzled his friend and compatriot, now lying helplessly on the ground, not moving and barely breathing. He stayed at Bart's side and didn't budge for almost ten minutes, until the other horse he'd been riding with finally pulled up beside him. Doralice jumped down and came running, and when she got to the body on the ground she rolled him over and gasped at the amount of blood she could see on the white shirt. She tore off part of her skirt and stuffed it between his chest and the shirt, then buttoned his shirt and jacket up to help hold it in place. As the moonlight started to wane, she could barely make out a small adobe hut about twenty feet up ahead.

She grabbed her horse's reins and climbed back on, arriving quickly at the building, and found it abandoned. It was relatively clean inside, the doors blown shut long ago and most of the swirling dirt and dust kept outside. She was desperate to find a way to get Bart in here when something around the other side of the hut caught her eye, and she ran out and let out a whoop. It was a one-horse cart, and she quickly dashed out front and grabbed her horse. It took her a few minutes to get the saddle off and the cart harness on, then she jumped into the cart and drove back to the man that had saved her from hanging.

There was no other way around it, she needed him conscious to get him in the back end of the cart. Desperate to accomplish just that, she slapped him gently several times until she heard a deep-seated moan. "Bart! You have to wake up! We have to get you on your feet."

"Hmmmm? What? Dora - "

"No, no, no, no, you have to stay conscious. Bart! Listen to me. I have to get you out of here. You must get up. I can't get you in the cart by myself!"

"Can't . . . . . breathe . . . . . can't . . . . .get up."

"You have to!" she almost yelled at him. "I can't pick you up!"

"Can't . . . . "

"Yes, you must! Come on!" She grabbed his arm and tried to pull him into a sitting position. Somehow he finally understood just what she was trying to do and between the two of them and grabbing hold of Noble's stirrup they managed to get him on his feet. He leaned heavily on her and moaned again, pain radiating from his back up through his whole body and breath coming in short, desperate gasps. She got him turned slightly and he took half a step before collapsing again into the back of the cart. It was just enough.

Noble allowed her to take his reins and lead him back to the hut. Doralice untied Bart's bedroll and took it inside. An old mattress had been abandoned and she dragged it as close to the door as she could, then spread the bedroll down on it. Now the hard part. She had to get him out of the cart and onto the mattress.

"Bart. Bart, you must hear me. I can't pick you up. We have to get you inside." She turned to look at the horse and pleaded for understanding from the gelding. "Come closer, Noble. I need you to stand here so Bart can grab your stirrup again." She yanked on the reins and for some reason Noble moved closer.

"God give me strength," she said out loud and shook Bart by the left shoulder.

Again, a heartrending moan. Slowly his eyes opened and he tried to focus on her face through the pain. "Doralice?" It was a whisper, at best.

"Yes, Bart. It's me. I have to get you inside or you'll bleed to death out here. Come on, we have to get you up." She got hold of his left arm and managed again to pull him into an almost sitting position, then wrapped his hand around the saddle's stirrup and tried to help lift him. The first attempt didn't work, but the second time she was again able to get him on his feet. With strength she wasn't aware she had, she got him turned towards the door and he took one step towards the makeshift bed. She untangled his hand from the stirrup and he made another step, leaning almost solely on her shoulders. One more and he was close enough to the mattress to crash down; with a last moan and a lot of sweat he practically fell onto the blanket that was waiting for him.

He was out again before she could get down on her knees. At last she was able to able to unbutton the jacket, then the shirt, to see just how critical everything was. His shirt was soaked through, but it appeared that the material she'd torn from her skirt and the pressure of the buttoned jacket had slowed the bleeding down considerably. The hole in his chest looked like an exit wound, and she surmised that the Federale that shot him was using a rifle. Nothing else could have traveled any kind of distance and gone clean through him. From the sound of his breathing the bullet had torn through or collapsed the right lung; even unconscious his breath was coming in short, sharp gasps.

She got to her feet and went outside where the horses patiently stood and took down the saddlebags and canteen, along with her bedroll, rushing back in. She tore off more of her skirt, using part of it and the water as a way to clean the blood off as best she could. The rest would be used as a makeshift bandage. She searched the saddlebags for anything she could employ to help. To her immense relief she found that the bottle he'd bought in Cerralvo was whiskey, and she thanked God for the stroke of luck. Some of it was used to clean the wound, and she was relieved that Bart was unconscious and couldn't feel the sting. She kept the rest for painkilling purposes, when he was once again awake.

There was nothing else to be done at the moment, so she went back and unhitched her horse from the cart, then decided to try and unsaddle Noble. For once he behaved like the perfect gentleman, sensing that she was only attempting to help. There was a small corral with an old hay bale, and hoped the horses could make do. To her surprise the well pump worked; at least they had fresh water.

Inside the hut she got a fire started and emptied Bart's saddlebags, which carried all the provisions he'd bought. More beans, some tortillas, the ever present jerky, and small pieces of taffy. She almost laughed; somebody had a sweet-tooth. She found the coffee pot and the coffee and made a full pot. It would help her to stay awake during the first few critical hours.

He moaned again and she realized he was semi-conscious. He had to be in terrible pain, and she needed to get some of the whiskey down him to take the edge off. "Bart, can you hear me?"

"Yeah," came the barely audible answer.

"I want you to drink some of this whiskey. It'll help with the pain. If I help you, can you do that?"

Again, an almost impossible-to-hear reply. "Yeah."

She sat next to his head and helped lift it while she poured a small amount of the whiskey down his throat. He gagged and coughed, but she got most of it down him. His eyes stayed closed and it was difficult to tell if he was still conscious until she heard him choke out a breath and the first part of her name. "Dora – "

"Yes, Bart?"

She had to bend down to hear him. "Where?"

"Somewhere north in the desert. You collapsed almost on top of an old abandoned hut. The horses helped me get you here."

"Horses?" He was having trouble breathing again, and it wasn't easy to talk.

"You heard me right. You didn't think I could get you in here by myself, did you?"

She saw just the hint of a smile, and then he said no more. Unconscious or asleep, it didn't matter. Either way, he wouldn't feel any pain. She wondered if he'd gotten far enough away from the Federales to lose them altogether. She looked outside through the open door and saw that she'd missed sunrise and daylight had once again come to the desert. At least at this time of the year it didn't bring tremendous heat with it, and she finally opened her bedroll and placed it on the ground next to the spot where he lay. They had been so close to a clean escape before their luck ran out. Would he live long enough to make it home?

Disfrazado de Policía de Texas – Disguised as Texas State Police