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This page was last updated on: October 6,
2009

From Beyond the Horizons

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As painful as it was, Tom's wounded left arm was not serious, nor life threatening.  The bullet miraculously missed the bone, and passed cleanly through muscle.  With difficulty, he managed to assuage the bleeding by tying his neckerchief over the wound.      He was riding as fast as he dared.  He knew he couldn't keep the pace for long or his horse would succumb, and then he surely would perish in the desert.  Under the most optimistic reckoning, he couldn't hope to make Fort Bowie until sometime well after midnight.     He tried not to think about the fate of Mace and his fellow soldiers.  He tried not to face the fact that even if he could get Captain Rawlings and reinforcements, he would already be far too late except maybe for body retrieval and funerals.  Mercifully, he was too far away to hear the withering gunfire of the doomed patrol.     The setting sun was almost slipping below the horizon, casting its twilight on the desert, when he saw her.  Had he still been galloping, he would have missed her.  But he was letting his horse rest, walking along the edge of the rocky foothills when he saw a frail, small form of a girl, lying among the rocks.  She was unmoving, and at first he thought she was dead.     Dismounting, he knelt beside her.  She looked about 16 years old, and her skin was red and blistered from the sun.  Her dry, cracked lips and sunken eyes spoke of severe dehydration and her breathing came in soft shallow pants.     Tom cradled her head in his arms, wincing with pain.  He put his canteen to her lips, letting a small trickle pour over them.  Her eyes weakly fluttered open as she opened her mouth to drink.     "Just a little bit at first," Tom said.  "Not too much."     She drank a few gulps, and coughed.  After a few moments, she looked up at him with woeful eyes.  It was a look of complete gratitude, disbelief, and wonder.  Seeing those eyes, Tom's heart nearly broke.  Such a pathetic, helpless creature, he'd never seen before.