When Pedro got to town he hauled Jason into the Sheriff's office and told him what Jason had done. The Sheriff studied the situation a moment. Pushing his hat back he eyed Jason, then Pedro.
Jason hung his head and didn't say anything. What could he say?
"Well, I'll have to check this out, of course, but I'll put him in a cell until I do. Have you found Charlie yet?"
"No." Pedro replied.
"Then until we do, we'll keep him locked up. We need to go over to the saloon and see if Charlie is there." The Sheriff told him. Pedro nodded. "Lilly came in late yesterday evening asking if I'd seen Charlie. I wondered what was up."
But when they questioned everyone, no one had seen Charlie since the day before.
"Why don't you go on back to the ranch. I'll check around town and see what I can come up with. I'll let you all know if I find him."
Pedro nodded and rode back to the ranch.
Lilly and Cord mounted up and headed back to Cord's place too. Don Diego met them on the road.
"He is at the ranch, at Maria's." Don Diego smiled at them.
"Oh thank God!" Lilly cried out. "Is he alright?"
"He twisted his ankle in a gopher hole, but he's fine. Maria took care of it."
"Did you see anything of Dan Dubs?" Cord asked.
"No, should I have?"
"We think he went after Charlie."
They rode on now, at a fast pace.
When they reached Maria's they hobbled the horses and went inside.
"Where is he?" Lilly cried when she saw Maria.
"He's sleeping. The poor boy was so tuckered he could barely eat two platefuls of food. I bandaged his ankle and he is fine now. But from what he said, he hurt it in a prairie dog hole, and something he said as he fell asleep, he hit someone with a rock and stole a horse."
"My word!" Lilly looked frantic. Her eyes widened and she searched Cord's face for answers.
Cord saw the expression on Lilly's face and he knew they had to talk to Charlie now. She wouldn't settle down until she knew the whole story. "Okay, let's find out for sure what happened, then let him rest."
She nodded.
They went into the bedroom, and Lilly woke him up. "Charlie, wake up honey."
Charlie barely opened his eyes and moved to bury his head in the pillows. "Charlie, wake up we need to talk to you, then you can sleep."
Charlie roused, and wiped his eyes. "Sorry Ma." He wiped his eyes and tried to wake up. He was so tired.
Lilly sat on one side of the bed, Cord on the other side of him, "Can you tell us what happened?"
Charlie raised up on the bed and looked sheepishly at them. He rubbed his eyes and looked at their anxious faces. "Well…I went fishing with Dan. We caught a lot of fish, just like he said we would. Then we took them to the house and cooked them. Jason said he had stopped off and asked you if I could stay the night. I thought it peculiar, but it was just for one night, so I agreed. We ate, and Dan and I played cards for a while. I tried to go to sleep pretty early, they all stayed up. But before I went to sleep I heard them talking about you," He looked at Cord. "Said you'd be coming for me. Said they'd ambush you when you got there. They were loading their guns and stuff."
"Go on," Lilly encouraged.
"Well, I waited until it got real quiet, then slipped out the back door. Butch and Jason had passed out in the front room. Dan had gone to bed and was sleeping. Anyway, I looked for the north star like you told me to." Charlie glanced at Cord.
Cord smiled.
"Then what happened?"
"Well I walked for a long while, but stepped in a prairie dog hole and hurt my ankle. It wasn't light enough to see them."
"What's this about stealing a horse?" Lilly asked with a frown, knowing he was leaving things out.
"Well yeah." Charlie looked down, as though ashamed of what he'd done. "I had to Ma. Dan followed me, and the only thing I could think of to get him with was a rock, so I found one and threw it and it hit him in the head. Then I stole his horse. But when I got real thirsty, I stopped to get water from a cactus like Cord told me about. That's when the horse ran off. Then Don Diego found me." He looked at both of them. "Am I in a lot of trouble?" His expression looked prepared for the worse.
"Under the circumstances I'd say you've more than paid for your troubles." Cord smiled. "Get some sleep, oh, wait, where were you when you hit Dan?"
"I don't know, at first I headed North, but when daylight came, I was lost, I think that's when I got off course. When we rode here it looked like we were coming from the northwest."
"Good, get some sleep, we'll talk later."
Lilly kissed him on the cheek. "We're glad you are alright. You rest and stay off that ankle. It's pretty swollen. We'll talk later though.
"Yes, Ma'am."
He smiled, laid his head back on the pillow and went to sleep.
Cord and Lilly went back to the kitchen.
"Did you talk to him?" Maria asked anxiously.
"Yeah, I'm gonna ride out and see if I can find Dan." Cord told Lilly and Maria.
"Why don't you get Don Diego to go with you?"
"Yeah, I might do that. It might take some time to find him alone."
After Cord kissed Lilly on the cheek he winked and told her not to fret any longer and left.
Don Diego rode out with him, he showed him where he found Charlie.
"We better go toward the Dubs place from here." Cord told him.
Don Diego nodded.
They rode for some time and then they stopped at a rock. Cord naturally figured Charlie would either hide from the blaring sun here or hide from Dan. Since there were little other places to hide.
But when they stopped they saw the blood splattered on the rock. It startled them that Charlie had done so much damage to Dan.
"He must have hit him pretty hard. He shouldn't be that hard to find now." Cord told him his voice amused at Charlie's good aim.
Another half hour they found a stumbling Dan trying to walk back to his place.
There was no sign of the horse.
When Dan collapsed, they came up to him.
He opened his eyes and frowned, "Damn that Charlie, he hit me with something and ran off."
Cord smiled. "He sure did."
They helped him up on Cord's horse and they rode back to the ranch.
"Why ain't you taking me home?" Dan asked when he was able.
"I want you to tell me exactly what happened, and then we're going to town to tell the Sheriff." Cord told him.
"Where's Jason and Butch?" Dan asked looking from one to the other.
"Butch is dead, Dan. I killed him, had to." Cord said quietly watching the emotion that Jason lacked cross Dan's face.
"You killed my brother?"
"We'll talk about that when we get settled." Cord told him.
Dan reached for his gun, but it wasn't there. He forgot, he lost it when he stopped on the prairie to kill a rattlesnake. But he must have blacked out after that time and he hadn't remembered the gun until now.
Dan wasn't in the best condition when they got back to Maria's. She doctored his head and wrapped it. Dan held his head as though to steady himself.
As they all sat around the kitchen table, Cord began drilling Dan with questions.
"Now I want you to tell me what happened, step by step and don't leave anything out."
"It wasn't my idea, it was Jason's." Dan blurted.
"I figured that," Cord nodded his tone indulging.
"It was simple, I was supposed to get Charlie to go fishing with me, we had a fish fry, and he spent the night. Jason sent a note, telling you that we had Charlie and we weren't turning lose of him until you showed up. That was the plan. But Charlie ran off, and I had to find him before Butch and Jason got up or all hell would break loose."
Cord nodded, "I kind of thought that's what you planned."
"I didn't plan anything, Jason did. Where is Jason?"
"He's in jail," Pedro said as he came in the house.
"Jail, what for?" Dan cried.
"Well hell, Dan, kidnapping is a crime." Cord laughed.
"Did you really kill Butch?" Dan asked, his face screwing up in misery. Cord didn't know if the blow on the head had him dizzy or if he was emotionally wrought about his brother.
"Yeah, I'm afraid so. He gave me no choice. Him and Jason started firing, I fired back." Cord explained. "Bullet were going everywhere. Hell, Dan, they were set to bushwhack me. What do you expect?"
Dan got quiet. "Butch could get pretty mean. He swore too much, drank too much, but…he was my brother." He looked down now, his face somber.
"Guess someone should get over there and bury him. We had to leave him, because of Charlie." Cord explained.
"I'll bury my brother…" Dan said, his glance sobering now. "That is unless you are taking me to jail too."
Cord stared at him a minute. "We'll go with you and then we'll go to town because you have to talk to the Sheriff and explain what happened."
"But what if he arrests me too?"
"He won't. Jason was behind it all. It's Jason we want behind bars, Dan. But let me tell you something right now, if you ever try to hurt anyone around here again, you'll go to jail. Do you understand me?"
"Yes sir." Dan said, hanging his head.
"Brother or no brother."
When Dan got quiet Cord stared at him.
"I'm sorry about Butch, but when you have a showdown, someone is bound to get hurt. It's best you learn this now. All plans don't work the way they are supposed to."
Dan looked at him with regret, "Maybe so, I wish it had been Jason instead of Butch though."
"You don't get along with Jason?" Cord's head twisted in question.
Dan studied the question then eyed them all, "No one gets along with Jason. He spends most his time telling me and Butch how dumb we are. Butch didn't have much brains, but left up to him, he'd have had a showdown with you and left the kid out of it. I didn't want to get Charlie involved."
Cord nodded and told Lilly to stay there with Charlie and Maria. She agreed.
An hour later they were standing over Butch's grave. Dan had no words for his brother. Pedro made the sign of the cross and Cord nodded, "Dust to dust, ashes to ashes. The Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away. Blessed be the name of the Lord. Amen."
As they rode to town, Dan glanced at Cord, "Thanks for saying them words over him. I didn't know any."
"Sure," Cord nodded.