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"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."
