Page 61 of An Unexpected Welcome

"Well they did, but they let him loose."

"Let him loose? Why?" Charlie shouted, with a frown.

"Because you were all right, and I wasn't dead. There will be a trial though. I'll have to go to that too, because I killed Butch."

"But, only in self-defense." Lilly cut into the conversation.

"That'll have to be proved too."

"I was there; I saw what happened."

"Just formalities more or less." Cord told her.

"But Jason will probably try something else." Lilly fretted.

"I'm sure he will." Cord nodded. "But now it's just him and Dan. And neither of them will challenge me to a gunfight. No, it'll take some time for him to figure out what he can do next."

"I wanted to go home after we got through fishing and eat, but Jason kept saying you gave me permission to stay the night. Did you Ma?"

"No Charlie, I didn't and wouldn't." Lilly affirmed. "You should have known I wouldn't."

"I didn't think so. I knew better than to go with Dan, but sometimes, well, I don't know why I went with him except he promised he had a lot of catfish in his creek, and he was right. There were lots. We had a good size string of them. If I hadn't heard Jason and Butch talking about setting up an ambush for Cord that night, I probably wouldn't have left the cabin."

"You could have gotten into all kinds of trouble. You know that don't you?"

"Well geez, Ma. I hurt my ankle, nearly died of thirst and got lost." He told her. "Ain't that punishment enough?"

"I suppose it is. I don't care if you want to try something new every now and then, but I want to know about it before you do, or go. Understand?"

"Yes ma'am." Charlie nodded.

Lilly shook her head. She didn't want to go over all the catastrophe's that might have happened though, it might have scared Charlie.

"Let's just be thankful everything turned out as good as it did. Besides, you did pretty good Charlie. You remembered about the cactus, and the north star. You kept your head. I'm proud of you." C

ord told him.

"Charlie is mucho brave, isn't he?" Juan smiled.

Lilly laughed, "I guess he is."

"I gotta admit, I was worried I might have killed Dan. It sure weighed heavy on my mind. I saw blood spurt and knew I'd hit him pretty hard. But I wasn't going to hang around to find out." Charlie laughed. "Still, it made me think it don't take a whole lot to kill a man, does it?"

"No, Charlie, it doesn't. And you don't have to have a gun to kill them either. But all in all, you did good son." Cord smiled and rubbed his head. "It's things like this that make you learn valuable lessons. Next time you're in a tight situation, you'll realize it faster and know a little more than you did."

The boys went outside and Lilly got up to put the peas on the stove.

"I hope there isn't a next time, Cord." Lilly said as she walked up to him. "And I hope Jason won't pull anything else."

He leaned to kiss her on the tip of her nose and smiled. "There will be a next time, honey. Jason is not going to let this go. Especially since I killed Butch. Now he's got a reason to come after me."

"I'm sorry Butch is dead, but better him than you!"

"Don't worry honey, I'm not gonna die." He took her in his arms and held her close. "I got too much to live for."

Chapter Nineteen

Jason rode into Terrell that day, his eyes going around the town with interest. This town buzzed with excitement. The railroad had been built through here and people were moving here from all over. New businesses were going up everywhere. People milled the streets. Just the kind of town Jason liked. Plenty of business opportunities in a town like this, Jason figured.

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