Author's Notes: Well, since I don't have an update on WRR today, I thought I'd post this one-shot to tide y'all over for a couple more days. Now, this one is the product of some late night thoughts of my own, and it was mostly meant as a writing exercise to stretch some mental muscle - but a couple certain individuals out there convinced me it was worth posting, so here it is. WARNING: Have a box of tissues handy. This one breaks more than a few of my personal fanfic-writing rules. Enjoy!
Late Night Thoughts
Evenin' neighbors. Now, if you're wondering why we're talkin' real quiet, it's cause it's late at night in the Duke home, and everyone - most everyone - is asleep. Uncle Jesse is making his rounds before going to bed himself, after a long, hot day - the first day of the harvest. Hush now, if you're gonna stay and watch.
Jesse Duke had lived for a long time. In his youth, he had grown up on this farm with his five brothers, running wild through these same hills and canyons, answering only to his father and the Good Lord above. He'd learned the family trades - cotton by day, moonshine by night - and worked the land and the still with the best of them. He'd loved and married. He'd lost - a lot. Grandparents, aunts and uncles, cousins, Father, then Mother, then brothers, then wife. He'd struggled to make ends meet, to feed and support his dwindling family through the decades. Finally in his middle years he found himself the patriarch of the proud Duke family, responsible for three little ones who became the children of his heart - and gave him gray hairs well before his time.
Through every trial and triumph, every pitfall, this old homestead had been here. Sometimes he could still hear the echoes of Mama rolling out dough on the counter, calling him in to help with some task. To his ears, footsteps on the floorboards sounded like John or James, but he'd look up and see Luke or Bo. The rocking chair on the porch sometimes creaked with the wind, and instead Jesse heard Pa slowly rocking back and forth, watching the sunset with a smile. Jesse stood on the porch now, leaning against the rail, looking out across the land - his land.
The scenery had changed some - saplings in his youth were now tall branching oaks, willows, hemlocks, sheltering new seedlings from storm winds and harsh rains. The old outhouse was gone - Bo had accidentally blown that up a few years ago, at archery practice. Jesse smiled at the thought, shaking his head. More than once, his youngest nephew had made Jesse wonder just what he'd done wrong to deserve such a wild, rambunctious child, who seemed to seek trouble out at every turn. And more than once, Jesse wondered what he'd done right to deserve him, too. Ahh, but nights like this - nights like this put it all into perspective, calm and quiet, while he looked up at the stars.
Finally, Jesse sighed and turned back towards the house. He closed the front door behind him and shut off the lights in the kitchen and living room as he passed. In the hallway, he stopped, quietly opening the door to Daisy's room and looking in.
'Sweet Daisy' someone might think, looking at that gentle young lady while she slept so peacefully, but there was a tigress beneath that soft, slender physique. After growing up the only female on a farm full of men, Daisy could hold her own against 'most any man in Hazzard, while still retaining a certain feminine quality that had her nearly beating the schoolboys off with a stick. Jesse's niece amazed him sometimes - her patience, keeping house for herself and three bachelors; her ambition, working at the Boar's Nest and at home, while still looking for opportunities and a life beyond their little world in Hazzard; her cleverness, helping him to shepherd his Lost Sheep and keep them out of trouble. From the first day she came through that front door, he'd loved his little girl with all his heart, and it was a never-ending joy to watch her grow up into the fine young woman she was becoming. He quietly closed the door, leaving her to her dreams.
Just as quietly, Jesse stepped across the hall and eased the door open to Bo and Luke's bedroom. Luke could be a light sleeper sometimes, but not tonight. Today had been a day of sweat and muscle, in the fields before dawn and back after sunset to bring in the harvest. It was the second most important time of the year - the first being the actual planting - and it was the time of the year that generated most of the income the family would live off of for most of the year to come. Though they might laugh and joke and shirk their chores at other times, both Jesse's nephews knew the importance of their work, and they went at it with a will. The Duke family had lost a hefty staple of their income when the boys had been caught running moonshine and Jesse had made that deal with the ATF in exchange for their probation, and they depended more than ever on the farm. Even more - though Jesse would never admit it - as he grew older, his old bones and tired hands were less and less capable of the work meant for young men, and Bo and Luke took up that burden without mention or complaint.
Tonight, then, both boys had come in exhausted, hardly touching a bite of dinner before falling into bed. Jesse actually had to go in there and wake them up earlier, to change out of their dirty work clothes. Now they both slept heavily, facing an identical day's work tomorrow, with slack jaws and soft snores. Bo lay sprawled on his back, long legs stretched out and one hand on his stomach, the other flung out to the side, oblivious to the world. Luke lay on his side, his back to Jesse, with one arm curled under his pillow, the other dangling off the side of the bed. The eldest nephew's bed stood closest to the door, a token of his protectiveness towards Bo. When the boys were little, Bo always felt safer with Luke between him and the monsters that might come through the door or wardrobe closets, and it became a habit that carried on after Jesse finally built them separate beds.
Jesse smiled, watching them sleep the sleep of angels with a proud father's eye, though Lord knew they could be right devils when they wanted. How many black eyes and bloody noses had he treated? How many broken bones had Doc Appleby set? But, how many of those fights had been in defense of Duke honor? Daisy's heart? Decency? Justice? No, they were good boys, and they had good hearts, no matter what trouble they might get into.
Then Luke sighed in his sleep, turning over, so Jesse gave them one last affectionate look and closed the door, before the light from the hallway disturbed his eldest nephew. In a few more minutes, the farmhouse once more belonged to the night, the moonlight, the crickets, standing vigilant guard over the slumbering family within.
Another night, another time, another lifetime away…
Beauregard Duke had lived for a long time. In his youth, he had grown up on this farm with his two cousins, running wild through these same hills and canyons, answering only to Uncle Jesse and the Good Lord above. He'd learned the family trades - cotton by day, moonshine by night - and worked the land and the still with the best of them, until he and Luke were caught on a midnight run, halting the Duke moonshine business for a long while. He'd loved and married. He'd lost - a lot. Father and mother, grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins, wife. He'd struggled to make ends meet, to feed and support his dwindling family through the decades. Finally in his middle years he found himself the patriarch of the proud Duke family, responsible for five little ones – one his own, and four more who had become his own – who all gave him gray hairs well before his time.
Through every trial and triumph, every pitfall, this old homestead had been here. Sometimes he could still hear the echoes of Daisy rolling out dough on the counter, calling him in to help with some task. To his ears, footsteps on the floorboards sounded like Luke, but he'd look up and see Michael instead. The rocking chair on the porch sometimes creaked with the wind, and instead Bo heard Uncle Jesse slowly rocking back and forth, watching the sunset with a smile. Bo stood on the porch now, leaning against the rail, looking out across the land - his land.
The scenery had changed some - saplings in his youth were now tall branching oaks, willows, hemlocks, sheltering new seedlings from storm winds and harsh rains. The barn had been rebuilt – Michael had accidentally burned that down few years ago. Bo smiled at the thought, shaking his head. More than once, his eldest nephew had made Luke, and later Bo, wonder just what he'd done wrong to deserve such a wild, rambunctious child, who seemed to seek trouble out at every turn. And more than once, Bo wondered what he'd done right to deserve him, too. Ahh, but nights like this - nights like this put it all into perspective, calm and quiet, while he looked up at the stars.
Finally, Bo sighed and turned back towards the house. He closed the front door behind him and shut off the lights in the kitchen and living room as he passed. In the hallway, he stopped, quietly opening the door to the girls' room and looked in.
Three beds stood in a row where Daisy's big bed used to sit, holding three slumbering girls. Marie was the spitting image of Daisy, her mother, and was an unending help to Bo in handling the household. She was in her twenties now, but didn't mind sharing the room with Sue-Ann, 17, and little Jessica, who wasn't so little at 15 now. Both younger girls had their father's dark hair, blue eyes, and keen mind. If there was trouble going on that involved more complicated planning than a fast car and a stick of dynamite, they were sure to be at the bottom of it. Bo's old heart twinged, looking at his nieces, thinking of the little girl who wasn't there. Baby Eleanor had died in the same earthquake that claimed Daisy, Enos, and the mothers of Bo and Luke's children, while the fathers took their older children out to cut a tree one California Christmas. So swiftly that joyous holiday had turned into a tragedy for more than just the Duke family. It was twelve years ago now, but Bo felt the loss of his baby girl, of his cousin and wife and friends, like it was just yesterday. It had nearly broken him, and had broken Luke for a while there.
For a solid year, Bo was the sole supporter of the family – five children, himself, and Luke – while his cousin tried to drown his sorrows in drink on a daily basis. Marie looked after the household and the little ones - and sometimes her errant uncle - while Bo and young Michael worked the fields, until Bo headed for his night job at the mill in Choctaw. More often than not he came home and just collapsed on the couch instead of crawling to his bed for those few precious hours of sleep. The peaceful quiet he'd known on the farm all his life was too often interrupted by explosive and sometimes violent arguments with Luke, as Bo watched him fall apart right before his eyes, before his children's eyes. It was the worst year of his life.
It took a near-fatal car wreck to finally pull Luke together – Bo, not Luke, was hospitalized for a month after falling asleep at the wheel driving home from his night job. He went off the road and hit a tree with a screech of twisting metal and a fiery explosion, and overnight Luke was left the responsibility of the children and the bills. Of course, Bo didn't remember the many nights Luke wept at his hospital bedside while he lay comatose, begging his forgiveness for failing Bo, for failing the kids, for failing Uncle Jesse and the promise he'd made him. In the end, Bo had woken up to find his cousin a changed man. Good ol' Luke was back, and the Dukes pulled through, like always.
It was two years after the accident that Luke was driving home one cold winter's night, and the bright orange glow of a house fire made him turn off the main road to investigate. The wife of the house was frantic, holding two of her children in the front yard, while her husband had gone back in for the third. All that firefighting training snapped Luke into action, and, taking an axe from the chopping block, he went in after the husband and little girl. Later, the husband would tell Bo how Luke had miraculously burst through the fallen debris that had blocked off their escape, sending the man ahead with his little girl to safety - moments before another section of the second floor collapsed, and Luke didn't come out at all.
Now it was just Bo left, the last guardian of the next generation of Dukes.
Closing the door to the girls' room, Bo turned in the hallway to the boys' bedroom door – what used to be his and Luke's room. He ever so quietly turned the handle and slid the door open on well-greased hinges, as softly as he could, but it didn't matter. A sleep-tousled head of dark hair lifted up from the pillow of Luke's old bed, and sapphire blue eyes blinked at him sleepily.
"Everythin' okay, Uncle Bo?"
It never ceased to make him smile, hearing 'Uncle Bo' said in Luke's voice.
"Just fine, Michael. Go back to sleep."
Of course, he didn't listen. Propping himself up on one elbow, Luke's firstborn son regarded his uncle thoughtfully. "Miss him, huh?" It wasn't hard to guess – today was the ninth of September, and ol' Luke would have been a whopping fifty-five years old, if 'Jan. 16 1999' wasn't carved into his tombstone, right there between his father and Uncle Jesse in the family plot.
Bo didn't answer, but the silence spoke for him.
"Yeah, me too." There was a twinge of sadness in the boy's voice.
With a soft smile full of understanding, Bo stepped into the room and sat down on the bed, pulling his nephew into a hug. He was past the tears, but never past the ache in his heart for the brother who never came home that night. Michael returned the hug tightly, drawing on his uncle's strength and comfort. He was in his twenties now, but he had been just fifteen when his father died, and twelve when he'd lost his mother, aunts and uncle in the quake. Sometimes, Bo knew, it was hard to be the oldest, the strongest, the man, when he really wanted to be a little boy again, safe in someone else's arms. Michael had been all those things and more to this family, for his siblings and cousins and uncle, but right now, he could just be Michael, the son who missed his father. In his soul, Bo knew Luke was proud.
After another minute, the younger man pulled back, covering a sudden yawn with one hand.
"Alright, now. Get to sleep. We've got work in the fields tomorrow," Bo said, giving his shoulder one last squeeze. He smiled as Michael groaned in mock protest. The sound was enough to stir the other sleeping occupant of the room, one Jonathan Beauregard Duke, the fourteen-year-old blond who was the spitting image of his father – and twice as reckless, Bo was sure. He didn't wake, though, settling back to sleep and dreams of the F-16's he hoped to pilot some day. Where Bo could once make the General fly, his son now watched the skies and listened for the roar of an aircraft engine with the same excited look in his blue eyes. While Michael settled back under his covers, Bo walked around to his old bed to kiss his son gently on the forehead. He gave his nephew the same kiss and a quiet goodnight, and left the boys to sleep.
Bo intended to head to bed himself – it was very late, after a long day in the fields, and as his body constantly reminded him, he wasn't as young as he used to be, especially since the accident – but now he found himself heading out to the front porch again. He leaned against the railing, looking out at the stars and the land in the cool night air, and stood there for a very long time.
At long last, Bo sighed.
"Happy birthday, Luke," he whispered to the night. Then he turned inside, heading for bed.
The End