I think I've said it before, but it bears repeating: The boys go camping a lot in season four. It's a nice diversion to all the repeating plot lines of the season. And in Birds Gotta Fly, they do it again.
This, ladies and gentlemen, was a fine example of Bo Duke being a Good Sport. All the earmarks were there: he was most definitely not jealous that Daisy had a NASCAR offer, which was why there was no sign of him pouting, and not the slightest chance that he was taking those feelings he didn't have out on the mess kit he was supposed to be washing in the creek over there, but mostly seemed to be putting new dents into. Good thing Jesse and Daisy had gone on back home to get some shuteye, because neither one of them would tolerate that kind of abuse of perfectly good camping gear. Luke probably ought to put a stop to it himself; then again, a couple of dings in the pan couldn't make canned stew taste any worse, and might just help.
Besides, Luke reckoned he had something of a right to be upset. Bo had only spent the last ten years or so pulling every kind of stupid car stunt that there was with the hopes of making the circuit someday. Meanwhile Daisy mostly drove to get from here to there, and only happened to be dang good at it because she was a Duke. So Luke let his cousin fling the mess kits aside while flopping down hard on his sleeping bag, and didn't ask for help with cleaning up the rest of their mess from dinner or stringing the non-canned food up over a tree branch where the 'coons and other night critters wouldn't be able to get at it. Listened to Bo's boots taking a beating and his belt getting slapped off, heard the zipper on his sleeping bag rip open and the puff of air as Bo settled on his side, facing off into the dark.
Obviously they were done with the fire for tonight, so Luke kicked sand into it before toeing off his own boots. Settled himself on his back and stared at the moon, waiting for it. Counted stars until he realized that Bo wasn't going to say anything.
"Cuz," he tried.
Got a big old bothered sigh, then told, "I'm trying to sleep, Luke."
Well, then. Far be it for Luke to intrude on that. He pulled his own sleeping bag around him and left Bo to himself.
Still the trying to sleep thing failed and continued to fail well into the night. The way Bo was flipping from side to side, he could find himself rolling off the edge of this level ground here and on his way downhill with a final stop in the middle of the Ridge Road, not too far from one of Rosco's speed traps. As grumpy as he was, Luke didn't reckon Bo wanted to spend a few days cooling his heels in jail (for wrecking Rosco's patrol car, which might just be the dumbest thing they'd had to run away from yet).
Against his wiser wishes, Luke squinted his eyes open. Yellow fluff was sticking every which way out of the top of that green sleeping bag, Bo's shoulders were uncomfortably hunched against the ground and his back was to Luke, like he was trying to hide out inside of his own body. The picture of self-justified misery, and Luke couldn't leave him like that. Unzipping his own sleeping bag, Luke got smacked head on by cool air that threatened to make him more awake than he wanted to be, but he mind-over-mattered the chill away as he crawled over the dirt to Bo. Put his fingers into that dirty blonde mess since it was all of Bo he could really find.
Got no reaction which meant Bo had heard him coming. It wasn't possible that the kid was asleep, what with all the flipping and flopping he'd just done, and if he'd been surprised by the touch he'd be flailing his way out of the sleeping bag by now. So he was sulking at the top of his silent lungs and just waiting for Luke to come and make it all better.
Better, well, that was relative. Luke settled into the loose dirt at Bo's back and used a finger and thumb to twist a small section of Bo's hair up to a standing knot. His cousin was still playing possum, so Luke picked out another section and another, twisting them up, to the side, cockeyed this way and that. It was turning into the kind of art project Jesse would ooh and aah over, maybe even pat his head and offer to tack up on the wall of his bedroom. Somewhere between the fifth and tenth little coil he'd made, Luke snugged himself up tighter to Bo's back. Getting ignored was no reason to freeze to death.
Luke was running out of sections of hair on the back of Bo's head, contemplating the best way to get to the front without actually having to move, when his cousin gave in.
"What're you doing Luke?"
The kind of thing Aunt Lavinia would have sent him to the corner for. "Making you pretty."
That just got him a dramatic sigh and, "I'm already pretty, Luke."
"Humble, too," Luke agreed, twirling together the short hairs above Bo's ear, and giving it an extra tug to make it stand straight up, or make Bo dig a hand out of the bag and swat at him, whichever worked. Got the latter, of course.
And now that he was officially not ignoring Luke, Bo turned over, forcing him to shuffle back or get steam rolled. It was worth it though, for access to all that unmolested hair at the front of Bo's head. Luke set to work on it while Bo stared at him for a while.
"How come ain't no scout ever found us, Luke? All the races we win…" It was oddly cute, watching Bo pout like this. Must've been the fact that he should be long asleep by now, or maybe the cast of the moon, throwing the best light possible on his cousin's sad face.
If the ground hadn't been in his way, Luke probably would have shrugged. "It's different for girls," he said instead. "Less competition. You and me got to stick it out a while longer, I expect. And don't you go getting no ideas," Luke stopped his hair twiddling and fixed Bo with a hard stare for this part. "About how some fool stunt like jumping over thirty-two parked cars is going to help us get there."
Probably shouldn't have said that part, Bo was huffing and trying to turn away from him again. Why can't you ever let anything go?
Which was working to his advantage right now, the not letting go. Kept hold of the thin slip of hair between his fingers, watching Bo pull against it. Heavy fingers, fine hair, Luke would have lost the battle if Bo hadn't been so tender-headed.
"Ow, Luke!" he complained like he hadn't taken punches and stayed standing, like what Luke was doing now would even leave a mark.
Still, Luke changed his hold, not so much pulling as tussling Bo's hair, throwing in a, "Settle down, Bo" for good measure. A giant, tortured sigh, and Bo did.
"You ain't," he complained. "Got to go reminding me of that every chance you get, Luke." Which was an interesting notion, that Luke was even approaching anything like reminding Bo every chance he got. If he did, Bo would be eating crow more than breakfast, lunch and dinner, combined. "You ain't got to go bringing that up at all."
Which was, come to think of it, probably true. It wasn't like Bo hadn't settled down a lot after that, steadied himself and maybe even halfway grown up.
"Okay," Luke agreed, searching around for the next section of hair to torment.
Another big puff of air while Bo came back down from the argument that somehow never got started. "Ain't you cold?" he finally asked.
"Nah. Takes a lot of energy to make you pretty," Luke informed him.
Snort. "Not half what it would take to fix you up," was Bo's summation of the situation.
Another missed opportunity to shrug. He was going to have to get up off of the ground eventually, maybe even back to his own sleeping bag. Still he wasn't too sure either one of them wanted him to move right now. "I don't got to be pretty," was the reminder he gave Bo. "I'm the smart one."
All the same, long fingers were finding their way back out of the confinement of the sleeping bag. "Yeah," Bo agreed, but then he never had competed with Luke for smartest. "But just think about what it would be like if you was halfway pretty, too."
Imagine being that vain. No thanks; Luke had better things to do, like trying to keep Bo's hands out of his own hair. Had to give up his own beauty-making efforts in the process, but that was all right. He'd left most of Bo's hair a nasty enough mess that he was going to have to help him get it straightened out later, but later would take care of itself after he dealt with now.
Which consisted of catching both of Bo's hands and keeping them in neutral territory. Easy enough to do, even let Bo roll them over so that he was partway pinned under his long cousin's body. The fool was just getting to grinning about his victory when Luke canted his hips and swung a leg out from underneath where Bo's were still trapped in his sleeping bag. Luke was rewarded by a cute frown as Bo's brain caught up with reality in that split second before Luke flipped them over again. One more shift and Luke had Bo's skinny hands pinned into the dirt just above his own shoulders. Sat back on his cousin's still twisted body to admire his own handiwork.
"Not bad," he decided, tilting his head to the side for a better view. "You might just be pretty enough to make prom queen yet."
"Luke," Bo complained, sounded uncomfortable more than annoyed. A redistribution of his weight and Bo managed to disentangle himself enough to lay flat on his back in the dirt. "Now you come here," the grinning fool said, slipping those skinny fingers out from under Luke's. One hand came up behind his neck while the other grabbed at the shirt around his back. Bear hug, and Luke braced himself to end up on his back again, but the tip never came. Instead there were fingers in his hair, playing nice, not making a rat's nest of it, heartbeat below him, quick and unpredictable as a firefight, hips tilting up from underneath and a kiss with more sputters and spit than Rosco P. Coltrane on a rant.
He could pull away, wipe his mouth, find his way back to his own sleeping bag. He was, after all, too smart to be doing this. All the same, he changed his angle, slid his body down to where he wasn't so much sitting as lying on his cousin, tilted his head and repaired the broken kiss with greater skill than he'd ever fixed a blown radiator. Bo was prettier than Luke was smart.