Author's note: Yeah, yeah, I'm late. Sorry about that. It's been a heckuva week (and it's barely Tuesday).
Chapter Four - A Hellbent Halfwit Presenting his Neck for the Noose
Greedy, and Hazzard's citizens know greed. The look, smell and feel of greed, which might all boil down to the gritty grime of cigar smoke or the slimy slip of cooking oil. But even that is a relatively tidy greed, dressed in white, hungry as a chick with its beak spread wide and hollering for more despite the fact that its belly ought to be full. The kind of greed that can be understood, mastered, lived with.
At least, the local folk can quietly assure one another, the greed that keeps them in its sights, trying to snatch away what little they have, has no genuine intentions of doing them harm. Hogg may not be half as smart as he gives himself credit for, but he has learned the most basic lesson of survival in Appalachia – that killing the entire herd today means no food for tomorrow.
Claridge County's brand of greed is black and choking. It's more than hungry, it's a bottomless abyss that can never be filled. And Hazzard folk have lived next door to that vacuum long enough to quietly, in remote corners and near-empty fields, do the math behind the current situation. If Boss J.W. Hickman is after wealth, Luke Duke is a fool's target. There's something else going on here.
Busy, busy, far too much going on to be dealing with Dukes today. Too much of his precious time got snatched away by them yesterday, gobbled up from breakfast to dinner. Travel permits signed first thing in the morning with the thought that at least he'd have those two ruffians out of his hair until noon, but the news of Luke's arrest had interrupted him just as he'd been about to start his mid-morning snack. Jesse burst in on him at lunch, then again when he'd settled to a mid-afternoon bite, and by evening that glutton J.W. Hickman had called, wanting to bargain for Luke Duke's freedom. As if Jefferson Davis Hogg wouldn't just give him permission to hang the boy if he wanted to. (Well, maybe not hang, maybe nothing like hang. Maybe he likes Luke Duke alive, but he sure as shooting doesn't need him running free in Hazzard.)
Loud, crude family, those Dukes are, never knowing their place, tracking their farm dirt right into his county building. Demanding entry if ever he tries to bar the door, considering themselves citizens of this fine county when all they really are is thorns in his side. Never leaving well enough alone, their noses are always firmly stuck in his business, and it's no wonder he wants vacation from them every now and then. Nothing permanent, but ten years would be mighty nice. If only Hickman hadn't fumbled when it came to picking up Bo, too. (He reckons that must have been an unfortunate miscalculation on the neighboring commissioner's part; must've just about kicked himself for going after two Dukes and only winding up with one. Good to know that kind of mishap isn't limited to his own bumbling law enforcers.) Then again, it was a perfectly clean bust, made in Sweetwater, so just maybe there's some merit to it. Maybe he's genuinely rid of Luke Duke for awhile.
Though he's stuck with Bo Duke, out there squabbling with Rosco in the squad room like they're nothing more than a pair of kids fighting over a new toy fire engine, shiny and red. Seems like the Duke boy is getting a touch belligerent, insisting on rights that he doesn't have. Like access to his probation officer, and both of those boys have just gotten a little bit spoiled when it comes to that. Probation isn't meant to be manipulated at will; they aren't supposed to get permission to leave the county every time some piddling little problem presents itself. (All right, so a ten year prison sentence is just a tad bigger than piddling. And maybe he wouldn't mind a trip over to Claridge himself, just to let his own eyes see Luke tightly secured behind bars. Except that if Hickman's call yesterday is any indication, he'd do best not to get too close to that particular county line.) Heck, if Bo and Luke had once had higher ambitions, if their unfortunate moonshine run had gone into Atlanta, if they'd been caught and confined within the Fulton County borders, why they'd have to make an appointment two months in advance before they could get to their probation officer.
"Dat, dat, Rosco," he finally intervenes, before it turns into a shoving match and someone gets hurt. Sometime when he wasn't looking, the youngest Duke cousin outgrew the whole dang county to tower over everyone's heads. And though his body got longer, his patience never did. Red-faced temper, and Bo is no one to tangle with when he gets that way. About the only ones who can keep him in check are his uncle (who really ought to be looking after his boy right now) and his cousin, Luke (who is understandably occupied at the moment). And, of course, the County Commissioner, because if this Duke boy has any smarts, he'll remember who holds the mortgage to the farm he lives on. "Let him be."
"Ijit!" Funny how Rosco magically grows himself a spine, stands up taller when the hard glare of Bo Duke's eyes shifts away from his face to take in Boss's. "All right, Bo Duke," he growls with all due authority befitting a sheriff. "You can see him. But keep it short!" Which actually sounds reasonably threatening, until the fool finishes it off with a series of kyu-kyus, a ridiculous giggle of a sound that no grown man should ever make.
Grinning-ninny Enos backs him up with a twitching, "See? I knew it would work out." Fiddling fingers gripping his hat, all teeth and eyes, until he remembers himself, looks around to find the man responsible for his paycheck watching him suck up to a Duke. Finds his wits then, steps back and it doesn't matter anymore, because Bo's oversized body takes up the whole of Boss's vision.
"It's about time, Boss," tries to menace. Deep voice, still seems so out of place on this boy who used to squeak and peep no lower than a songbird. Still cracks from time to time, like when he's boiling over with anger, and the commissioner reckons that could happen any minute now.
"Well, all right," Boss says to the fools in blue that are still peering around the mountain of Bo. "Get back to work." Or whatever they do out here in this shambles of a squad room. It's not like there's any excuse for the mess of papers and dust out here. Just because Boss doesn't let Eula – who costs too much to share, really – clean the squad room like she does his office, doesn't mean they couldn't take care of it themselves. And the only reason for that mound of papers on Enos' desk is that the boy never bothered to learn how to type. "Go find some parking violations." There's money to be made, if his law enforcement officers weren't so danged lazy. Or ethical, but that's just Enos, and he could be out looking for genuine law breakers.
"You heard the man," Rosco screams, as if it takes even half the volume he puts into it to make Enos cower. "Go find some parking violations!" Funny how there's no stuttering, no idiot nonsense sounds, not when the sheriff is just echoing words already spoken.
Satisfied, Boss can finally settle his cigar between his lips. All this time it's been burning down without a single puff of smoke making its way into his lungs – it's a waste, is what it is. Yet another reason he shouldn't be bothering to tolerate the Duke boy's presence here.
"Boss," puts one more nail in the coffin of his civility. Door gets closed – not particularly gently – behind them as Bo follows him into his office. Boy has the nerve to step right up and loom over him. "You've got to give me a pass to go into Claridge County."
"Oh," he says, calm and slow, and if it makes Bo's chest puff all the wider, makes his face go pink with frustration, well that's just one of the perks to being the Commissioner here in Hazzard. "I got to?" He's forced to tolerate complaints and sass and fools like the one in front of him, so he might as well take his pleasure where he finds it.
"Boss." Bo's eyes roll; he's trying to stay calm. All the effort in the world to be like his big cousin Luke, but aside from the density of hair in those wild mops on their heads and the crude way in which they were raised, the two boys couldn't be more different. "Please." And there's the evidence, right there. Luke Duke is much too prideful to ever ask pleasantly, too surly to be nice. Too much temper twisted up tight in those farm-boy muscles, and unlike Bo, he never lets it go. A few years in the Marines and that older boy came back hard to Bo's soft, quiet to Bo's loud. Grown up to Bo's child-in-a-man's-body.
Does your uncle know you're here? It would be a good question, the kind a concerned neighbor would ask. Because giving Bo liberty to enter Claridge County might be akin to signing the boy's death warrant. But Boss is not a concerned neighbor, and it's not his job to look after the man in front of him. Who really isn't a child, his height and strength, the way he stood up and accepted the charges against him when that smarmy revenuer caught him running moonshine, the way he's ready to take his life in his hands to protect his worthless cousin, all go a long way toward proving that fact.
"Come back in a half hour," he instructs, jabbing his cigar toward the door, just in case the overeager fool has forgotten where it is.
"Boss," comes the anticipated complaint. Blue eyes of a frightened boy staring into his, trying to threaten, but someone with a nature as gentle as Bo Duke's can never quite manage that.
"Dat!" silences him. "You want the paperwork, you come back in a half hour." Oh, it won't take the County Commissioner half that time to make it out, not even if he stops for a snack. But it'll give Bo Duke a chance to cool off, to rethink the notion of storming right into the hands of J.W. Hickman. Time to head over to the Davenport boy's garage, and get the best advice a greasy mess of a mechanic can offer. And if, after those thirty minutes have passed, the boy comes barging back in here, demanding permission to cross county lines, well Boss will have done what he can for him. There's no way to keep a hell-bent halfwit from presenting his neck for the noose.
Wise, but wisdom's got nothing to do with it. Their uncle is smart, strong, heck, he's right, but that doesn't matter one bit against the stalwart persistence of Bo when he's indulging himself in a fit.
"Hickman ain't got the gall to lock me up," ran the gist of Jesse's argument. He could see the merit behind one of the Dukes going off to Claridge to see Luke. All of them sitting around the scarred table in the too-small kitchen of a gap-boarded farmhouse understood that. Their oldest cousin would undoubtedly insist that he was fine, that he was downright happy in jail. Didn't need anyone or anything, least of all family, worrying after him. Which is half of why Daisy talked her way into joining Bo on this fool's errand.
Because it became clear, quickly enough, that Jesse could go to Claridge all he wanted, and it still wouldn't keep Bo here in Hazzard. Which left their uncle to decide the wisdom of all the Duke men offering themselves as targets for Hickman, or giving him a shot at only one. "You be careful," had been Jesse acquiescing and lecturing, all at once. Grousing and grumbling and giving in, because as badly as their uncle wanted to see Luke, Bo needed it more.
"I'm going with him," had been her attempt at reassurance. Bo said no and tried not to listen to her reasoning, but he was no match for Daisy's fast talking. About how if she was there, Hickman would think twice about starting anything. And how even if he did, even if he threw Bo in jail right there on the spot, she could bring the General home. And how her younger cousin really shouldn't be alone on this trip. Though she left out the part about how, if he saw Luke, and if Hickman actually let him walk back out of the Claridge County jail and leave their big cousin behind, he'd need her eyes to get them home, because his would undoubtedly be welled with tears of frustration for what he hadn't been able to fix.
Outvoted, Bo found himself without support when their uncle agreed with her logic. Oh, her baby cousin's face was tight with disagreement, eyebrows down, and skin red right to the tips of his ears. But he nodded, mumbled yes, sir, and grabbed her by the arm.
"Just you wait, Bo Duke," might have been pushing him too far. "A minute." Because she didn't need more than that to retrieve the other half of the reason she reckoned she should come along on this little trip.
Somewhere back in the days when she still wore overalls about the same shade as Jesse's, red clay ground into the seat and wearing mighty thin in the knees, when her hair was always in pigtails and on bad days she'd chew at the ends, Enos Strate started to crowd into her space. Oh, she couldn't ever remember a time when the boy hadn't been around, sharing the Duke farmhouse and the comfort of Aunt Lavinia's arms on nights when his father had business, same kind of business as Jesse did. Playing pick up games of baseball in the town green or basketball in the alley behind the Davenports' garage. Elbows, knees, sometimes a chin covered with a band-aid, because the boy couldn't be trusted to stay on his own two feet. Always nearby and then one day, sometime after her adult teeth had finally straightened themselves out from their childishly crooked ways, when her smile had settled, but her skin had just begun to break out, when she was caught between tomboy and farm girl, a lot closer.
Took her another five years to halfway appreciate that closeness. How Enos could stand right next to her, but never get so near that she'd have to push him away, how his eyes might have roamed but his hands never did.
Girls her age are starting to get picked off the vine, one-by-one. Dressed up delicately in white, pink blush of cheeks providing contrast. Folding themselves into the suntanned arms of Hazzard boys, promising until death do they part, and then whispering about the ones left behind. Keen hearing, and Daisy knows exactly what gets said about her and Enos. How it's about time he claimed his prize, and she really ought to know true love when she sees it. Moonshine runner's eyes, and she can see how much the man wants her. She's flattered; she considers it. Pictures herself in lace and crinoline, feels the eyes of Hazzard watching, the arms of her man around her. Imagines the kisses on her cheek, wishing her well and—
It all stops when the next lips in line to touch her cheeks are Jesse's, while Luke waits his turn, one hand on Bo to keep him from wandering off with one of the bridesmaids. Even in her best daydreams, they show up in rumpled clothes, tuxedos that look an awful lot like unwashed jeans, misbuttoned shirts hanging off their thin frames.
"Congratulations, Daisy-girl," Jesse says, uncombed hair falling over blue eyes. "Your Aunt Lavinia would be so proud."
Except she wouldn't, her aunt would be tsking at how she walked away from the men who need her, selfishly leaving them behind just so she could have her own day of glowing at the center of town, pink cheeked in a white dress.
Enos, he might or might not be the one. She doesn't have time to worry about it, not when there are already three men in her life, needing her more than they know.
Like right now, when she's opening the refrigerator to grab a pie that's been chilling in there since yesterday. She might have meant it to be last night's desert, or maybe she made it to bribe Cooter into checking her calipers and rotors; then again, it could have been something she meant to drop off at Enos' boarding house.
Doesn't matter, there's no one that needs it more than Luke. Everyone in Hazzard knows (because everyone in Hazzard has seen one or another of their relatives on the wrong side of those vertical bars) that when you go to visit the shut-ins, it's only proper to bring them some food.
"Let's go," she snaps at her younger cousin, as if it was him that held them up for these extra few seconds.