Chapter Seven – Timing and Approach, Strategy and Technique

Bits and pieces – not much, but they know some. What they saw on television, the stories in the Hazzard Gazette. Red-tinged images of a wasteland. Tired, thin men, Americans. Carrying assault rifles, magazines of cartridges slung across their chests. Just boys, but they were killers. Rules changed since the wars of their fathers; not all the dead were soldiers. Hard to say who was at fault when the civilians got killed, or hard to agree, anyway. Arguments slipped out of the newspapers and radios, through the walls of homes and over the dirt roads until they crashed right through the cinderblock of the Boar's Nest. Brawls over events too far away to understand, but they were every bit as ugly as homegrown fights about who sold whom a goat with dried up teats or a hen that wouldn't lay.

By the time the Duke boy made it home, most of those blazing battles had burned down to embers. By then there were other things to fight about, like taxes and gas prices, and the value of mule-powered vehicles.

But the questions remained. About exactly how crazy that war, that country, could make a man. Whether there was a hairline fissure left somewhere on that Duke boy, a flaw that, if struck the wrong way, could make him explode. Murmurs mostly died away when the boy settled back into the community, seeming largely the same fun-loving troublemaker he'd ever been.

But now they're circulating again. Rising and falling like wind over wheat tassels. What did he learn over there, what manner of weapons might he be willing to use, and is Luke Duke a killer?


Obstacles, a man faces nothing but frustration in his efforts to better himself. Why, if it wasn't for the selfishness of his constituents, greedily guarding their gains, ill-gotten or otherwise, J.D. Hogg would be a better man already.

Oh, and there are other obstacles to his betterment. Like Rosco's fat sister, who spends money faster than he can bring it home and hide it from her in that safe he had installed in the front hall. Excuses, reasons, she's got one for every pound on her body to explain where all the money goes. About how he's hard to feed (which isn't halfway true – he'll eat any cut of beef, so long as it's the finest), how her hair and nails have to be professionally perfected, and how she's got a beholden duty to be the best dressed woman in the church each Sunday, what with being the wife of a county official. And then there was that whole Rolls Royce fiasco, the car she absolutely had to have because the women at the Garden Club (or maybe it was the Ladies' Auxiliary) hated her. All the logic in the world couldn't change her mind and her screaming misery got to be too much for him, so he'd bought her the damned thing. Which she never drives because she's saving it for a special occasion, most likely defined as some expensive affair that he's got no intentions of taking her to. A wife (especially a Coltrane for a wife, and this isn't news, but he's got no one to blame but himself for this one) is a distinct liability.

And then there are turncoat allies, like Jesse Duke, who used to be something of a partner. Never entirely trustworthy, old Jesse wasn't, always getting mixed up about trifles like right and wrong, as if such distinctions existed in the world of illegal whiskey. Sure, the younger version of the man would sometimes confuse good business-sense with thievery, or run a perfectly acceptable batch of 'shine down a creek just because it didn't bead properly. It wasn't anything J.D. appreciated, this bizarre adherence to quality when half his customers had long since given up their sense of smell, burned off their taste buds and misplaced their minds in deference to the liquor they so desperately sought. But he tolerated it because on those nights when Jesse couldn't make his own runs (which grew increasingly common after he lost his brothers and took in their children, with sniffly little noses and daredevil ways that led to more than one dash to the emergency room) J.D. made them for him out of the goodness of his little Hogg heart. And if he charged the customer more than Jesse ever would, if he pocketed the difference, it only made him look more favorably upon an otherwise frustrating partner.

Too bad, too bad, that when Jesse found out (must've been that old Josiah up on the pine bluff, man never did know how to hold his tongue, even before he developed a taste for 'shine) he took it so hard, but there wasn't a thing J.D. could do about it by then. Certainly not give the money back, not when the customers had paid it willingly, and not only that, he'd already entered it into his ledger books then stashed it away. No, there was no undoing it, and no reason to even consider such a thing. Sure, Jesse swore he'd never work with any Hogg for the rest of his born days, promised that he'd make sure J.D. never swindled another man, threatened to shadow him night and day until he changed his ways. Dukes always were sore losers, but he'd get over it. After all, those little brats he was looking after would get sick again and he'd need money for doctors and dentists and school clothes for ratty little children who were already growing like weeds out of farm dirt.

Never would have guessed how long that man could hold a grudge, how effective an obstacle he'd turn out to make himself. All but split himself into four, because those snotty-nosed kids all grew up every bit as stubborn as their uncle, with exactly the same foolish notions. About fairness and justice, and doing the right thing in a world where nice guys finish last. Just a bunch of blamed fools, sitting on the best topsoil in the county, and still unable to turn a profit.

Resourceful, clever, a man has to adapt to get around all the obstacles in his life.

"Well, well, well, well and well," speaking of obstacles. He lets his eyes trail up from the brown-shirted belly that he spotted first, but he knows who it is even before he tips his head back so far that something pulls in his neck – just to see the man's face. "If it ain't Rollo." Hickman's lackey, and how he got into this private office at the back of the Boar's Nest, silently stalking up from behind to trap him into this corner, Boss will never know. But he reckons he needs to retrain the wait staff out there on the rules and regulations behind who passes through that door. He also needs to retrain his sheriff on being where there's trouble, even if he is the one who told Rosco to stay behind at the county building. Could be that his brother-in-law is about the biggest obstacle he ever invited into his life. "Where's your boss?" Because Rollo has never been on anything but the shortest of leashes.

"Not here," the oversized ape answers, stepping forward. Instinct makes Boss move back – never wise to get too close to the riffraff. "But he sent me with a message for you."

"Oh he did, did he?" It's not so much that he minds how his shoulders have to cramp and curl to accommodate the corner he's trapped in. It's more that his cigar is over there in the ash tray, burning down without ever getting close to his lips. He reckons that Rollo needs to deliver the message and get his extra-large carcass out of here so the cigar can get properly smoked and the bonbons can come out of his desk drawer. "Just exactly what is this message you came all this way to give me?"

"He said," the goon answers and, smooth as butter melting on the corn cob, he pulls a gun from his jacket. Boss hears himself making sounds of protest, but old big and ugly, he doesn't even seem to notice. "It would have gone easier on you if you'd just given him your county. Now he's going to have to take it by force."


Think boy, that was Jesse's advice, something of a plea. Think, but he's barking up the wrong tree. Luke's the thinker and he's not here. That's the whole point. Keep your wits about you was Jesse giving up, letting him go.

Because someone needed to stay with Daisy, and they could both agree to that. The girl was distraught, dizzy. Insisting she'd best go back to work which meant that one of them needed to sit with her, to hold an icepack to her forehead and force her to rest for a few minutes.

The dispute was not over taking care of Daisy, or even which of them is most qualified to do it. Bo may be bigger than his female cousin and stronger, but all the size in the world doesn't matter against that girl. She's a Duke, stubborn, insistent, and has been older than Bo for their entire lives. She's never once listened to him, not unless he happened to be agreeing with her. Heck, she hardly pays Luke any mind, but Jesse – no amount of defiance will get her to her feet when it's her uncle's hand that's pressing against her shoulder to keep her pinned to the couch.

The disagreement wasn't even about the fact that someone needed to look out for Luke, too. It emerged from the finer details: timing and approach, strategy and technique, things Bo doesn't have time for. Luke's the schemer, but he's not here to save himself. If Jesse reckoned there was strength in numbers, Bo couldn't argue with that wisdom. Perfectly logical and completely useless, because when it came right down to it, Claridge County guns were drawn and trying to get a bead on Luke. There was no time to wait for backup - hell, he'd already wasted too much time disagreeing with Jesse. Bo had to get out there.

With his wits about him, which is how he comes to be skidding the General to a stop in front of the courthouse. A waste of time, most likely, but it's also the safest course of action. "Boss," he's hollering, even as he takes the cement stairs two at a time. Odds are the Hickman won't listen to reason no matter who's doing the talking, but he sure as heck isn't going to pay the least bit of attention to anyone below him in rank. Temporary alliances, Dukes have made them with Hoggs in the past, and he's going to have to try to make one now. "Boss!" Even if every cell in his brain screams against it, and it takes more strength to keep himself focused on the task at hand than reining in Maudine when she wants to haw to his gee.

Luke would stop at nothing to protect him if their roles were reversed, including putting himself directly into the path of a bullet. And Bo reckons it may still come to that, so even as he's yanking open the leaded glass doors of the courthouse, his mind is whirling with where his cousin will go when he's on the run. Snapshot of one still site after another clicks through his brain as he storms right through the swinging doors to the sheriff's squad room, still shouting Boss Hogg's name.

Wrong boss. Hickman's there, turning to face him as his slippery boot soles skid to a stop just inside the doors. Breath heaving up in him as his body struggles between standing his ground and sprinting out of this place at his top speed. Gets relieved of any decision-making when his arm is grabbed from behind, twisted. Fights against it for all of a second until there's the poking pain of a gun barrel in his back. Goes limp with a sigh and, "Rollo," he guesses.

"Very good," Hickman congratulates. But he doesn't have time to impress this man with his powers of deduction. And this might not have been the person he intended to ask a favor from today, but what the hell. The current situation has cut out the middle man.

"Gijit! Bo Duke, what are you doing here?" Or one of the middle men anyway. Rosco's here somewhere, hiding behind a post or around a corner where he can only be heard and not seen. Babbling away, and Bo ignores him for now.

"Boss Hickman," is really the most important man in the room, even if Rollo is shoving at him from behind. "Luke – he ain't never brought no harm to you. Nor nobody." It's a start, but he's got to talk faster, what with the way Rollo clearly has designs on shoving him right past the Claridge County Commissioner. "He ain't armed, and he ain't stole nothing, nor knowingly transported whiskey." Downright personal, the way that gun keeps jabbing in his back.

"Move," gets grumbled from behind him.

"I'm going," he snaps, even if he's doing his best to stay rooted to this spot. Just long enough to make his case: "Let him go. Take me instead." Not that he has the first idea what he is offering himself up for, not that it matters.

Those gentle blue eyes, calm mask of a face – the image is permanently stored in his brain. Luke sending him home to safety when the danger was greatest, and it's about time to return the favor. All along, even up until the moment he stepped into this room and ran face first into his fears, his thoughts have been tangled up in selfishness. About how much he misses Luke, the fact that he forgot to thank him for letting him beg off the errand at Miss Minnie's, and how he's always taken his big cousin's presence for granted. Never beyond the reach of a long arm, and he's been wondering whether he'll ever be able to stretch across the distance between them and pull Luke close to him again.

All those thoughts about himself and what he's lost evaporate when he offers himself up as prisoner in the place of Luke. Selflessness lends him bravery, makes him feel strong, effortlessly calm, just like his cousin has always been. For all of a second, and then it's gone with a laugh. Not his own, Hickman's.

"I've already got you," he gets informed. "I got no reason to give anything up."

Rollo shoves so hard, Bo's tripping over his own feet. Never lets go of that arm twisted behind his back either, and Bo feels the muscles pull painfully. "Move," gets growled at him again.

Defeat. Coming here was supposed to be keeping his wits about him and first things first. He was only going to put himself under the gun if negotiations with Boss Hogg failed. Now he's getting pushed across the linoleum and up two steps toward the upstairs jail cell, and there's Rosco, cuffed and stuffed.

Please Br'er Fox, whatever you do, please don't throw me into the briar patch…

Back in those days when the kitchen table was taller than him, before he could reach anything on his own, and morning into afternoon stretched out endlessly as he tried to sit still long enough for Aunt Lavinia to call him a good boy and offer him a cookie, Luke used to read to him. Seemed like betrayal, his big cousin running off to school and leaving him behind every morning, but the trade off was the nights when that rough-edged voice would read him Uncle Remus tales. About how fools made mistakes and got themselves caught, but if they were very clever, there was hope for them yet.

"Don't put me in there with him."

Insulted pout on Rosco's face, like it's never occurred to him that the distaste between lawmen and Dukes goes both ways. "Wijit," he defends.

"Move," comes from behind him again, could just be the only word Rollo knows.

"I mean it Hickman," he blusters. "Don't put me in there with him. I ain't going to be able to control myself. I'm liable to hurt him." Which would be a lie, except Rosco already seems hurt by the words alone.

"Oh, tiddly tuddly, Bo Duke," is how the sheriff covers up those wounded feelings. "You couldn't hurt me. I'm made of tougher stuff than that," he mutters. "Why I'll just, I'll go hand-to-hand with you any day," which sounds fine, except for how both hands are pinned behind Rosco's back right now by handcuffs. "Then, then you'll see."

Sardonic smirk from Hickman; he likes the idea of a battle between Coltrane and Duke in a small cage. "Hurry up," he commands of his lackey, like he's exhausted by it all, but he's enjoying himself plenty.

"Don't do it, Rollo," is Bo upping the ante on the threat, but it's moot. His twisted arm finally gets released long enough for Rollo to unlock the cell door. Gun's still on him, so Bo doesn't do any more than stretch out those muscles that got cramped and pulled. "I mean it now."

Which might (and Luke's voice is there in his head, chuckle in the tone, telling him how he's overacting) be more than he needs to say.

"Cuff them together," is Hickman's next brilliant little insight, and just maybe he begged a little too hard not to get thrown into this here briar patch.

Rollo makes quick work of it, even if Rosco does ijit his objections at high volume. Clamps the cuff down tight around the bones on Bo's right wrist, then steps back onto the far side of the bars.

"Try not to kill each other," Hickman advises. There's a metallic click that Bo knows so very well as Rollo turns the key in the cell's lock. "At least not yet. Not until Rollo and I get back from hunting down your cousin."

"Hickman!" he hollers, and it takes everything in him not to grab onto the bars in front of him and shove with all of his might. "Don't you hurt him, don't—"

But he might as well be talking to the wind. Hickman and Rollo are gone, leaving the squad room's swinging doors to shush against each other while Rosco keeps muttering pointless threats into his ears.