Author's Notes: Haaaalllooooo out there! Long time no see! Well, dial-up it is, and I finally got myself a decent modem, so here I am with another update - and another story simmering in the background. My apologies for the long wait. And, in deference to my new job, I must sayhow very very foolish it was for the Dukes to go boating without lifejackets of U.S.C.G. approved type and adequate sizein a readily accessible location for each person on board. But then again, that wouldn't make much of a story, would it:-D Enjoy! Chapter 8: "Get Bo!" -(From Bad to Worse)
Bo let out a surprised yelp as he was thrown into the air, gasping as he plunged deep into the water below the ledge. In another moment, he was wildly fighting the undertow that forcefully sucked him down, trying not to panic as he realized he wasn't being carried along downstream, but straight down deep beneath the rapids. Suddenly, the direction of the current shifted, and he was tumbling head over heels inside a turbulent kettlehole, carried along with the same powerful force that steadily eroded the stone below the ledge deeper and broader every year.
Stay calm, he mentally ordered himself, but he couldn't see the boat or the sunlight of the surface anymore, and his chest burned with the effort of refusing to breathe. Then the water shoved him against the stone, thumping his back and shoulder, and in his shock and surprise he swallowed a gulp of river. Tumbling back into the current, his arm twisted awkwardly, and Bo realized he still held his wooden oar in a fierce death grip. That gave him an idea.
Grasping the handle tightly with both hands, he thrust the oar hard down at what he hoped was stone, trying to push himself free of the torrent. He only succeeded in wedging the oar into a crevice. Bo clung desperately to the handle as he was tossed about, and with a shuddering crack, the jammed end of the aged wooden oar snapped with his weight and the force of the current. Tumbling end over end once more, Bo struggled against his air-deprived lungs, taking in another gulp of water and feeling the thick liquid starting to flood his nostrils.
Heart thumping wildly in his chest, he looked despairingly through the dark, swirling water - and he wondered if this was it. The glorious end of Bo Duke. Drowned in a river like a possum in a sack. NO, he thought stubbornly, it wasn't - and if it was, he wasn't giving up without a fight.
His muscles ached and buzzed for oxygen as he tightly gripped the oar between both hands, and once more he thrust outwards, knowing every second he remained trapped in the ferocious circular 'drowning machine' current was a second closer to death. The jagged end of the oar met nothing but water, draining both his strength and his hope.
His lungs were on fire, his throat fiercely and forcefully closed against the river water, but it couldn't last. A cramp stitched his ribs, and Bo gasped in pain, choking on the water that poured into his mouth. His mental prayer was little more than wordless desperate cry for help - help that could only come from one source. A mere moment later, his bare feet dragged against jagged rock, and Bo reacted instantly. Weaker now, he held the oar as tight as he could and slammed it down with all the force he could muster on the stone where his feet had been a second before.
Weak as he was, it was enough. The force of his desperate thrust carried him free of the turbulent circular current below the ledge, up and out of the kettlehole and back into the regular flow of the rapids. The buoyant oar helped pull him upwards, and he saw the light of the surface sparkling brightly overhead, just before everything went black.
Daisy felt herself starting to shake, felt the sob building in her chest and hitching her breath, as she could only watch her oldest cousin's still form float away. Oh God, Luke! And then he was gone, carried off around a river bend beyond the trees. A moan cut her tears short, and she turned her attention back to Bo, where he lay in the bottom of the boat beside her. His soaked blue t-shirt clung to his chest, heaving as he gasped for air, eyes closed, the color slowly returning to his cheeks.
Then Daisy saw another color sharply contrasting the blue cotton shirt - bright red.
It took half a moment to find the source of the blood now pooling and mixing with river water in the bottom of the boat - Bo's leg. The jeans of his left calf were shredded, as was the skin and muscle beneath. Daisy gasped at the volume of the blood pouring from the ragged flesh, correctly guessing that he had slashed it on some stone in his underwater tumble. Pulling aside the scraps of torn denim, she realized the gashes were deep enough to reach major blood vessels.
Worry and fear became secondary to action as Daisy swiftly dug into the crate holding their supplies and pulled out the first cloth she grabbed - Luke's spare shirt. Bo moaned again, eyelids flickering, as she pressed the wadded shirt tightly against the wound with one hand. With the other, she found the pressure point behind his knee and pressed hard, praying it would be enough to slow and stop the blood loss. For several miserable minutes, she helplessly watched her cousin's lifeblood soak into the blue plaid shirt, thinking the terrible thought that she would lose both her cousins this day.
But after a few minutes had passed, the improvised dressing wasn't getting any more blood-soaked, and soon she heard the best sound in all her young years.
"Daisy…" Bo groaned again, and she felt the muscles tense in his leg beneath her hands. He was looking down at her, trying to prop himself up on one elbow. "What happened?" he asked, meaning the blood.
"You tore up your leg, hon. Stay still, I'm trying to stop the bleeding."
With another groan, Bo lay back, weary beyond belief. He must have drifted off again, but it couldn't have been for long, because when he opened his eyes, Daisy was trying to tie the makeshift bandage in place one-handed, while she kept direct pressure on with the other. She looked up and saw his cornflower blue eyes open, and gave him a little smile.
"Guess you're not rid of me yet, huh?" he commented. If he saw the fleeting look of sadness in her eyes, it didn't register to him. She finished the last knot - a bit tight, if anyone asked him - and moved up to lean over him and place a kiss on his brow.
"Not yet, sweetheart," she agreed.
Then Daisy looked down worriedly. The reddish-brown water in the boat seemed much deeper than it had been a little bit ago. In fact, it was deeper, she was sure of it, and too deep to be just a result of the constant splashing and spray of the rapids.
A quick survey of the wooden vessel found the cause: the hull was cracked near where the keel hit the stone ledge, and water was slowly leaking in through the splintered chink in the wood. Without action, the boat would eventually sink.
Still kneeling next to Bo, Daisy took a good look around, sizing up their situation. The rocks holding the boat in place were part of a jumble of larger boulders on the western side of the whitewater rapids. The water was still deep here, with the current trapping the wooden vessel against the tooth-like jaws of stone, but the tumble of rocks appeared to lead over into the shallows and to shore. If she was careful, Daisy thought she could cross the slippery, foam-sprayed stone without much trouble. Bo, on the other hand…
Meanwhile, though exhausted by his underwater ordeal, Bo propped himself up on one elbow again and took a good look around himself – and he didn't like what he didn't see.
"Daisy…where's Luke?" he asked uneasily, twisting around to check behind him and then looking up at her.
She couldn't bear to meet those blue eyes, intently focusing her gaze on the boulders and the streamlets flowing between them, as he grew more frightened by her silence.
"Daisy…"
"I don't know, Bo," she finally said, half-honestly. "He was hanging onto the side of the boat when I pulled you out of the water, and the next time I looked up, he was…gone." Her eyes started to well, looking downriver to the distant spot where she'd last seen him.
Bo swallowed hard, understanding what she implied. But he wasn't going to give up that easily. Taking a deep, ragged breath, he stuck his chin out a little, and reached one hand up to her cheek.
"Luke's tough, Daisy," he said firmly. "There's still a chance. Knowing him, he'll be walking back up here looking for us as we speak, and he'll tell us off for worrying."
She couldn't help but smile at her cousin's determined optimism. Then she looked back at the ever-deepening water slowly leaking into the boat.
"Well, we can't stay right here to wait for him. The boat's got a leak. We need to get to shore."
Bo quickly looked around, and could see that she was right. And now that he noticed, the water seemed to be coming in faster every second. Behind him he could see the trail of boulders, and concluded as Daisy had that would be the best route to take.
"No time like the present," he said, pushing himself upright and gathering his good leg under him to rise. The results of the quick movement took him by surprise, as his vision violently tilted and he had to close his eyes to shut out the sickening swirl of color. When he opened them, he was looking up at Daisy from the flat of his back, and the sun seemed to have jumped a little higher in the morning sky.
"You okay?" she asked worriedly, bending over him.
"Uhhnn…'long as I don't do that again," Bo said, realizing he'd passed out. He rubbed one hand at his eyes, trying to clear the spots.
Daisy, in the meantime, was looking back at the rocks, wondering how in earth she was gonna get her cousin across them to the other side. "Maybe if I can…"
"No, no, I'm alright. I think if I go a little slower…"
Bo started to push himself up again, and Daisy helped him, supporting his shoulders. He stopped when he was sitting upright, waiting for the spots to clear. Now he had a good look at the bloody makeshift bandage on his leg, and the red-tinted water covering the bottom of the boat and soaked into his clothes. When he felt steady again, he put one hand on Daisy's shoulder and the other on the crate in the middle, slowly pushing himself up. The boat wiggled under the motion, and he swayed with it, but managed to stand one-legged. His calf ached ferociously with the extra blood that gravity brought to his feet and legs, but the bandage held. Bo looked down at Daisy, his arm around her shoulders, and gave her a smile.
"See there? 'I think I can, I think I can…'," he joked.
Daisy had to smile too – somehow, Bo always managed to find the lighter side of the darkest situation. "Alright, then, let's think your butt out of this boat and onto the shore."
The unsteady movement of the boat made the first few steps difficult. Bo could hardly touch his left foot to the wooden hull to keep his balance, and he couldn't put weight on it at all, which meant taking short, hopping steps and leaning heavily on Daisy.
However, their first real hitch came in getting him up onto the first boulder, which rose a good three feet above the waterline and the hull of the boat. After a few different and painful tries, Daisy finally climbed up first and unceremoniously hauled her cousin up backwards, while he used his good leg to push. They both sat there panting for several minutes before Bo was ready to tackle the next one.
Slowly, the two Duke cousins made their way across the convoluted tumble of stone. Though some stones were as easily crossed as a smooth, flat sidewalk, many presented their own challenges – huge, tiny, tall, sloped, submerged, slippery, shifty, jagged. Ankle-deep in water halfway across one broad submerged ledge, Bo's foot slipped on the slimy algae with his short hop forward. He pitched forward, dragging Daisy down with him, but with better footing, she was able to just barely kept herself and two hundred pounds of Bo from plunging into the water. They paused there for a few minutes to rest, fully halfway to shore.
Daisy could feel Bo leaning on her more heavily as they kept moving, and she stopped more often so he could rest, but there was nothing she could do for him in the middle of the crossing but encourage him along. He was getting more and more tired, staring at the shore and wishing the grassy bank was that many feet closer. He thought he could feel hot blood trickling down his bare ankle, but he said nothing of it yet.
Finally, Daisy set foot on soft soil, and with a few more hops, Bo was there with her. He would have been happy to sink down right there, but when he tried, she held him up.
"Not yet, hon. Let's get to that willow there, it's just a little farther."
Wearily, he looked up at the huge weeping willow tree set back from the edge of the river, with dozens long dangling limbs sheltering the open space inside. It was maybe twenty normal paces – forty or so Bo-hops – away. The shade looked inviting, as the summer morning was already building towards a boiling hot day, and he nodded pale agreement.
The tree was his limit. Daisy carefully half-carried, half-guided him all the way there, but once inside the shaded shelter of the trailing limbs, he could give no more. Bo's good knee buckled, and all Daisy could do was let him slide to the ground, panting with his effort. His eyes were closed again as she checked his leg, applying pressure again to slow the fresh bleeding.
Daisy was torn in a half-dozen directions all at once. Bo needed a doctor - that much was obvious. But did she dare leave him alone to go for help? Should she wait until he was strong enough to go with her? What about Luke? Was there even a chance he was still alive, after what she'd seen? Could she leave Bo to look for him? What if he was washed up on shore somewhere, needing care just as much as Bo, or more? He could die if she didn't reach him in time - and Bo could die if she left him.
"Daisy…"
She looked up. Bo was looking back at her with weary eyes.
"Go look for Luke," he croaked, more begging than commanding. Clearly he had been thinking the same thing.
"Bo, I…" she started to refuse sadly. Bo was right here, right now, and she couldn't take the chance of losing him when she didn't know if there was a chance for Luke at all. But Bo was a master of pleading puppy-dog eyes, and all his worry and sorrow and fear now fed into a blue-eyed expression that was unbearable to refuse.
"Please, Daisy…"
Daisy bowed her head, looking away, still torn with indecision. The bleeding in his leg appeared to have stopped again, though, and for all his wet clothing, the day was growing hot. She looked back at her little cousin and his pleading expression.
"I'll try, Bo."
Bo woke to the distant roaring rush of the river. The afternoon was quiet and still, just as idyllic a summer day as the afternoon before, when the three Duke cousins napped peacefully on an island many miles upriver. There was nothing peaceful about it now. The first thing Bo felt when he opened his eyes was a pang of fear deep in his gut, fear for Luke.
"Daisy?" he called, blinking as he looked around. Cautiously, he sat up from where he lay in the soft green grass beneath the willow tree. The light breeze playfully waving the willow branches was the only response he got.
"Daisy?" he called again, a little louder. Bo could see the trail of footsteps through the grass where she had half-carried him in, some of the bent blades stained red, and another trail of her footsteps leaving, but that was it. How long had she been gone? She'd promised to go look for Luke, but that must have been hours ago.
A throb of pain in his leg drew his attention, and Bo groaned slightly, feeling every inch of his soreness. His aching lungs and muscles felt like he'd just run a marathon. Bending forward, he took a closer look at his injured calf. The blood that had soaked the makeshift bandage - Luke's shirt, Bo saw with a twinge in his heart - was now crusted and dried. He had no idea how bad it really was, but the volume of blood gave him an idea. In any case, it would hold for now. Where was Daisy?
Slowly, carefully, Bo pushed himself to his feet, and tested his left leg against the soft earth. It wasn't much better than earlier, but he could stand to put a little weight on it now. Taking small, limping steps, Bo moved out from beneath the tree and into the hot afternoon sunlight, squinting as he looked around.
There was still no sign of Daisy, or anyone else, for that matter. The position of the sun confirmed it was late afternoon, many hours since they'd left the wrecked boat behind that morning. Bo frowned and made his way to a boulder at the water's edge to sit down and wait.
While he waited, he decided to take a closer look at his wounded calf. Propping his leg up across the rock, he carefully undid the bandage, hissing where the cloth stuck. He set the blood-soaked shirt aside and took a look. His stomach did a flip-flop, looking at the ragged flesh that now trickled blood in spots. He had been so full of adrenaline underwater, he hadn't even noticed it happen.
Keeping his leg very still, Bo took the opportunity to wash the blue plaid shirt in the river water for a clean - at least, cleaner - bandage. It dried quickly in the hot sun, spread out across the rock, and Bo retied it around his leg. Then he looked around again, frowning deeper as he still saw no sign of Daisy. He'd been out here for nearly an hour, and she must have been gone for several hours before that - she should be back by now. The twinge of worry in his gut for Luke now spread to include Daisy. It was time to start looking.
Still barefoot, Bo stood, and took stock of his situation. There was no way for him to reach the flooded boat for any supplies - not alone, at least - but he still had his knife strapped to his waterlogged belt. His wallet was in his back pocket - not that it would do any good - and that good old Bo Duke charm was still intact. Luke was missing - he refused to add, presumed dead - and Daisy seemed to be missing as well, so his good Duke luck appeared to be holding out. Well, what was he waiting for?
With that, Bo hobbled off, heading downstream and following Daisy's tracks along the shoreline.
The evening shadows were deepening as Bo read the tale told by the tracks in the earth. He'd followed Daisy's trail this far, watching for signs of Luke at the same time. His heart grew heavier with each step that passed without finding either one of them. Then the trail abruptly changed. Daisy!
For a dozen steps, Daisy had been running, when she stopped suddenly with a tumble of scattered sand, and two sets of heavy, booted footsteps intercepted her. Three sets of tracks led away from the river and into the woods. Limping, Bo followed. He paused at the edge of the woodline, a painful lump in his throat. No, Luke would understand. Luke would be alright. Knowing him, Luke would come to his rescue. But right now, Daisy was in worse trouble.
For several hundred feet, the staggered pace of the tracks told Bo that Daisy was fighting every step of the way. Give 'em hell, Daisy! Bo mentally cheered. Whoever had hold of her would soon learn the folly of messing with a Duke, male or female. Then three sets of tracks became two, one of them heavier than before. They were carrying her. The knot of fear in Bo began to change to anger. How dare they! How dare they touch his cousin! He'd break every bone in their bodies with his bare hands if they hurt her, and Luke would be sorry to have missed out! Scum-sucking, bottom-feeding, underhanded, miserable wretches!
Seeing red, Bo resolutely carried on, imagining the worst possibilities for Daisy's situation, and what he'd do to her attackers when he caught up with them. It wasn't long before it occurred to him she never would have left his side if he hadn't begged her, and guilt redoubled his anger, fueling him with plenty of energy for the trek ahead.
Y'know, I admire that boy's tenacity, even if he is headed straight into trouble!
