Chapter Nine

November 1971

No one had told him, and it was enough to make him angry, until he realized that no one had told Jesse or Daisy, either. Not, that was, until his uncle's ever-widening frame came lumbering out to find his niece and nephew in the midst of picking ears of corn on a Tuesday afternoon. For the first time since that year after Lavinia died, when the bursitis in Jesse's shoulder had been bad enough to warrant it, he and Daisy had been pulled out of school to help with harvest. During Thanksgiving week when it would mean only three missed days of classes and there wasn't a whole lot of teaching going on anyway. Seemed like some unspoken prayer had been answered when he got to trade in his desk for the fields. At least it had when he first got told about it last week, but by the time the old man came rushing out to them that Tuesday, Bo was thinking that maybe sitting down with a textbook propped open in front of him might feel pretty good. Just for an hour or two, and then he'd be content to come back out here.

But he was going to get a reprieve anyway, it seemed, a chance to rest his back and check over the nicks and splits left in his palms by the dried stalks, because Jesse had come to beckon them back to the house.

"Never you mind why," in that high-toned voice that tolerated no sassing was the only reason he and Daisy were given for the way in which they were being herded back to the house when there were still plenty of hours in the day and work to be done. Through the dried stalks and crossing the tree line, across what passed for a pasture and the thick chimney was there, same beacon it had ever been, to guide them to home, hearth and food.

And two figures on their porch. Making themselves at home, it seemed, so they couldn't be tax collectors or they'd be running from Uncle Jesse's squirrel gun instead of lounging lazily against the railing. Drinking—something, too far away for him to see more than the movement of hand to face, then head tipping back, but it couldn't been moonshine, not out in the open like that. All the same, something about the undefined and backlit shadows of the bodies felt familiar, smelled of wild nights and corn whiskey and—

His feet were running before his brain caught up, hurtling forward on instinct alone, because that up there was—

A trick, felt like. Sure, the one man gulping from a frosty glass was Cooter, hair sticking out in all directions and dirt smudges across most of his face. But that other one, well, it was Luke and it wasn't.

Felt stupid to slow his steps, to begin dragging his feet now that he was in the farmyard, to let himself be passed by Daisy, who must have figured it out only seconds after he did, and turned those ever-longer legs of hers free to sprint like a filly breaking through the gate. Seemed silly to look at her bolting up the steps, to watch strong arms open and wrap themselves around her, to study the rigidness of the body that held onto hers, familiar and wrong all at once. Stiff-standing, straight of spine, nothing at all like his casual cousin.

"Aw," Cooter moaned, and it made for a nice distraction, a reason for no one to notice just how slowly Bo's feet were now moving. "Daisy, I thought you was in a rush to hug me." The posture might have been all wrong, that lack of hair (and until now, Bo had refused to focus on that, because somehow the sight of his nearly-bald cousin made his stomach twist and his eyes sting) on his head might have given him the air of a stranger, but that blue-eyed glare that got leveled at their crude friend, that was all Luke Duke.

"Come on, boy," meant that he'd slowed so much that even his uncle had caught up, and that man's best running days were behind him.

"Hey, Bo," was Cooter making sure that no one missed how far behind his female cousin he'd fallen. "Look what the cat dragged in!"

Cat, his foot. "You knew he was coming," he accused the aging man that was hustling him along now, or maybe it was the grungy mechanic that was still eyeballing Daisy with a slightly suspicious amount of interest. Didn't matter, because by that time he was mounting the steps to where both his cousins stood – the one stepping back to make room for the rest of her family while the other offered his right hand.

"No he didn't," and if the body was wrong, the face all out of proportion without wild curls hiding half of it, the voice was Luke's. "Even I wasn't sure right up until I finished training, so's I didn't tell no one. Hey, Bo," came out quieter than the rest, whispered right into his ear, because what had looked like a handshake from afar had turned into a hug the minute he got close enough. "Caught a bus to Atlanta long before the birds was stirring, and tried to call Jesse for a ride when I got there." All of this came conducted through the hard shoulder that his face rested against, and even if the shirt there smelled of something other than the soap Daisy had used to clean their laundry for at least the last five years, there was no question that this was Luke, letting him hold on until he was ready to let go. Which was not quite yet, not when it meant he'd wind up with a close-up look at the farmboy-turned-Marine. "But didn't get no answer, so I called Cooter."

Bo pushed himself upright then, turning quickly away from Luke to catch his uncle's eye.

"I really didn't know he was coming," Jesse confirmed, though it still seemed suspicious to Bo that their guardian had taken leave of the field and his kids not a half hour ago, on some sort of an errand in the house. "But there I was, bagging the corn," in burlap, because what Dukes grew wasn't for the eating, but to be stored and fermented in their barn before it got dragged off into the woods. And in truth, Jesse would never lie, so he hadn't known Luke was coming, hadn't been given any prior knowledge that Bo would be standing here now with the familiar weight of his cousin's arm across his shoulders, feeling just as natural there as the air in his lugs. "When that hooligan," pointing to Cooter, who grinned as if the epithet was a joke, oh, but it wasn't. Their uncle frequently pointed out how much maturing that Davenport boy had yet to do. "Came up the drive, horn blaring all the way." Then the scolding got softened with a, "Thank you, Cooter."

"No problemo, Uncle Jesse," only made the old man's teeth grit down, but the lecture on manners and exactly whose uncle Jesse wasn't got bitten back.

A glass of lemonade was getting shoved into his hand; so that was what Luke and Cooter had been drinking. Pitcher was empty now, the last cupful getting handed over to him by Daisy, who was also sipping at a glass of her own. Funny how they only kept enough food and drink in the house for three now, and what was meant to be refreshment for dinner was already gone by mid-afternoon.

"How long can you stay, boy?" Any lingering doubt that their patriarch had known, and kept from him, that Luke was coming home disappeared with that question.

"It's a thirty day leave." Jesse's smile was the sun emerging after a week of storms. "Looks like I got here just in time to help y'all with harvest, too," Luke added, the warmth of his arm finally leaving where it had been draped across Bo's shoulders. "I figured y'all would be done with it by now—"

Affronted, that was the look on the old man's face, and Bo couldn't quite say he blamed him. He never did take kindly to anyone, family or foe, second-guessing his farming practices. "Now boy, you just think again." Well, just like old times. Luke was about to get a lecture. Bo put down his now empty glass and turned his attention to the upcoming battle of wills. "You ain't doing a lick of work; you're a guest."

"What? Jesse—"

"Sit!" the old man growled, and if it wasn't logical, if there was no place for Luke to put his hind end, not when Daisy and Cooter had taken the porch swing for themselves, it didn't matter one bit. "And spend some time here with your friend." Who was looking a mite uncomfortable over there, halfway hiding behind Daisy and waiting for Jesse's steam to run out. Sure, Cooter liked to act brave, but this right here was where the pedal hit the metal, and there weren't many who could face down Jesse Duke. "Boy, don't you sass me." Except Luke.

"Sir, yes sir." Now that was strange. Luke rarely remembered to call Jesse 'sir' in the first place, and there wasn't anything in the patriarch's demeanor that would necessitate him doing it double.

Pleased as punch, that was the look on Jesse's face. "Now Daisy there, you just go inside and start working on a fine dinner. Cooter, you're invited."

"Well, now, Uncle Jesse," their slovenly friend tried, but he was a fool to think he could get out of it.

"I ain't about to hear no arguing."

"Yes, sir." And in truth, the Davenport boy could do with a nutritious supper every now and then. As far as Bo knew, most of his meals were of the liquid variety.

"Now me and Bo's going back out there to finish up what him and Daisy started. We ain't going to be gone for more than a couple of hours. And when we get back, we's just going to light us a fire and have us some nice vittles."

Weird that he had no inclination to argue or complain that it wasn't fair that he had to go back out into the fields when no one else did, that Daisy and Cooter were going to get to spend time with Luke while he had to work. Should have been automatic, but in truth he needed a little time and distance to adjust his mind to this man with arms that felt like Luke's, but were sleeved in some sort of olive-green cotton overshirt instead of the blue flannel that his cousin preferred, with a voice that sounded familiar, but said the wrong things. And then there was that skull, shining through the too-short hair, and the clink and jingle that Bo couldn't place until he saw the chain hanging down from his cousin's neck. Dog tags, and without even a second to think about it, he hated them. Illogically, irrevocably hated them.

Cool air, fresh against his face and it felt good while he worked, like a damp cloth when he was fevered. A little privacy, because Jesse was at the other end of the row, and he could think, could give himself half a chance to work out why it all felt like a cruel trick. Luke coming home unexpectedly and staying for a whole month ought to be good, even if his spine was a bit too rigid. By the time he'd been out in the corn for fifteen minutes, he couldn't say he was sorry when he spotted old Luke, still hairless, but dressed in jeans and flannel now, blatantly disregarding their uncle's orders and loping out into the fields. And when he took his place next to Bo those hands pulled corn off the stalk just as deftly as they ever had, while both he and Jesse pretended that Luke hadn't gone off and been deliberately disobedient.

— — — — — — — —

Still, it took a few days before Bo got his cousin back. Thanksgiving, with its frozen turkey instead of a freshly hunted one, was a stiff and formal affair. Maybe it always had been, with the ritual of prayer followed by each of them listing off things to be thankful for, then the too-much food, all of which had to be eaten, even the sweet potatoes that he had never cared for and sure wasn't about to start liking now. Church in the afternoon, sitting in starched clothes through the annual rendition of We Gather Together sung slightly off-key because the deacon had a tin ear, then back home to change and take care of chores before they sat their logy selves in front of the fire and waited for Jesse to pull out the old photo album and reminisce about Thanksgivings past.

But Friday's frosted-over windows at dawn brought a changed feeling to the air, one of urgency to finish their work before winter could sneak up on them. So when they dressed in the morning, there were long johns and denim jackets pulled out of the closet, and somewhere in the process of dressing Luke took off his dog tags and left them, untouched, on the dresser between the pair of twin beds until he'd need them again in a month or so. Or untouched by his own hands anyway. Bo found himself picking them up the minute his cousin wandered down the hall to the bathroom, wishing he could get away with hiding them in the drawer or under his mattress. DUKE, L. K., his cousin had been reduced to. A NEG, followed by his social security number, and it was funny how almost all the characters of a man's name could be dropped and it didn't matter, but the number that the government used to identify him, that had to be listed in its entirety. Followed by USMC, the initials of the service that had taken Luke from him, and now was only loaning him back for a month. L came after that, who knew what that was for, then METHODIST. Luke's whole self, reduced to five lines, stamped into metal. He hastily dropped the tags when he heard footsteps heading back from the bathroom; it was his turn to go in there and get ready for the day anyway.

Which turned out, once the tags had come off his cousin and the work clothes had been put on, to be a harvest day like any other harvest day. At the end of which he came home exhausted, one arm draped across Luke's shoulders, smiling to know that he'd get some rest now and that his cousin would be in the bed next to his when he woke up come the following dawn.

Even leave, a whole month of holidays, wasn't anything he wanted to go remembering in any detail. There were plenty of good parts: mornings starting with too-hot showers even if the rusted old water heater in the kitchen never could manage to heat anything above what he would have called tepid before the ice-water of boot camp, pre-dawns sitting on the porch listening to the wind catch in dry leaves instead of moaning endlessly over the ocean only to slap into the flat sides of the barracks, steaming coffee silently delivered by his uncle, who would sometimes linger beside him for a few minutes. The smell of land and animals instead of the sea, the yellow glow of the overhead light in the kitchen behind him welcoming him back into its warmth once he'd had his fill of fresh air. Waking Bo by stealing his blankets was as much fun as it had ever been, watching that face screw up to complain at him, looking at sunshine-blonde hair falling into the teen's eyes, the pout of young lips. The hand reaching out for the warmth that had been stolen from him, getting handed jeans instead, and he'd put them on as a matter of habit before coming in search of some sort of revenge for how he'd been so rudely interrupted in the middle of blissful dreams of dates with pretty girls. A wrestling match turned hug and then there was breakfast.

Daisy playing grown up, serving a hearty meal like their aunt used to, but the girl had no idea how young she still was, how much baby-fat still clung to her cheeks, even if there was none anywhere else on her frame. Grin sweeter than the molasses in the middle of the table, but just as apt to cause a sticky mess that would take more than one bath to clean up. Bo hunkering over the meal with his eyes still half-closed, oozing youth from every pore like the pimple on the left side of his nose, but he was growing. Almost as tall as Luke now, and showing no signs of stopping anytime soon, at least not as long as he inhaled anything unlucky enough to find its way onto his plate. Jesse sitting back and surveying the three of them with a satisfied little smile and it was the kind of perfection that would fit tidily into a fairy tale, the exact sort of thing that the big bad wolf could never leave unmolested.

When the sun made its way far enough over the Blue Ridge that a man could see not to trip in the divots of the land, and the fog hung close and thick, lending his home the nostalgia of a sepia photograph scarred with age, they'd set out for the fields, where the work that once felt heavy and tiresome went quickly. His hands, toughened by hours of being ground into the sand or gripped around coarse-woven ropes while he hung suspended from the skid of a helicopter, never even felt the slices left there by dried corn stalks, and his legs, used to marching through the night after hiking through the day, could stand in the ruts of a cornfield for weeks without tiring. It was almost a shame when the harvest got done even before Sunday service, and after a lazy day of rest, his cousins had to go back to school. Bo's protests, though they might as easily have come out of a cranky four-year-old, seemed perfectly reasonable to Luke. Idle time might once have seemed like some sort of paradise, but by now Luke had no idea what to do with it. So he took endless runs to nowhere, feeling the firm soil of the Georgia hills under his boots, he patrolled the borders of the Duke property though he knew he'd find no signs of a genuine enemy there. He pulled chin-ups on low branches of oak and maple, he tracked coon and possum and wished, once or twice, that he'd thought to bring some sort of weapon in case he stumbled onto a deer. And by Tuesday, Uncle Jesse was shaking his head at him.

"Come on up to the still with me," so he did, but watching moonshine slowly cook its way out of fermented corn required more stillness than his finely honed body could tolerate. On Wednesday he discovered the empty space where there had been that poor excuse for a dog pen, and his uncle said they'd burned the wood from it in early season fires. Made him think that he'd best set to chopping up any dead logs he could find on the property, but when he looked there was plenty of firewood stored there already. Wound up digging up roofing nails and a ladder; he couldn't swear that anything needed tacking down, but being up that high usually gave a man perspective anyway.

Evenings, no matter how he'd managed to fill the daylight hours, always found him home in time for dinner, then helping with evening chores. Suggestions from Bo about night races got dismissed in deference to homework and smoldering-eyed glares, but the boy needed to keep his grades up if he wanted to be on athletic teams. Besides, thanks to Luke's absence from the farm, his younger cousins had missed a few days of school already and they were likely to miss more come planting time. Best they kept on top of their work now.

Saturday featured Bo stepping out onto the porch with him and dropping a baseball cap into his lap. "Now you ain't got to be embarrassed to go into town."

His hair, or lack of it, was apparently getting the blame for the quiet, homebound evenings of the past week. It was an interesting theory, one that made perfect sense to the high school kid that his cousin still was, and six months ago it would have made sense to Luke, too. Now his thoughts on the subject were as murky as Hazzard Pond in springtime. The service hadn't been his first choice of how he wanted to spend these years of his life, but surviving boot camp and Infantry Training, then going through Recon Training, those things gave a man pride. And strength, physical and mental toughness, heightened skills. He could shoot any weapon placed in his hands and be reasonably sure of hitting his target, he could run long distances over varied terrain, and heck, he could even swim passably with a fifty pound pack on his back. Maybe his hair was a worthwhile trade for all of that.

But the baseball cap wasn't a bad idea if they were going to spend the morning at the garage. There was no hiding the fact of his military haircut from friends like Dobro and Brody, but he reckoned it would be for the best if they didn't dwell too long or laugh too much about it. There was only so much of a good sport he could bring himself to be.

Running into Summer on the Square wasn't anything he'd planned for, but it wasn't so bad. She kissed his cheek and wished him well, talking the same as she ever had about how she'd be moving on in a month or two. Smiled and took her leave, and if his heart panged, it wasn't for her. He'd done all right by Summer, he'd ended things between them without ever misleading her. It was Candy Dix that he'd disappeared on, without declaration of intent one way or the other, without even so much as a goodbye. It was for the best, the girl's heart was too soft to be dating the warrior he was about to become anyway. He kept telling himself that, just like he kept swearing up and down that his family would be fine without him.

Brody, when they made it to the garage, didn't even bother to comment on where he'd been or what he looked like, just shook his hand and said he was proud to know a man like Luke. And if that wasn't awkward enough, anyone who walked by or came in announced how glad they were to see him and wished him good health like they never would have a year ago. A few even went so far as to call him heroic, and he was wishing Dobro would show up, point at his nearly-bald head and laugh. That, though obnoxious, would at least be a genuine response, not like all these folks who suddenly found him so very interesting.

A look in Bo's direction was all it took.

"You ready to go?" his cousin asked, which either meant that their brains were as in-tune as they ever had been or that he wasn't the only one who was tired of all the attention he was getting. Or both.

Didn't matter. "You bet," he answered and headed toward the Falcon that was as much Bo's as it was his by now.