Hey all! I've been saying that this story would include some real events, and as I introduced in the last chapter, this is where that happens. The town of Oven Fork, Kentucky is real, though I am certain that it looks absolutely nothing like I describe it. The Scotia Mine disaster really happened. However, aside from those details, everything else has been manufactured. Rule of thumb: if it happens to any of the characters in this story, it is not real. And even my portrayal of the things that actually did happen is not completely accurate; timing and other factors have been manipulated somewhat. No harm is intended to anyone who experienced the real events, or anyone who earns their living through coal mining.

I do not own the Dukes or any of the settings for this story, and no money is being made as the result of what is written here. Although this story incorporates actual events, it does not include real people, either living or dead.

Chapter 10 – No Place for Folks as Innocent as You

Oven Fork, the Kentucky town that contained the Scotia mine, was even smaller than Hazzard, Georgia; just a "wide place in the road" as the gas station attendant had told Luke when he'd confirmed his travel route with him. Located on the Poor Fork of the Cumberland River, it wasn't terribly different from a lot of other towns that the Duke boy had seen in his travels.

It was easy to tell that this was a town in some distress, however. Immediately upon turning off of Route 119 onto a local street, Luke could see where emergency vehicles had blocked off one branch of the road, and it was a reasonable assumption that the mines lay in that direction. The oldest Duke cousin desperately wanted to crash his way past the roadblock and head immediately toward the mines, but he forced himself to stay calm. These cops weren't exactly Rosco and Enos; they'd likely catch him easily enough. And when they did, he'd be off to prison, once the Kentucky police did a background check on him. Whatever Bo's condition, getting himself hauled off to jail wouldn't help his family right now.

Instead, Luke tried to approach this town as he had all the others he'd passed through so far. Looking for the General Store, he found it quickly enough. There really was only the one main road, he was learning, with the mine at the east end, and the housing at the west. In between was where he found the people of the town, gathered in small groups and awaiting news of their loved ones.

Luke parked Tilly in front of the store, and went inside. He was surprised to find himself alone in there with the proprietor, a tired looking man with red rimmed eyes at the center of his dusty, round face. He looked at Luke warily.

"Ain't seen you here before, boy."

"No, sir," the Duke boy answered. "You ain't. I'm here looking for my cousin. About so tall," Luke's left hand gestured about four inches over his own head, "Blonde, blue eyes, nineteen. He'd be here with his friend, who's shorter, but real strong looking."

The man behind the counter barked out a harsh laugh. "Everybody's here after someone, today. An I ain't got no information on no one. They all look the same, you know, after they been in the mines." The man gave Luke the once over. "You ain't a miner."

"No, sir." It hadn't been a question, but Luke answered politely anyway. This conversation wasn't as friendly as others he'd had. Luke guessed he understood why, but the main thing he knew was that he didn't want to make an enemy of anyone who might be able to lead him to his cousin.

"Didn't think so. You ain't got that dark cast to yer skin. They all get it after awhile. You can wipe away only but so much of that dust, you know. It stays in yer hair, yer ears, the wrinkles on yer face. If I seen yer cousin, I wouldn't recognize him by the description you gave, but then, don't nobody look like that after they been in the mines. Blonde hair or black, after a day down there, you can't tell anymore. They all look the same covered in coal."

"Yes, sir," Luke answered, somewhat meekly. It wasn't in his usually confident nature to be put off this way by tough words, but this was Bo they were talking about. Bo, who stood out in any crowd. How could he look the same as every other man in the mines?

Softening a little bit, the proprietor asked, "He didn't grow up mining, neither, huh?"

"No sir, he couldn't have been here much more than maybe a week by now."

"I hope his foreman took good care of him, then. Some of 'em, the ones that didn't grow up here, won't teach 'em everything. They won't tell 'em about all the dangers, what to look out for. They don't want to scare 'em off. But if the foreman is from here, well they really do want to chase away anyone too green. They don't want 'em choosin' the mines unless they really ain't got any other options. And it's only the very best foremen that'll give 'em a tin of morphine."

"Morphine?" Luke asked, shocked and worried. Why would a foreman want one of his workers using morphine in the mines? Wasn't that the quickest way to assure that someone would get hurt?

The other man chuckled, but there was no joy in the laugh, only a certain resigned sadness. "You really don't know much about mining, do you?"

"Not a whole lot. I had an uncle in the business, but he died before I was born." Luke watched a knowing sympathy flash through the other man's eyes. "An' we had coal mines where I grew up, but they was sealed a real long time ago, so I only know the stories that got passed down. Don't reckon that I ever really listened to them, not real hard. It was just somethin' the older folks talked about from time to time."

The older man tittered again. Luke was starting to see that the humor in these parts was just a little darker than what you'd find in Hazzard. Back home, people laughed with mirth, not misery.

"Well, I ain't seen your cousin, and the less you know about some of this stuff, the better. You just go on now, get movin', unless you're gonna buy somethin'."

Luke considered protesting, but he could see that the older man wasn't going to say any more right now. If he couldn't either find Bo or prove to himself that the boy was not here by evening, he'd come back and try again. He thought this man meant well, but there was probably nothing more that Luke would get from him at this moment.

The discouraged young man headed out of the store on foot. There was no reason to move Tilly, after all, everything in this tiny town was within reasonable walking distance for a man who'd been a Marine on active duty just one year ago. Wandering through the clumps of people that were awaiting word on the missing men, Luke saw no sign of either Bo or Robby. As he looked, though, he came upon a woman that stood alone, and who actually met his eyes as he approached. Hoping for better luck with her, he described Bo and Robby, again asking for information about them.

"I don't know, son, whether they mighta been in there or not. There's more than one shift, you know, an' if they's new to town, they probably wasn't workin' when it blew. If they ain't wanderin' around here waitin' for news, you might want to go on up the hill. There's some roomin' houses at the top. If they's new, that's prob'ly where they'd be stayin'."

"Thank you, ma'am," Luke answered sincerely.

"If'n you find 'em, you take them away from here. If they's as young and strong as you are, they's got to be somethin' safer they can be doin' to earn a dime."

"Yes, ma'am, I plan to do that, thank you." Luke started to leave, then decided to ask just one more question. "Why would a foreman give one of his workers a tin of morphine?"

"Oh lord, son. You need to find your cousin and his friend, then leave here. This ain't no place for folks as innocent as you."

Luke could not ever remember a time that anyone had used to word 'innocent' to describe either him or Bo. Certainly they were not thought of that way back home. And he didn't think that former moonshiners were considered innocent in any part of Appalachia. But he didn't dispute the woman's words. Looking at the lines on her face, which did indeed, hold tiny flecks of coal dust, and the tiredness of her gray eyes, he suddenly did feel very innocent, and very young. This woman before him looked like she had already lived one hundred years, though her upright posture marked her as being more like thirty-five.

"Yes, ma'am," he said, finally taking his leave.

Climbing the hill, Luke noticed a lot of small cabins on either side of the road. Some were in far better shape than others, but none of them looked like something Luke would call a home. Though the farmhouse he'd grown up in wasn't very big, and the wind seemed to blow right through it in winter, there was a certain look about it that announced that a happy family lived inside, loving the house and the land upon which it stood. The buildings in this tiny mining town looked more like moonshiners' shacks; places to crash for a night while waiting for the mash to ferment. Still, there was some evidence that families actually lived here: a worn out toy in this dusty yard over here, a broken stroller on that porch over there. No one appeared to be in any of the dwellings right now, and Luke guessed they were either in the mine itself or part of the crowd down closer to the store. The Duke boy was starting to think he should just go back down there and look more closely for Bo, but since he'd already started heading this way, he decided to check the rooming houses first.

Ultimately the small buildings gave way to slightly larger ones. These still looked like one-family houses, however. Luke theorized that these were the homes of the foremen and managers; those, at least, who were earning enough to afford slightly more spacious living quarters. The yards here had more grass than dirt, unlike those of the smaller dwellings below. There were also such things are lace curtains in the windows of one and a flower garden in front of another, that indicated these to be more like homes than just places to spend the night.

At last, Luke came near the top of the hill where there were four two-story buildings that had to be the boarding houses. The buildings were not well cared for, and certainly would benefit from a few replaced boards and a healthy coat of paint. Laundry was strewn on the railings and windowsills, obviously left there to dry since there were no clotheslines. All of the residences showed evidence of long-gone fences around them, and only two were left with remnants of whitewashed gates. Luke had seen a lot in Vietnam, and what was here was vastly superior to the buildings that some of the locals had lived in there. However, this was the most depressing housing Luke had ever come across in the United States.

And then his misty blue eyes caught sight of the most beautiful thing he'd ever seen. The head was down and the shoulders slumped, but after a lifetime of living with him, Luke would have recognized his cousin anywhere.

He wanted to run to the porch where Bo was sitting and grab him into a hug, but something about the boy's defeated posture made Luke approach slowly, carefully, as if dealing with an injured animal. As he got to the shell of the gate that had once enclosed the tiny front yard, the older Duke boy stopped and regarded his little cousin, who still had not looked up to see him standing there. It was true, what the man in the General Store had told him. Mixed in with Bo's usually straw colored hair were matted dark strands, where it was clear the boy had not been able to wash all the coal dust out. Luke could also see that blackness had settled in the teen's ears, around his neck, and under the nails on his hands. If he hadn't known Bo so well, he might not have recognized this sad young man as the same cousin that had a habit of giggling when he was tickled, even now that he was now fully grown.

"Bo."

Indigo eyes came up at the soft sound of his name spoken by a familiar voice. In that second, all that had led to the younger boy being in this place was forgotten as he stood and stepped down to the ground, at the same time that Luke walked into the small clearing. Before he knew what was happening, Luke's arms were around him, holding him tight, and he buried his head in the older man's shoulder and cried.

The older boy wanted to offer comforting words, but found his own throat constricted. Instead, he just held onto his cousin, running one hand through coal stained hair. Luke decided that it would do neither of them any good if he became too emotional right now. What his younger cousin needed was strength, and Luke was going to give it to him. He swallowed until the tightness loosened.

"Shh, Bo. It's all right."

Bo knew that nothing was all right, but he was willing to let Luke say the words for now, and to try to believe them, just as he always had when they were younger. A few minutes later, tears exhausted for the moment, Bo lifted his head.

"You okay, little cousin?" Ever since Luke had come back from the Marines, Bo had made it clear that he didn't want to be referred to by that old nickname anymore, and Luke had tried hard not to use it, except when he was teasing the younger boy. Still, the way it came out just now took Bo back to when he really was smaller than Luke, and had actually been fond of being called that.

Bo wasn't okay, and he wasn't sure he ever would be again. But he knew the question pertained more to his physical well-being, for now, than his state of mind. And as he had been here in this boarding house, not anywhere near the mines, when the explosion had occurred, he was certainly not injured. So he answered his cousin.

"Yeah, Luke, I'm fine."

Luke's lighter eyes bored into Bo's deep blue, trying to see the truth in there. Satisfied that his cousin seemed to be relatively healthy, the older boy asked, "You live here?"

Bo's eyes were no longer willing to look back at Luke, having dropped down to stare at his own feet. He didn't live here, he lived at the Duke farm, in Hazzard County, Georgia. But he understood what his older cousin was asking of him, so he nodded his head.

Sliding an arm around Bo and turning him to face the door of the house, Luke said, "Show me where, Bo."

Nodding again, Bo silently led Luke to the room he'd been occupying this past week and a half. He was ashamed to show his cousin how he'd lived, but there was nothing else he could do.

Luke closed the door behind them and took in the tiny room for all of a second before turning his eyes back to Bo.

"Cuz," Luke said, placing both hands on the younger man's shoulders, "Was you in there, in the mine, when the explosion happened?"

Bo was shocked for a moment, then he realized that there was no way Luke could have known what the day since the blast had been like. He shook his head.

"No. There was a hundred and six men down there, but only fifteen was in the tunnel where the explosion was. The others came out right away, an' they took them all to the hospital in Whitesburg. Most of 'em ain't come back yet. They're staying with friends and family out of town. Ain't none of 'em seriously hurt, but they ain't in no hurry to get back here, neither. The other fifteen, well, the inspectors and rescuers don't think they could have survived. But, no, I wasn't down there when it happened."

Luke nodded, squinting into his cousin's face. There was something weighing very heavily on the boy, and Luke was trying to guess what it could be.

"You couldn'ta stopped it, Bo, if you'd been down there," Luke tried.

Bo shook his head as the tears started to fall again. "I know," he whispered.

"Cousin," Luke asked quietly, "What's eatin' at you?" As sobs began to rise from the blonde's throat once more, Luke pulled him close. "I need ya to talk to me, Bo. I can't help if I don't know what's hurting ya."

Bo knew there was nothing Luke could do, but he also knew that his ever-persistent cousin wouldn't stop asking until the younger boy answered his question. And Luke had a right to know, anyway.

"Robby," Bo swallowed, knowing he had to finish the sentence before he could fully give in to his misery. "Robby was in there, and he ain't come out." With that, the last of Bo's resistance was broken, and he allowed himself to lose awareness of what was going on around him. Luke was there, and that was all he needed to know right now.

As he held his sobbing cousin, Luke's eyes scanned the room again. It wasn't much, but the tiny cot in the corner looked more inviting than the cold ground upon which the older boy had been sleeping for the last several days. Never letting go of Bo, Luke pulled him down to sit on the bed with him. Luke kicked off his boots, and instructed Bo to do the same, watching as the younger boy mechanically did what he was told. Luke dragged his exhausted cousin down to lie on the bed next to him.

"It's okay, Bo," he soothed. "Let it out." This was something Jesse had tried to teach his boys long ago; that releasing emotions was better than bottling them up. Luke had learned the lesson well enough to pass on the advice, but not to follow it himself. He held onto his youngest cousin until the boy's tears became hiccups and yawns then finally turned into sleep.

Only after he was sure that Bo was deeply asleep, did Luke allow his own emotions to surface. Dampening his cousin's dirty hair with his tears, Luke was careful not to wake the younger boy.

"You scared me half to death, cuz," he whispered. "I thought I'd lost you. I don't know what my life would be like without you." Keeping as much control as he could, Luke bit back the sobs that wanted to come out. He wasn't one for tremendous displays of emotion, and he sure didn't want to wake his cousin now. The boy obviously needed sleep, but more than that, Luke was certain that what would be of the most help to Bo was if the retired Marine remained his normal steady-as-a-rock self. Still, he couldn't stop the next words, even if he'd wanted to.

"I love you, Bo."

Eventually regaining complete composure, Luke tightened his hold on the teenager, and with more affection than he had probably shown the boy in their entire lives, kissed the top of Bo's coal-stained head.

Finally, Luke gave in to his own exhaustion and joined his cousin in slumber.