"Sooner or later even the fastest runners have to stand and fight."
-Stephen King

Monday, July 29

Enos knelt on the floor, a piece of white, lined notebook paper staring back at him. He tapped the pencil restlessly against the concrete, trying to think of how to write a letter to his mother. What was he supposed to say? 'Say, ma', Daisy's gonna come up there and dig up your back yard since I can't trust you to pay my rent for me'. Swell.

"Just tell her you love her and get it over with," offered his cell-mate.

He glanced up at the man sitting on the top bunk. "It's to my mother."

"So...tell her you love her and send it off."

"We're not that close," he said, "I don't reckon she'd care if I loved her or not."

The man made an unconcerned sound and lay back on his bunk. "That's too bad, man."

Turning back to the task at hand, Enos addressed the letter – not to his mother, but to the Sheriff. It would probably be best, despite Daisy asking him to write his ma', for him not to say anything directly to her about it. Maybe she wouldn't notice someone had dug up one of her bushes. He hoped Daisy would cover her tracks as best she could.

Rosco,
Daisy has my permission to use the money buried on the property behind my mother's house, and since the land is in my name, it's my right to give it to her. If my mother comes in and tells you that Daisy robbed her, please explain it to her. Thanks, Sheriff.

And please don't tell Mr. Hogg that there's money buried there.
Enos

He glanced it over and shrugged to himself. He trusted Rosco as long as Mr. Hogg didn't have anything to do with it. Lord only knew how much his mother had stashed back there. She was as big a miser as any Scrooge...as long as she had her Camels handy and could watch The Price is Right everyday.

The house was quiet as Daisy sat down to eat a late lunch. She had been alone this Monday morning, which was out of the ordinary. The boys had gone down to Cooter's for some part or another for the General and Uncle Jesse had gone up to visit Henstep McCullum, one of the Ridge-runners and an old friend of the Dukes, to talk about the drought and shoot the bull.

She sipped her iced tea absently, only picking at the ham sandwich she'd made, her mind on what she needed to do tomorrow and how exactly to accomplish it without having Agnes Strate come to the farm and acquaint her with the business end of Enos' 12-gauge. She should've had him write to Rosco instead of his mother. Lord knew the woman had never liked her...probably because she'd been so close to Enos growing up. He had practically grown up with the Dukes, especially in the summers when his father would drop him by their place while on a boot-legging run instead of leaving him alone with the witch.

Those had been happier days for everyone, until Otis Strate's still had blown up when Enos was fifteen, taking away the one parent who had loved him unconditionally. A couple of months later, his mother had taken off to New Mexico, leaving him behind to fend off the Georgia Department of Human Services. He'd escaped going to the orphanage by moving in with them at the farm until he passed his GED and entered the Police Academy in Atlanta at sixteen.

The Academy had changed him, or maybe it had just changed them. They had remained friends, but the closeness and understanding they'd once shared had been lost. It was hard for her to believe that there had been a time when they could finish each other's sentences, they'd known each other so well.

She heard the General Lee pull up into the drive and shook her head against the memories, taking another swallow of her tea. The screen door flew open behind her with a force that suggested that whoever had opened it was upset. Before she could turn around, a newspaper dropped next to her plate. She looked up at Luke who'd thrown it there, his eyes cold with anger.

"What's this?"

"Just read it," he answered, "you'll see."

She picked up the front page of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. On it was a full color picture of a man in blue prison clothes being led up the steps to a courthouse, and in an inset was a smaller picture of Enos. Her stomach twisted in knots before she even made it to the head-line.

Hazzard County Deputy Arraigned on Capital Murder Charges

She scanned the article, not really reading it, her eyes picking out the main points: arraigned Friday in Fulton County...trial set for September 26th...denied bail...

"What does it mean?" she asked, not looking up.

"It means," said Bo, "that they ain't letting him out."

Luke shook his head. "I don't know, Daisy. I don't know why the judge wouldn't allow him out on bail, even. Looks like they're taking it to trial though. "

Bo tapped at the newspaper in her hands. "Did you read what they think he's done? I don't know where they'd get a crazy idea like that from. Enos running Darcy down with his car? Here, let me see it."

He tried to pull it out of her hands, but Daisy yanked it back from him. "I can read it myself." She stood up and left the kitchen, the sound of her bedroom door slamming behind her reverberating through the house.

Monday passed for Enos without much ado. They had been on lockdown for the entire day, even for roll call and meals, and so time passed slowly. Most of it was spent laying on his bunk, staring at the underside of the bed above him and wondering what he was missing in the real world. He put his pillow over his head to block out the light, trying to waste time sleeping, but his body wasn't tired and his mind circled over and over, full of thoughts yet unable to concentrate on anything specific. He wished he had his weight bench. When his mind fell into the rhythm of counting reps, the rest of the world seemed to melt away.

He did the best he could with what was at hand, tucking his feet under the bottom bar of the bed to work on sit-ups and stretching out along the narrow stretch of concrete beside the bunk for push-ups.

And so passed Monday, the 29th of July.

The next day was yard call again, and visitation day as well, but Enos didn't count on seeing anyone from home so close to the last time. Saturday, maybe...

Gary's comments about no bail reverberated through his mind. Seventy days...no, sixty-six now. Every time he thought about it, the anxiety would settle like a iron weight onto his chest. He prayed between now and then the GBI would come to their senses.

He'd been absently following the group of inmates in front of him as they passed through the halls on their way to the yard and he found himself outside before he really took stock of his environment. He looked up and shaded his eyes against the glaring sunlight. The yard was flat, the size of a football field across, mostly dirt with small, forlorn patches of Johnson grass here and there growing up defiantly in the hard scrabble and dust. Outside the double fence the grass was green and had been neatly groomed and kept – a stark contradiction to the barren field in which he stood.

He wandered from the side of the building down towards the fence, wanting to see something – anything – other than the prison around him. Beyond the second fence, with it's loops of concertina wire which could slice through flesh like a hot knife through butter, was a road. It was paved, but unlined and not a major thoroughfare, and indeed it looked as though the grass had almost won the war with it in some spots, creeping inwards past the sides of the pavement.

A silent, internal alarm made the hair stand up on the back of his neck. It was a feeling, as though the air around him vibrated with an unseen electrical charge, that told him he wasn't alone, and then a sound – the quiet crunch of a step on rocks, too close at hand. His tongue and throat felt as dry and dusty as the dirt underfoot and he knew the game was up. He could feel their eyes watching him – waiting – before they'd even uttered a word.

Whether it was intuition or sheer luck that he turned when he did was debatable, but he was in the right position at the right time and managed to parry the first punch. He missed the second, by a different assailant, and it caught him squarely in the side of the head, the force of it spinning him back around, into the fence. He grabbed at the chain-link, trying to keep himself upright, alarmed at the amount blood running down the side of his face and seeping into his shirt.

"You ain't so big now, are you, pig!" shouted someone behind him.

Enos turned around, leaning back against the fence, his ear ringing from the force of the blow and feeling as though something had imploded behind his left eye, and faced the four men who stood in a loose circle around him. They were jumpy, like the hyenas he'd seen once on a National Geographic special on television, eager and excited over blooding their kill and ready to attack. Behind their eyes, beyond the thrill of the moment, there was nothing, and it was that emptiness that scared him.

His mind automatically shuffled through the defensive tactics he'd learned so long ago at the Academy and then again at the LAPD. The skills were rusty, and there were too many of them if they jumped him at once, but if they thought he was just going to lay down and take a beating, they could think again.

He took a deep breath, pushing past the vertigo, and took a step forward away from the fence, crossing his arms up in front of his face, his hands in fists in the defensive stance he'd been taught in training. "Hey, listen, fellas, I don't want no trouble with you." The last thing he wanted was to get in a fight.

They laughed. "Yo," called one of them to the others, "you hear this shi*t? This pig don't want no trouble." He looked back at Enos. "My brother got popped by a cop. How you like that for trouble? "

"I'm awful sorry 'bout your brother," said Enos, trying to keep him talking. "but I ain't the one who did that."

The guy looked around theatrically. "Yeah, well...I don't see him in here." He leveled his gaze at him once more. "Guess you'll have to do."

He came at him, throwing his foot up to kick him, but Enos pivoted and knocked his leg aside, catching him with an elbow to the chest. The man lost his balance and fell to the ground.

Enos' victory was short lived though as the others came at him at once. The two on either side of him grabbed his arms and while he was trying to fight them off, the third kneed him hard in the groin. His legs gave way under him and the two who had been holding his arms threw him roughly to the ground. He curled up against the pain, tasting the grit of dirt in his mouth, and threw his arms up over his head as they kicked him where he lay.

"Hey!"

The sound of the guard's voice over the melee was the most beautiful sound Enos thought he'd ever heard. His attackers vanished, disappearing into the crowd which had gathered to watch. The guard pushed through the onlookers into the open space while Enos dragged himself painfully up onto his knees.

For a moment, the officer just stood there staring at him, the whisper of an expletive on his lips and Enos knew how he must look. He turned and reached up to the chain-link fence, pulling himself slowly upright, his muscles taut and shaking with adrenaline. Nothing seemed broken, but he'd hurt tomorrow for sure.

"Turn around! Hands behind your back!" the guard yelled at him, taking his hand-cuffs off his belt.

"What?" Enos asked, incredulous. "Sir, I wasn't the one fightin!"

"Shut up, and turn around, or you're gonna get a matching shiner on the other side."

Shaking his head in disbelief, Enos turned around and put his arms behind him, despite the throbbing aches of his bruised muscles, and the blood that still dripped steadily from a cut somewhere above his eye, falling in crimson splatters onto the dusty ground of the yard. The officer cuffed him and dragged him off towards the prison entrance.

At first he thought maybe he was just being taken to the infirmary, but that hope disappeared when they passed the sign to it pointing down a different hallway than they were traveling. Every footstep jarred his body painfully as he was led it down into the basement level of the prison and underneath a red portal whose white block letters above read:

SHU South

He balked. "Hey now, wait just a pea-picking minute! I didn't start that fight, I's just minding my own business!"

The guard stopped. "and I expect you can pick out just who did start it?" he asked, the question obviously rhetorical.

Enos shook his head. It wouldn't matter if he could, the only thing worse than being a cop in prison was being a snitchy cop, he figured.

The officer jerked Enos forward with him, down the dank, stinking, low-lit hallway. The cells here were the iron bars instead of the solid steel doors on the upper levels, and behind each was a tiny cubicle, painted a sickly color of institutional green, no bigger than a bathroom, with a single bunk, a sink, and a toilet in full view. Prisoners flocked to the front of each cell as they passed, a new fish being prime entertainment in solitary. The guard stopped at number 6, unlocked the door, took off his cuffs, and shoved him in.

"Hey!" yelled Enos, as the guard turned to leave. "How long am I gonna be in here?"

"Don't know, don't care!" the man shouted and walked away.