Chapter Thirteen

April 1972

Daisy. A scream from somewhere in the house and it sure as heck didn't sound good. High pitched and it was not the kind of sound the girl had ever been known to make, even when that ugly-looking wolf spider had taken up residence in the corner of the bathroom only to be discovered by her tidying hands.

His feet were running, making short work of the ground between the tree-lined back edge of the farmyard and the old house up front before his brain even caught up to wondering what in heck could make his tomboy of cousin holler like that.

Take care of Daisy; that had been one of Luke's clearer instructions to him. She doesn't know how pretty she's growing up to be, but somewhere between that awkward conversation and this damp Saturday afternoon it seemed like she might have figured it out. Sweet as a flower, but her nectar attracted every boy in the school, and how the heck was he supposed to look out for her when she'd graduate in the next couple of months and he'd still be stuck in school all day? It still wasn't fair that she'd get done a whole year before he would. Or maybe two, because he didn't anticipate passing too many of his final exams.

But if he had to be honest (and he did, there were family rules about that), there was no way he could do what his oldest cousin asked of him, not the slightest chance he could protect Daisy because she was a Duke, born obstinate and independent. Girl was certain that she could handle herself no matter what came at her; whether it was a bear or a man, she reckoned that the sharp heel of those crazy high shoes she wore was all the weaponry she needed to ensure her safety. She would, without thought, march right into trouble and invite it to take its best shot at her, and what, exactly, was he supposed to do about that? It was a fine little fantasy that Luke had, as far as protecting their sweetly stubborn cousin went.

Though neither of them would have expected him to fail as badly as he apparently had, what with that scream coming from the house while he was halfway to nowhere important, enjoying his last relaxing Saturday before planting, content to let the fine spring drizzle soak into his skin and hair so long as it kept softening the ground for the plow and left the air as sweet-smelling as the newly emerging flowers. Watching the mist roll across the green grass, breaking to find its way through the dark fence line than closing in again, and he had been doing nothing more than admiring the beauty of the land he grew up on when he should have been tending to his family.

Long strides, no time to accommodate the porch steps, he just leapt up onto the old boards and flung the kitchen door open with one hand, the other arm already cocked back in anticipation of leveling whoever it was that made Daisy's frightened voice come hurtling across the farmyard at him that way. Nothing there but a dim and dingy kitchen with chairs that were determined to catch under his feet as he charged deeper into the house, into the living room where lacy curtains hung over wide windows in pinkish hues and there, on the floral pattern that some female ancestor must have upholstered onto the old wooden frame of the couch, was his pale cousin. Half reclined with Jesse standing there waving at the air in front of her. No one else in the house, no intruder just begging to be subdued, no blood anywhere, but his body didn't relax one bit.

"Daisy?" he squeaked out, even if he knew she wouldn't be saying anything right away, not with the way her eyes were closed and her breathing shallow. "Jesse?" Eyes left then right, even up and down, looking for the enemy, the being or object that would sink so low as to hurt his cousin, and coming up empty.

"Sit, boy," his uncle growled, but the man was a fool if he thought that Bo would let whoever did this to Daisy get away with it. Luke might not be here, but that didn't mean anyone had the right to—"now."

It was the kind of command that couldn't be disregarded, had to be instantly obeyed, and he was halfway to doing it with the yes, sir all poised on his tongue but in that moment Daisy's eyes opened and fixed on him.

"Daisy?" he repeated and somehow or other, despite Jesse's sputterings and complaints about how they both needed to sitting down right this moment, she pulled herself to her feet. Not fully or not for long, either way, she was suddenly in his arms, the weight and heat of her against his chest, the warmth of her tears soaking into his shirt where cool rain had fallen minutes before. "What?" he asked, but he already knew. It wasn't even the off-white tinted paper on the coffee table that told him so. It was the air in the room, so heavy after the freshness of what he'd been strolling through outside, it was the way his uncle barked at his kids to sit, like he'd only ever done when he was frightened for their safety.

"He'll be all right, Daisy-girl," he whispered into that dark hair where he rested his unshaven cheek. He knew that, too, even if he hadn't read the telegram yet, even if no one had found the words to tell him what it said. He knew it because his heart still was beating – a touch too fast and hard for his liking, but it was steady enough – in his chest. "He'll be fine."

If all of it – everything from the moment he set foot on Parris Island through boot camp and recon training, from cherry school to jungle missions and even those quiet moments with Candy and the month on leave in Hazzard – was a bad dream, a long scar of a memory from a gaping wound that he didn't want to claim ownership of, this, right here, was where it became a nightmare.

For all that he'd spent hours back at Parris Island struggling against the foamy Atlantic surf, gulping down salt water until he thought he'd desiccate from the inside out, it wasn't water that was pulling him down.

Gravity, who in her simplicity could not distinguish between a leaf and a man and wouldn't care if she could, had a grip on him and no intention of letting go. The air that ought to be catching in his chute was gusting by his face, blowing its laughter into his ears as he struggled to slow his descent through it, legs akimbo, arms flailing in a mockery of the ugly buzzards that glided so gracefully through the sky. He was going to die doing the thing that he'd pretty much figured he could manage in his sleep: a jump. Of course, in his sleep his parachute would have opened. Here, in this too-real nightmare, there was nothing between him and a nasty looking landing zone where trees would be vying with rocks for the pleasure of impaling him.

Violence, a jerk, and all the air coughed out of his lungs when there came a powerful assault upon his rib cage. Hands, arms around him and he fought against the instinct to turn around and grab onto the man who was holding him from behind. If there was any chance of this working, he had to relax and find his breath where it had been lost to the wind, had to think, to concentrate his efforts on using his own right hand to fumble around until it fell on the release cord of the other man's chute, had to brace himself for the jarring change in momentum, had to make his heavy body easy to hold onto for as long as possible.

"Gonna have to drop you, Luke," he heard after the ground had slowed in its ascent toward them, and the surprise wasn't in the words but in who was saying them – not Tolliver like he would have figured, but Ackley. Didn't matter anymore, it was all right, they were coasting at the top of the tree line now, not a lot higher than they'd be if they'd had to jump from a chopper.

Before he could even nod his agreement that he be let go of so the other man could land halfway safely, gravity had its hold on him again. Spinning, twisting, and unless he could get control of his body this was going to hurt, was going to be a lot worse than hitting the hardpan of the football field in December under a crushing tackle from Chicasaw's oversized linebacker, Bubba Cole. He had to get his body upright, his feet set and—

The ground hit him.

Pain, but it wasn't so bad, wasn't anything he couldn't handle so long as he could get his lungs to reinflate. He'd be fine, just fine, and if the first words out of his mouth might have been a croaked out call for his Uncle Jesse, the man with strong arms and even stronger moonshine who had healed every illness and injury of his childhood, well his voice was weak enough that he could hope no one quite heard him.

"Meyers," came Tolliver's voice from somewhere above him, calling on the squadron's combat trauma specialist.

"I'm fine," he said, because he had to be. He was in the middle of the jungle with nothing but a twenty-year-old smart-talking boy to see to whatever injuries he had sustained. Besides, it was his job to lead the six of them safely over this hill that he'd crash landed into, so he sat up. Intended to get all the way to his feet, but then again, he didn't feel so good.

"Easy, Duke," Tolliver counseled, hovering nearby and gesturing for Meyers to come check him out. "Marino, bring me the radio."

"Ain't no need," he tried, but then Meyers was there, poking at places that hurt, seeking out the sources of the blood that stained his uniform here and there, staring into his face and making him use his eyes to trace the movement of a finger. "I'm fine," he announced again when the examination was done.

"So you've said," the Sergeant agreed. "Now, if it's all right with you, I'm going to get Meyers' opinion."

No, it wasn't exactly all right with him. It was more time sitting here, and as any coach worth their salt would tell you, a hit like Luke had just taken needed to be walked off so he could get back in the game.

"Bumps and bruises, mainly," Meyers announced. "He's scraped up pretty good, got some open abrasions and his knee's swelling." Heck he'd gotten hurt worse than that when Maudine dragged him around the south forty. Never stopped him from getting back on his feet, righting the plow and finishing what he'd started.

"Like I said, I'm fine." And he would be, too, if Tolliver would let him stand instead of pushing down against his shoulder.

"Duke, sit. Ackley and Horn, set up a perimeter, Marino, get that radio over here, then join your buddies on watch. Duke," he scolded again, but if he'd just let Luke up he'd see that there was no reason for all this drama. "You may be fine, but I'd just as soon you were fine back at Cam Ranh, so just sit tight while I call the chopper back and scout out an LZ for it. Meyers, if he won't sit still for you, give him an injection or a blow to the head, whatever will make him stay put."

It was foolishness, it was dangerous and crazy, and it was going to happen whether Luke liked it or not. So he laid back and rested his eyes. Just for a minute, all he wanted was a few seconds of peace, and there Meyers was, jawing at him to stay awake. So he let the guy talk him just about to death, that harsh accent rattling around in his ears as he listened to tales of growing up on Long Island with girls and souped-up cars, and just about the time he'd been talked into the sort of stupor that made him think that New York sounded an awful lot like Georgia, Tolliver made it back to them. A landing zone would take a few hours to clear, and he'd do it if there was no other way, but if Luke thought he could ride a short distance on a rope ladder—

"Ain't no reason I can't go on the mission," he insisted, and if Tolliver had been Uncle Jesse he'd be getting swatted for sassing his elders right now.

"No one's going on any mission, all right? Now just tell me whether you've got the wherewithal to hang onto a ladder for a few miles."

And, interestingly, flying back out over the trees with nothing under him but the wooden rung of a rope ladder swinging wildly with every change in direction was more painful than the fall had been. Made him cling to his perch like death was trying to rip him right out of the sky, made him sick to his stomach. By the time he hit the ground again some miles away from the rest of his squadron, he was ready to lie down and let himself be ministered to. The chopper landing, the pilot and co-pilot loading him in and taking off again, the flight and arrival back in Cam Ranh Bay were all lost to him.

Night must've come and gone somewhere along the way; he had vague memories of landing in the darkness and getting hustled from here to there before he was allowed to rest again. Some poking and shoving, and there had been a needle in his hip when he had a perfectly good shoulder that the injection could have gone into. By the time his head was clear again there was light leaking into the ward from somewhere, and meals were being served to those well enough to eat. Lunch, he was informed and it wasn't bad. Nowhere near what Daisy would have put in front of him under similar circumstances, but it had C-Rats beat by miles.

Within a couple of hours he got cut loose and sent to the barracks for a few days of rest. "Your sergeant did good by you," a pretty little nurse, Morales, told him. "You'll be all healed up in a couple of days. With those open sores out in the field, you could have gotten some pretty serious jungle rot."

But he'd stopped worrying about why he'd been sent back here. Last night he'd gotten the first real sleep he could remember since landing in this country back in January. He reckoned that once every three or four months a man needed some reasonable shuteye.

And a shower. He didn't get to see one of those too often these days; mostly the bunch of them scrubbed both their bodies and their clothes (and if they lacked for time, they washed them both at once without bothering to strip) in the rivers that sprawled across the wet land, and he couldn't swear whether, when they emerged, it was with less or more filth ground into their skin.

He'd apparently wrenched his knee when he'd made that graceless landing, but it wasn't bad. A little stiff from disuse, so after finding himself a bunk, he wandered off to what served as a gym to stretch it out. Watched as some of the guys played some three-on-three basketball and though he missed the game more than he wanted to admit, he didn't figure it was the best choice for his healing body. He found himself in front of the punching bags, practicing his left hook.

"Corporal," came from behind him sometime after he'd worked up a pretty good sweat. "At ease," followed as he tried to make up his mind between stopping the bag's momentum and saluting. Choose the wrong sequence and he could be on his backside again, and so soon after he'd gotten back up.

The voice belonged to Lieutenant Marcek, the man who had assigned him to Echo Company in the first place.

"Well now, you've got a pretty good swing there, boy. Duke, right?"

"Yes, sir." It was his responsibility, as the enlisted man, to answer his superior with respect. If he happened to sound a touch proud about his fighting abilities that was just coincidence.

"What's the other guy look like?"

"Sir?"

"You look a little worse for the wear." He wouldn't know. There weren't any mirrors in the barracks, and he hadn't thought too hard about what he looked like since the last time he'd kissed Miss Candy Dix back in the fall.

"Chute didn't open." That was the only part of the story that mattered, at least here in this place where most of the guys had probably never jumped out of anything higher than the low branches of a tree. Oh, he didn't begrudge the doctors, the clerks, the specialists that sat behind desks here. He could have chosen a different route for himself, maybe even one that kept him rooted to a base camp like this one. But he hadn't seen the sense in going halfway around the world just to be bored.

"In that case, you look pretty good. You ever been in the ring?"

"Yes, sir, back on Parris Island and Lejeune. Got me an unbroken streak of wins." All right, so that particular bit of pride had not been requested by the Lieutenant. Not that the man seemed disappointed in hearing it at all.

"Well then, we'll have to schedule you some ring time while you're here." Sounded like a fine idea to Luke.

Two days and two sparring sessions later, halfway logy from easy sleep, so clean he itched, sitting on the barrack steps cleaning his weapon for the dozenth time and wondering where the rest of his squadron was camped out, he looked up to see a beanpole of a private standing in front of him. Acne still breaking out across his cheeks, a perfect high and tight etched into his hair, uniform stiff and clean across his scrawny chest, and this was a boy who'd never been out in the field. Which was fine with Luke; no more than a kid, and short hair aside, this Marine reminded him of Bo. No one he wanted to picture lying in a bunker, watching green and orange tracers crisscross through the stars in the sky while listening to the rumbles of mortar rounds crashing to earth.

"Lieutenant wants to see you, sir."

He'd been cleared by the doctors to return to the field tomorrow. He didn't mind boxing for Marcek, but he wasn't exactly in a hurry to get himself grounded here, either. His squadron needed him.

"All right," he answered anyway, because he didn't have a choice. Shouldered his weapon and headed off to the air-conditioned cinderblock building where he'd find the Lieutenant, undoubtedly sitting behind his desk and shuffling files in his hands. Deciding some new arrival's fate, maybe trading some Cherry School kid into Tolliver's squadron and planning to keep Luke here to fight in that ring off the side of the gym.

"Duke," he got greeted, braced himself for it. "You got a phone call to make."

"Huh?" which wasn't proper military etiquette, but those words just hadn't made sense.

"Home. You get to call your folks and tell them you survived your little run-in with the ground. They got the cable, now they get the phone call."

"Wait," this was starting to make sense, the kind of sense that made his mouth go dry. "You done sent them a telegram? Saying what?" Oh, this was not a good thing. Not when neither of his cousins had ever shed the colorful imaginations of youth.

"That you were injured, but in good condition. Standard. Just like we told you we'd do back when you first landed here."

Oh he might have been told such a thing, he couldn't swear that he hadn't. Just that if he was, it must not have seemed terribly real, hadn't completely sunk in what it would mean. A telegram, most likely delivered to the door by Miss Tisdale, telling his family that he was hurt and half a world away where they couldn't see how minor it was—

"How long—" have they been worrying, but that part couldn't be fixed or changed. There were more important questions. "When can I call them?"

"Now. You've got five minutes to talk to them, that's it." And it would be about two in the morning, Hazzard time, but there was nothing he could do about that. He let himself be led to the telephone and taught how to use it.

"Uncle Jesse, you got to say 'over'!" It wasn't respectful; there was no 'sir' to be found anywhere in his words or his tone. But time was getting wasted, squandered away while their uncle stumbled over the radio code that Luke had tried to instruct him in at the beginning of the phone call. "Ah, Luke, er, your cousin wants to talk to you." It was giving up, giving in, flustered. Bo didn't care what it was, he wasn't looking a gift horse in the mouth.

"Luke, it's Bo. Over."

"Ain't you slick," seemed congratulatory, delivered with a smile, sounded hollow and far away, but it was Luke. "Getting the phone from the old-timer." Yes and no. The man in question was still within listening distance, frowning his rebuke at a boy who couldn't see him. Daisy was there, too, all three of them huddled together in the dim kitchen and wearing next to nothing. Exactly the sort of thing that would normally get his uncle to lecturing about how he wasn't running a bawdy house, but it had been the patriarch himself who had hollered for them to get themselves up and into the kitchen right now and no dawdling. "You behaving yourself? Over."

Over indeed. Tossing that question at him like it was nothing more than a how-do-you-do. As if he didn't know that there would be no privacy in this conversation.

"More or less," he answered. Long pause and then he remembered how it was that he'd come to be in possession of the phone in the first place. "Over." Regretted it instantly, because this wasn't what he wanted to talk about.

"I'll bet," his charming cousin answered back. "Listen, I ain't got but a minute here. But like I told Jesse, I'm just fine. Ain't nothing but a few scratches."

Sure would have been nice if Saturday's telegram could have said that:

THE SECRETARY HAS ASKED ME TO EXPRESS HIS DEEPEST REGRET THAT YOUR SON, CORPORAL LUKAS K. DUKE, USMC, WAS INJURED IN ACTION IN QUANG NAM PROVINCE IN VIETNAM X HE HAS BEEN TRANSFERRED TO BASE HOSPITAL IN GOOD CONDITION X IT AIN'T NOTHING BUT A FEW SCRATCHES X

He'd even have managed to maintain a sense of humor over the erroneous family relationship if the rest of the words had been as plain-spoken as what Luke was telling them now, if they hadn't made his female cousin scream in fear.

"Nothing worse than what happens on the football field. And you know what that's like, over."

Over, over. It was a signal, telling some operator between here and the other side of the world that a switch needed to be flipped so the conversation could be turned over. To him, and he didn't have the first idea what to say. Not about football, not in the middle of the night, not when he had less than a minute to say anything at all.

"I'm glad you're okay," was about the best he could do.

"We all are, honey," Daisy echoed, getting her two cents in.

"Over," he said, because no one else seemed to be talking.

"Yeah, well, I'm fine so don't worry about it." Frustration, like it was just so bothersome to have to talk about it, and Luke didn't have half a clue. He hadn't spent Saturday afternoon consoling Daisy, or Sunday morning in church asking for prayers for an ailing loved one. He hadn't had to answer questions from well-meaning but gossipy townsfolk, he hadn't been forced to listen to all the worst case scenarios get laid out by Hazzardites with active imaginations. "I appreciate how regular you been writing, especially seeing as I ain't been real good about writing back. I reckon that if you could see your way clear to keeping it up even if you don't hear from me, I'd be much obliged, over."

Typical Luke, so typical that there was nothing to do but smile and shake his head. "Yeah, we love you too, cuz." Because that, roughly translated, was what much obliged for the letters meant. "Over."

"You best mind Uncle Jesse," came the threat. "Don't make me come back over there and whip your tail. Over."

If it would work, if he could sass, cuss, disobey and defy Luke into being right here in front of him, if he could present his chin for the hitting or his tail and for the whipping, as long as it was at his cousin's hand, and that hand, along with the rest of that powerful body, could stay right here in Hazzard, he'd do it. He'd keep right on ignoring his schoolwork, he'd refuse to help with the planting season, he'd waste his days loitering on street corners if it could bring Luke back to beat him up for his bad behavior.

"Don't you worry, Luke. I'll make sure he behaves." A nudge on his shoulder from his female cousin, but his thoughts had tied his tongue in knots.

"Now—now—now," that was Uncle Jesse, jumping back into the final seconds of the call. "Luke, you don't worry about us one bit. You just stay safe."

"Over," Bo had to add, and he could just about feel his uncle's frustration at the infernal radio code. As if it was any trickier than the lingo they used on the CB.

"I'll be just fine. Y'all just take care of each other—" And, just like that, it was over, dial tone replacing his cousin's voice. No chance to say goodbye, but maybe that was for the best. Maybe he was just about dang sick of saying goodbye to Luke anyway.