Author's note: So here's the end of another one. Thanks for reading and thanks especially to those who left reviews.
I've got another one in the works - the first draft is done, but the rewrites are going to be extensive, so it'll probably be a couple of weeks before I manage to get it ready to go. And then I have about three half-baked ideas behind that (some of which will fully bake themselves, I'm sure), so I won't even play at a farewell speech. Besides, I've already given far too many of those, and none of them have turned out to be real. Alas, I am not as truthful as a Duke.
As always, there's that whole not earning/never meaning no harm thing, and with that, I leave you to the end of this story.
14. Everybody Loves a Carnival
"Ooh, look," Daisy calls from his left. So his eyes follow where her outstretched finger points. But it's just the same Ring of Fire jump that Arlo's been doing for the past three years. Did it last year on that very same spot. Then again, maybe Daisy wasn't paying terribly close attention to Arlo a year ago. She might have had other concerns.
It wasn't as hard as he would have thought for him to talk his cousins into coming to see the carnival. Jesse begged off with generalities about taking care of the farm, and Luke took him aside and asked if he was sure, but now he and Daisy are sitting here on either side of him on the blazing hot aluminum of the Hazzard Fairgrounds bleachers, watching the Carnival of Thrills with him. Not quite a year to the day after they were last here, though they were sitting in three completely different places back then.
The signs started showing up in town a week ago. Just for the carnival itself, without any kind of a pre-show race or offer of a job. That little and at first it was too much. One late August morning when he and Luke were headed to Cooter's for their Saturday ritual of doughnuts and beer, there'd been a familiar yellow and orange poster. He drove past it before it sunk in what it was, and then went another block before he realized that it wasn't a year old, that it had to have gone up since they drove by that same telephone pole last Saturday.
He'd skidded to a stop, reversed direction and if Luke had started out asking him exactly what he thought he was doing driving like a crazy man in the middle of town, he'd shut up when they got back to that pole and Bo had pointed. "Oh," was all Luke'd had to say about the yellow splash of words, the black and white photo of Diane's face at the top.
At first Bo was mad that the carnival would come back here, that it would still be operating anywhere at all. Besides, he was still smarting from the fact that Carl had managed a plea to attempted manslaughter instead of attempted murder, which did away with his trial and the Dukes' chance to face him in court. Got himself locked up for five years in exchange for not having to take his chances with a jury.
When the residual anger over last year's events burned away, he was left with sadness about dreams broken, unfulfilled, left for dead. And by mid-week even that was gone and he'd decided he wanted to see the show. To see Diane, who had, when it came down to it, been as much a victim of Carl's sabotaging ways as any of them. To see what she remembered, what she felt, whether she had any regrets.
"He made it!" Daisy breathes, like it's some kind of a wonder. Of course he made it, Arlo's a professional and very good at what he does. He made it last year, too.
The carnival's not the same. Of course it's not; for one, Carl's gone, which leaves Diane's nasal voice to do all the announcing. There's still excitement, but it's not nearly as big or bright as it used to be. (Or maybe it just looks different from the stands.) There are a lot more motorcycle stunts now and hardly any cars here at all. Mostly junkers used as props.
Then again, the bikes are cheaper to purchase and repair, and Bo reckons that Diane must be feeling something of a pinch. Her insurance has got to be more expensive now, and she's not attempting anything as crowd-pleasing as the Leap for Life. This year's version of the carnival is not a recipe for big box office gains.
Even here in Hazzard, where love for vehicle tricks is long and memories are short, the stands are only half full.
"Those guys are pretty good," Luke says of the Jumping Jones Brothers, who aren't really brothers at all. Just a couple of really talented boys who do tandem stunts on their motorcycles. They were here last year, too, but Bo knows Luke didn't see their act back then.
"And now, for the grand finale," Diane proclaims over the PA system, tone too high and pinched to really convey drama, but she's doing what she can. She always sounded best when she dropped into her lower register and spoke straight into his ear, but she can't exactly evoke that same quality under the present circumstances. "The big moment you've all been waiting for."
Maybe Bo's just biased against her amplified voice. Before today, he'd only heard it once, and it's not a pleasant memory. The screech of steel protesting under the off-kilter weight it was trying to bear, smoke, pain, fear and in the middle of it all, Diane's words, accidentally picked up by the open microphone: Is he all right?
Like he can tell what Bo's thinking, Luke slings an arm around his shoulders. He's pointing down at a pair of ramps, as if that's the primary reason for touching him – to draw his attention toward the next stunt, instead of drawing it away from memories. Bo just smiles and plays along. Yes, he can see the set up for what appears to be the carnival's biggest stunt nowadays. One ramp (and he can remember the black and white stripes, the red arrow up the middle) near the edge of the track, and another mirroring it maybe half a football field away.
"'Daring' Darren Davidson will leap his bike from one side of the 'great gulf' to the other, while two trucks pass simultaneously underneath him!"
Bo can see them, now, a pair of panel trucks, one directly in front of where he and his cousins sit, the other across the width of the fairgrounds from them. A skinny girl in a tight costume carries a glowing torch into the middle of the fairgrounds and lights up a large hoop so that it becomes a ring of flame, then stands where she is and waves the torch in the air. Somewhere a gun goes off and everything starts to move at once – trucks from either side of the fairgrounds, a series of smaller motor bikes on their hind wheels doing flourishing loops and laps around the edges, and one big, black motorcycle with a red flame painted on the body starts rolling from the right, picking up speed. Just as it crests the ramp, the two trucks cross in the middle on either side of the flaming loop, somehow managing not to crush the girl still standing in the middle of it all, while the motorcycle lifts, flies through the ring of flame, and lands safely near the foot of the other ramp. More gunfire and a few small fireworks are set off while the girl takes a bow, marking the grand finale as successfully completed.
It is, Bo has to admit to himself, a pretty good stunt. Not as impressive as the Leap for Life, maybe, but it turns out that the Leap for Life was never successfully completed, so this might just be the best finale the carnival has ever pulled off. Even Luke is clapping while Daisy lets out hollers of approval.
"Thank you all for coming!" Diane's voice calls over the crowd noise. "If you'd like to meet any of the stunt guys, they'll all be at the west end, next to the lost and found, in about fifteen minutes!"
"And!" That's a different voice, but just as recognizable to Duke ears. Boss Hogg has grabbed hold of the microphone as he is wont to do at any public event. "Don't forget to stop by the hotdog stand and get yourself a hotdog, French fries, onion rings, hamburger…" there's a pause there and the crowd is on its feet, so Bo can't see the man, but he figures Boss had to stop to wipe drool from the corner of his mouth. Just mentioning food, and imagining the money that people will spend buying it, is enough to get him salivating, "And a jumbo Coke to top it off!"
Daisy's giggling and talking to the family that's been sitting behind them, explaining that the hotdogs aren't real beef, and the buns will cost them extra, when Luke turns to him.
"You want to go see her?" he asks quietly. Diane, he means.
Bo looks over the heads of the crowd to the corner where she was standing for the finale. He can't see much around the crowd now, just the fan of her hair when the wind picks up a little, the profile of her face. She is, as she always was, a beautiful woman.
It's what he came here to do. He had a bunch of questions for her, about what her life's been like for the past year, how she could have gone through show after show and never know one of her own employees was sabotaging the cars. Whether she ever actually loved him, how she could leave town the day after he was nearly killed, why she never checked to see if he was all right, never even sent a card. Maybe he thought the answers would mean something to him, but now that he's watched her run a successful carnival, he knows there's nothing she can say that will make any of what happened any better or worse. It'll just keep being what it is, like locusts decimating the crops – bad fortune, something to be risen above.
It's enough, he decides, that Luke came here with him today, that if he'd wanted to go spend time with Diane, Luke would have gone with him or let him go – whichever way Bo wanted it – even if his cousin wouldn't have liked it one bit.
"Nah," he decides. At least for today, it's enough to have family that loves him and will stick by him no matter what kind of trouble he gets himself into. "Let's go home." He throws an arm across Luke's shoulders and pats Daisy on the back so she'll quit making friends with their neighbors and join him and Luke as they descend out of the bleachers.
"And I'm driving," he announces. Luke just laughs and points forward into the sunshine, indicating a clear path through the crowd and down to the parking lot where the General Lee awaits.