Author's note: I have been informed that the last chapter ended with a nasty cliffhanger. I have further been informed that I need to update immediately. So here's an update, even though I don't think it's really going to help anything as far as resolution goes. Still, I have now done as I was told.

Twenty-one: Zipped Lips and Eerie Silences

August 2, 1974

His ears were ringing (or his bell had been rung), his leg was twisted and there was a mean sore spot in the middle of his back where he'd rolled over a root or stone as he wrestled against some crazed bad guy. At least he figured it was a guy – Alice was a good wrestler, but he didn't suppose she'd be quite so heavy. And though she could be sneaky, he didn't think she was wily enough to have crept up behind him on a wild slope at the far edge of the Dukes' own property.

But none of his aches and pains mattered, because Jesse had hollered, and then his shotgun had gone off. Once, but echoing off the line of hills to the west so it sounded like two shots, and Luke took advantage of his opponent's surprise. Rolled him over and got the upper hand, fist cocked back to finish him off, when the shotgun rang out again.

Which pulled Luke away from his selfish goal of doling out pain in equal measures to what he'd received, and had him scrambling in the dirt. Trying to get to his feet on uneven ground in slippery boots, getting shoved from somewhere, landing on his elbow and shoulder. Never mind retaliation, he had to get to Jesse. Rocking like a turtle on its back until he got his elbows under him, saw the shadow of the man he'd just been fighting limping off as it crossed through the furthest edge of the glow from the fire that Jesse had lit hours ago up by the fake still. It wasn't Alice's shadow and it was far too thin to belong to J.D. Hogg.

Then he was on his feet, running toward the smell of gun powder, stones turning under his boot soles, clothes catching on the undergrowth. Squinting up the slope, trying to see anything at all in the thin light and there it was. A bulk of a man on all fours, then one knee. By the time Jesse was struggling back to his feet, Luke was at his side to grab him under the arm and help him stand.

"You all right, Uncle Jesse?" he gasped, breathless. Wiped his hand across his mouth, winced at the sting of sweat and dirt in a new split across his bottom lip.

"Fine," the old man said, shaking off the help. Wiping away his own share of dirt onto the bib of his overalls, then bending low to retrieve his shotgun. "Just some wet-behind-the-ears thug figuring he could push me around. Took off pretty quick when I fired off my shotgun, though," he added, probably smiling with pride.

"They all did," Luke agreed, and as if to punctuate that thought, an engine sputtered grudgingly to life down near the road. "You got any idea who they was?" Gears got painfully ground against one another.

"Not Molly and Alice or J.D." It should have been smug, should have been full of I-told-you-sos, but it was too busy being confused or just plain old contemplative. "I ain't got the first idea." But he was chewing something over in that grizzled head of his.

"If you're okay, I reckon me and Bo had best get after them." Not that they had to hurry too much. Sounded like either the driver or the vehicle below them wasn't in tip-top shape, if the effort to get the gears right was any indication. Had to have been parked down close to the lane, a little south of where he and Bo had left Tilly.

"Go on, I'm fine I said." The old man was looking at his hands for scrapes or cuts, though. "Git!" when he didn't find anything worth worrying about.

"Bo," Luke hollered, trotting back down toward where they'd laid their useless trap. Seemed stupid now to think they could have caught people like so many fish in a net, but it had worked for many a moonshiner before them, including their own fathers. It almost seemed like their attackers knew a few moonshining tricks of their own. (But it hadn't been JD or Molly, so who could it have been? Someone – a few someones, maybe three or four of them? – young and strong.) "Bo, come on." His cousin had been right there with him, close enough to hit him, until the tail end of the fight had pulled them in different directions – Luke down, and with any luck, Bo had kept his feet – but he couldn't have gone far. "Let's get a move on."

No response, not even a rustle of leaves. Bo was lazy most days and slow on others, but never, not once in his life, had he ever been quiet.

"Bo?" Nothing.

Just minutes ago it had been so much of everything all at once. Now it was nothing at all.

Bo had to be there, must be hurt. Hit his head, took a hard punch, had a mouthful of dirt, maybe.

"Bo!"

Some part of him broken, maybe bit his tongue so badly he couldn't talk (but he would still be able to scream), ears ringing so loud he couldn't hear? Had to be something, but whatever it was, it couldn't be too bad. Bo was strong, he was good in a fight.

(He wasn't answering.)

"Bo!" Leaves rustling now, but that was just Uncle Jesse, trundling down the hill towards him just as fast as it was safe for him to move. Hollering: "You hear me, boy?"

But calling wasn't getting them anywhere. Bo wasn't responding, wasn't going to respond. Luke would have to find him without using his ears. Without much help from his eyes, either, since every stone, every tree root, every lump and bump of the land could be more than it looked like, or less. Could be Bo, out cold and hurt, vulnerable to heavy-stepping feet that moved too quickly.

"Bo Duke!" Jesse, promising whippings with no more than the tone of his voice. "You'd best answer me when I'm talking to you!"

Meanwhile, Luke was drawing all on his memories of night missions, slinking around jungle hillsides in heavy rain with the threat of mines all ahead, and how he'd kept everyone together, kept them safe. Should have been worse than this, should have been more frightening than tonight, but his heart was pounding a terrified rhythm all the same. This mission was different. This mission involved Bo.

Back to where he'd last seen his cousin, last touched him before they got pulled apart and into the fight, but there was nothing to see now, nothing to feel.

"Light," he called back up the hill. He'd had a flashlight – where had it gone? Lost in the struggle. "Jesse, we need light!" Which meant the oldster reversing course, heading back toward to fire and anything that would burn like a torch, and left Luke to feel around devastatingly slowly for his potentially badly hurt baby cousin.

What if both of those shots hadn't come from Jesse's gun? No, they had to have. Luke knew enough about artillery and echoes to be sure of it.

(But what if they hadn't?)

Hell on it, he couldn't be as careful as he wanted. If Bo was bleeding he had to locate him fast. Stooping low, hands surveying frantically in front of him, hoping like hell that he'd find Bo with his next step or the one after that, hollering out his cousin's name, and that was when he saw it.

Light below, bobbing like a drowning swimmer, but climbing up the hill all the same.

"Enos! Would you just," but it was unlikely that Enos would just anything-at-all. "Cyst and decease?" No, that wasn't quite right. The boy's annoying qualities were having a negative impact on Rosco's speech functions. "Decease and Cyst?" Young, fresh, eager and irritating as anything. "Would you just quit it?"

"Yes, sir." There, now, that was better. That was an inferior officer submitting to the will of his superior. "It's just, I don't reckon them Dukes went this way."

And that was the real problem at hand. Those Dukes had torn out of their own farmyard like a bobcat with a rabbit on its tail. No, wait, that was a… never mind. He couldn't even think straight with the nattering coming at him from the passenger seat.

The thing was, the Dukes had taken off and by the time that spastic deputy of his had made it back into the car and the law of Hazzard had managed to get rolling along on Settler's Ridge, the Dukes had been out of sight. And they'd never been in sight since.

"Enos, now, I'm the boss and I'm driving and we're going this way, so you just hush up. You hear me?" It had been hours. Too many hours, and maybe Enos was tired. Maybe he was confused and maybe he was scared of the dark that had closed in around them like it wanted those Dukes to get away. It didn't matter what Enos was, because Rosco was the senior officer, he was in change and most importantly, he was driving.

"Yes, sir." And that was that. "It's just—" or not.

"Enos, zip it."

"Yes—"

"Zip!" And thankfully, the boy finally saw some sense. Saw who was experienced and who was a rookie, saw right from wrong and the chain of command and—

Rosco all but stood on the cruiser's brakes, braced his arms on the steering wheel and felt the back end fishtail then swing around all the same. Gritted his teeth until his jaw ached, closed his eyes and if he didn't pray, it was only because he didn't have time. Besides, he was choking on the smell of burnt rubber.

Wham!

The cruiser jolted to a neck-wrenching stop, its back fender up against a boulder that was right smack in the middle of the road. Well, it was one of three boulders and now that he thought about it, they marked the dead end of Old Indian Caves Road.

"Enos!" he hollered, not entirely sure why. Except that his silly deputy's hat had fallen down over his eyes, and his fool arms were outstretched and patting at the dashboard like if he knocked his hand against it enough times, he'd be able to see again. "Why didn't you tell me about them rocks?"

"I figured you knew about them already," Enos squeaked out.

"Of course I knew about them!" At least he mostly did. Except when he forgot about them. "That don't mean it wasn't your job to warn me that they were there."

"Yes, sir," was nasal and muted by felt. Rosco finally took pity on the rookie and shoved his hat back for him. "That's why," he said, blinking owlishly at the headlights' glow in front of them, then rubbing at his eyes. "I figured them Dukes didn't come this way. Because this road don't lead nowhere, and Bo and Luke, they know that. Being as they used to come out here when they was playing hooky from school."

"Enos, what did I tell you?"

"Zip it?"

"Zip." Rosco confirmed.

An echoing metallic screech drowned out the singing of cicadas as he pulled the car away from the stone it had come to rest against, but other than a persistent rattle (that was almost, but not quite, as annoying as Enos) the car seemed in workable order. Which meant he could continue searching for those pesky Dukes. For fifteen, twenty minutes, tops, he skulked around mountain switchbacks and dipped into the hollows without getting any lip (or any help) from the man to his right. Black patches of nowhere important, perfect place to hide a still or cloak sneaky boys up to no good—

"Ijit!" That was another one of those things he hadn't meant to blurt, but he had to admit it wasn't Enos' fault this time.

No, Enos was over there biting his lips in an effort to keep them zipped, and Rosco was left to his own devices. Which was exactly what he wanted. Mostly.

"Enos, did you see that?"

"Mm-hmm," split the difference somewhere between zipped and unzipped.

Meanwhile, the pale blue van that had just cut through Rosco's headlights careened off of the Ridge Road and on down Green Apple Lane, taking curves and bumps so fast it was a wonder it stayed upright.

Rosco's foot automatically crushed down against the accelerator, and his hand flipped the toggle for his overhead flashers, turning the trees that were sewn right up close to the road alternating shades of red and blue.

"Don't reckon them's those Dukes up there driving that van," he mumbled.

"Mm-mm," Enos answered, lips probably still curled into his mouth. Silently judging Rosco's course-changing decision to give up looking for the Dukes in favor of chasing a speeder, no doubt. Wondering why his superior officer would do something so illogical and—

"That driver's up there is a lawbreaker!" Rosco blurted. "A reckless driver, and he's probably drunk, too!"

Rosco left out the part where he like a hound dog on the trail of a fox – even if he was tracking one specific fox, seeing another go running by was just too much temptation. High speed chases, for any reason at all, were just plain fun.

"Mm-hmm," Enos agreed, head bobbing enthusiastically. Which either meant he agreed with Rosco's logic or he liked a good chase as much as the next guy. Or that he had finally learned sense and wasn't going to harass and annoy his superior officer with pointless disagreements and questions. (But that last one seemed unlikely.)

Didn't matter what Enos thought, because the car surged underneath them like a horse charging through an open gate, and there was nothing but the gust of wind thumping in through the windows, the smell of road dust mixed with exhaust, and red and blue gleaming around them like some kind of demented lighthouse beaming out a beacon over dry land.

"He thinks he can shake me," Rosco commented when the chase forked off onto Lakes Road. "He don't know who he's messing with. I'm gonna get him, I'm serious," he informed Enos, who had the good sense not to bother answering back.

He followed the van down to the rutted road that didn't even have a name, but ran along the edge of Hazzard Pond, the one that fishermen parked along in the day and where kids went in pairs to make out at night. The cruiser fishtailed on the turn.

"Mmm!" Enos said, eyes all but popping out of his head. Pointing out in front of them like he was telling Rosco to look at the road instead of his face, but that was silly. Rosco knew how to drive, he'd been driving since Enos was in diapers and—

It was right about then, imagining a baby Enos wetting himself, that Rosco felt the kind of lift and floating sensation that no car should ever have. No more bumps under the wheels, nothing anywhere but air. Then the splash came, cold water hitting his face, sneaking into his mouth, and he tried to spit it out, but by then the siren was warbling and the water was rushing in from the cracks in the door and the open windows, stinky old fish smell all around. Cold and slimy and he couldn't swim, had to think about how deep the water was here. Meanwhile the van kept on trundling down the road until it was out of sight.

At least, he consoled himself, Enos didn't scream or holler or even complain that somehow Rosco had landed the county's one and only cruiser in a pond. He just kept his lips zipped through the whole thing.

She'd made the trip here dark – no headlights – even if she wasn't running 'shine, even if Jesse wasn't really making 'shine up on the old outdoor fireplace on that briar-strewn slope at the nearly forgotten far edge of Duke land.

She'd come dark to keep the wrong people from following, she'd come dark because she wanted to be alone. She'd come dark because she was of moonshiner's blood, and she'd come dark because she could. She was one of the best drivers in the county.

She'd arrived dark, so there were no headlights to turn off. Just an engine to quiet and then she figured she'd sneak up the trail to look for her kin. Except that as soon as the hum and rattle of the pickup's engine was done echoing off the hillsides around, it was obvious that there was no reason for stealth.

Light, came tumbling down the hill in Luke's rough and ragged voice, Jesse, we need light!

Light – she reached for the glove compartment, shaky fingers fiddling awkwardly with the latch until the little door bounced open with a muted thud, then she fished around inside. So much stuff: papers, gloves, a map, something sticky that she dropped to the floor, something else trying to roll away from her and then there was the cool metal of a flashlight in her hand.

Bo! Luke's voice again, caught somewhere between angry and alarmed and thoroughly upset in a way that Luke didn't ever get, not since he was a kid with a hot temper and a quick-swinging fist.

Running, Daisy's legs were moving fast over the rough ground. She couldn't remember closing the door to the pickup, wasn't sure she'd bothered and decided she didn't care. Flashlight's beam bouncing in front of her in wild and uneven circles, catching momentarily on this tree and that rock, and then there was a body charging at her. Luke, she recognized his run even before he skidded into the light, his big hand warm over hers and yanking the flashlight out of it. Starting back up the hill, slowing long enough to grab her hand in his free one and drag her back up with him.

Just gasping for air, just trying not to trip or get whipped in the face by a recoiling branch – that was all she could do until some arbitrary location was reached and Luke let her go.

Hands on her knees, focusing on catching her breath to say anything at all, and the next thing she knew, Jesse was next to her. Holding some sort of hastily fashioned torch that wasn't much of anything more than something – maybe a piece of Maudine's horse blanket? – tied onto the end of a stick. Its smell was stronger than the ghostly arc of light it threw.

"You all right, girl?" her uncle asked, as she sucked in some air – wished mightily for water, even just a sip – and nodded.

"What," she tried. It came out a bare, raspy grunt. "Happened?"

Jesse patted her on the back like she was choking. It didn't do much for her breathing, but it might just have steadied her a bit. Made her think that maybe everything would be okay after all, as long as she had her uncle next to her.

"Don't rightly know," he answered. Daisy straightened up and pushed her hair back from her eyes. Luke was moving amongst the trees, flashlight swinging from side to side in a search pattern that only he would understand. "Someone ambushed the boys before the boys could ambush them, and—"

"Bo!" Luke yelled, bending low to peer under... something up ahead that Daisy didn't get a good enough look at because the flashlight moved away from it and started sweeping again.

"They was fighting with them and one of them come after me—"

What? That wasn't fair! Bo and Luke were young and strong and heck, they liked a good fight, but Uncle Jesse was old and could easily be hurt and where would the Duke clan be without him?

"—I'm fine, girl," he said, even if she could swear she hadn't uttered a single one of her thoughts out loud. (She might have squeaked, though.) "Oh, they knocked me over, but I sent a couple of shotgun blasts into the air on the way down. They ran off like a bunch of rats scattering from a kitchen light. Luke and Bo was going to go after them, but—"

Luke was a one-man search party, and Bo was… nowhere. Missing, and what had she been doing? Standing around, worrying over her lost breath and what good would breathing be if her heart stopped beating? She was sure it would break if something awful had happened to Bo.

"Come on," she said, gesturing out into the darkness. Taking a step and then frowning because the woods wasn't like a road or a farmyard. There was nothing linear about it, nothing logical, and, "Where do we start?" She'd already come up the only path, and Bo wasn't there.

For all of a second Jesse looked as unsure as she felt, then he handed off that thing that was mostly a stick and only vaguely a torch, and started marching toward Luke in that deceptively quick way he had. Arms swinging and legs churning, leaving her no choice but to follow, if only to provide what little light she could against him tripping.

"Luke!" Jesse called and if the flashlight swung briefly toward where his uncle was hollering for him, Luke showed no other indication that he'd heard. "Luke, you mind me now."

That made the flashlight go still. Even if there wasn't any light shining directly on him, Daisy could imagine Luke's shoulders slumping. Head dropping, then shaking and there it was. The flashlight making its way back toward her and Jesse. They met up in middle ground.

"Where exactly was you when you last saw him?"

Luke huffed. He never did like marching to someone else's orders.

"There," Luke said, flashlight beam jutting out angrily at one pile of leaves that looked about the same as any other pile out here, except that it was a little dug up and mixed with dirt. Free hand wiping across his face and Daisy sucked in a breath at the red smear spreading out toward his cheek.

"Luke—" you're bleeding, was where her words had been going. Except that there was a sudden, bouncing beam of light below them, and her cousin was off again. Trotting at an angle down the slope, sure-footed as ever. She and Jesse stepped carefully over mossy stones at a much slower pace.

By the time they got down to where the two sets of flashlights had met up, there was some kind of a stare-off going on between Luke and Molly. Thin as a reed and short besides, Molly was no match for the burly oldest Duke cousin. But she stood her ground, hands solidly on hips and face scrunched up, eyes locking hard with Luke's. Alice was at her side, the flashlight held loosely in her hand, beam shining mostly on the ground. Big-eyed, waiting for Luke's short fuse, lit by Molly's short temper, to just go ahead and blow them all to smithereens.

"Molly?" Jesse said. "What are you doing here?"

It wasn't an accusation, at least not mostly. There was an edge to the oldster's voice, but Daisy would bet it was surprise as much as anything.

"She followed me," Daisy realized. "Didn't you?"

"We did," Alice agreed.

When Molly tore her eyes away from Luke's, and the lines of her frown shifted away from anger. Pouting, all but sticking out her lower lip; it was as good an act as anyone had ever put on.

"We come here to make sure Daisy was all right." Well, wasn't that cute. "She seemed so upset when she left and we just wasn't sure it was smart for her to drive, so we followed out after her." They must have driven blacked out, too, far enough behind that they couldn't easily be seen and Daisy was a fool. She'd led them right here. "And then this cantankerous youngster here," finger jutting at Luke, "come running at us, accusing us of sabotage and sneakiness and—doing something to Bo."

"Luke," Jesse intervened. "You said yourself that whoever it was that you was fighting with, it wasn't Molly."

"It wasn't Molly," wasn't exactly like Luke agreeing. It was more like Luke making a legal case. "But that don't mean she wasn't behind it."

"Behind what?" was Molly's defense. She turned to Jesse with all the innocence in her soul laid bare in her wide eyes. "Now, Jess, we've been friends for too long for you to go—"

"Just tell us where Bo is," Luke demanded. "And we'll—"

"Jess!" Molly protested over whatever Luke was going to offer her in exchange for Bo's location.

"Now, Luke." Jesse might have been on the verge of a lecture, but then again, his eyes were darting back and forth from Luke to Molly, like he was trying to decide which of them was more right than the other (and which might need to be taken over his knee). Not that Daisy would ever know what his intentions had really been.

"All of you, knock it off." That was Alice. It was probably the loudest Daisy had ever heard her speak. For such a strong girl, Alice wasn't one to assert herself. "It don't matter who's right and who's wrong. Only thing important here is, Bo's missing. Reckon you all need to quit your fussing and find him!"

Which was fine advice and just maybe Daisy wished she'd been the one to give it. Though it didn't much matter when the only thing they could all agree on was that not a one of them had the first idea where to start looking.