A/N: Whenever possible, all the information about roads and various towns and landmarks has been taken from actual sources. I've started an interactive Google map where you can see the waypoints that relate to the story which you can find a link to on my profile. I hope to keep it updated regularly.

Just close your eyes - the sun is going down.
You'll be alright - no one can hurt you now.
Come morning light - you and I'll be safe and sound.
-The Civil Wars & Taylor Swift

Daisy woke around noon, long enough to check her watch and tuck the chain with their rings back inside her shirt, grateful that Enos was still sleeping and hadn't seen them.

The next time she woke it was shortly after three. Enos was watching her, his hazel eyes deep and thoughtful in the amber glow from the lantern.

"Hey," she said, softly.

"If you're still set on doing this, I reckon we'd better git."

She sat up and arched her stiff back, wincing as it popped, and then rubbed her shackled wrist where an angry red line now encircled it.

"Daisy, this ain't a game. You can't just play Harry Houdini and then expect to go on back home someday like nothing ever happened."

She eyed him suspiciously. "Don't worry, Sugar, I know what I've done."

"It was dang foolish. I don't reckon you'd listen to me if I said you oughta let me turn myself in."

"Not a chance, Enos." She strapped her bedroll to her pack and threw it over her shoulder. "And if you think you're gonna make me change my mind by being a grump, you can just save your energy. Come on."

By the time they reached the quarry again the sun had dried the rain from earlier that morning, but the air was thick with humidity. There were no helicopters in sight, although they listened intently for several minutes before leaving the cover of the mines.

"I don't know where the truck is supposed to be or what it looks like," she said, "so keep your eyes out."

They found it parked just down the trail from the mine, in a grove of Persimmon trees. It was an older model F-150, off-white, it's fenders eaten with rust. Half of the bed was covered by a heavy canvas tarp. Enos peeked under it.

"Possum on a gum-bush, Daisy! It's bad enough you're toting around a wanted fugitive."

"What d'you mean?"

He untied a corner of the tarp and flipped it back. Underneath it were eight crates, lined with insulation, each containing four one-gallon glass bottles of clear liquid.

Daisy looked down and the crates and then back up at him. "I didn't know she-" She bit her lip.

Enos flipped the corner back down and retied it. "I know whose truck it is," he said. "You shoulda left her out of this mess."

"I couldn't've done it without her help."

He turned around and leaned up against the truck, his eyes closed, his lips drawn in an angry line.

He's closing off, she thought. Trying to shut me out.

It had always been his first line of defense to anything unpleasant. He'd slammed a lot of doors in her face over the years, both literal and figurative, usually in the pretext of trying to protect her from himself. She expected it now, and in fact she was surprised he hadn't been more forceful the day before.

In the old days, trust had been the concrete which had held them together, but much of what had once existed between them had been destroyed, and not just by her. There was enough blame to share for all their misunderstandings. If they were to do this together, the trust was the first thing that would have to be fixed.

His eyes were still closed when she took the silver key from around her neck and unlocked the shackles that bound the two of them together. His eyes shot open as they fell to the ground.

"Look around you," she insisted. "This is real. There's no concrete or metal bars or plexi-glas windows anymore. Enos, look up."

"Daisy..."

"Just do it."

Enos raised his head and rested it back against the window of the truck. The wind blew through the trees with a sound like a rushing stream as it shook the leaves, waving them back and forth.

"Don't think about yesterday, and don't worry about tomorrow, Enos. Right now...you're free."

He blinked rapidly and she caught a glimpse of tears in his eyes before they closed again.

"I know you don't want to remember what it feels like," she said, softly, "because you think it won't last. And I can't promise you that we won't get caught or tell you what's gonna happen next. All I'm asking is for you to just...just come with me to McCaysville. Somewhere safe for a while and think about it. That's all."

When Enos was relatively sure he'd gotten a handle on his emotions, he looked back down at Daisy, surprised at the tears running down her cheeks.

"Daisy...I... I can't protect you out here."

She smiled at him through her tears. "No, not this time. This time, it's my job to protect you."

He looked back up at the trees, away from the hope shining in her eyes. To play along with her and then leave her when she least expected it would be cruel, but if it kept her out of harm's way, it would be worth it in the end. More than anything, they needed to get out of the area quickly, and they didn't have time to fight about it here.

He took a deep breath. "So where are we going?"

Daisy slammed the truck door and reached across Enos to open the glove compartment. Inside, there was a note with a key taped to it, and a map.

She tore the key off the paper and stuck it into the ignition, then read the note.

West on Hwy 68 (Ocoee Street), through Copperhill,TN, follow the curve past the railyard. Turn left at the X and follow the trail back around to the parking lot. Just go, Matt will find you. Keep safe. -A

Copperhill, Tennessee, adjoined McCaysville, Georgia, about forty miles west of Hazzard on the border between the two states. Daisy had looked up the route after visiting with Amy, but most of the area was dense forest and hill country. In the Blue Ridge Mountains, the knowledge of local dirt roads was passed on through the generations by word of mouth and by running shine, and most of them didn't make it into the official maps.

She'd never been good at navigation. That was Enos' gift.

Daisy passed Enos the map, which he examined. "We're gonna have to stay off all the main highways," he said. "They'll have those shut up tighter than Fort Knox, even if they still think we're in Hazzard County."

"I was hoping you knew a shortcut," she said.

He studied her from over the edge of the map for a moment before looking back down. "I know a way up past the border, but it ain't a short-cut," he said. "My dad used to take the back-roads up to Knoxville when the Feds were cracking down." He scooted across the cab to where Daisy could see the map and traced out a route through what looked like an unnavigable forest. "There's an old road up through here, around Tate City, that follows the Appalachian Trail a ways and then cuts back up to Highway 64 in North Carolina."

"You know it well enough to get us there?"

"Maybe," he said, "if it ain't washed out."

"Can you drive?"

He grinned at her – the first trace of genuine happiness on his face she'd seen. "Yes, ma'am."

Daisy had never fully realized the blessing of a paved road before that day. What should have taken them at the most an hour and a half was stretching into evening by the time they finally made it across the North Carolina border north of the tiny unincorporated burg of Tate City. Here, Enos veered off onto a dirt road. It started off promising, as wide as the paved road they had left and laid with gravel, but it quickly dissolved into a twisting cattle-trail broken by so many creek beds that Daisy began to fear for the truck's axles. As the sun sank lower in the sky, dipping beneath the tops of the pines, they finally came to a washout that was too deep for them to cross.

"Ding-dang it!" he cursed, "I'm sorry, Daisy. I shoulda turned back there at that last fork. It's been a long time since I've been through here."

She wanted to ask him when in the world he'd had the bad luck to be here the first time, but she was afraid it might launch him into another fishing tangent. He'd already spent the first hour recounting the story of every fish he'd ever caught from the ponds they'd passed, and she wasn't sure if she could take another one. When he was nervous, Enos rambled, and from the way he'd been talking non-stop since they'd left the quarry, he'd never been so nervous in all his life.

"It's all right, sugar, we've still got plenty of daylight left."

"Believe it or not, it's only about two miles that-a-way." He pointed north-west, through a field of hay and the forest beyond it.

"What's two miles?"

"The main road. I've just gotta remember how to get to it."

He backed up and turned the pickup around and traced their route back to where a second trail branched off from the first. It was even more desolate - no more than two lines in the dirt weaving through the grass, and Daisy began to worry that they would come across someone's still, wandering around out in the middle of nowhere.

"You don't think anyone sets up out here, do you?"

"I don't know, Daisy," he admitted. "I reckon if someone starts shooting at us, I'll drive faster."

"That's not making me feel better."

A mile and a half down the road, the truck slowed to a crawl and stopped at the edge of another washout.

"Say, Daisy, you didn't happen to bring any money with you, did you?"

"Some. Why?"

"Cause we're gonna have to pay for all the 'shine we're about to break. You'd better put your seatbelt on."

He threw the truck into reverse far enough to get a running start at the washout and then took off. He drove into it at an angle and Daisy felt her stomach lurch as the seat fell out from underneath her. Then they were climbing up the other side of the ditch, slamming her back against the padding as the scenery bounced crazily outside the window. For a sickening moment, the engine whined and the tires spun on the top ledge of dirt before they caught and pulled the truck back up onto solid ground.

Then they were past it and just ahead, asphalt gleamed in the last of the evening sun. Enos let the truck coast to a stop.

"Enos, you did it!" Forgetting her plan to give him space, she slid across the seat and hugged him. She felt him stiffen at her touch and let him go.

"We ain't there, yet, Daisy. If they have the side roads blocked off, this is gonna be a mighty short trip. Hand me the map, would you?"

He studied it, then raised his head and stared out the windshield. His finger moved in front of him, tracing an unseen route in the air, and he whispered something quietly to himself that Daisy couldn't understand. At last, he nodded, refolded the map and handed it back to her.

"Staying off the highways means we're gonna have to wander through Hayesville's back-roads," he said, "and I'm afraid I don't know the town real well. I've fished up here before, but I didn't go nowhere else but the Texaco to get gas."

"It can't be that hard," she said, "it's not like it's Atlanta."

They took Old Highway 64 up into the main part of town. Hayesville was small, but crowded this time of the year, with tourists flocking to fish the waters of Chatuge Lake. Bypassing the newer highway, they turned left down a road they hoped would lead them around the lake, only to find themselves circling back around to Highway 64.

By the third road, night was falling and Enos was getting visibly frustrated. "I ain't never seen such squirrelly roads in all my life," he said, disgusted. Their fourth road had just doubled back on itself and opened up at Highway 64 as well. "Ain't there any roads that lead anywhere else?"

"Are you sure the highway isn't safe to drive on? It's getting dark now and they're probably still hunting for Dixie, not a truck."

He drummed his fingers nervously against the steering wheel. "Where'd you hide it?" he asked, suddenly. "Your Jeep?"

"At the bottom of Stillson Canyon."

He turned to her, confused. "There's a lake at the..."

Their eyes met, hers daring him silently to tell her anything but that she'd had a good idea. He said nothing and turned away, put the truck in gear and pulled out onto the black-top two lane. When he spoke, his voice was quiet. "If we get pulled over, don't wait for me. You just run." He glanced over at her. "Understand?"

She nodded solemnly.

Being on the highway made Daisy paranoid and jumpy. In her imagination, every white car that they passed was a cop and every car that pulled in behind them was an unmarked Police car. Her hands began to sweat and she rubbed them against her jeans.

"We're almost out of town," he said, noticing her behavior.

Just past the lake, Enos turned off of the highway. "The map shows this road going pretty much all the way there," he said. "You sure someone's gonna be waiting for us this late?"

"I don't know. Amy said the guy runs kind of an underground railroad for bootleggers that the Feds are after. I guess he knows his stuff. Honestly, I wasn't paying much attention to what she said after she gave me the map of the mines."

Enos had heard stories of such things when he was younger, of a system of safe-houses scattered around the country, harboring bootleggers and fugitives, much like in the days before the Civil War when the underground railroad shuttled escaped slaves through the south to the free states in the North. When he was little, he would listen to the stories with enraptured awe, the romanticism of it all capturing his imagination, and there were times when his mother had become so overbearing that he'd dreamed of running away. But he never had. He loved his father and could never bring himself to leave him like that...or Daisy, for that matter.

The romanticism of striking out on his own had died with a kid named Donny Knapp.

Donny had been two grades ahead of Enos in school, one of those kids who was nothing special, really, not a jerk or a trouble-maker, and not at the top of his class, either. Like Enos and half of the other kids at Hazzard High, Donny's family was from the hills. His father was a committed alcoholic and his mother seemed to have a new baby every year like clockwork.

One day, when Enos was a Sophomore, a rumor spread through the school that Donny had run away. He remembered how the older kids had whispered almost reverently amongst themselves over how brave he was and how jealous they were that he'd gotten out of town. For the rest of that year, Donny was special. He was the King of the Road, seeking fame and fortune in the big cities. Speculation abounded amongst the older boys over what he was doing, and how much money he'd made, and how many exotic girls he'd slept with.

It ended a year and a half later when Donny came home, looking like he was pushing fifty instead of nineteen, with half his teeth missing and drunk out of his mind. Whatever had happened to Donny, it had killed any wish Enos had ever had to run away.

And now, here he was with Daisy, doing exactly that. He thought he could face anything that fate brought him...but not seeing her suffer. Though the shackles and hand-cuffs were gone, he was still powerless to protect her, and even worse was the knowledge that it was from his very presence that the danger stemmed.

His mind focused on these things as he drove through the foothills of southern North Carolina and finally into South-eastern Tennessee, skirting the highways as much as he could and listening to the crackle of quiet static on the CB radio.

"Which road did the note say?" he asked. Neither of them had spoken in over an hour.

Daisy, who had been dozing with her face against the cool glass of the passenger's side window, startled and sat up, disoriented.

"Sorry, Daisy. I didn't realize you were sleeping."

She ran her hands through her hair, brushing it away from her face. "That's okay, I didn't mean to. What did you say?"

"The note," he repeated, "which road did it say to take when we get to Copperhill?"

She fumbled in her pack for her flashlight. The harsh white light filled the truck's cab as she reread the note. "Uh...Highway 68...Ocoee Street, I guess."

"Look on the map and see if Airport Road intersects it."

"It ends at Highway 60...wait, no, 60 turns into 68, so yeah, that would work."

"Okay, I'll just keep going then. What time is it?"

She shined the light over her watch. "Eight-fifteen."

"Not as late as I thought it was. At least it's dark now, I just hope no one gives us any trouble going through town."

No one did. In the dark, the truck was unremarkable and they had heard nothing over the CB to suggest that law-enforcement was looking for anything but a white CJ-7.

They drove slowly through town, and it was Daisy who spotted the train-yard off to the left. It's size was impressive considering the sister towns of McCaysville and Copperhill were barely bigger than Hazzard. There seemed to be close to a dozen tracks with lines of boxcars stopped at least two deep, but she couldn't see behind them. The highway curved to the North and half a mile down the road, they spotted the large, white "X" painted on the asphalt where a trail took off to their left.

"I guess this is it," she said, as he turned the truck, "doesn't look like much."

A quarter mile down, the trail crossed the tracks and swung sharply to their left where it ended in a small gravel lot. Enos pulled off to the side and parked. In front of them, a truck flashed it's lights twice in the darkness. Daisy's hands shook as she flipped the switch on and off on the flashlight, answering the signal.

"What're you doing!?" hissed Enos, batting the light down, away from the windshield. "For all you know, those could be cops staking us out!"

As much as she wanted to tell him not to be so paranoid, she knew he was right. Even though she was fairly sure that the GBI had no idea where they were, they would have to watch themselves and double check everything from now on.

"Sorry, Enos, I didn't think about it."

He sighed deeply. "Well, I reckon we oughta see who's out here." He pulled the lever to open the door, but stopped and turned back to her. "You let me go first, you hear?"

She nodded. "All right," she agreed, but opened her door at the same time as Enos and climbed out anyway.

The driver's side door of the other truck opened and in the glow from it's dome light, Daisy saw a younger man with wavy blond hair get out and turn on a flashlight before he shut the door and disappeared behind the light. He shined it in their general direction, and she heard the crunch of footsteps on rocks. She flipped her own light back on as well and moved up to stand beside Enos.

"I told you to stay put!" he whispered.

"You really thought I would?"

He seemed to consider it for a moment. "You're the stubbornest person I've ever known."

"I know one worse."

"Wouldja hush, anyway? And let me do the talking."

A voice called out from behind the light. "Daisy? That you?"

"Who's askin'?" she answered.

"Matt . I'm uh...Amy said I was 'sposed to meet you here."

Daisy smiled and elbowed Enos. "See," she said, softly, "I told you it was okay."

"Matt," said Enos, "I think we're the ones you're looking for."

The footsteps came closer and the man stepped into the circle of light from Daisy's flashlight. He was young, maybe twenty-five at the most, and his blue eyes sparkled as he grinned at them. He held out his hand to Enos who shook it.

"Boy, I sure am glad to see you two," he said. "I thought you might have a rough time of it, going cross-country and all. Y'all have the cops running in every direction but straight up."

"They aren't on to us, are they?" she asked him, thinking absently that he looked a little like Bo.

Matt shook his head and laughed. "Hell no. They can't seem to make hide nor hair out of what happened to you two. It's a good thing you didn't wait it out any longer, though. They had pictures of you both up on the evening news." He leaned back and took a long look at Enos. "You sure don't look like a dangerous criminal."

Enos, who felt vaguely unsettled by this cheeky, lighthearted character, frowned and said in all seriousness; "They say I killed a man, you know."

Matt, who had heard most of the story from Amy during a bootlegging run up to Chattanooga the week before, snorted in disbelief. "Sure you did," he said, "and I've got some nice farmland to sell you, just up those mountains a-ways." He nodded towards Amy's truck. "If y'all want to grab your stuff, I'll take you on back to the house. Pop's waiting for you and then I've gotta get this 'shine on down to Huntsville tonight."

Daisy glanced up at Enos. "Uh...Matt, we might owe you for some broken bottles. We had to go through a ditch or two."

Matt circled around her and untied the tarp, shining his light underneath. "Yeah, looks like one's busted," he said, retying the tarp. He shrugged, unconcerned. "That's okay, don't worry about it. The profit on this load is all mine for helping Amy out, so it's not like I lost anything I was counting on." He patted the side of the truck and started back to his truck. "Y'all grab your stuff and come on. It's a quiet town, but there ain't no sense pressing our luck."

Enos opened the door and grabbed both of their packs, handing Daisy hers. As they walked back to Matt's truck, Enos sighed. "Now I know how a jug of moonshine feels," he told her, "getting shuttled around from one place to another."

She laughed and took his hand. Too worn out to protest - for once, he didn't pull away.