A/N: A mudcat or yellowbelly is a wild catfish, and if you've only eaten farm raised, you don't know what you're missing.
A scene in this chapter refers to Chapter 2 of The Story of Us where Daisy and Enos were kidnapped (sort-of) by the Beaudrys when Enos was 13 and Daisy was 11 and had to find their way back to Hazzard from Tennessee. That story is stand-alone and can be read without reading the rest of TSOU. Reading it is not necessary to understand this chapter.
I'm just a poor, wayfaring stranger,
while traveling through this world of woe.
But there's no sickness, toil, or danger,
in that bright world to which I go.
-Spiritual
The screech of brakes split the air as the train pulled onto the siding, waiting on a faster train with the right-of-way to pass them before moving on. Enos sighed, wondering how many more stops they would be making before they reached Kansas City. Any mystique he might have felt earlier about escaping aboard the train had dissolved into the feeling of sitting in a very large, very hot tin can on wheels.
Daisy, who had spent much of the last four hours watching the countryside from the front ledge of the grainer's porch, looked back at him with an irritated expression as the brake shoes ground against the wheels with an ear-piecing shriek and the train slowed to a crawl. "I thought Annie said this was train didn't stop anywhere."
"That ain't till we get past Kansas City, if I remember right."
The train jerked once and then stopped. Without the constantly moving air around them, the temperature began to rise quickly. Even now, as the evening sun spread like liquid fire across the plain, it was still over eighty degrees outside and Enos felt the heat closing in around him like an invisible gloved hand.
Daisy got up and craned her neck around the side of the car, looking back towards the end of the train. "There ain't nothing coming."
He closed his eyes and rested his head back against the wall, not wanting to argue with her. They'd already had this conversation twice before on previous stops. "There's something coming," he assured her. "It just ain't got here, yet."
"Yeah, well...I've had enough of waiting." Enos's eyes shot open at the sound of her backpack scraping against the metal floor as she picked it up. "There's a gas station right over there and I've gotta use the bathroom."
He scrambled up from where he sat, but she was already climbing down the ladder to the ground below. "Daisy, wait!"
"Come on," she shouted back, "This train ain't moving in the next ten minutes, and we'll be long gone before anyone figures out who we are."
With a growl of frustration, he grabbed his own pack and hurried after her. Before his foot hit the gravel she was gone, running across the narrow swath of overgrown prairie grass to the road on the other side where a Amoco gas station sat forlornly in the gathering dusk.
A copper bell clanked tunelessly against the glass of the door as he entered and he took a deep breath to settle himself. It was the first public place he had been since before he'd been arrested. Barraged by sensations he once took for granted as mundane, he wiped his sweaty palms against his jeans and tried to keep from turning around to look behind him.
The fluorescents cast a harsh unnatural light over the metal shelves and peg boards which held an assortment of products; from dusty 6-volt flashlight batteries to yellowed souvenirs proclaiming that Missouri was the "Show Me State". The dust hung like stale perfume in the air as he made his way quickly back to the rear of the store to the restrooms and tried the door that said "men". It opened into a room that smelled like prison and he swallowed back the bile that rose in his throat.
On his way back up to the front, he grabbed an extra bottle of water, a map of Kansas, and a large bag of Cool Ranch Doritos. Daisy was studying the front page of the St. Louis Post Dispatch when he came out, and he grabbed her by the arm as he passed her by.
"We ain't got time for that," he whispered. "Just get it if you wanna read it."
The clerk, a middle-aged man with dark, oily hair, lounged on a stool with his feet propped up on the counter. His eyes were glued to the comic book in his hands, a back issue of Looney Tunes.
"That's a good one," Enos told him with a friendly smile.
The man looked up at him, a blank stare under half-lidded eyes. "Huh?"
"the comic book," Enos explained, motioning to it.
"Oh..." He tossed it aside to ring up their purchases and as he did so, a Penthouse magazine slid out from underneath the fake cover. "Y'all need smokes?"
Daisy shook her head. "Nope, that's all, sugar."
She did not say it flirtatiously, but her words caught the man's attention. His eyes slowly perused her slim, curvaceous figure; clothed in jeans and a short-sleeved blouse, and settled for a moment on the gold chain that hung below the shirt's neckline before moving further south.
"You looking for someplace to stay, babe?" he drawled suggestively, noticing her backpack. "I gotta room for rent...cheap."
Enos glared darkly at him. "We're in a hurry."
The man's glance shifted up to Enos with a grunt, as if he'd only just now noticed him. "It's $2.14."
Enos threw a crumpled five dollar bill at him and without waiting for his change, grabbed the plastic bag and Daisy's hand, pulling her with him out of the station. From across the road there was a rattling of couplings and groaning of freight cars moving on the track. Beneath a lone street light, their train was leaving without them.
"If we don't catch our car, we ain't gonna get through Kansas City!" he shouted.
They ran across the road and then Daisy veered off to their right, tugging Enos with her. "It ain't going that fast, yet! We'll cut it off."
Breathlessly, he concentrated on putting one foot in front of the other, praying that he wouldn't trip.
They made it back beside their grainer just as the train was picking up steam. Enos tossed his backpack and supplies up over the side of the railing, then Daisy's pack as she caught the ladder and climbed up. With no time to spare, he followed, groaning in relief as he collapsed against the back of the porch.
"Lord have mercy, Daisy! Don't be running off like that again."
She grinned sheepishly at him, her face just visible in the failing light. "I guess it wasn't as long a wait as I thought." She grabbed the bag of things from the gas station and took out the bag of chips he'd bought, holding them up to catch the light and read the label. "What's a "cool ranch" corn chip s'posed to taste like? Like a horse farm in winter?"
He laughed. "Beats me, but I ain't had junk food in a month of Sundays. Hand 'em over."
There was a 'pop' and a sound of tearing plastic as she opened the bag and took out a handful before giving it to him. Seconds later, she scrambled up and spat over the railing.
"They ain't that bad," he said, through a mouthful. He took his flashlight out of his bag to get a better look at the label. "Don't know what all them blue specks are on 'em though. Kinda weird."
"Enos, you're gonna make me sick just watching you eat them." She took a drink from her water bottle to clear her mouth then passed it to him. "Gross. So, where do you think we are?"
He folded down the top of the bag of chips and stashed it inside his backpack. "I don't know, but we can't be too far from Kansas City. We'd best put our stuff in the back."
"I'll believe that when I see it," she grumbled. "Tell you what, we ever get to Kansas City, you wake me up. Actually, you oughta get some sleep yourself." She picked up her things and crawled through the opening into the compartment beneath the hoppers.
Enos yawned and rubbed his eyes. "I'll be there in a minute." There was no denying he was worn out, and it was a perfect opportunity to catch some shut-eye.
He stood up and rested his arms on the edge of the railing, looking out at the scenery passing by. Even in better light, there wouldn't have been much to see. This area of Missouri was sparsely populated and the only sign of civilization was a lone pole-light, shining far off in the distance. The only trees were scrubby wind-brakes, growing along the fences that stretched to the horizon.
Enos didn't mind the barren landscape. The rail beneath him followed no roads, no paths that anything other than a helicopter could follow, and offered them a protection that even Jack and his safe-house could not have offered. As long as the train was moving, no one could get to them.
Grabbing his pack, he turned and followed Daisy though the hole and lay out his sleeping bag beside hers. They slept through the connection at Kansas City without a soul the wiser and by the time Daisy woke, it was morning.
Someone was singing.
He followed the tune as it wove in and out of his dream. He was driving his patrol car and listening to the radio...but he knew the voice...and it seemed the sound came from around him and not from the speakers of the Dodge Monaco. It was an old song... something that his grandmother might have sang before she died...
He woke into the explosive heat of the railcar - and yet the voice went on, ever so faintly over the sound of the track, coming from the other side of the thin metal and echoing around him with an muffled, undersea quality. He rolled over, lacing his hands behind his head, and listened to the rise and fall of Daisy's voice. He tried to recall the name of the song and failed, but he remembered Aunt Lavinia singing it to them as children at bedtime. Something about a wandering stranger, and no sickness, toil, or danger...
It occurred to him that he hadn't heard her sing in a long time, except at Christmas with the family. But she used to. When they were kids, he had once teased her that she always had a song in her heart. She'd scribbled lyrics on dogeared napkins and in the corners of her school notebooks, and told him her dreams of making it big one day in Nashville.
He hadn't noticed she had stopped, until now. Why had it taken him twenty years to see that something had been wrong? When had she given up on her dreams? He felt an irrational urge to go to her and demand to know why she never wrote songs anymore and why she never sang.
But she was singing now.
Sweat trickled from his brow down his temple and he wiped it away with the sleeve of his shirt. The light shining brightly through the hole in the wall confused him. The last he remembered it had been evening. He glanced at his watch and then stared at it in disbelief, counting the numbers slowly in his head. He'd slept over fourteen hours. He scrambled through the hole to the outer porch of the grainer.
Daisy turned and laughed at the expression on his face. "Morning sleepy-head."
Enos looked up at her, wondering how long she had been awake. Her hair was pulled back and braided to keep it from blowing in the wind. "Gosh, Daisy! I'm awful sorry. I sure didn't mean to sleep half the day away!"
"You didn't," she said. "Sides, there ain't much to do other than sleep. Didja notice, we're going faster."
The train was quieter than before, the rhythmic thumping gone, replaced by a rushing whistle of steel wheels against steel rails. He stood up and leaned over the railing beside her. The grass beside the track sped by at a frenzied pace and even the trees on the horizon, which had seemed to pass so slowly the day before, now moved at a steady pace as the freight rocketed through the open countryside.
He craned his head out, looking above them into the blue, cloudless sky.
"What're you doing, Enos?"
"Looking for witches on broomsticks," he teased, nudging her elbow with his. "I reckon we're in Kansas now, Dorothy,"
"That's pitiful," she said, grinning. "And I already know what you're gonna say when we leave."
He tried his best to look innocent but failed. "Aw, come on, hun, you gotta say that when you leave Kansas. I think it's a law or something."
Her eyes sparkled with mischief. "Oh, I know about you Hazzard cops with your strange laws," she said. "Laws like flipping speed limit signs around to read five miles an hour after someone's already passed by, putting hydrants up in front of parked cars...painting crosswalk signs across from the swamp..." She ticked off the offenses on her fingers.
Her teasing didn't have the desired effect. Instead of playing along, his face clouded and he looked back out across the prairie. When he answered, his voice was solemn.
"I never did none of that, and you know it, Daisy."
"Sorry, Enos. I'm just joshin' you."
He looked back at her and smiled, but there was a sadness in his eyes that had not been there before and his hands began to pick at the peeling paint on the railing. "I know you are. It ain't that. I just... I wish I could think about Hazzard without missing it so dang much." He sighed and looked away again and in a voice barely louder than the wind around them, the words rushed forth of their own accord so that he was surprised to find that they were still true; "I miss being a cop, Daisy."
With a heavy heart, she threaded her arm through his and rested her head against him. "I know you do, Enos. You were the best."
If Luke Duke had any inkling that young Miss Reece had sent him on a snipe hunt through every dirty industrial park between Tennessee and Ohio, it was clear to him now that it was the case. After a day and a half of his boxcar being shuttled around by seven different two-bit local railroads, it had reached the end of it's journey behind a rusty shed filled with scavenged tractor parts. Here it had been uncoupled from the other cars and left alone on a rusty track in the middle of the closest to nowhere that Luke had ever been.
He climbed down from the car and walked around to the front of the shed where an old cement slab parking lot fought for purchase against the encroaching weeds. Broken bits of glass from smashed beer bottles littered the surface and flakes of rust like metallic snow lay where something had been dragged to the service door. The door hunk askew on one side and its high glass windows glinted dully behind years of grime. One was broken.
"One step behind them, huh?" he muttered to himself.
Hefting his backpack to his shoulder, he walked out to what he assumed was the main road, though it seemed equally desolate in both directions. Unsure of which way to go, he doubled back and began to follow the train tracks, figuring he would at least end up somewhere - if not necessarily fast.
Two hours later, it occurred to him that he didn't even know which state he was in.
According to Jack's black book, the first crew change on their route was scheduled for Pratt, Kansas. Enos had unfolded the map and stretched it across the floor of the porch for them to study. Daisy lay on her stomach propped up on her elbows on the Northeast corner, holding it down from the wind.
"It looks like Pratt's gonna be the best place to get off," he said, running his finger along the railroad track marked on the map which dipped south from Topeka and west across Wichita and into Colorado. "It can't be all that big, and there's a lake that looks like it's about a half mile from the track. Might be able to camp there."
"I'll be happy just to plant my feet on solid ground again. We're like a couple of nuts rattling around in a can."
"I'm gonna go nutty if I don't get offa this train for a while. That and I'm so hungry I could eat some of Mr. Hogg's pickled pig's feet."
Daisy rolled over to lie on her back and gazed up at him. "What would you like, sugar? she asked, seductively. "How 'bout some fried potatoes...or some collard greens...or maybe some of my home-made fried chicken..."
"Ding-dang, you sure do know how to make me suffer, Daisy Mae." He flipped the southern half of Kansas over her head as she snickered at him. The prospect of being off the train soon raised both of their spirits, even if boiled Ramen Noodles were the only choice for supper. "We might be able to catch something if we can get to that lake. A couple of good mud-cats would make me forget all about your fried chicken."
"I see. I'm second fiddle to a fish," she complained. "You're drooling on the map."
He grinned at her. "Maybe we'll see a sign and figure out how far away we are." He stood up and went to the railing.
It was another hour before they passed anything that Enos was able to find on the map. By the time he did, they were forced to scramble for their belonging as the train's brakes shrieked against the wheels and their break-neck pace began to slow. They were still another ten miles from the town of Pratt, but at the clip they had been going, Enos figured it would take nearly that long to come to a stop. The land around them was different now. Though no more populated than western Missouri, instead of barren swamps the land here rolled softly in plains of green below a picturesque blue sky.
When the train stopped, they hopped down to the ground and both felt the effects of riding for nearly thirty-six hours on a train.
"My legs feel like jell-o," said Enos. "Whoa!" He tried to balance himself but over-corrected, lost his footing, and fell down.
Daisy faired better with her balance, but she could still feel the vibration of the train like a ghost inside rattling her nerves. She helped Enos up and they leaned against each other for support. "My head's spinning."
"We'd best get away from the train." He backed up from her and looked around. "Let's go sit a spell before we go walking anywhere," he said, pointing to some trees to their left beside a dusty road of bleached concrete.
They made their way over to the shade and sat down, passing the water bottle back and forth as they watched the train leave them behind. When the last car had faded from their sight, an unexpected fear gripped Daisy at the realization of just how alone they were. Though she knew by the map that the town of Pratt was only a few miles further down the line, they had seen very few signs of life from the train. For as far as her eyes could see, there was nothing but hay fields, green with the virility of early Spring. The road before them was like a dry bone, splitting the green flesh of the field in a perfect straight line to the horizon where a clump of trees stood against the sky. If Enos hadn't of been there, she knew she would have been scared to death.
Enos watched her posture change, her eyes grow large as she looked around, scanning the horizon. She reminded him at once of a frightened animal, with the same look of a rabbit or a weasel caught in a trap.
"It'll be fine, Daisy," he said, clamping down on his own paranoia. "Remember the time we got lost up in Tennessee when we were kids?"
She flashed him a smile. "We weren't lost...or at least you weren't lost."
"Sometimes I wish we'd never run into Cooter up there," he admitted. "I've always wondered how long it would've taken us to walk home."
"Long enough for you to get grounded from coming over to the farm for a year instead of a month."
He shrugged and picked up his backpack, focusing his attention on tightening the shoulder straps. "It wouda been worth it, I reckon," he said. "Getting in trouble with you was always worth the punishment."
If he had been looking, he would of seen her blush. She followed him down the long road, but her mind was elsewhere - on a day when two kids had traveled another road, so very far away from home.
