A/N: For the locations in Hazzard, I am using the large prop map used in several episodes. You can find it by searching google for "map of hazzard county". And, I suppose I should put a warning, but you probably know that by now.

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Chapter 80: Angel of Mercy

"Is there a heaven or hell,
and will I come back, who can tell?
Now I can see, what matters to me-
it's as clear as crystal.
The places I've been, the people I've seen,
plans that I made, all start to fade..."
-Jem


Enos found himself in the kitchen with Uncle Jesse, thirty minutes before anyone was supposed to be back, with no sign of the boys. His plan had been to leave when everyone came back for lunch, then hornswoggle Cletus into letting him down Morgan Road to the airfield. That way, there would be a witness - he didn't want anyone but himself blamed for what he was going to do. But now Uncle Jesse was here, and Bo and Luke were who knew where, and all his planning seemed for naught. He should have already been gone, he told himself, but he had wanted to be alone with Daisy, just one last time. His hand shook as he poured himself a half a cup of lukewarm coffee and knocked it back.

"It's the darnedest thing," Uncle Jesse was saying, as he took a tupperware dish of ham from the refrigerator. "Rosco called me on the CB to tell me he was taking over for me, then he skidded up beside the truck in a big hurry and flurry of dust not five minutes later and told me to head on back here. I reckon the boys are still up at the north end of Morgan Road since he told me to keep off the radio."

"He didn't say why he was out there early?" The sheriff volunteering to do grunt work was hardly in character.

"Not a clue. He seemed a little off kilter, but that's Rosco on a good day."

Enos grabbed his keys from beside the sink. "I think I'll see if he needs a hand," he said, and was out the door and down the porch steps before Uncle Jesse could protest. He'd waited long enough as it was, and he should have gone out to Darcy's before dawn and taken care of business. Why he'd procrastinated and taken his revolver apart, instead, he couldn't say. Maybe it was the thought of what needed to be done that held him back. Maybe it was knowing that, this time, he would be guilty.

He slipped behind the wheel of Hazzard #2 and pulled out onto Old Mill Road, heading west and thinking over all that Darcy had said to him on the ridge. Seventeen years had passed since that long forgotten day at the fair, never knowing it had bound him to Darcy forever.

Until you've got no one left to pay with, he had told him. Not 'nothing', but 'no one'.

Somehow, Darcy meant to kill everyone he loved, one by one, starting with Daisy and Amy...Amy, who had once been like a sister to him, who had given Daisy a map of the mines and a getaway vehicle the night she'd broken him out. Guilt pierced his heart for letting years go by without speaking to her, or without even thinking of her.

In the light of his impending destiny, every landmark he passed seemed precious, and he filed them away for the time when he would never see them again. As he drove around the southern edge of Stillson Canyon, he remembered a time when it had been just another big hole in the ground. It seemed so very long ago.


Hazzard #1, lights rotating in silence, sat squarely in the middle of the south end of Morgan road, blocking traffic. Behind it, on the airfield's side, idled three swanky Georgia State Patrol cruisers and the black car of the GBI agents. They had pulled up shortly after he'd sent Jesse Duke home (with even less knowledge than he had), and Agent Wilburn had asked him - ordered him was more like it, to keep any and all traffic, sightseers, and otherwise unwanted attention from coming down the road unless they had jurisdiction.

Rosco stood in front of the sawhorses they had set up, his right hand restlessly hovering over his gun and waited for someone to tell him what the hell was going on. Words that he couldn't hear were exchanged between the agents and the state troopers, after which the cruisers sped north towards the airfield. Wilburn turned and began to walk towards his car.

Realizing he was about to be cut out of the loop, Rosco stepped in front of the older agent. "Now listen here, Wilburn," he said, piqued at being shoved aside in his own county, "you may have jurisdiction over the airfield, but I'm still the sheriff here, and I wanna know what's going on!"

Wilburn pulled him aside, walking him back towards the roadblock. "I'm sorry, Sheriff," he said. "I can appreciate the position that we're putting you in, but I don't have time to talk, especially since I haven't been to the scene. I will be asking you some questions later today, and I suggest you think about where you might have been between the hours of four o'clock yesterday afternoon and ten this morning. Right now, I need you to use whatever authority you can muster to keep everyone away. This town seems like it has ears everywhere, and the last thing we need is a circus." He stared Rosco down with steely-eyed dominance, leaving no question who was really in charge. "Can you do that for me, Sheriff?"

Rosco felt like he was walking through some weird dream. "Yes, sir."

With a nod, Wilburn stepped past Rosco, got into his car and left.


Enos continued on another mile past Morgan Road then turned left on Sand Creek instead, which ran parallel to it. Halfway down, an old logging trail cut across, invisible through the brush, and it was only because he recognized the trees and the lay of the land that he knew where to enter. Here, he turned east, back towards Morgans Meadows. He doubted if either Rosco or the Dukes remembered that there was a third way to get to the airfield; one between their two vantage points where someone could slip in unnoticed.

The car bounced over the ruts worn deep decades earlier by trucks hauling timber from Hiawassee down to Atlanta. Saplings scratched at the undercarriage, and he instinctively ducked as a low limb struck the passenger side windshield, starring the glass. Before the trail ended, he cut the engine, and stared out the window. He wanted to ask God to strike the man dead, but it felt wrong to pray for another man's demise - even one as deplorable as Darcy Kincaid. So, he closed his eyes and counted his breaths, until, with sweaty hands, he pulled the handle to open the door and stepped out into the brush.

In the trunk lay the Remington Model 31, cleaned and oiled. He took it out, and slowly pushed down on the trunk lid until he heard it latch. He took the four shells from his pocket and chambered one, then pushed the pump forward and loaded the other three into the tube. No sense in doing a job halfway - if he missed, Darcy would surely blow him away before he reloaded.

Leaving the car parked out of sight, he waded through the thick underbrush, paying no great attention to his surroundings. The birds trilled above him and a squirrel ran up a nearby tree, barking his agitation over the intrusion. Where the trail ended, erosion and time had carved a ditch with a steep rise up to the main road, which was nearly at eye level with him. He jumped the trench, taking care not to jostle the gun, but his feet slipped on the loose gravel on the other side and he slid several inches before he was able to lean forward and regain his traction. Setting the gun on the gravel of the road, he pulled himself up from the ditch.

There was a flurry of metallic clicks, and he looked up to see two state patrol officers, weapons drawn. "Don't shoot!" he yelled, instinctively. Still on his knees, he squeezed his eyes shut, waiting for what, he wasn't sure.

"Stand up and walk forward, slowly, away from the gun," commanded the trooper on his left. "Then kneel down on the other side of the road."

This is how things would have ended three months ago, he thought, and then there would be a ripping, burning pain through my guts. He wasn't sure what in the world was going on, but he hoped he had more pull nowadays than an escaped convict. "Sir, I'm Deputy Enos Strate with the Hazzard County Sheriff's Department," he told them, walking across the road. "My badge is in my front right pocket." From his new vantage point, he could see three cruisers and the GBI's Fury parked along the airstrip, and grasped onto an idea. "I need to talk to Agent Wilburn or Agent Stewart. It's an emergency."

His heart raced as the two officers glanced at each other. "I'm going to reach into your pocket," said the trooper closest to him, putting his gun away, "but if I find something other than a badge there, you're gonna wish I hadn't."

The officer, whose nameplate read 'Holden', reached into his pocket and pulled out the silver star, then nodded to the other officer, who holstered his Beretta. "Sorry, deputy, it's been a little crazy around here today," he explained. "We didn't expect anyone to come sneaking through the woods."

"I'm awful sorry about surprising y'all, officer," answered Enos. "Is Agent Wilburn here?"

"I'll see if he can come out and talk to you," said Holden. "but I can't give you permission to go in since the airfield is under the state's jurisdiction."

Enos, just happy to be out of their firing line, was happy to oblige. "I understand." He motioned to the gun, lying forgotten on the side of the road. "Y'all mind if I picked up my shotgun, though?" He turned, and in doing so inadvertently caught the eyes of Officer #2 who stepped back and picked up the gun.

The trooper checked the safety and then lowered and raised it again slightly, feeling its weight. His eyes narrowed as he studied Enos. "Is this loaded?" he asked.

"Of course it is," he said, trying to keep his voice firm. He should have just gone over and picked up the gun himself, instead of asking their permission. These state guys might have spiffy uniforms, but they didn't hold rank over him. His badge would only get him so far, though, and if he stuck around too much longer, someone was going to put two and two together, and state trooper number two looked like he was on the verge of asking harder questions.

And ask he did. "What the ever loving hell is an out-of-uniform deputy sheriff doing sneaking around a crime scene with a loaded shotgun?"

Enos ignored him. "I really need to talk to Agent Wilburn," he said, again.

"I'll get him," said Holden. "Stay here, deputy."

The hangar and office for the airfield sat at the far end of the runway, hidden from his vantage point by a maintenance building on the other side of the road. He watched as the trooper disappeared around its corner, then looked up at the cloudless sky and took a deep breath. Bent on subtracting Darcy from the equation, he had been running only on adrenaline and a strong shot of coffee. Now, his muscles were starting to cramp, and his mind felt muddy and distant.

Minutes ticked by, during which he dared not speak to the other officer, until finally Officer Holden appeared again around the far end of the shed with a visibly irate Robert Wilburn in tow. Enos cringed inwardly, wondering what the heck he'd stepped into and how he was going to get himself out of the mess. His mind caught on the hope that perhaps they'd found one of the girl's bodies, and that Darcy had been arrested.

The agent was all business as he addressed the troopers, asking them what had happened while pointedly ignoring Enos.

"It's over here, sir," said Officer #2, eagerly showing him the hidden trail. "Right there where the brush is flattened is where he came out. He had this with him." He handed the shotgun to Agent Wilburn. "It's loaded."

Wilburn thanked the state patrol, then dismissed them both, assigning them to block all traffic from entering Sand Creek Road as well as Morgan Road. When the troopers were out of earshot, he finally turned to Enos. "What the hell do you think you're doing here!?"

"What's going on, sir?" He asked, fidgeting nervously. "If something's going on at the airfield-"

The man shot him a look that shut him up, before flipping the safety off the shotgun and ejecting the four shells, putting them in his own pocket. "Should I ask again or do you want to tell me?"

Enos looked down, knowing that breaking eye contact with the man's glare would give him away, but unable to stop himself. "Sir, I...," He shook his head.

"You purposefully circumvented Morgan Road to come, alone, to the airfield with a loaded shotgun," Wilburn stated, incredulously. "Did you even know the GBI and state patrol were here?"

If he was a better liar, he might have said 'yes'. At least then he would have had the pretense of wanting to know what was going on. "No, sir," he answered, instead.

"Of course you didn't, because otherwise, you would have driven right up to the door demanding to know what was going on instead of slinking around."

Enos looked back up at him. "Obviously, I ain't got a clue what's going on," he said, indignant. "But now that you mention it, I'd sure like to know. Have you arrested Darcy?"

Wilburn continued to stare at him for several heartbeats, but then he sighed and shook his head. "It's you're lucky day, Enos," he told him. "Someone beat you to him. Darcy's dead."

It took a moment for his words to sink in. There was a sudden rush of blood in his ears, and Enos sank to his knees in the gravel and dust, feeling faint. He sat, staring out into the space before him, unseeing; unmindful of the rocks or Wilburn or anything beyond the last thing the man had said.

Dead...Darcy was dead.

Dead.

It was over.

The full meaning of it hit him like a freight train, pushing the breath from his lungs as though some great, suffocating weight lay upon his chest. He'd come here to kill Darcy. To stop him, once and for all, because there was no other way to save the ones he loved. In the dead of night, he had sat alone and cleaned his gun, knowing that it would be the end of him. Then he'd made love to his wife and kissed her goodbye, and left with no hope of ever seeing her again.

Leaning over, he dragged his hands through his hair and hid his face in his arms, and cried.


When Enos was able to reign in his emotions, he picked himself up and brushed himself off, not altogether sure what he was supposed to be feeling. Should he feel guilty for being relieved? For being happy that Darcy was dead? His eyes flicked to the sky, half expecting to see a bolt of lightning shoot down from heaven and strike him dead, but the day was still and calm, and the sky as seamless as the ocean.

Agent Wilburn had wandered over to the grass on the other side of the road to give him privacy and was watching as the coroner unloaded equipment. Enos came up to stand beside him, and the man handed him back his shotgun. "Who knows he's dead?" Enos asked him, not knowing why he cared, but it was the first question that came to mind.

"Probably half the county by now," Wilburn said, with a grimace. "Someone who knows 10 codes and has a scanner is apparently on your CB network. Most people didn't know about the missing girls, so it wasn't a big mystery of who the 10-54 at Hazzard's airfield might be." He looked over at Enos. "I talked to Doctor Applby on the phone, and between him and Sheriff Coltrane I know some of what happened to you yesterday with Darcy, but I gather there's a lot you didn't tell them. I don't think anyone in Hazzard was happy to see him walking around free, but if there's anything you can think of that might shed light on who might have done this, now's the time."

Enos shook his head. "I can't think of anything, sir," he answered. "He mainly just threatened Daisy and showed me pictures of the missing girls. Told me he put my stapler with my fingerprints in the bag with Patricia, wherever she is. I asked Rosco to write up a report of it being stolen. How long's he been dead?"

"At least twelve hours, but probably longer. It's hard to tell with the heat, and the coroner just got here." They stood in silence for a minute. "Well, I've gotta get back there. If you think of anything, I'll be stopping by the farm after this."

Wilburn started towards the cars, the obvious dismissal of Enos hanging in the air.

"Agent Wilburn," Enos jogged to catch up with him. "Wait!"

He stopped, turning weary eyes towards the deputy. "What is it, Strate?"

"I need to see him."

"To see who?"

Enos took a deep breath, "I need to see Darcy. Please," he begged, already seeing the 'absolutely not' written on the man's face. "I have to know, otherwise I'm libel to never sleep again."

"Know what?" Wilburn asked, suspiciously.

"That he's really dead this time," he said. "'Cause last time he wasn't."

"Enos," he said, with a sigh, "it ain't nothing anyone wants to see. I can guarantee you it's Darcy, and he's about the deadest person I've seen in a long while. You know what four rounds of 12 gauge buckshot does at point blank range to a body?"

If Wilburn was trying to scare him off, it wasn't going to work. "I worked LAPD, sir," Enos reminded him, grimly. "Ever seen what a bus axle does to a body?"

"No, and I don't want to." He ran his hand through his gray hair, his eyes tired, but determined. "Alright. Against my better judgement, and only for a minute. Then you're to leave and go back to the Duke farm and not tell anyone anything, understand?"

"Yes sir. Thank you."

"You won't thank me after you've seen the mess. Come on," he griped. "And put your badge on, you look like a hobo."

They walked around the maintenance shed and now Enos could see the full tableaux of the investigation; six GSP cruisers, the GBI's Fury, and a collection of other vehicles were parked along the airstrip on its far side. Wilburn led them past the office, where Enos thought the crime scene would be, and into the hangar.

The heat was explosive inside, even with the industrial fans twirling in the rafters. There was a smell of motor oil, rust, and gasoline that reminded him of his father's tool shed when he was a boy. Darcy's Stearman crop duster sat towards the rear of the small building, and it was here that all the activity was centered.

As they neared the plane, there was a new smell; one that he'd smelled before, but only in Los Angeles, and only when death was messy and in an enclosed space. It was the coppery scent of old blood. He could taste it in the back of his throat and feel it against his eyes and in his breath, like he'd licked a dirty penny. The detached, depersonalized, attitude he'd learned to develop during his time at Metro found him, and he welcomed it, gladly.

When he finally saw Darcy, he almost missed the mutilation left by the gunshots because of the position of the body on the floor behind the plane's wing. Whoever had killed him had not aimed for his head, as Enos would have, but lower, taking out the section he supposed Darcy had done most of his thinking with.

Ignoring who the victim was, he tried to look objectively at the scene in front of him. There were four scatter patterns, with each pair on planes horizontal with each other. The shooter had been standing with the wing between them, as evidenced by the pitting on the top rear of the plane's wing, but the pits were spread towards the left of the wing relative to the body, with almost no pits on the right side. Behind Darcy, this was the case as well, with shot scatter in the metal wall of the building to the left, and very little scatter to the right.

A side-by-side double barrel shotgun, most likely only used for small game hunting, and the left side probably has an improved cylinder choke with a larger scatter while the right side has a full choke for closer range. They shot him in the groin and left his face so everyone...so I...would know it was really Darcy this time.

He told Wilburn none of this. If the forensics team figured it out, so be it, but whoever had killed Darcy had saved his life and the lives of those he loved. He owed them his silence, at least. That they purposefully left his face intact told Enos that it was probably someone who had first hand knowledge of the whole situation. His mind rifled through the people with knowledge, motive, opportunity, and a gun that matched the evidence, and settled on two - neither of which he could believe would do such a thing. And, yet, he'd come here with the same motive in mind.

"I've seen enough," he told Wilburn, and walked away.