Chapter Ten: Dream Pangs*

"I had withdrawn in forest, and my song
Was swallowed up in leaves that blew away;
And to the forest edge you came one day
(This was my dream) and looked and pondered long,
But did not enter, though the wish was strong:
You shook your pensive head as who should say,
'I dare not –too far in his footsteps stray–
He must see me would he undo the wrong.'

Not far, but near, I stood and saw it all
Behind low boughs the trees let down outside;
And the sweet pang it cost me not to call
And tell you that I saw does still abide.
But 'tis not true that thus I dwelt aloof,
For the wood wakes, and you are here for proof."

Robert Frost

Unsteady and reeling from the backlash of a fifth of bourbon, Daisy used the back wall for support. Just as she seemed to be achieving some degree of control (if not clarity), her head started spinning; she became nauseous and would falter again.

"Don't matter 'f he knocks it in…be good s'new come mornin'"

Meanwhile, Elton had unlocked the door and let Enos inside.

"Daisy," Enos said, holding out his hand. "You should sit down."

"Go…way. S'what yer good at."

"I'm not goin' anywhere 'till I know you're okay."

"Nev…stopped ya 'for." Daisy started a slow slide down the wall.

"Daisy, please sit down before you hurt yourself."

Enos reached out and tried to move in closer to catch her, but she stiffened her knees and slid back up.

"Don't touch me," she commanded, momentarily regaining control.

She thrust her arms to her sides and pressed her hands against the wall, causing Enos to back off.

"I…I won't…not if you don't want me to."

"Bet she lets ya' touch her though…huh."

Elton's eyebrows took a rapid trip north and Enos looked hotter than the devil under those blisters.

"Daisy, you don't know what…?"

"She take y'out to…lake f'yer picnic? Are place?…Y'know…where ya' finely kissed me?"

Elton stood mesmerized like he was watching a train wreck that he couldn't look away from.

"Daisy Duke, you gotta quit this foolishness right now! 'Cause I had about as much of it as I can take."

"Well guess ya' don't haf take it no longer since yer goin' back…ta' L'ay….'thout…mmm…"

Daisy was sliding again, passing out along the way, and this time didn't stop until Enos caught her.

Outside, a collective gasp came from the crowd.

"Holy Mizz O'Leary's Bovine! The loudspeaker is still on," Elton said, hitting his forehead. "Sorry, Enos. I got so wrapped up in––" He clapped his palm over his mouth.

Enos picked Daisy up, lifted her off the floor onto his shoulder, and fireman-carried her into the storage closet.

After Elton lunged at the loudspeaker and mic to shut them off, Enos turned to him and said, "Lock that door and don't tell nobody, and I mean nobody, we're gone 'till we get clean away, you hear me, Elton?"

"Sure thing, Enos. But where––?"

Too late. With Daisy draped limp and drooling into her hair and down the back of his shirt, Enos had already exited through the one-way security door Boss recently had installed.

Enos picked up another round, flat stone from the dwindling pile he'd assembled and skipped it across the still, tranquil water of the lake. The light was about to be tucked under the Earth for the night, so it was difficult to make out how many skips the stone made once released from his fingers. He had become quite good at rock-skipping, achieving up to twenty-six skips on a single stone. He'd done some research at the library and found that his best so far wasn't a tremendous competitive tally, but he was really only trying to see what was physically possible and beat his own score.

Although Hazzard Pond was his favorite fishing hole, he'd opted to spend a good deal of his time at Quarry Lake over the past few months, just him and his fishin' pole and the skippin' stones. He'd learned where the best skronkers could be located, making a mental map of them (since a physical one would disappear like a soap bubble in a breeze). And it was convenient since that was where he woke up every morning – stretched out on the front of his truck shivering, banging his head on something, his fancy suit draped over the front seat of the truck and that ding-dang song in his head.

The thoughts running through his mind right now were neither still nor tranquil, for Quarry Lake was the spot he and Daisy had made their plans to get married on Friday…ninety round-a-bouts ago.

He looked back toward where he'd parked Dixie. Daisy had been out for several hours now. She'd be awake pretty soon and he fretted about what he was going to say to her once she had sobered up. She'd done some crazy things lately but what she'd done that afternoon popped the cork right out of the bottle. Didn't matter that the people of Hazzard would be none the wiser in the morning. It was how to get past how angry he was at her that worried his mind.

If something had happened to her, he might as well drive over the edge of Stillson's Canyon and be done with it.

Of course, there was the part about how she was still handcuffed to Dixie's roll cage that wasn't going to make her happy with him either. He'd thought about it before, hadn't he? How he'd kidnap her and take her up into the hills as far as he could without going over the county line, then make her listen to him, make her understand. He'd sat over maps for hours strategizing routes and timetables, setting the trap.

He'd gone as far as trying to carry out his plan once, but Aunt Livvy wouldn't allow it, and at the crucial point, everything went blank, and he found himself back at Quarry Lake with the same morning regimen – the laws had to be obeyed 'cause they sure as shootin' couldn't be circumvented.

References:

* "Dream Pangs" is the title of the Robert Frost poem used as the epigraph for this chapter.