Chapter 42
April 23, 1998 – Chattahoochee National Forest
Enos watched Aaron put the toolbox back in the locker by the fireplace and tried to keep his heart rate under control. It could go from slow and steady to ludicrous speed in a few seconds, and he wondered such a wrongly flippant thing just popped into his thoughts. Offering inappropriate humor in moments of crisis was something Inez would do – turning fear on its ear.
From the faint whistling outside, he knew the wind was picking up. Deer had been moving past the cabin and down the mountain for the past two days, adding to the forest sounds with their hooves softly crushing dew-crusted leaves, lightly grazing through the underbrush.
It was time to hike down to make phone calls. Grabbing his leather jacket from the hook next to the door, he felt the weight of the semi-automatic, Turk's spare service weapon, in the right pocket.
"I'll be back in about an hour," he said to Aaron as he pulled a knit cap out of the left pocket and snugged it over his ears. "You can make us somethin' to eat in the meantime."
"Do you want the pork and beans or the ham and beans?"
He almost smiled. Aaron was his mother's son. "Why don't we try Spaghettios tonight? Used to be your favorite."
"Spaghettios it is."
When Enos stepped onto the small porch landing, he was met with the surreal scene of Joseph Lance holding the limp, bedraggled body of Inez De Pina by the collar of her blazer. Enos's hand went immediately for the gun, but Lance also had one, and it was pointed at Inez's head.
Her wrists were bound, her face carpeted with blue and purple bruises from blows inflicted over several days. Crusted blood had seeped from the corners of her mouth. Slacks shredded below the knee, her legs were covered with scratches from being dragged. Both legs looked bent, and she was missing a shoe.
Before the bullet hit him, he only had time to register the sound of it leaving the barrel. Twenty-five years of training kicked in, and he instinctively moved a fraction to the left. The burning pain as the bullet ripped through his lower right torso, just above his appendix scar, knocked him to the deck of the porch. Then, he heard the shotgun discharge a shell. A deafening blast of wood sent tiny shards of shredded pine into his left eye.
When he could hear again, the pain in his eye and right side felt as if he was on fire. He heard Aaron begging for Lance to stop hurting his mother. When his wailing pleas stopped abruptly, Enos tried to move, to get to his feet, but the pain in his side kept him prone. The burning in his left eye stabbed through his brain like tiny daggers.
Still, he tried to get to his knees, but a hand gripped his collar. He was dragged across the threshold into the cabin and dumped onto the bedroll. Aaron shrieked obscenities at Lance. Through a shadowy haze of stars, Enos watched helplessly as Lance moved in on Aaron, battering him repeatedly with the stock of the shotgun until he slumped onto the floor. It was then he felt a body next to him and knew it was Inez.
He blacked out – for how long he didn't know.
When he came to, Aaron was still on the floor, conscious, crying, and moaning, "Mom…Mom…" His left arm was mangled, and it looked as if a bone protruded from it.
"I'll do whatever you want, Lance," Enos pleaded. His voice had become dry and raspy, and he choked on the tears rolling down the back of his throat. "Just please don't hurt them anymore."
"Whatever I want…that's rich. Like you did whatever you wanted with my brother?"
Enos's head was spinning. Lance sat on his haunches next to them, his head skewed at an angle – better to come face to face with his prey, holding the Glock to Inez's temple.
"Notoriously honest Deputy Strate gives a murderer an alibi, and nobody questions it."
"Dad," Aaron asked between gasps. "What's he…talking about?"
"You didn't know, kid? The man you thought was perfect all these years has feet of quicksand. He lied and let my brother's killer get away with it. I can't get to her, but you made yourself," he grinned at Enos with a sickening malevolence, "and them, ducks in a barrel."
At first blush, it seemed wildly far-fetched. But, strangely, it made a weird kind of sense. Lance's birth certificate said he had a fraternal twin brother. Darcy had been adopted. If he hadn't died, he'd be the same age as Lance...
"She didn't…kill Dar..." Enos was fighting to think. "…wasn't…lie…with me that night…found her after he tried to…"
It was too hard, even now – even if he'd had the breath or the strength to say it. He'd found Daisy in a state of panic, more upset that Luke and Bo, if they found out, would do something to land them in prison than she was about what had almost happened to her. Had Daisy not needed him more that night –
"But you know who shot him." Lance was enjoying the spectacle with malignant calm.
"No…don't." He only suspected.
"Unlike the gullible yokels here in Georgia, I don't believe you. I've seen your work. Underestimated you once – won't happen again. I followed your movements for Niki for years after you and this bitch survived going over that cliff. I was all for finishing the job. But Niki said he had other plans – now I understand the method in his warped madness…," he said, rising slowly to stand over them. "Enough talk. Just wanted your fan club to know who you really are before you all die in perfect family togetherness."
When Lance stepped hard on Enos's right side, his world was reduced to nothing but paralyzing pain.
When the pain subsided enough to breathe, Enos was facing Inez. She moaned. The odor of rotten eggs reached his nostrils.
"Inez…wake up." Enos's voice was desperate and he was beginning to hyperventilate. His heart rate became rapid as he gulped air lace with fumes mixing with oxygen. Aaron was closer to the source and already feeling the effects.
"E…wha…," she swallowed with great effort, "where's Aar…" Her eyes closed.
"Inez…Where…Lance?"
She tried to speak but coughed up saliva and blood instead.
"No, stop," he begged through hot, stinging tears. "I sorry. God…so sorry." Sobbing uncontrollably, he moved his hand to her face, smoothing matted hair off her cheek. "…all my fault."
"Aaron…?"
"…hurt bad…gas," he coughed, making blood seep from his side wound, "where Lance?"
"…" she gurgled, belching a reddish mucous from her lungs. "..."
Smoke. Lance had set a log in the fireplace ablaze. The propane would ignite and the cabin would light up like a matchstick.
"E…get Aaron," she heaved, sucking in bad air and bloody phlegm, and pierced him with eyes that demanded he keep his promise,"...out…"
"…gonna get out...All fus."
It was difficult, but she managed to shake her head. "…legs brok…" She passed out again from the effort.
He pleaded with her to move, to help him, again and again in a crying jag he couldn't stop. She was tiny; it shouldn't be this hard. He dragged her another three inches before hot air drawn into his lungs stopped him. Unconscious, with both legs broken and probably severe internal injuries, Inez was dead weight, and he seemed to be making it worse. No matter how much he bargained with God or argued with himself or planned furiously how they could all get out together, he'd known from the instant he smelled the smoke what he had to do…Save Aaron.
At that moment, nothing else mattered.
Only Aaron…only Aaron…
…only Aaron, the child they raised together, the one who had to survive.
A thick brown crust had formed over the scratches on Inez's cheek when he kissed it and whispered, "I love you."
As he moved away from her and towards Aaron, he saw her only through a dark red blur. His eye stung like hell. Six feet of inching his body over rough-hewn floorboards seemed more like a mile. Wrapping Aaron's shirttails around his hand, he balled up his fist and pulled him three feet to the table. Smoke was filling the cabin now, and blood was flowing down his own cheek by the time he'd pushed the rag rug off the trap door.
Aaron regained consciousness enough to understand that they were leaving his mother behind. He screamed to let him go and fought to get to her, but Enos held onto him tighter.
The heat and smoke became more intense. Enos took one last look at Inez and shoved Aaron down through the hole in the floor, then fell out after him.
Intermezzo
November 25, 2013 – Hazzard
"The shotgun. Aaron?"
Rosco nodded. "Got off one shot b'fore Lance tackled him. Might'a come close to hittin' him 'cause when Lance busted through the door he lit into the boy."
The cabin had been built over the framework of an old ridge-runner's shack, back when communication wasn't instantaneous and managing the forest was still done on horseback. Ironically, the structure's origin was also how Frank Strate had finally located Enos and Aaron before any warrant to track their phones could be obtained. Through the overlapping moonshiner/underground railroad network, the word reached Jack Cole within two hours that Enos was in trouble. Deputizin' those old ridge-runners' kin was the thing to do, alright. The trap door had been for fast getaways from revenuers and any rival moonshiner without decent scruples.
When Enos pushed him through it, Aaron landed hard and lost consciousness purely from the pain until he woke in the woods, with Enos, muddled and already feverish, covering him with his body. Within seconds, Enos's blood started soaking through to Aaron's shirt.
'There was something in the boy that night,' Rosco thought. 'Maybe it was that "fight or flight" response like the textbooks say…runnin' on adrenaline. Or maybe it was just plain, old-fashioned, dyed in the wool love.'
No matter how terrified he was for his mother or how angry he was at his Dad for leaving her behind and despite the damage to his arm, Aaron pulled himself out from under Enos's weight and got him on his back. Using his shirt to make a pressure bandage, he tightened it around the side wound to stem the bleeding, then bandaged Enos's eye with his undershirt. When Aaron looked toward the cabin, it was in flames, and the heat was stifling, even from a distance. His mother was probably dead, but Enos was alive and in danger of bleeding out. Rosco, Turk, Luke, and Jack Cole had reached the half-way point by then, moving upward when they found Aaron headed down to the gravel road to find help.
It wasn't easy for Rosco to walk this path again.
"When we got up there," he started, "Enos wuddin' in the woods where Aaron'ed left him. He'd dragged himself a few feet toward the cabin…scorched a bit from the heat. Me and Frank got him to a safe distance while Turk searched the woods for Lance. He kept tellin' us Inez was still in there. The boy collapsed. It was Luke Duke that went in after her. Dangedest thing I ever saw. Grabbed one o' the fire blankets outta his rescue kit, doused himself down with whatever water he could find, and just ran in. Got some burns on his arms and hands doin' it." Rosco took his handkerchief out of his pocket and collected the emotion draining from his nose.
It gutted Aaron when Luke crawled out of the blazing cabin with her - still alive.
"…We could hear the helicopters gettin' closer. Enos…he was in and out when they put her on the rescue basket. Right then, he wasn't thinkin' of nothin' but that boy."
Sarah Jane had taken up her crocheting on the settee and remained there as her husband trudged through such memories. Her crochet hook became more pugnacious with each plunge into the next loop.
"Enos was fightin' the paramedics," Rosco said, "'Cause they were tryin' to take her necklace out of his hand…" Rosco's mind was meandering, and his voice trailed off once again, as it had several times throughout the narrative.
"Star of David…"
Rosco stared at Ty. "That wuddin' in the official record – never tagged as evidence. How'd you know?"
Remembering the object Enos had brought with him to focus on during his testimony before the Senate Committee, Ty answered, "Just an educated guess. Sorry I interrupted. Please, go on."
"…The doc on the chopper had to put him to sleep. Said they had to anyway ta' put that tube down his throat. Durin' the first surgery…the one for the gunshot wound…doctors put him in a coma – cause o' the damage to his eye. Didn't do the eye surgery for another couple of days. He was under for four and a half days before they started bringin' him out of it…
…By that time, his wife and the little girl had got to Atlanta. Later on, we heard what happened at the airport in Korea."
Ty's forehead furrowed. "There weren't reporters at the Seoul airport...?"
"Nah. It was Soonie's Daddy come ta' stop her from takin' Gem outta the country. But she'd already took care of that," Rosco said, with pride. "Coo…he-hmmm…Some legal beagle from the American Embassy es-corted her and Gem to the airport ta' see they didn't have any trouble boardin' that plane. After all, she was an American citizen and Gem's legal guardian. Oh, her Daddy made all kinda threats, and I guess it got a might ugly…but Soonie had all the documents she needed. No legal way he could stop her. She got on that plane with Gem…an' I don't think she ever looked back."
"As if that wasn't enough…even with her more than five months along, that bevy of reporters she had to wade through when Daisy and Turk brought her to the hospital were a bit slack on their manners…flockin' to peoples' troubles like bears to a honey pot," Sarah Jane mumbled to herself, but loud enough for Ty to notice.
"Sweetcakes," her husband said, "about time you checked ta' see if those itty-bitty porkers 'er all snug and warm in their blankets, don'tcha think? Gettin' close to when we need to be at the ballfield."
Without a word, Sarah Jane groaned and laid aside the half-finished afghan she was making for Yaya, then set off for the kitchen to check the oven. The last two rows would need to be unraveled and restarted anyway.
"Ya' see, Sophie took our sweet Gem back to the farm with her. Everybody agreed she'd be less scared there than that three ringer at the hospital. Sophie said Gem didn't really understand all of what was going on, 'cept what Soonie'd tried to explain to her. Kept askin' when she could see her Appa. That means 'Daddy' in Koh-rean. She spoke pretty good English, even back then…with a sorta Georgia sound to it."
"Sheriff. I mean Mr. Coltrane," Ty said, because Rosco had started coloring outside the lines. "We can finish this later."
Rosco shook his head with authority.
"We're almost done here, son. And once it's done, I want it to be d.o.n.e. – done."
Still hoping Sheriff Strate would allow him some time, he'd planned to stay overnight. Ty nodded. "Yes, Sir."
Besides, the first inkling of an idea had formed. Ty's interest had begun to stray beyond what the audience of Crime and Punishment in the Deep South would expect or content that would fit into a one-hour time slot.
