15 YEARS LATER…
Over the years that followed, life went on while they all dared to live, love, and endure…
**Radmilla Kozlova's body was returned to her mother in Belarus in July 1998.
**Warren "Squiggy" Underwood never resurfaced – more than likely, he became dust in the Mojave Desert or shark food in the Pacific.
**The underground railroad was only marginally affected by the carnage at the cabin. Ginny, Matt and Jack Cole were out of the network for over a year. Through a little shuckin' and a lot of jivin', Rosco and Frank managed to keep Jack's involvement outside the investigation. But that's another story.
**There were many theories about how Lance found Enos and Aaron, but none was ever confirmed. Lazzaro wouldn't tell them, and it would be hard for him to tell them now. Although Interpol issued a Red Notice on behalf of the Turkish government with a view to requesting extradition, Nicholas Alphonse Lazzaro died in the United States Penitentiary in Atlanta, Georgia, shortly after his conviction in January 1999 – prison justice for a pedophile was swift.
**Johen Orwin Clepas, aka Joseph Rowin Lance, disappeared into the night on April 23, 1998. Through an anonymous tip nearly two years later, his body was found and positively identified through DNA, in an abandoned barn in northern Wisconsin. It appeared he had committed suicide with Turk Adam's spare service weapon. Turk Adams and Enos Strate, who were both questioned at the time, had rock-solid witnesses for their whereabouts before, at, and after his time of death.
**Luke and Sophie didn't have any children together. Emily and Caleb retained their father's surname, but no one ever dared to tell either of them they weren't Dukes. Emily attended Georgia State College in Atlanta, and Caleb went back to the farm after he graduated from Georgia Tech – using his education to further the farm's output. He became a volunteer fireman in Hazzard County, like Luke.
**Annie and Kate were finally reunited. Kate sold her restaurant in Los Angeles, what value there was left, and moved to her grandfather's 17 acres in Louisiana. After a few years of reclusion, she again picked up the mantle in her own personal war against Human Trafficking. Kate stayed in close touch with Annie, Bo, and their children. When not traveling in connection to her work with the Center for Missing and Exploited Children, she visited Hazzard often.
**After their marriage, Bo and Annie prospered in partnership with Cooter Davenport. They had three sons, James Lucas, Donald Jesse, and Jeremiah Wade. They had thirteen years together until she lost her battle with metastatic cancer in 2011. Bo missed her every day. With the help of Luke and Sophie, Bo was raising their three boys on his own. During the summer, he still took them to Kate's to fish. Even though they were boys and would never admit it, they loved it when he would say, 'hold on to your butts' and head down the grade through their mother's fairyland.
**Daisy and Turk lived on opposite ends of the country for a year while she completed her commitment to Emory University. Although Daisy would have gladly moved to California, he couldn't bring himself to separate her from her family. He applied to the Atlanta Police Department and joined the drug enforcement unit in June 1999. They were married a month later. She was still the only one who called him Jay. Daisy continued her environmental work with Emory. In 2003, they adopted an eleven-year-old boy named Zane.
**Aaron went back to Boston to finish college. He lost his girlfriend, because he wouldn't let her help him get through his grief, and buried himself in his studies until the media attention died down through Lazzaro's trial. Enos attended his graduation in May 2001. He'd only wanted to be there, not try to make Aaron confront the thing that had kept them apart for three years. But when Aaron sought him out, Enos silently thanked Gordon Thompson, whose side trip to Boston while at a symposium in New York had accomplished what the mere passage of time could not. Aaron was recruited by a Silicon Valleytech firm and moved back to California. Aaron married and divorced in 2003. He was married again in 2007 – to the college girlfriend he'd lost after Inez died. He and Lisa became the parents of a daughter, Naomi Inez, and a son, Jacob Clark. David Shapiro turned states evidence and was released from prison within a year of his conviction. Even though Enos encouraged him to do so, Aaron never saw his biological father again and never wanted to.
**Before moving to the farm while Enos was in rehab, Soonie and Gem lived in Atlanta with Daisy while Enos was in the hospital. Gem visited the Duke farm often. She and Emily became friends and pen-pals, then email and text pals. A month after Esme' was born, Enos and Soonie returned to Burbank. He was no longer with Interpol. Too much time had gone by during his recovery, and he wasn't physically able yet to get back on with the Los Angelos Police Department. Between buying the property, the cost of getting full custody of Gem, and the medical expenses his benefits and insurance didn't cover, their savings, and Soonie's salary, could only go so far. They needed something to pay the bills, so he became a consultant for law enforcement and lawmakers, not knowing that the war on Human Trafficking would embody the next fifteen years of his professional life.
Soonie returned to her uncle's accounting firm. No longer confining herself to her cubicle, she became a field auditor, even doing some work with her husband when traffickers dabbled in money laundering to fund their depraved operations. Slowly, as their family grew, the modest cabin at the base of the Verdugo Mountains became a five-bedroom ranch house that Daisy had dubbed Hazzard West on one of hers and Turk's frequent visits.
Enos and Soonie never returned to Korea but kept in touch with her mother's and her step-mother's families, and corresponded regularly with Ji-woon and his family, as well as friends they had made while there. In 2009, a Korean exchange student lived with them for a year.
**Enos and Thompson worked together again when Tommy took over the HTU after Lieutenant Rodriguez retired. When he became Captain Thompson just after he turned 45, Enos had the honor of pinning on his bars. Turk and Thompson didn't give up the search for where the videotape was recorded or what happened to the little girl. They followed up on any lead that came their way with narrow results. Only technological advances and social media platforms led them to an attic in an upscale suburb of North Atlanta. Eventually, they identified the girl and found her body. Never under any illusion that their search would end any other way, they still hadn't let it go.
Tommy and Elektra never married but continued living together – Elektra still didn't believe love should be institutionalized, and Tommy just wanted her. He couldn't father children because of the injuries he'd suffered at the hands of his step-father. They adopted two boys, Carl and John, siblings orphaned by domestic violence. Richard Van Der Pelt and his family attended the adoption ceremony.
**Aunt Judy and Uncle Frank passed. Luke and Caleb helped to maintain the farm in a sort of barter system by using the fields as extra acreage for their own crops. When the farmhouse was remodeled to add a second story, Enos leased the land surrounding it to Caleb for a ridiculously reasonable fee.
Saturday, November 23, 2013 - Hazzard
Nate Collins was still not finished painting the new lettering on his office door. From his desk, the name under the Hazzard County Law Enforcement Center logo read Enos Strate, Sher – backward.
Like the office, the Sheriff's Department had changed quite a bit in twenty-six years. The County's sixteen patrol vehicles were all equipped with mobile data terminals. The basement, where he had spent a lot of time back in the day when he was one of the only two county deputies, was in the process of becoming a law library and a fully digital resource center. Now, he had a Chief Deputy, two Captains managing four Deputies each, and a K-9 unit under his command.
Rifling through the exasperatingly tidy stack of papers and meticulously color-coded files on the desk and in the file baskets, he sighed and hit the intercom button for the outer office.
"Cade?" He asked as nicely as he could.
"Yes, Sheriff."
"Where are the notes from the County Commissioner's meeting?"
"Right-hand side, second drawer, third file from the top."
"Thank you, Cade."
"You're welcome, Sheriff."
The week before, he'd hired a young law student to be his administrative assistant. Cade was brilliant but had also proven in a short time to be a real eager beaver, uber-efficient nearly to the point of obsessive compulsion. Cade reminded Enos a little too much of himself at that age – except for the irritating neat freakishness. Then, a long-ago conversation with Gordon Thompson came to mind, so he decided to cut the kid some slack. His irritability was likely more because his wife had been out of town for three days, leaving him to deal with the sigogglin' goings-on at home since she left. Of course, he hadn't shared that bit of sarcasm with her on the phone last night. She had enough to worry about preparing for her testimony. Besides, it would probably all blow over before she got home, and they could have a nice family Thanksgiving week just like they planned.
Yaya, the youngest, started acting up a couple of days ago, and the hijinx had escalated since. Thursday evening, she came home, said she wasn't hungry and went straight to bed. The next morning, the last day of school before the Thanksgiving break, she was crabby at breakfast. When he asked her if she wasn't feeling good, she got snarky and shouted, "Like you would care," just before she grabbed her backpack and stormed off to school, slamming the back door behind her. It didn't fit her personality at all. Gigi was the queen of drama in the Strate household, not his sweet, happy-go-lucky, always full of sunshine little Peach Pit.
Friday evening, while he and the twins were watching a movie, Yaya turned the amplifier up on her electric guitar to a volume that shook the house like an earthquake, playing a mournful rendition of California Dreamin' and singing Wish [We] All Could Be California Girls. The only one not to have some complaint about moving away from California, Yaya loved it in Hazzard – said she never wanted to live anyplace else.
This morning, when Rue and Gigi were all excited about their Aunt Daisy getting in before Mom got home, Yaya stormed out of the kitchen and asked why SHE had to come for Thanksgiving? And where was her husband anyway!?
Whatever that had to do with anything.
It didn't make any sense because Yaya and Daisy were besties, like two peas in a pod.
Her sisters had no idea what to make of it, either.
Then, he thought, 'What if it's female problems?' He blushed, and cringed, at the thought. 'But she was too young for that, wasn't she?' He was no good at that part of parenting girls at all!
He stood hesitantly outside her bedroom door before he tapped on it lightly.
"Peach Pit. What's wrong, honey?"
"Go away."
He looked down the stairwell and motioned for Esme' to come up. When she reached the landing, he asked if she thought Yaya might be…might be…startin'…I mean––"
She stifled a giggle at how hard he was struggling to get the words out.
"Jeeze, Dad. You've been swimming in a sea of estrogen all these years, and you still can't say 'period'?"
"Dog paddlin's more like it," he said, crossing his arms. "Before I drown in it, you think you could help me out a little here and talk to your sister? I don't wanna bother your Mama with this right now, and I have to get some work done at the office."
"I'll talk to her, Sheriff."
He sighed with both relief and a plea for deliverance, then bent down to give her a quick kiss on the forehead before beating a hasty retreat. "Thanks, Pumpkin."
Esme' called after him, "Not a squash, Dad."
Soonie wouldn't get home any too soon for him. He wished he could call her, but Judge Albright and the District Attorney wanted to be done with the prosecution's witnesses before recessing for the holiday week. So, even though it was Saturday, she would be in court by now, with her phone off.
Ding dang-it. The notes were exactly where Cade said they'd be. After pulling out the file, he gave in to curiosity. Rosco had given him a key to the top drawer but hadn't told him what was in it or why it was locked. Still, he hesitated before opening it. You never knew why Rosco did some things. He could have booby-trapped the dad-gum thing.
Instead of exploding snakes or a stink bomb, he found inside the drawer a still crisply folded LAPD dress uniform blouse complete with fruit salad, eight medal cases, and his citations. He pondered over the contents a few seconds, appreciating Rosco's hidden depths, then closed the drawer and locked it again. That was another day, another time.
This week had been a string of constant reminders that life is short and rarely neat. Staring at him from the top of one of the tidy stacks of mail was another envelope from Tyrone Lambert. He knew what it contained without opening it. Ty wanted him to sign a release. With enough on his plate to choke a horse right now, he set the envelope aside – he would write a polite refusal, again, after the holiday. Maybe this time it should be less polite.
His reflections were interrupted when Purdy Jenkins from the surplus store barged into his office.
"If you need to report something, there are proper channels," Cade protested, following closely on Purdy's heels.
"What I got to say is for Sheriff Strate, not some junior Deppity that ain't her Daddy."
Enos's eyes narrowed. "What the heck are you goin' on about, Purdy?"
"That girl o' yours."
"You're gonna have to be more specific than that. I got five."
"The littlest one, with the short hair."
"Yaya?"
"Yeah, that's her," he said, as agitated as he was when he stormed in. "And what kind of fool name is that anyway?"
"Just calm down, Purdy. Tell me what she's allegedly done."
"Ain't no alle-jed about it. Got paint on my best pair of blue jeans." He turned around to show Enos the red paint on his backside. "She was with Bo Duke's middle boy. I saw um runnin' away, her with the paintbrush in her hand, with my own two eyes.
Enos followed Purdy to the 'crime scene' and found in big letters, still dripping red paint, the words GO BACK TO CALIFORNIA SHERIFF STRA.
For a second, Enos admired, with fatherly pride, the stealth skills required to paint that many letters before being observed. Finally calming Purdy Jenkins down and offering to take care of having it removed or painting over it, he climbed behind the wheel of his Ford Interceptor and turned the key in the ignition. The first call he made was to Bo to tell him what had happened downtown and that he would call him back. He punched the phone icon on the steering wheel and instructed the car to, "Call home."
"Where's your little sister?" Enos asked when Gigi answered.
"I don't know. I don't have the Yaya watch today. I'm sure she's here somewhere."
"Giada Yeong Strate, tell me where your sister is, right now."
"Okay, don't lose your cool, Dad. I'll find out."
There was some shouting between her and her sisters before she came back on the landline. "Esmeralda," she rolled the name off with a dramatic flourish, "says Yaya's just going through a phase, and it wasn't what you thought."
Enos pinched the bridge of his nose and asked, "When was the last time...? Put Esme' on the phone."
A few frustrating seconds later, Esme' came on. "I'm here, Dad."
"When was the last time you saw Yaya?"
"An hour, maybe an hour and a half. She was in her room, sulking."
"She's not there now is she?"
"No, Sir."
Enos huffed with frustration. "That's because she and Donnie Duke were at the surplus store in Hazzard half an hour ago."
"How the…?"
"When she gets home, call me. If Yaya doesn't come home in fifteen minutes, call me. Call her friends from school and see if any of them have heard from her or Donnie."
"Yes, Sir." When Esme' hung up the landline, she and Rue and GiGi started making phone calls.
When Enos called Bo back, he was just as mystified as Enos was. Defacing private property wasn't something Donnie would typically do either. At first, he grilled his oldest, thinking he had put them up to it. Bo said James was more like him, always getting into trouble and doing something wild and stupid, but Donnie was more like his mother. He missed Annie even more on these kinds of days.
"Hey, Bo, I got a call comin' in from Rosco. Maybe he's seen them. I'll call you back."
Sure enough. The kids had sought sanctuary with Paw Paw.
Soroya Sung-mi Strate turned nine in October. She was 4 feet 5 inches tall, with short brown hair and hazel eyes. They were actually more a very light brown, but she liked to refer to them as hazel. Soroya, which means 'jewel' in Persian, was her given name, but she preferred Yaya. That's what her sisters had called her since before she could remember. Only Daddy called her Peach Pit, on account of she was born too early and had to live in an incubator for the first six weeks of her life.
The twins, Ruri and Giada, would be thirteen in a couple of weeks. They were named for gemstones too, lapis and jade, and thought they were hot stuff. Rue and Gigi moved to 'the sticks' under protest, till they found out they would be in high school, not still in middle school, next year.
Esmeralda, who turned fifteen in August, was already in high school. It didn't seem to matter to 'her royal emerald highness' at all where she lived as long as she could play her cello. Rue played flute and piccolo. Gigi preferred the electric keyboard but also played classical piano. Yaya was learning to play guitar, electric and acoustic…and Gem, the oldest, played the violin and fiddle like an angel…like Mama.
They had a big brother, but he was a lot older, like 34. Sometimes he and Daddy would go off camping in the San Gabriels, and one time they went all the way up to the northern tip of the Sierra Nevada. She asked to go along once, but Esme' said Daddy and Aaron were going to their sad place. And Gem told her to stop asking questions, or she would tell Mama how the nail polish got inside her favorite pair of heels.
The first sight of Daddy wearing a gun on his hip was a little strange. Uncle Turk wore one when he was at work in Atlanta; Uncle Tommy wore his to work in L.A. But Daddy wore glasses and cried at sad movies. Then, Uncle Luke came to the ranch and talked him into running for Sheriff of Hazzard County so Paw Paw could retire. Now, Daddy wore glasses and a uniform and a star and a gun. He still cried at sad movies.
Everything considered the Strate girls had made the adjustment from living in California to living in Hazzard. They all missed Baek Sung-mi, from whom Yaya had gotten her middle name. She helped raise them but had passed away when Yaya was seven and a half. No one talked much about Grandfather Mun. Of the five of them, only Gem had ever met him.
Wednesday had been Mama and Daddy's Sixteenth Anniversary. Only the official celebration would be on Thanksgiving this year. Mama was testifying in that trial because some guy put his money in the washer and wouldn't be back from California until Sunday.
Rue said Hazzard wouldn't know what hit it when their weird extended family was all together in one place. Family and friends would be descending on the County sometime during the following week…except for Gem. They tried not to talk about that too much either.
They all expected Caleb to be bummed because Gem was stuck in Iraq. The two of them thought nobody knew how much they Skyped each other. After all, they spent summers together since Gem was Yaya's age and Caleb was twelve. EVERYBODY knew! But he was walking around looking like the cat that swallowed the canary.
Except for missing her oldest sister like crazy, most everything in Yaya's life was hunky-dory until Thursday afternoon when she found out the awful truth.
Enos reached Rosco and Sarah Jane's before Bo. The kids were safe, so he wanted to wait for Bo before confronting them. He could see Rosco peering out the living room window.
When Bo arrived, they went in together.
Sarah Jane showed them into the kitchen where Rosco sat at the small table, sucking the brine from a boiled peanut shell. He held it up to them.
"Have some, fellas. Oh, sorry Enos. Forgot your wife's got you on that low-sodium diet."
"Rosco?" Bo said, perturbed. "Where's our kids?"
"They're here. Scared o' getting' in trouble. So why don't both of ya'll just sit for a while and cool down before you talk to um? You're not on some fool diet Bo. Have some peanuts. Copeland, down at the Busy Bee made a banner bunch. Um-um! Man can boil goobers. And that's a fact."
Although Bo was getting fidgety, Enos was used to Rosco's peculiar way of grandparenting. While Bo paced, he sat on the chair across from Rosco and set his hat on the table. Taking out a lens cleaner, he wiped fresh smudges off his corrective lenses.
"Ya know, ya'll wasn't any choir boys growin' up neither. No siree Bob. So I think you ought to remember that when you talk to those young'uns. Kew. Kew. I remember this one time––"
"Rosco," Bo said, leaning on the table, "If common sense was lard, you wouldn't be able to grease a pan."
Just about that time, Sarah Jane ushered Yaya and Donnie in. When Rosco gave her a look, she said, "Hush," then she nudged both of them forward to face up to their misdeed.
On the way home, the Sheriff's SUV was all kinds of quiet. On Yaya's part. Enos was listing all the reparations she and Donnie would be required to make and how she would be lucky to get two cups on a string when she was thirteen, let alone a smartphone. He wasn't any better at the bad cop part of parenting than he was at the other thing. Soonie played bad cop. On the other hand, he usually melted to a gooey marshmallow whenever his babies turned on the waterworks or the charm. All they had to do was look at him with their Mama's eyes, and he was a goner. But not this time. He was going to stand his ground.
When they got to the farm, Daisy had arrived. Yaya didn't acknowledge her. She ran up to her room, threw herself on her bed, and cried into her pillow. Yaya would have called her mother in L.A., but the rule in the Strate household was 'no cell phone until you're thirteen.' Rue and Gigi would not be thirteen for two more weeks. And there were only two portables for the landline. One was in her parents' bedroom – and that was strictly off-limits. The other was downstairs, where Daddy and that hussy were eating supper.
After supper dishes were done, Daisy and Enos sat at the table while the girls went to their respective rooms.
"I'm sorry about this Daisy. I've probly said this ten times today, but I really don't know what's up with Yaya. Early in the week, all she could talk about was the holiday. "
He picked up the photo of Gem in her desert camo off the piano, sighed, then gently put it back.
"You're the investigator." Daisy said, taking a sip of her tea. "When did things change?"
When had her attitude changed? Had he been so busy with Sheriff's business, he hadn't noticed? Enos had become immune to the type of daily drama intrinsic to a house full of females. And in truth, he enjoyed every frenzied second of it – usually. Right now? Not so much.
Before he could ruminate any further, his phone rang. He excused himself to Daisy and went onto the front porch to take Soonie's call.
"Hey, honey."
"Hey yourself. How is everything at home?"
He hesitated. "Like always. Never dull. Your testimony done? I mean, you comin' home tomorrow on schedule?"
"I finished my testimony early this afternoon. But I will not be home tomorrow as planned."
Enos heaved a long sigh before realizing he had audibly expressed the depth of his disappointment.
"Do you miss me, mi amor?"
"More than I can even tell you. When will you be able to come home? Is there some sorta weather delay at LAX or Atlanta? I haven't checked in the last couple of hours." He hurriedly scrolled his screen to open his weather app.
"No delay. I took an earlier flight and just deplaned. As soon as I collect my luggage, I will be on the way home."
Enos could barely contain his excitement. Aside from whatever was going on with Yaya, he missed his wife like the dickens. Their bed had been a cold and lonely place without her.
"I don't wanna keep you from doin' what you need to get home as soon as you can. But I can wait long enough for you ta' drive safe."
"I will. Te amo."
"I love you too, Honeysuckle. I'll be so glad to have you home."
They were all waiting for Soonie in the living room when she walked through the door. She was almost crushed in the hug-fest. Until Enos spirited her off to the kitchen and nearly suffocated her with a kiss.
"You did miss me. Perhaps I should go out of town more often."
"Oh, no you don't. Not unless you're under subpoena."
"Technically, I was."
He embraced her tightly again and buried his face in her neck.
"I think we should go back to Daisy and the girls," Soonie said softly. "And where is Soroya?"
"We can talk about that later. I wanna stay here and smooch."
She pushed him back, playfully. "You will change your mind if you go into the living room." There was a mischievous twinkle in her eye.
Soonie led him by the hand to a sight in desert camo that almost rivaled his wife's presence.
"Gem!"
"How'd you get leave? When did you get back to the states? How was the flight? When did you leave Iraq? Why didn't you tell us you were comin' home?"
Enos peppered Gem with questions until she put her hands up to stop the barrage.
"My leave came through at the last minute. So, I wanted it to be a surprise." She animated her expression and said toward her sisters, "Without it ending up in public going viral before we have a chance to thaw the turkey."
"Her plane landed just before mine. We found each other at baggage claim," Soonie said, beaming.
They were all sitting in the kitchen while Daisy made coffee for everyone when Gem asked, "Where's Yaya? She sleeping over at Em's?"
Oops. In all the excitement, Yaya's little escapades and her current whereabouts had been overshadowed.
Now Enos had to explain his inability to deal with a naughty nine-year-old to his wife and oldest daughter.
Afterward, Soonie kissed him on the cheek and said, "That is the other reason I caught an early flight. I had planned to do some Christmas shopping before I left Los Angeles, but I knew from the tone of your voice that something was going on at home that you were not telling me. I will go up and speak to her."
She started toward the living room, but Gem said, "Mom, let me go. She might tell her big sister. I can surprise her."
"With all the ruckus we've been makin', I'm sure she already knows you're here," Enos said.
Rue snorted. "Not if she has her earbuds in. Which she probably does."
Rue, Gigi and Esme' had all retreated to their rooms. Soonie had time to unpack and was back downstairs having coffee with Daisy, while Enos sat at the kitchen table twiddling his thumbs, wondering why it was taking so long. First, he was anxious to talk to Gem more. Second, how awful could it be for it to take this long? Third, what if it was something awful and somebody had hurt his sweet girl? Then the years of working in the underbelly of humanity conjured up…
Gem appeared in the doorway with something in her hand.
"Well, I found out what's bothering her."
Enos was now almost afraid to ask. "What is it?"
"Apparently, she went home with Donnie to Uncle Bo's after school on Thursday."
"They went to Mizz Emma's with Bo and Luke to move the furniture so the floors could be redone," Enos said.
"Wait, they moved my furniture. I asked them to wait until I got here. I wanted Jay to be here, and he won't get off shift until Wednesday afternoon."
"I don't know anything about when it should have been moved, Aunt Daisy, only that it was. Yaya and Donnie were exploring the house while Uncle Bo and Uncle Luke were going in and out with stuff." She stretched out her arm toward Daisy and showed her a rolled-up piece of paper with a diamond ring around it. And she found this."
"Oh my Good Lord."
Enos shot up like a Roman candle on the Fourth of July. "Is that what I think it is?"
"Afraid so," Daisy groaned, unrolling the long-ago goodbye letter from Enos that declared, "My Sweet Daisy, I will always love you."
"You kept it?"
Soonie smiled and said, "Of course she kept it. Did you expect her to throw it in the river?"
Enos sighed. He'd been doing a lot of it the past few days. Things started making sense; if you think like a nine-year-old girl, that is.
"For some idiotic reason only Yaya could come up with, she thought Aunt Daisy was coming in early to take you away from Mama. Especially since it was in a 'secret hiding place.'"
"I'll tell you about that later. Right now, we need to straighten aya out on a few things."
"No," Enos said. "This is something her Daddy has to do."
Reassuring Yaya about how much he loved her mother and how no woman in the Universe could take him away from her – no way, no how – was the easy part. The hard part was grounding her until Christmas.
She had defaced private property. And he was, after all, the Sheriff of Hazzard County.
November 25, 2013 - Hazzard
Ty helped Rosco load Sarah Jane's contribution to the ballfield snack stand into the back seat of her bakery delivery truck. Rosco pulled out the manila envelope, addressed to Sheriff E. Strate c/o Rosco Coltrane, to make room for the trays and tucked into his coat. Ignoring Sarah Jane's reproachful gaze, he rode with Ty in his rental car.
Rosco was quiet most of the journey. Occasionally, he pointed out to Ty how much Hazzard had changed and yet, had stayed the same, a small community filled with people just trying to live the best they knew how. Hazzard County hadn't become touristy like so many others capitalizing on their heritage. They'd weathered government taxers, depression, prohibition, two world wars, the 60s, and corrupt officials. Like he once was. Hazzard County had even survived its fifteen-plus minutes of national fame in '98.
Most of the changes to downtown Hazzard were the signs on the buildings, the lack of payphones and parking meters set to short-time the customer. Boss earned quite a bit of his ill-gotten gains through bogus parking tickets. After Boss died, local charities received large, anonymous donations, and the County had been running in the black for the last fifteen years.
Driving through the countryside toward the field, they passed million-dollar estates boasting their own private airstrips, with modest working farms sandwiched between them. He thought of Emma Tisdale when they passed by her house. She'd left it to Daisy. The sweet, itty-bitty pixie passed quietly away in her sleep at the respectably old age of 94, her motorcycle still under the carport. Rosco smiled at the thought of her perched on a crate next to a smoking drum of low-down dirty rags. 'She was a peach. And that's a fact.'
Ty pulled up next to Sarah Jane and parked. With daylight disappearing earlier these days, the lights had already been turned on. Rosco got out to help with the snack trays, but Ty had beat him to it. He had a feeling about Ty from the first time he'd spoken to him on the phone. He was fairly sure his instincts had been good.
Once Mrs. Coltrane was satisfied with the dispensation of her contribution, she kissed her husband on the cheek. "I see Bertha Jo and Sophie are here. I'll go say hey to them then I'll come back to do my turn at the concession stand."
"Say hey from me. I'll be sittin' close to the dugout." Rosco said.
After his wife left, Rosco turned to Ty and asked, "You play baseball, Ty?"
The fact that it was the first time the man had called him by his name and not 'son' or 'Mr. Lambert' wasn't lost on him.
"Yes, Sir. Long time ago."
"Well, this ain't gonna be what you're used to. Just families havin' fun. Some of Sheriff Strate's family will be playin', off and on. He and Soonie and their brood should be here somewhere. Don't really have teams. They all take turns, whoever wants to play. Last year, Horace Rhuebottom's littlest one, she's only three got out there to play and ran off the filed with the ball. She was nearly out to the parking lot b'fore her Mama caught up with her."
"Sounds like fun."
Rosco waved to Tommy and Elektra. Tommy did a double-take when he recognized Ty. He was still eyeing him suspiciously when Elektra redirected his attention to Carl and John, who were about to leap off the back of the viewing stands.
"Looks like Aaron and his family made it in. That little girl of theirs is a cutie patooti. Bo and Luke must be around here somewhere. Saw both their trucks."
If the former Sheriff was trying to impress on him that this might not be the right place or time to approach Sheriff Strate, he was doing an excellent job of it. Then, as if he'd planned it, the Sheriff's oldest daughter, and what looked to be her boyfriend came up behind them and whispered, "What's up, Paw Paw?"
"Gem! What…where…when…?"
"Hey, Paw-paw. I got in Saturday night."
The HazzardNet wasn't as lightning fast as it used to be and Enos had become adept at protecting his family's privacy.
"Does your Maw Maw know you're here? How long can you stay?" And pointing to Caleb holding her hand in a less than platonic grip, he asked, "And what's this?" As if he didn't already know.
"No, not yet. And until Thursday night. Then I'm being re-deployed to Afghanistan. And, 'this' is a surprise for later."
Rosco was crestfallen that their visit with Gem would be so short.
"Cheer up, Paw Paw. We have four days. I have to go surprise Maw Maw now. This is fun. Love you…"
Rosco stood looking after them, wiping a tear from the corner of his eye.
"Mr. Coltrane, I think I should be on my way now. You can tell Sheriff Strate he doesn't need to worry about having to write any more respectful declinations. I think I've got the message."
Rosco put his hand out to him, "Thought you might, Ty. Had a good feelin' about you. Otherwise, you'da never got over the County line. And you can call me Rosco."
"Well, Rosco. It was an…experience meeting you and your wife. I still think the story should be told. But not strained, drained and crammed into an hour."
Rosco watched him pull out of the parking space and head out toward the main road. He pulled the manilla envelope from inside his coat and went to find Enos.
November 29, 2013 – Hazzard, the Strate Farm
Soonie handed Enos a thermos of hot coffee and gave him another kiss. It was 4:00 am and the rest of the household was still asleep, so they tried to keep their voices low.
"You have everything you need?" she asked.
"You always pack more than we need. Here," he handed her a slip of paper. "Aaron's waitin' for me to pick him up."
"I love you."
"I love you. I'm only gonna be a phone call away." He gave her one long kiss before leaving. "We'll be back Sunday night."
She waved goodbye to him and walked back into the house. After keying the coordinates into her phone, she stoked the fire, then threw the slip of paper in, watching until the fire consumed it. Enos had already burned the manila envelope. No fingerprints, no DNA, no link to the source.
Letting him go on these sojourns with Aaron, unfettered by guilt, was the one way she could give back a tiny remnant of what she had taken away. Three days every year was little to ask in exchange for the life Soonie enjoyed with the man they both loved and the family that might have belonged to Inez had she not asked Enos to accompany her to a gala on the Ides of March.
References:
(45) California Dreamin' was written by Hon and Michelle Phillips. It was first recorded by Barry McGuire but made famous by The Mamas and the Papas in 1965. (Wikipedia) My new favorite version is performed by Sia.
California Girls (the actual words are "I wish they all could be California girls…) was written by Brian Wilson and Mike Love and performed by the Beach Boys in 1965 (Wikipedia)
