PART TWO
Balladeer – "Well, Rosco called an ambulance to pick up that pretty young filly and Cooter hauled back the little lady's cycle. Of course, Bo and Luke wanted to get to know the little lady to apologize for hitting her and maybe getting to know her just a mite better than that. Boss Hogg, of course, had other plans..."
"I want you Duke boys out of here!" He chased them out on to the front portico of the Hazzard County Hospital while pointing his cigar at them. "You boys are in enough trouble for reckless driving if that young lady decides to sue!"
"Boss, you can't be serious!" Luke was taken aback.
"If Rosco hadn't been…" Bo started.
"Enough of your lies, now, get!" He stuck his burning cigar into his mouth and scowled like a furious portly bulldog wearing a white hat and white suit. Bo and Luke just looked at each other and sighed to each other, but then Luke struck up an idea. He knew the hospital well enough and finding the window of her room to eavesdrop was going to take a few minutes. He motioned to his blonde cousin and directed him to follow. In the stately sterile halls of the interior, he puffed his stogie and looked up to Rosco and Doctor Amos Pettybone motioned past them carrying dark shades from the hospital x-ray machine. He turned to his new patient's room and walked in with good news on his lips.
"Young lady," He walked in with Boss and Rosco behind him and his young blonde beauty laying in a bed before him and looking up to him. She looked up to him painfully as he lit up her x-rays on a light on the wall. "You are very lucky. Your back is going to be just fine barring a few aches and pains, but your left leg is going to be broken for a short time. Now," Doctor Pettybone flicked off the light illuminating the x-ray and lifted a pad with an admission paper. "I am going to need a few things like your name and where you're from…"
"Duke…" She started. The cigar dropped from Boss's lip when he turned his head interestedly.
"Daisy Duke…" The blonde beauty claimed hesitantly. "I was born and raised in Mayberry, North Carolina and I'm traveling through for…"
"You can't be Daisy Duke." Rosco shook his head refusing to believe her. "There's only one Daisy Duke and you don't…"
"Duke?" Doc Pettybone pushed his glasses up his nose. "Are you any relations to…"
"Young lady," Boss pointed at her with his recovered cigar. "We want your real name! Don't be giving us any nonsense like…"
"If you don't believe me…" The would-be imposter turned her head to the fat white figure next to her in the big white cap known as Boss Hogg. She had known him only a few minutes and she already didn't like him. "Look in my knapsack over there. My identification is right on top."
"Well, maybe I will…" Rosco pulled open the top and noticed a ladies purse on top of clothing. "I'm gonna nip this nonsense in the bud. After all, we all know there's only one…" He looked upon a driver's license to a young lady named Daisy Mae Duke who was born in Mayberry, North Carolina. She had a library card, a diner's card and a card for free gas at a place called Goober's Garage. Boss Hogg's eyes bugged a bit trying to refuse the reality he was seeing and the possibility that this young lady just might be possibly related to that aggravating Duke clan.
"Daisy Mae Duke…" Rosco read the card out loud.
"Daisy Duke?" Luke repeated the name outside the room and the other side of the window.
"I don't get it. Why is she telling them she's Cousin Daisy?" Bo looked at Luke. "What do you think she's up to?"
"Some kind of scam, I reckon." Luke leaned back against the bricks of the hospital. "I'd sure like to find out more though."
"I know how." Bo reacted a bit more eager. "Why don't we head on in there and ask her some questions ourselves?"
"Even better," Luke clicked his fingers. "Let's get Uncle Jesse on the radio and get him in here to talk to her!"
Balladeer – "Now it gets interesting, Luke got Uncle Jesse on the CB in the General…""She says she's who?" Jesse clenched the mouthpiece of the radio set in the main house of the Duke farm. Behind him, his one and only niece named Daisy listened in on the riddle of her imposter. "Why would she say a thing like that?"
"We don't know that, Uncle Jesse." Luke sat in the General Lee and watched Boss and Rosco leaving the Hazzard Hospital. Deputy Enos Strate had arrived a few minutes ago, but hadn't come out with them. "We were going to bust in a talk to her ourselves, but then we thought you might be able to get better answers from her, come back."
"Well, at least you two are using your heads for once other than for growing hair." Jesse rolled his eyes to Daisy. "I'm on my way, over."
"Let's take my jeep, Uncle Jesse." Daisy dropped the laundry. "When I'm through with this girl, she might have a few more broken bones. No one says she's me and gets away with it."
Balladeer – "And here comes the rest of the Dukes. Boss and Rosco meanwhile headed over to the courthouse to plan for their next move. You know, I'm kind of interested what's going to happen next…"
"If there's one thing I don't want…" Boss entered the courthouse with his brother-in-law the Sheriff following behind him as usual. "It's another meddling Duke around here, real or otherwise. Now, she claims to be from some little town called Mayberry…"
"Mayberry, huh," Rosco grinned eagerly excited. "My cousin, Jim Lindsey's from up there. He used to play with Bobby Fleet's Band With A Beat." He giggled excitedly just thinking about his cousin's success in the music business.
"Rosco," J.D. Hogg's cigar moved from one side of his mouth to the other. "I don't care hearing about your dipstick relatives. Just check this girl out. Could she be who she is?"
"Who is she?" Rosco turned their strained friendship into an Abbott and Costello routine once more.
"Make the call!" Hogg hollered loud and hard. Jarred by the order just for the moment, Rosco composed himself and dialed zero for the girl who operated the Hazzard County Telephone Switchboard.
"Uh, May Belle," He stared toward J.D. a moment as his eyes floated round the courthouse. "Could you get me the Sheriff up in Mayberry, North Carolina? No, I don't know the area code."
Balladeer – "Is it me, or do these guys look familiar?"
A few seconds for the operator to find the area code and get the North Carolina switchboard later, a skinny deputy in a tilted deputy sheriff cap dropped a pillow into the cot of a jail cell and wandered across the first floor of the courthouse and jail. Sheriff Andrew Taylor looked up from his sweeping as his deputy crossed the room and sat at the corner of the desk to pick up the phone. He answered it with the same orderly routine and by the book he maintained in his job.
"Courthouse, Deputy Barney Fife speaking." He answered.
"Oo, yeah," Rosco looked up alert. "Yes, this is Sheriff Rosco P. Coltrane down in Hazzard, Georgia. Could I speak to your Sheriff?"
"Ange," Deputy Barney Fife looked over with confused thoughts mired in the reasons for an out of state call. Maybe someone from Mayberry was in trouble down there or someone from down there was calling to warn them. "You expecting a call from an out of state sheriff?"
"Can't say that I am." Andy walked over handing over the broom as he and his deputy shared household duties in the jail. "Finish the sweeping, will you?" He took the phone. "This is Sheriff Taylor." He took the phone.
"Uh, Sheriff Taylor," Rosco maneuvered the phone for his fat little buddy to listen in as well. "I'm calling about this young lady we got down here claiming she's from your neck of the woods. She says her name is… Daisy Duke." Eavesdropping on the call, Hogg bit down on his cigar listening closely.
"So that's where she got off to." Taylor reflected a bit on recent Mayberry happenings to recall the young wild child. She was born in Mayberry and her mother used to work at the diner before her passing, but the girl he knew as Daisy Duke didn't quite like living in Mayberry. She liked hovering near the gas station helping Goober and Gomer on the cars or outfitting that cycle left behind by moonshiners. Schooling wasn't a major priority to her as much as scrapping and wrestling. Sometimes, it seemed as if she was meant to be born elsewhere. Barney started sweeping a bit slower to listen to Andy's side of the phone conversation.
"Yep," Andy continued as he scratched his left ear a bit relieved she was still alive. "We've been looking for that little lady. She didn't get herself into any trouble, did she?"
"Well," Rosco continued talking to this North Carolina sheriff. He sounded much like a lot of those laid-back, take-it-easy he knew from the area. "She got herself in a bit of a fender bender around here. Does she have any relatives up there?"
"Fraid not…" Andy Taylor sat on his desk as his deputy stopped sweeping to listen. "Her momma passed away last winter and since then she's been about as cooperative as a June bug on a picnic. Her stepfather has had a lot of problems trying to get her to go to school. This ain't the first time she's taken off on her motorcycle either."
"Sheriff," Boss Hogg took the phone. "This is County Commissioner Jefferson Davis Hogg and I promise you that I will hold on to this lady about as tight as I can if you want to come get her. Can you come get her?"
"I can send someone." Andy replied motioning for a pad of paper. "How does one get down there to your parts?"
"Are you writing this down?" J.D. was grinning and laughing as he pressed the phone to his chest. "Rosco, I bet there's a reward for this little lady!" He started laughing out loud with his cigar pressed to his teeth.
Balladeer - "Well, as Boss started seeing dollar signs, Uncle Jesse started running into interference. Boss was for the first time a few steps ahead of the Dukes by placing Enos to guard their guest at the hospital."
"I'm sorry, Uncle Jesse," Enos stood guard at the younger Daisy's hospital room. "But Mr. Hogg gave me strict orders not to let anyone in her room, especially anyone named Duke."
"Now, Enos," Jesse Duke remained calm as his niece and nephews groaned at the opposition. "I know you're just doing your job, but that little lady just might be family, and if so, we got to make sure she's okay and who better than her own family."
"Well," Enos thought it over. "I guess if you put it like that." Enos parted and opened the door as the true Daisy Duke furled her fists upset and marched forward. She stopped short as her Uncle Jesse and cousins crowded behind her and scanned the room from the empty bed with the blanket and sheet hanging to the floor and draped down to the direction of the open window. The room was empty.
Balladeer – "Now, don't that pluck your tail feathers. After all, Enos didn't say anything bout letting someone out of the room."