PART THREE

Balladeer – "Things started buzzing and moving like cats trapped in the dog pound with no way out. Somewhere, there was a little lady calling herself Daisy Duke loose in the county and with enough answers to gag a horse. All the Dukes were scrambling to find her and Daisy herself was ready to chew nails. You know, for someone so pretty, this little lady sure gets in a lot of trouble."

"Doc Pettybone said she was trying to get to Florida." Jesse talked to his boys over the radio in Daisy's white jeep. "Now, there's only two roads from here she could have reached. You boys check Highway 36 and we'll check Shelby Road."

"We got it, Uncle Jesse."

"What!" J.D. Hogg heard the chatter over the radio and grabbed the mouthpiece for another channel. "Rosco, if them Dukes get their hands on that little lady and my reward, I'll bust you down to dogcatcher!"

"Boss," Rosco responded back on his radio from outside the Boar's Nest, a popular bar and grill. "I'm allergic to dogs!"

"Then you better get unallergic or used to sneezing!" Boss screamed back with a chicken drumstick replacing his cigar. "Stop them Dukes!" He hollered back, dropped his mouthpiece and grabbed his chest trying to calm down. The best thing to calm him right now was the twelve drumsticks, a porterhouse steak and pound of mashed potatoes from the diner.

"Enos," Rosco raced out of the Boar's Nest parking lot kicking up gravel and dirt from the tires of his patrol car. "I'm going to double round through Sutton's Crossing and we'll get them Dukes in between. We got hot pursuit!" He started giggling at the excitement. "I love it! I love it!"

"Understood, sheriff." Deputy Enos Strate unerringly obeyed his commanding officer and pressed the gas pedal to the floor as he caught a brief glimpse of the General Lee ahead of him with Bo and Luke driving it. There was two hundred feet ahead of him and the General Lee and he started shortening it hoping he wasn't noticed coming up on them.

"Enos." Luke looked behind them on the road.

"I guess we're not the only one's looking for this little lady." Bo focused on the road twisting and weaving toward the highway.

"It looks like it." Luke held on as Bo increased speed. "Head down there." He pointed to an old mill road down toward the creek weaving in their direction. Following behind them, Enos continued following their cloud of dust down through logging ruts used to horse drawn wagons and tractors. Dry dirt crunched and flew through the air under and around them as Bo continued charging further with the General Lee at his command. The orange stock car sometimes acted as if it loved these chases as much as the boys who drove it.

"We're gonna get them. We're gonna get them!" He giggled as an overanxious kid. "Hang on, Flash!" Rosco saw the General Lee from a distance and then realized the creek crossing between them. Bo charged as a modern soldier of the Confederacy toward the incline before him leading up to the creek and cheered jumping over it. Enos saw it too as the boys in their orange stock car passed a foot from Rosco in flight over the creek smashing into Enos behind them in mid air. Patrol car met patrol car leaping in unison and smashing into each other above the creek ready to drop to her in the form of two monstrous metallic behemoths going for a swim. Several yards away, the General found a new airborne shortcut to the highway.

Balladeer - "If this continues, Hazzard might need its first air traffic controller."

"Enos! You, dipstick!" Rosco waved his wet and drenched fist at him. "Didn't you see I had the right of way?" By his side, Flash lifted his head to breath above the water reaching over the seat.

"How could I get out of the way, sheriff?" Enos clung to his patrol car flooded into three feet deep of water.

Balladeer – "Meanwhile, the lady behind this mess was reaching the county line, but guess who found her first?"

"Young lady," Cooter Davenport leaned across the front seat of his tow truck. "Are you sure you're going to be okay? What about your cycle?" He looked out the passenger side door as the blonde beauty he had picked up slid out on to her crutches while wearing her duffle sack as a backpack.

"I'll get it when I pass through again." She beamed back with a touch of Southern charm. "Besides, who couldn't resist a blonde Georgia peach hitching with a broken leg?"

"I can't argue with that logic." Cooter grinned with the wild look of a harmless madman and admired her figure. "More power to you." He sat back as the young beauty slammed the door shut. Foot off the brake, Cooter looked back at her reflection in his rear view mirror as his tow truck lurched forward for the junkyard across the eastern county line into Crockett County. It was getting a bit quiet as voices jumped from his radio.

"Shepard calling lost sheep," It was Uncle Jesse's voice. "Did you find that little filly yet? Over."

"Not yet," Luke called back. "We had to lose Rosco and Enos first. Over."

"Are you boys looking for a blonde goddess with a broken leg heading for points south?" Cooter grabbed his mouthpiece. "I just dropped one off near the county line near the junction on Highway 36, over."

"That's her!" Luke's eyes lit up as Bo cheered in triumphant glee. "Thanks, Cooter!"

"She's further ahead than we thought." Bo pressed the gas pedal again. A radio eavesdropping J.D. Hogg started grabbing his hair and stomping his hat as Daisy Duke took her jeep cross country to catch up over field and pasture. As they continued bouncing and hopping over gopher holes and rolling terrain, the General Lee caught sight of her. Looking behind herself while thumbing for a car, Daisy Mae Duke from Mayberry, North Carolina recognized the orange car with the confederate flag and stepped back as it screeched to a stop before her. Bo sprung up first ready to confront her.

"Little lady, we want to talk to you!" He pointed upset at her.

"Bo, calm down." Luke stepped down out of the window of the General Lee. "Now, miss, you've got our family stretched from one end of the county to the other looking for you. All we want to know is one thing. Is your name really Daisy Mae Duke?"

"What's it to you?" She copped a bit of a country attitude and leaned on to her left crutch. "Are you guys here to hit my other leg?"

"Well," Bo sat in the driver's side window of the General Lee. "She's got the sass of a Duke. Heck, she reminds me when Daisy was her age."

"Who?" The younger Daisy rolled her eyes confused.

"Our cousin," Luke heard the jeep of their female cousin coming closer. "You see, we're also Dukes and scary as it is, we might be related." Their cousin Daisy skidded to a stop in her jeep with Uncle Jesse by her side. Parking her vehicle, she jumped from it ready to scream and pull hair.

"Young lady, what gives you the right to go round telling people you're…"

"Hold your horses, Daisy," The elderly patriarch restrained one niece from a would-be niece. The blonde girl before him was more than what he expected and an obvious wild child with an undirected look of disrespect for being confronted.

"Now," Jesse continued calm and fatherly. "Young lady, we've got some talking to do. I want you to get in this here jeep and ride to our farm to answer a few questions."

"I ain't getting in no jeep and I ain't going to no farm." The younger girl spoke up. Bo started laughing at her attitude while his female cousin rolled her eyes. Jesse looked to Luke shrugging his shoulders and realized just what kind of a girl with which he was dealing. He decided on how to treat her.

"You get your rear end in that jeep before I send you to tarnation and back!" Jesse ordered her as the family protector he tried to be.

"Yes, sir…" The young girl hobbled over respectfully and into the front seat as Luke eased her pack off and to the back seat next to his uncle.

Balladeer – "Well, if she ain't a Duke, she ought to be."