Chapter 8: Aftermath
The next few days were quiet ones on the Duke farm. The boys helped Uncle Jesse with repairs around the house and barn - Bo only wore the sling on and off, leaving his left hand free to hold a board steady or pull a shingle into place, despite the cast. Daisy went to work. Cooter came to deliver parts or to visit in his down time. Even Enos stopped in, pleased to see Bo up and about as usual.
Well, not quite as usual. Jesse didn't really notice those first couple of days, but after two weeks, he realized that he'd gotten more work out of Bo than in any given month of the year. Shingles, leaks, clapboards, porch posts, floorboards, squeaky hinges, locks, gates, and fences were just a few of the long-broken items that were suddenly fixed like new. Once they started working in the fields again, the young man had to be called several times to come in for dinner each night, even though he skipped lunch if no one brought it out to him. He was the first one awake in the morning, and the last to go to bed at night, often sitting late outside on the porch or in the branches of the oak tree out front. Bo smiled often and laughed more, and delighted in the company of his family moreso than ever. Jesse was amazed - the boy went to work with a will, spending every hour he could outside - and his uncle thought of how that life-changing event had matured him.
Luke was less amazed and more concerned, but he tried to ignore it, attributing the feeling to the strongly protective instinct he'd felt since the incident. It was hard for him at first to even let Bo out of his sight, but this seemed like more than that. The morning after that first night home, when he'd found Bo sleeping in the chair in the living room, he'd thought nothing of it. That is, until that night, when Bo slept in his own bed, and woke Luke up with a scream and a crash in the middle of the night.
"Sorry," Bo apologized, disentangling himself from the sheets on the floor as Uncle Jesse and Daisy ran into the room, "I'm okay. I fell out of bed, onto my arm."
"You sure you're alright?" Jesse asked before Luke or Daisy could.
"Yeah, I'm fine." Bo climbed back into bed. When Jesse and Daisy had gone back to their rooms, he got up again.
"Where ya goin'?" Luke asked.
"To get a glass of water," Bo said, closing the door behind him. Luke fell asleep before he came back, but Jesse found him at the kitchen table the next morning, head pillowed on his curled right arm and snoring softly.
Uncle Jesse found him sleeping like that once or twice more in the next few days, until Bo started getting up earlier than him. Every morning when Luke woke up, Bo's sheets and blankets were ruffled, but he didn't think Bo spent the night there. Once, bringing lunch out to him as he worked in the fields on the tractor, Luke found the tractor idle and cold, and Bo sound asleep underneath a tree.
About the time Jesse realized how much work Bo had done, Luke realized how little play he'd been doing. Not once had they taken the General out for a spin, though Bo had worked plenty on the little fixes and tunings that pampered the racecar. Not once had they gone out to the Boar's Nest for a beer. Not once had Bo mentioned girls in general, nor any in particular - not even Claire Dunney, who had been so grateful to him for risking his life to find her little brother. No, things just didn't add up to Luke, so one afternoon towards the end of July, he called over to Bo as his cousin carried an armful of leather harness straps from the barn to the porch, intending to mend the weak and worn spots.
"Hey Bo!"
Bo set the load down on one end of the steps and looked up. "Yeah, Luke?"
"I'm gonna take a ride into town to pick up some groceries for Uncle Jesse," Luke said, gesturing towards the vehicles parked out front, where the white pickup sat closest, "You want to come?"
Bo looked for a moment from Luke to the truck and then smiled. "Sure, why not?"
Luke grinned, and Bo followed him towards the vehicles, but Luke didn't stop at the truck - he walked right on past to the driver's side of the General. Bo stopped at the passenger side of the truck, smile gone.
"You're not taking the truck?"
"Naw, we haven't driven the General in ages! The groceries will fit in the trunk."
Bo took a step back towards the porch. "Actually, Luke, I, uh, I forgot, I promised Uncle Jesse I'd finish with Maudine's harness this afternoon so he can take her out tomorrow morning and haul some logs in to cut for firewood."
Luke tried not to show his disappointment. "Oh, alright. I'll see you later, then." He started the engine and headed out, not seeing the expression of painful longing on Bo's face as the young man watched the car move farther away and out of sight.
Bo Duke refusing a ride in the General Lee? There's definitely something wrong here.