Author's Notes: In case anyone's curious, the phone number given is in fact the Georgia State Police - I was kinda nervous about randomly generating one, so I looked one up instead. Enjoy!
Chapter 7: Revelations
While Bo returned to his family at Bentley's Caves, Cooter got back to his truck and headed back into town, hoping the FBI agents trailing him wouldn't be too suspicious after he'd eluded them on the back roads. They quickly caught up to him again once he turned back onto Highway 124, and he snickered as he saw their gray sedan slide into sight in his rear-view mirror, as though they'd been waiting for him all along. They kept their distance, trying not to be too obvious, but close enough to keep him from getting away again.
Ignoring them, Cooter drove straight back to his garage in town, trying to decide on the best plan for springing Daisy from jail. He thought of some of the plans that had worked before, but most of them involved Bo and Luke working together to hoodwink Enos, and those agents wouldn't be fooled so easily. There were at least half a dozen of them hanging around the sheriff's department at any given time, not to mention the ones on the roads in and out of town, or the pair with the bloodhounds occupying the spare cell on the first floor. Cooter climbed out of the truck and pulled off his cap, scratching his hair. Probably best to go talk to Daisy first, then.
The mechanic strolled towards the sheriff's department, whistling half a tune and brightly greeting the men who turned and watched him suspiciously, while he thought about how to convince them to let him see Daisy. Fortunately, Enos was on duty, which made things a whole lot easier. Cooter walked right in and headed down the stairs towards the jail cells.
"Hang on there, Cooter! What're you're doin'?" Enos stopped him on the third step.
"Well hi, Enos! I was just goin' down to see Daisy."
"Well, I'm-I'm sorry, Cooter, but it's not visiting hours. I'm gonna have to ask you to leave."
"Enos! It's Sunday! An' that poor girl's been stuck all alone in there since you arrested her, very unfairly I might add, on Friday night!" Cooter affected a scolding expression and an accusing tone. "If she ain't allowed a visitor on God's day of rest, from a good friend like myself, then I am just ashamed of you, Enos!"
Enos looked guiltier and guiltier as he spoke. The constant contradiction between his job and his friends plagued the young man, and this time, Enos gave in. "I guess a little visit won't hurt," he said, picking at the papers in his hand. It was a small fraction of the files Rosco kept on the Duke family, which Agent Brown was going through page by page for a clue to their whereabouts.
Cooter grinned broadly. "Thanks, Enos!" Then he turned and ambled down the stairs, nonchalant until he was out of sight. Around the bend in the stairs, he took four great hopping steps to reach Daisy's cell.
"Cooter!" Daisy cried in a hushed voice. She had a million questions to ask him as he pulled up a chair and leaned in close to the bars.
"Hush now, Daisy, I got a lot to say and not much time…" Quickly and quietly, he summarized all he knew of the last two days' events, from the discovery of the General Lee to the bloodhound chase to Luke illness, and Bo's plan to collect the evidence. This last part he told extra quietly, so spying ears couldn't overhear, and he left out the hiding spot altogether. Daisy held all her questions until he was done, and he asked her, "Now, how are we gonna get you out of here?"
"I don't know, it's not that I haven't tried, but every time they come down here to bring me food or take me to the ladies' room, four or five of them come at once, and with more upstairs, I just couldn't figure on getting past them!"
Cooter sighed. That was even worse - if she could have broken free even for a few minutes, he could have been waiting out front to drive getaway. He looked up at the bars on the window looking out onto the street. But maybe… He leaned in close, and explained his plan.
Y'all get the feelin' there's a little shuck an' jive comin', Davenport-style?
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Cooter worked on one of the cars in his shop, watching the minutes tick by on the clock. Five o'clock, Daisy said, that was when they'd bring dinner. These FBI fellows were very timely with her meals. Five o'clock. There wasn't a whole lot for the mechanic to do until then, being short on parts though long on impatient customers, so he tried to look busy at least. He'd closed the garage doors, seemingly against the cool temperatures outside, but mostly just to annoy the agents trying to watch his every move. To pass the time, he worked on some of the body work required by several of the cars waiting for other parts, pounding out dents and reshaping the metal. Five o'clock.
At five of, he left off his idle tasks and made his way to one corner of the garage. Pushed off to the side was an old VW Rabbit, owned by a nice elderly couple close to town who rarely used the old thing. About a month ago the grandmotherly woman had called Cooter to tow it to his garage and have it looked at, but money was tight and she had him wait to fix it. The problem was, the engine was misfiring, in very loud, very gunshot-like bursts. In other words, it was perfect for Cooter's purposes.
He waited until just after five. The group of agents would be coming down the stairs, now standing guard as one opened Daisy's cell to hand her the dinner tray. With a twist of the key, Cooter started the car, and POW! POW POW! the resounding blasts echoed in the garage and outside. The garage door flew open as Cooter staggered out from between the cars, holding a wet, black stain in his side, and a handful of the vigilant FBI agents came in, guns drawn.
"It's Bo and Luke! They're crazy! They ran, that way!" Cooter pointed towards the loft and open windows leading onto the roof - the Duke boys' favorite alternate entrance.
The group split up to head off the enemy, and Cooter ducked down out of sight, wiping engine oil off his hands onto his pants. Then he ducked out the back door and snuck across towards the sheriff's department, watching the frenzy outside as concerned citizens hid themselves and FBI agents scattered through the streets, looking for the shooters. He smiled as the sheriff's department emptied. A moment later, Daisy came running out, looking all around for him.
"Psst!" he hissed, waving his cap, and she ran to join him hiding among the bushes.
"Good job, Cooter!" she congratulated him, and together they turned to creep along the bushes and make for his truck.
"Yes, and it might have worked, too," came a deep voice behind them. Cooter and Daisy both turned, raising their hands in surrender as they looked up the muzzles of a half-dozen guns. "Except I know as well as you do the Dukes are innocent, and wouldn't shoot a gun unless their lives depended on it for fear of violating their probation - much less actually murder two pretty little ladies."
The two friends stood up straight, staring stunned at Agent Derek Brown and a growing gathering of his men. He motioned with his gun, and they turned back towards the jailhouse, marching inside with grim revelation.
Now I don't know about you, but I'll take Rosco over these boys any day.
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Bo took a circuitous route through the county to reach Oldhall Road, which lay to the southwest, from the mine, which was in the northeast, maybe five miles outside of town. The failing light made the going difficult as he had to move cross-country while circling the town, and often it was just as easy to dismount and lead the horse through uneven terrain. After two hours' efforts, though, he was on the far side of the town and away from the main roads, and he urged the horse to a faster pace down the dirt roads by the meager moonlight.
The distance was much longer by horse, though, than by car, and after a while Bo had to force himself to stop thinking of how fast he could have made it in the General Lee. Plus, even on the back roads, he had to listen for approaching vehicles and hide when a car passed. Once, caught between open pastures with no cover, he'd led the tall horse among the grazing cattle and hid himself behind one of the beasts, hoping the passing driver didn't look too closely at the herd. After that, he quickened the pace further, nerves on edge.
Finally, though, he arrived at the long road stretching far into Chickasaw County, and with a sigh, he turned Black Morgan down the deserted dirt stretch. Once out of sight from the intersection, he dismounted and found a streamlet trickling along for the horse to drink from, and took a rest himself. Bo's feet sure were feeling better, but his tail was getting sore. Tendrils of steam curled off his mount in the chilly night air, and he wrapped the folds of his wool coat tighter around him, leaning against a tree. It wasn't until he snapped awake that he realized he was starting to fall asleep, so he stamped his feet to warm his legs and waited for the horse to take one last drink of water before remounting. They set off again at a trot.
Bo broke out the packet of candy and his canteen, the sugar rush and swigs of water keeping him awake. He tried to remember just how long this road was, and where they'd stopped for the RV, but the details were fuzzy and he resigned himself to dully staring at the road as the horse moved along. It was quite late before the sight of a log on the side of the road caught his attention - it was where he and Luke had stopped for a rest two nights before. With renewed energy, he eagerly watched the road on the left, knowing he was close. Another mile went by before he spotted the object he was looking for, glittering in the dim light among the grass. Bo reined in the gelding and dismounted, untying the empty sack from behind the saddle as well. Picking up the empty glass, he held it up and saw the filmy residue on the inside, between the yellow flower pattern, and hoped it contained what they needed. Then, carefully, he stepped down the slope to where Luke had fallen. That glass lay half-submerged in the rainwater ditch, and Bo wasn't sure how useful it would be. He picked it up and poured it out anyways, drying the wet outside on his jeans, and added it to the sack, tying the drawstring firmly.
Mission 'A' accomplished, Bo walked back up the slope to the waiting horse and secured the sack. Now on to Mission 'B'. A long yawn struck him, and he saw Black Morgan's ears were drooping too, head hung tiredly.
"Whaddaya think, Blackie? A few more miles tonight?" he asked the animal, stroking his broad neck. The horse snorted and rattled the reins with a shake of his head. You might be tired, but I'm not. Bo smiled and swung himself back up into the saddle. "Let's go, then."
He urged the horse into a slow trot, but after that he let Morgan set his own pace, which varied from walk to canter. Bo dozed some for minutes at a time, waking sharply each time he caught himself. Once, he nearly fell off entirely when Black Morgan suddenly surged into a gallop to pace a herd of deer startled from the woods. Catching the saddle in time, he managed to convince the horse to slow down so he could pull himself back upright. Looking around, he found they had just passed the broad rolling mudflats where the boys had so much fun on Friday afternoon, and he knew there wasn't much more than a couple of miles to the end of this blasted road. He watched alertly for the massive manor house as the horse ambled along.
As he reckoned by the moon's path in the sky, it was well after midnight when Bo arrived at the tall iron-wrought gate to the old Willet Hall, Hawkins Hall now. He stared through the bars, wondering if anyone would come open them at this hour, when the gate shifted under his hand. It wasn't locked. He pushed it open and rode right on through up to the modest manor, dismounting at the broad front porch and walking up to the door.
It took several minutes of pounding on the door - he didn't dare shout, because he didn't know what neighbors were nearby - before anyone in the household woke. When the door opened, Bo found himself face to face with a moustached man easily twenty years his senior, with a dry, studious expression and an odd accent.
"Can I help you, son?"
Servants? Jed Hawkins had servants? "I…I…I need to speak with Jed Hawkins," Bo finally tumbled out. The man looked at him skeptically. "It's important, please."
"Come on in," he gestured, glancing past Bo with raised eyebrows at the horse tethered to the front porch. Bo stepped in, and he closed the door.
The moustached man led him into a side room, tastefully furnished with leather armchairs and shelves of books along two walls. He switched on a soft lamp in the corner. "If you'll wait here, I'll fetch my father."
A short while later, he returned, followed by old Jed Hawkins in his robe and slippers. Bo didn't dare sit down, for fear of falling asleep waiting, so he stood studying the titles of the medical books on the shelves when they walked in.
"Bo Duke!" Jed exclaimed in surprise, stepping forward to greet the boy warmly. The other man watched, reserved, by the doorway. "What are you doing here this time of night? Is everything alright?"
There was something in his enthusiasm and tone that made Bo step back and look at him closely. "Did you read the paper this morning?" he asked, almost fearfully.
"Read the paper? Well, yes, with breakfast, why?"
"So you've seen the article."
"Article? What article? Bo, what are you talking about, my boy? Are you feeling alright? Sit down," Jed ushered him into a high-backed chair and sat down in another next to him, with a glance towards the other man.
Bo stared at him incredulously. "Well, the article in the paper this morning, about the murders, the FBI, everything."
"Son, I haven't read anything about the FBI in the tricounty paper in a month, since that shootout outside of Atlanta."
"But…I…" Bo realized that he probably sounded like a complete lunatic.
Hawkins turned to the other man. "John, would you mind getting this morning's paper, and maybe some tea?"
"Certainly, Dad." The moustached man stepped out of the room and closed the door.
Bo sat with Hawkins in uncomfortable silence for a moment, before the young Duke looked up sharply towards the window and rose to his feet. "My horse, I shouldn't leave him out there like this, we've been out all day…"
"Sit," Jed motioned with a wave. "John told me, and I already asked Henry to take care of it. Our butler, housekeeper, cook, mechanic, hostler, and handyman," he answered the young man's unvoiced question, "and he's well paid for it, too."
It wasn't long before John returned with a tray of tea and the Sunday paper rolled under one arm. He placed a cup of the one in Bo's cold hands, handed the other to his father, and sat back himself in a third armchair on the Duke's other side.
"I don't believe I introduced you - Bo, this is my son John, the doctor. John, this is Bo Duke, Jesse Duke's youngest nephew." Hands were shook and greetings exchanged, and Jed continued. "Now, why don't you start from the beginning. Slowly," he advised as Bo immediately started to speak. "Take a deep breath. What's happened?"
Slowly at first, then faster as he went on, Bo told the tale from the top, including the new information Cooter had offered. The theft of the General Lee, Hawkins knew already. He told of the discovery the next morning, the arrival of the FBI in town, then to the Duke farm, the cross-country chase, the night in the cave, Luke's illness, Uncle Jesse's worry, Bo's journey back to the farm, to the Kellers', to Jackson's Hollow to meet with Cooter, to the cave, about the newspaper article, and then back out to collect the evidence and plead with the Hawkins for help. When he was done, he seemed to realize the warm cup of tea was still in his hands, and he took a sip while younger and elder Hawkins chewed over the information. John spoke first.
"Well, we can certainly help your cousin. We'll drive on out there tonight to get him and your uncle both, and I'll have a look at him." The doctor didn't mention his thoughts on the diagnosis - young Bo looked quite upset enough already. "But all this about the newspaper, it just doesn't make sense."
Jed unfolded the morning's paper and handed it to Bo. It was a completely different paper. Same date, some of the articles were the same, but no headline of murder, just a scattering of minor articles about the recent municipal elections. Bo stared, trying to make sense of it.
"It seems like someone's going through an awful lot of effort to make you Dukes look guilty, to everyone in Hazzard," Jed commented.
"What was that you said about the FBI?" Bo asked with a sudden thought.
"The FBI? Eh, that the last article I read about them was a month ago?" Jed exchanged a look with his son.
"Yeah, a shootout, you said - what happened?"
Jed looked to his son to remember the details.
"Some kind of prisoner transport, if I remember right, from Atlanta to a maximum security prison in Virginia. It was a big mess, an ambush, a half-dozen agents killed. I think the guy got away - did they ever catch him?" John asked his father, who shook his head negative.
"Do you remember his name?" Bo asked anxiously.
John thought about it for a moment. "Lerner, maybe?"
"Leavins, I think," Jed corrected him.
They both looked at Bo, who had turned pale. The Dukes didn't get the newspaper regularly. He set down his cup to keep his shaking hands from spilling the cooling liquid.
"Could I use your phone? It's long-distance," he asked.
"Well, sure." John stood and led him into the next room, where a phone sat on a broad desk, and left him in privacy, returning to the study with his father.
From the next room, they heard him speaking to the operator. "Could I…" Bo stopped, clearing his throat. "Could I have the Atlanta office of the FBI, please?"
Silence.
"Ah, yes, ma'am, I was wondering if you might put me through to Agent Dan Chalmers. It's an emergency." Pause. "Oh…I'm so sorry, I didn't know…Well, how about Jack Carter?"
Silence.
"Can't you call him at home? This really is an emergency!…Yes, m'am. When do you…? Could you have him call me as soon as he gets in? Bo…Beauregard Duke from Hazzard County, at…Mr. Hawkins? What's the number here?"
"404-624-7000."
"At 404-624-7000. Yes ma'am, thank you."
Bo hung up the phone and walked back into the study, slumping down into the empty chair. The Hawkins looked at him expectantly.
"Last summer, my cousin Daisy witnessed a murder out on Wyle's Lake. We ended up in the middle of an FBI investigation into some conspiracy in Congress. Sonny Leavins was the leader, and tried to kill all of us. If he's loose…"
"…Then he'll want revenge, to kill the flies in the ointment," Jed finished for him.
"First they publicly humiliate and discredit you, then they cart you off and kill you quietly, after no one will miss you," John guessed.
"And they get Rosco and Enos to help," Bo added with sudden fear. "We've got to get Daisy out of there!" He rose to his feet, and wavered where he stood.
"Sit down, Bo," John Hawkins half-ordered. His tone implied no argument; he hadn't been a doctor for eighteen years for nothing. "Dad, could I speak with you outside for a minute?"
Jed looked up, curious, and stood. "Certainly, John. Bo, we'll be right back." Father and son filed out the door and closed it behind them.
"What is it, John?" Jed asked softly in the hallway. "Don't you believe him?"
The middle-aged doctor shook his head. "No, I believe him all right, and I think he's right, but if we let him, he'll go charging back out there and make himself just as sick as his cousin. I think if we stay out here long enough, he'll fall dead asleep in that chair, and we can go take care of his family. Do you know where these mines are?"
Jed nodded, agreeing with his son. "Oh, yes. Used to work them, before your mother died."
"Good. Why don't we go get dressed, and come back and check on him? I'll let Henry know what's going on."
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Just as John Hawkins predicted, when he came downstairs not ten minutes later, Bo was sound asleep in the study, exhausted from a long day and little sleep the night before. He carried a blanket in with him and covered the boy up, and then went to find Henry, the manservant.
Henry was just coming in from grooming and tending Black Morgan in the stables out back. John met him in the kitchen, and explained the situation briefly.
"The young man in the study's name is Bo Duke. He's in quite a difficult situation, and we're going to help him out. My father and I are going to fetch his cousin and uncle from somewhere in Hazzard, and we may not be back until tomorrow - his cousin sounds quite ill, and might need to go to the hospital. Don't let Bo leave until he hears from us - we'll call with news if we don't come straight back here. He's sleeping now, but if he wakes, feed him, show him a bed and a shower if he wants. Tell him we said to stay here. I believe he's expecting a phone call anyway."
"Yes, sir." Henry had worked for the Hawkins for several years, since the doctor had made his wealth investing intelligently in the stock market in Chicago. He appreciated the clear efficiency of John Hawkins' orders, and performed his duties with pride. "I'll see to it Mr. Duke is informed and taken care of."
John smiled. "Thank you, Henry. Good night."
A few minutes later, Jed and John Hawkins were driving John's late-model sedan out the gate and down Oldhall Road. It was nearly two o'clock in the morning.
Y'know, I knew I liked this Hawkins fella from the minute he stopped to give the boys a ride. His son's an apple fallen right close to the tree too!