Luke swallowed hard when he saw his face.
His nose and cheeks were tinged black from the fire, his lips cracked and bleeding. Luke hoped that the sunglasses he was wearing spared his eyes from any damage, although the plastic frames showed signs of having melted a bit. Luke fought the overwhelming urge to break down.
"Good lord, Luke, he looks bad. Does he need CPR?"
"I…I don't……..." Luke began weakly. He then stopped short and thought for a moment before he jerked his head to the right, to the source of the voice.
Bo Duke was kneeling next to him, a look of extreme concern on his face for the victim.
"Bo?" Luke dared ask. He quickly grabbed Bo's face and turned it as if he had to see his face to be convinced it that it was his cousin. He then let go of his face and with a cheer, grabbed him into a tight hug. "Thank God, I just aged 10 years!"
Bo patted his back a couple of times before he pushed Luke away. "Never mind about that, what about Paul, does he need CPR?" Bo leaned forward to check on him as Luke sat there pulling himself together.
"Here comes the ambulance now!" Billy Kay shouted as the group parted to make way for the paramedics. They quickly pulled the bed from the back of the ambulance and ran quickly to give Paul an initial examination.
"Stand back, folks, we'll take it from here." The female paramedic shouted. The group began to break up and Luke pulled Bo over to the black van.
"Bo, I ain't never been so scared in my entire life. I thought that was you in that car."
"Well if you'd open up your dang ears every once in a while you would know that wasn't me, because I's doin' my best to catch up to you when you took off runnin' from the Speedway over yonder. Didn't you hear me calling you? I musta done it 5 or 6 times."
"I…I guess it just didn't register." Luke replied, realizing Bo's voice must have mingled with his thoughts of him.
"Well thanks to you, Mr. track star, I about had an asthma attack. On top of that, I ripped Billy's racing suit." He emphasized the fact by showing Luke a ripped sleeve that had caught on the barb-wire.
Luke was too relieved to even take Bo's rant to heart. "Listen Bo, I don't want you to worry about the General Lee."
"What? That car?" Bo asked, motioning to the smoldering wreck. "I'm not, cause…
"That ain't the General." They said in unison.
"How'd you know?" They also said in unison, pointing to each other at the same time.
"You go first." Luke replied.
"Well, we came over here to warm the General up. I was just about to get in when one of the crew members decided that an adjustment needed to be made to the roll bar. Imagine my surprise when he opened the door to make the adjustment."
"Ah, I see." Luke nodded.
"Then I went over and blew the horn just to confirm it for myself. As you can imagine, he wasn't whistlin' Dixie."
"How'd Ray take it?"
"Awful!" Ray replied as he approached the Dukes. "But with 20 minutes to go before race time, I decided to give it a try anyway. Wish I hadn't now."
"But why wasn't you in the car?" Luke asked.
"Well as soon as I found out it wasn't General Lee and explained things to Billy, I asked if I could run back over to the speedway to give you a call, let you know what was goin' on. In the meantime, Billy had Paul perform the test drive. Well, I never could get through on the phones because I was told they were temporarily out. When I started walking back, one of the guys told me that you were out looking for me. That's when I saw the fire—and you running across the parking lot. I tried to catch up, but I couldn't. How'd you find out?"
"Well, Teddy made a little confession, then Betty Jean told us her brother saw the General in the Choctaw Indian Caves this morning. How else do you think I got here so fast?" Luke asked.
"Wait a minute, Luke, you say you drove the General here?" Billy interrupted.
"Yeah. He's sittin' out in the parking lot, that is if they hadn't towed him off by now. I's in such a hurry I by-passed the parking attendant without paying the fee."
Billy Kay whooped with joy and slapped his hands together. "Hot Dang, we're still in the race!"
"Oh…" Bo said, coming to realization. "Yeah, I guess we are!" He said with a big grin.
"And Luke…..?"
"Yessir?"
"Our being in the race wouldn't be possible unless you had brought the real General along. And that's why I insist that you be in there, sitting right beside your cousin during the entire run!"
"Yes sir!" Luke exclaimed.
So that's how the Dukes of Hazzard got their chance to fulfill a lifelong dream of being in a Nascar race.
(scene switches to Duke farm)
There was a lot of joy at the Duke farm when Bo appeared briefly on the news, before the race, to describe the situation. There was a lot more when the boys won just enough money to pay back Boss and Cooter- and to fill up the tank on the way home.
(scene switches to a hospital where a man lays covered in bandages).
Remember Clint, the one that stole the General from the boys? Well he got his just desserts. He turned out to be Paul, the one who was in the decoy when the fire broke out. His long stay in the hospital was followed by an even longer stay in jail.
(scene switches to Boss walking down courthouse steps)
Because Billy was actually pleased with the job Teddy had done on the Ford Roadster, he agreed not to press any charges against Boss as long as he paid him his money back. Of course Billy, being a fair man, didn't want to keep what wasn't rightfully his. (scene shows Boss having a fit to find the charred wreckage of the decoy General parked in his parking space.)
(scene switches to Jesse, who sits on a rocking chair on the porch, deep in thought)
And once again, with a little luck, a lot of love, and a man like Jesse Duke asking for miracles from the Great Almighty, the Dukes weathered another storm, coming out with nary a scratch on the other side.
I could've swore that's where the exit was, Bo." Luke insisted on the way back home, pointing just past the abandoned vehicle he had encountered earlier that day. Only this time-there was no exit in sight.
THE END
H.G. Stewart- Well folks, thus ends another one with a little miracle tied in.It got off to a slow start but definitely picked up in the end. I hope you enjoyed reading it, because I certainly enjoyed writing it. This was my first time using the help of the balladeer, a feat I didn't think I could accomplish but am actually quite pleased in the way it turned out.
Thanks for all your great, encouraging reviews, and for pointing out some areas that could use improvement as well! I am looking forward to taking a break and reading what some of you guys have wrote, as well as dedicating my time to transferring some Hardy Boys stories from another site to this one. Be sure to check those out if that is an area of your interest, and to email me if you like choose your own adventure type stories. I'll have to forward a web address to you for that one. Enjoy!