Author's Notes: Heehee. Not much to say, really. Thanks for reviewing!
Chapter 7: Patients and Patience
The sixth floor of Tricounty General was relatively quiet again when Cooter and Anna stepped off the elevator around mid-afternoon. The nurses went about on their regular rounds, doctors walked back and forth down the halls, and the guard at the door to Bo's room had been reduced to one stoic state trooper. He looked over the pair as they approached, but soon resumed his bored, resigned expression.
Cooter knocked gently on the closed door. After a moment, it opened just a crack, and Jesse peered out darkly. The Duke patriarch relaxed when he saw the mechanic, stepping back and opening the door wider to admit them. Cooter and Anna quickly stepped through, sensing the tension, and Jesse shut the door behind them.
Inside, Cooter nodded a greeting to Daisy and took an appraising look at Bo. It was four days now since his young friend had looked back at him with a grin from his perch on the door of the General, and four days since Cooter had made that awful C.B. call to Uncle Jesse. And in four days, Bo hadn't so much as twitched a whisker, his features still and calm in a drugged slumber, but for a few moments that afternoon when Luke was there. However, this morning Jesse had said the doctors were taking him off the heavy sedatives, and although Cooter wasn't exactly expecting his friend to jump up and ask when they were going fishing, he was hoping for something, at least.
"How's he doin'?" the mechanic asked Daisy.
She gave him a small smile and reached over to her cousin, brushing a gentle hand over Bo's blond locks. To Cooter's surprise, he stirred a little, breathing a deeper sigh and turning his head a bit towards Daisy's hand, and slept on. "He's a little better," Daisy said. "Doc said, maybe later on today."
Cooter smiled. Best news he'd heard all day – or at least, it matched hearing from Luke alive and well.
Behind him, Jesse spoke. "Well, Cooter, you gonna introduce us to your friend, or are you trying to make her think Ellen Davenport never taught her boys any manners?"
"Oh!" Cooter turned around. He'd nearly forgotten Anna, who blushed, feeling awkward and out of place. "Anna May Goldthwaite, this here's Jesse Duke, Luke's uncle, and Daisy and…and Bo, Luke's cousins. Jesse, Daisy, this here's Anna May." He paused while she traded shy greetings with each Duke. "Luke asked me to bring her into town, and we reckoned we'd talk with Daisy about getting her a room with Sally Jo."
Both uncle and niece were instantly wide-eyed and attentive, looking keenly at Anna.
"You've heard from Luke?" Daisy asked.
"Is he alright?" Jesse echoed.
"What's been going on?" Daisy followed up.
Anna took on a deer-in-the-headlights expression at the sudden questions, not sure where to start or how to say it. Fortunately, Jesse recognized her distress and intervened, smiling kindly.
"Hold on now, Daisy. Miss Goldthwaite looks like she's had a long day, and if she's run into Luke, then it's likely to be some story. Cooter, would you see if you can get a couple more chairs from the hall, so we can all sit down? I'd say we should talk outside, but if we all leave we'd likely never get back in," he added with an angry glance in the direction of the door and the guard. Cooter nodded and went out the door. While they waited, Jesse turned back to the young redhead. "Goldthwaite…are you Russell Goldthwaite's little girl?"
Anna smiled sadly. "Yes sir, Mr. Duke."
"I was real sorry when he passed on - your father was a good man. How's your mama been?"
"She passed on a few years back, sir. It's just me and my brother, now."
"Is that so? I never heard! My, the years go by so fast these days. Seems like just yesterday I saw Russell's baby girl playing tea with her dolls out behind the inn, and now she's all grown up!" Jesse shook his head, with a glance towards his own blond little boy. It also seemed like just yesterday that Bo was playing Little League and learning to ride a bike, and later roaming the dirt roads as fearless and reckless on two wheels as he was on four. It seemed a cruel thing that such an energetic young man would…
"Luke told me about Bo, and how he was hurt, Mr. Duke," Anna interrupted Jesse's thoughts, following the direction of his gaze. "I'm sorry. I hope he'll be alright."
Jesse took a deep breath and sighed. "I've been praying just that for three days now. But, the Lord never gives us more than we can handle. We just have to have faith."
In another moment, Cooter was returning with a pair of chairs from the waiting room. Daisy and Anna pulled over the other two chairs in the hospital room, and the four settled themselves by the window in the corner.
"Now, just start from the top, dear," Jesse encouraged, restraining his own impatience.
Feeling more comfortable and less cornered, Anna began hesitantly, explaining how she'd first seen Luke in the café where she worked the night before. She gave them every detail from there, including his own description of his activities since leaving Cooter's. She left out the part about her confrontation with her brother, saying only that she'd tried to stop him, then went to warn Luke. Cooter took up the story from B.B.'s shop, explaining the electronic setup his brother had provided his friend, and Luke's departure. He limited the details on the Flanagans' conversation - no need to make things worse than they were.
When all was said and done, Jesse sighed. As he'd said yesterday, he understood Luke, but he still worried. His eldest nephew had a good head on his shoulders, but Jesse just hoped that his sound reason would keep him safe.
"Thank you," he said to Anna, with an earnest expression that made her think he guessed at the cause of her bruise.
"Uncle Jesse?"
Two Dukes and a Davenport whirled around at the soft sound, half out of their chairs. Startled, Anna stood too, looking towards the still figure on the hospital bed. Bo was looking back at them with drowsy blue eyes. Jesse was the first at his side, quickly followed by the others.
"Right here, son," Jesse reassured him, smoothing over his nephew's curls.
"What happened?" Bo asked. He spoke softly, weak still.
Daisy answered. "You fell, sweetheart. Don't you remember?"
Bo shook his head slightly, closing his eyes. For a moment, Jesse thought he'd fallen asleep, but then his eyelids flickered open. He looked up at Cooter and Anna, standing at the end of the bed.
"Hey, Cooter," Bo rasped.
Cooter gave him a smile. "Hey, Bo."
The wounded Duke tiredly looked around for the one face missing from the room. He didn't know who the pretty redhead was, but he wasn't really up for making guesses.
"Where's Luke?"
Bo didn't see the three-way exchange of looks, but Jesse answered, patting his uninjured shoulder gently. "He'll be back soon, Bo." Jesse hoped he wasn't lying. His nephew nodded a little, eyes sliding closed again.
"Can we get you anything, hon?" Daisy asked.
Bo swallowed, with the slightest shake of his head. " 'm sorry, Dais'…'m so tired…" he mumbled. In another moment, Jesse was sure he was asleep, softly breathing in a slow, gentle rhythm. The Duke patriarch looked up at his niece.
"We should let the doctors know," he said, but Daisy could hear the request in the statement.
"I'll go find one, Uncle Jesse." He looked like he needed a moment alone - if Daisy wasn't mistaken, there were tears in his eyes. "Cooter, Anna, come on outside. I'll give a call to Sally-Jo."
Cooter brought a chair back over to the bed for Jesse, who thanked him quietly as he sat down. Then the mechanic followed the two young women out the door, shutting it gently behind them.
---------------------------------------------------
Luke's hands had taken it upon themselves to tap restlessly against the steering wheel as he drove. The Flanagans' words kept replaying through his mind. 'Yeah, well, I tried'. Way back when, the racetrack rivalry between the Dukes and Flanagans had been no secret to anyone in the town, and there had been some fierce races - including the last one, where Bo had emerged the victor. He'd taken the prize, and they'd lost their farm and left home, too proud to accept the money Bo openly offered them. But Luke had never suspected either of them truly hated Bo or himself - until now. Now it was too obvious, thinking back - the forced, sneering smiles, the comments almost too sarcastic to be friendly, the overly rough 'play' on the county roads. And more, it sounded like the brothers had picked up a few new tricks in their time away, hardened and sharpened to a violent edge. Luke wondered if this series of robberies were the worst crimes they'd committed, or if more terrible sins blackened their souls. Certainly they weren't the least bit remorseful about Bo.
Luke kept to the least-traveled of the dirt roads on the outskirts of the counties. He turned every blind curve and searched every dark copse of trees with tension, ready to run from flashing lights and wailing sirens. If he was caught, even without the armed robbery charge, he'd still end up in prison for breaking probation, and that would help no one. The roads were quiet, though, as was the C.B. link to the thieves' car. He'd turned the volume down some, but kept one ear tuned to the engine noise that rumbled through the wiretap. By the time Luke had gotten back on the road, the Flanagans had settled into silence as they drove. Now, he was headed in the direction of Cedar City, the last lead he'd heard on their next destination.
Luke's thoughts strayed, feeling the chilly bite in the wind as it whipped past. Spring planting was coming up soon, once February turned into March and dried the muddy earth. This week, the boys were supposed to work on the tractor, cleaning and tuning it into shape for the season – so much for that. Three nanny goats were expecting newborns in the next month, and the sow was fat with a litter of piglets. He wondered briefly how the farm was doing, under the care of the Kellers up the road - Jesse had called them from the hospital. Luke and Bo could always repay the favor by working extra chores on the Keller farm. Bo…
Luke swallowed. It was hard to think of his cousin and not think of his injuries. What are you going to do now, cousin? Luke thought. What are we going to do? Luke supposed he could handle it, doing the heavy work alone now. Planting season was busy, but Daisy and Jesse both could help with that, though the harvest would be difficult. Summer was lighter, and maybe he could bring in enough money with the General in races to hire an extra hand for the fall. He'd have to enter the higher-stakes, regional races, get permits from Boss to leave the county on occasion, but Luke could do it. He could always do it - anything the family needed, his back and his hands could make happen, without complaint. The only thing Luke didn't think he could do was face his baby cousin every day for the rest of his life, and look down to see the top of his head instead of looking up to meet his eye.
He'd been listening to the droning sound for so long, it took Luke a moment to realize that the Flanagans' engine had stopped. Over the C.B. feed, he heard the car doors open and shut, and then more distantly as they walked away from the car, David's voice:
"Hurry up, Chet's been waiting for us."
Now, how do you figure that hooligan got himself involved?
--------------------------------------------------
Jesse and his niece were back at playing the waiting game in the little hospital room as the sun cast long, lingering rays across Capitol City. Daisy was restless, as worried about Luke as she was about Bo. She made frequent trips pacing down the hall to the water bubbler, the waiting room where the TV was tuned to the news, and any other excuse she could find to be active. She'd made the arrangements for Anna May, and even went back to the farm with Cooter to pick up a few things and Dixie.
After the Sweetwater robbery, the tension on the hospital floor towards Bo and the Duke family had considerably increased. First reporters mobbed the physicians and tried getting into the room for exclusive interviews, raising the ire of the hospital staff. A call to Luke's old friend, an editor at a major paper, solved much of that, as the friend made calls all around the city and pulled some weight within various news agencies to curb the enthusiastic reporters. Later, though, when Daisy and Jesse walked Cooter out to his truck, the guard at Bo's door tried to refuse them entrance back into the room. Orders, he said. However, the tall, young, muscular, armed state trooper was no match for the grizzled, aged, but formidable Jesse Duke, and it was a fairly short argument. Since then, Jesse was reluctant to leave the room at all, and would only do so very quickly and if Daisy stayed, for fear of being barred again.
The sun had long since set when Daisy returned from one of her fidgety walks, and she quietly closed the door, hearing Uncle Jesse's soft snores from his chair. By the light of a lamp on a corner table, she headed for her chair, making a sweeping check on her uncle and cousin as she walked. Uncle Jesse was asleep, chin to his chest, newspaper slack in one hand. Bo was little different than the last few days, though he seemed genuinely asleep now, murmuring here and there in some unknown dream soothingly hushed. Daisy settled into her chair quietly, not wanting to disturb either of them, and closed her eyes. She hoped tomorrow's dawn would bring some news of Luke and a change in the winds of the Dukes' fortunes.
---------------------------------------------------
About that time, Luke too was settling down to sleep, thinking of his family. The General Lee was hidden in a cluster of bushes and trees off a lonely road outside of Cedar City, and Luke was curled up on the front seat, Cooter's borrowed sleeping bag wrapped around his shoulders. A cool mist drifted in through the windows and settled among the trees, as the temperature dropped rapidly with the deepening night.
He'd whiled away the afternoon hours in another vain search for the Flanagans. No further clues or activity had come through the C.B. feed, and Luke found himself at a loss. Wherever they were hiding, he couldn't find them. Whatever they were doing, they weren't using their car. Somehow Chet Goldthwaite was involved, but he didn't know why or to what end. It wasn't until dusk that an idea struck him, and it was dark before Luke found a payphone booth to make the call.
Using his best impression of a little old lady, he called the Cedar City police, and described how he'd overheard men discussing their plans for a robbery in the morning. He gave descriptions of all three, the brown sedan, and Chet's beat-up old truck. Then he'd hightailed it out of there and ducked off onto the back roads – sure enough, on B.B.'s police scanner, he heard units being dispatched to check out the source of the call. Luke hoped the police took the call seriously – it would make things considerably easier if the Flanagans were caught in the act, without Luke needing to show his face. He would be waiting and listening nearby, as close to the city as he could manage, to hear how his idea panned out – and he'd be ready to give chase if it failed. Until then, he was spending another rather cold night in hiding – hopefully his last – waiting for the morning and the promise the new day would carry.
Y'know, I sure hope this all works out – for one, I can't stand to see them Flanagans running around on the loose, especially after what they did and said about ol' Bo, and for two, I also can't hardly stand to see Luke all alone and sleeping in the car in the middle of the woods!