Author's Notes: Heeheehee - this was one of my more favorite chapters to write. Enjoy!
Chapter 8: Curses, Foiled Again
Daisy woke to the bright sunshine streaming through the window, sunlight that made the white walls and tile of the hospital room positively glow. She sat up with care, stretching the familiar crick in her neck and back from sleeping slumped in the uncomfortable chair. She rubbed sleepy eyes and looked across at Jesse, confirming what the sound of soft snores had already told her - he was still asleep. Bo, on the other hand, was wide-awake and gazing at his cousin with clear, bright eyes, and despite his bruises he couldn't help but grin at her stunned surprise.
"Hey there, darlin'," he drawled casually. He wiggled the fingers sticking out from the end of the cast and sling on his right arm. "So much for being careful, huh?"
"Bo! Oh, honey!" She stood and leaned over, kissing his cheek and ruffling his hair.
Bo smiled again, alert and energetic, his expression a strange contrast to the scabbed red scrape on his cheek. "Well good! Looks like there's nothing wrong with your memory."
Daisy beamed, absolutely delighted, while Jesse stirred in his seat.
"Did you say somethin', Daisy?" he asked, rubbing tired eyes. Then he saw both his young'n's looking back at him, smiling.
"Mornin', Uncle Jesse," Bo greeted him brightly.
Jesse did a fair impression of a fish, shocked at his nephew's liveliness so absent these last few days. Finally, he found his voice. "Mornin'? Mornin'?" he rumbled, standing and leaning over to wrap a strong arm behind Bo's shoulders in a hug. "Beauregard Duke, we've been worried sick about you for nigh on five days now, and all you can say is 'Mornin'?.!"
Owowowow, Bo thought as his broken ribs and right shoulder were pulled into the hug, but he just grinned. "Sorry, Uncle Jesse. Head injury and all, y'know."
Jesse let him go, shaking his head and smiling behind damp eyes. This was a vast improvement on the dazed, exhausted boy who'd briefly woken yesterday, and several of Jesse's fears were stripped away in one heartbeat. Speaking of yesterday…
"Daisy, would you…"
"Already on it, Uncle Jesse," she said, halfway to the door.
Doctor Meadows had been quite annoyed that he hadn't immediately been called in yesterday, and had in no uncertain terms told Jesse that if Bo was to receive any treatment, the doctor had to have timely access to him. In just a few short minutes, Daisy returned with the white-coated man. The doctor greeted his patient, then turned to Jesse and Daisy.
"I'm sorry, but I'm going to have to ask you to leave, while I speak with young Mr. Duke and run a few tests."
Their objections were only halfway out their mouths when Bo intervened. "I'll be alright, Uncle Jesse."
"I'll make sure you're allowed back in," Meadows reassured them as well.
Jesse frowned, but agreed, even more reluctant to leave now that Bo was awake. Daisy followed him out, promising Bo they'd be just outside the door. The guard, in the mean time, had also heard the update, and was on the phone with his superior at the nurse's station.
Twenty minutes later, the doctor found the Dukes in the waiting room. Both stood and waited expectantly while the doctor finished jotting a few notes in Bo's file on his clipboard. Then Meadows looked up.
"Well, Mr. Duke, he's doing quite well, considering the condition he was in when he was brought in. He has some strained muscles in his neck and back, but his sensitivity and reflexes in his hands and feet are good, and there doesn't appear to be any lingering cranial or spinal damage. He's got a long way to go to heal, I'm afraid, but overall, I'm rather pleased."
"Oh, that's great!" Daisy said, leaning against her uncle as he hugged an arm across her shoulders. Jesse was relieved beyond words. When the doctor had told him the range of possibilities for Bo's injuries that first morning, he'd been devastated, but the Duke patriarch didn't have the heart to tell Daisy or Luke until he knew for sure. Now he was glad to have saved them both a great deal of worry and fear.
"Officer Malone is speaking with him now, but you're welcome to go back in, for a little bit. He'll need his rest, and frankly, Mr. Duke, you and your niece could use some rest yourselves," the doctor advised.
Jesse thanked him and started towards Bo's room, very much wanting to know what the state trooper was saying to his nephew. The guard was just coming out of the room as Jesse and Daisy came up to the door, and with a nod, he resumed his post. Jesse frowned and went on inside, where Bo was leaning back against the raised head of the bed, looking rather dumbfounded and a bit tired. The doctor's simple tests of strength and reflex were by no means exhausting, but his bruised body was far from healed. Every breath taxed his cracked ribs, and his abdomen ached from the surgery that had halted the internal bleeding.
"What's wrong, Bo?" Jesse returned to his chair. "What did he say?"
"He just arrested me!"
"He what?" Daisy asked.
"He just read me my rights, and said I was under arrest!" Bo shook his head. It wasn't exactly a surprise, but he was incredulous nonetheless. Bo sighed, rubbing his left hand across his face and hair, wincing when he touched a bruise or raw spot - he seemed to have a lot of them. Then he looked up at Jesse and Daisy, who were settled on either side of him.
"Don't you worry, Bo," Daisy reassured him, "With any luck, Luke will have this sorted out soon."
"Where is Luke, anyhow?"
Well, shoot if that ain't the question of the day - though I'm glad ol' Bo is well enough to ask it. As it turns out, at that very moment, the missing Duke in question was engaged in a very familiar activity – fleeing from the police.
Luke spent the majority of the night hunched and trying not to shiver in the three-season sleeping bag, thoroughly convinced that right now wasn't one of those three seasons. He dozed fitfully towards dawn, but as the woods faded from black to grey and the sun burned away the chill mist in the air, the warm morning sent him sleeping deep enough that cannon fire might not have disturbed him. Curled up on the front seat of the sun-heated General, Luke didn't wake at the sound of the Flanagans and their red-haired comrade setting out for the morning's bank heist, nor did he hear Joel's grumbling complaint that Cedar City was too far off to bother with, why not just hit nearby Capitol City and skip out of Georgia now. In fact, it was a good two hours before any sound from the real world reached Luke at all.
"This is Crazy C callin' Lost Sheep, where ya at, buddy? Come back," Cooter called through the C.B. Bo and Luke ignored the call, knowing Uncle Jesse had asked Cooter to find them, and was just looking to send them up to Mrs. Thornton's to fix a fence they'd eradicated the day before. Grinning, Bo reached into the General for his tackle box, and switched off the volume on the C.B. at the same time.
They settled on the grass in the shade of a willow tree, lazily fishing in the creek on the hot summer afternoon. They had never actually caught a fish in this particular stream, but it was a popular spot for the girls of Hazzard to picnic – mostly because it was a popular spot for the boys of Hazzard to fish. Barefoot and relaxed against the gnarled roots of the tree, Luke smiled as Bo got up and left his pole behind to go fish for a different kind of catch. The new arrivals were too young for Luke, giggling little things still in high school, so he leaned back and closed his eyes, not a care in the world.
Some time later, a rough hand shook his shoulder. "Wake up, son," Uncle Jesse said.
"Mmmm…" was Luke's sleepy response. He was comfortable, and he'd done his chores already.
"Come on, son, time to get up."
Deputy-Sheriff Daniel Roy of Choctaw County was new to the area and not long on the job, and lucky for Luke, because it bought him a few minutes' time. The deputy didn't know the slumbering young man in the orange car from Adam in an Oldsmobile, and the dispatcher was too busy with something going on in Cedar City to respond immediately when he called in the plates. Instead of waiting, the well-meaning deputy approached the car on foot, trying to remember the directions to the shelter in the city should the young man be homeless. It took some shaking before he stirred, muttering sleepily and blinking lethargically as he looked up at the deputy.
"Are you in some kind of trouble, son?" Roy asked kindly. Why else would the young man stay out here on such a cold night, with no young woman in his arms or adequate means to keep warm?
I am now, Luke thought as reality swiftly cleared the dream from his mind. "I, uh…"
A tinny voice sounded from the deputy's cruiser. "Oh, hang on just a minute, I need to answer that," Roy said.
Luke watched him walk over and lean in through the passenger-side window to pick up the radio mike. A moment later the deputy was glancing back towards Luke in a not-so-subtle manner, but Luke wasn't taking his chances waiting around. He shoved off the sleeping bag the moment the deputy's back was turned, pulled himself into the driver's seat, and started the engine. Deputy-Sheriff Roy shouted after him as he took off. If the man didn't know the Dukes or the General Lee before, he would now.
Y'know, I kinda feel bad for that nice ol' deputy. Then again, it's no picnic for Luke either.
-------------------------------------------
It was noon by the time Jesse and Daisy finished filling Bo in on the week's events. Jesse worried about all the news all at once being too overwhelming for his nephew, but Bo seemed to keep up just fine, attentive and thoughtful. He yawned as they finished, but refused Jesse's suggestion that he get some sleep.
"I been sleepin' all week, Uncle Jesse! 'Sides, I'm starving. There anything decent to eat around here?"
Daisy laughed. Oh yes, Bo would be just fine. "I'll go see what I can find." With Bo smiling brightly after her, she headed out the door.
In the hospital ward, the nurses' station was strangely empty, though Daisy soon found out why. The handful of white-uniformed women were in the waiting room – one standing just in the entrance to keep an ear out for patient alarms – and the television volume was turned up. As Daisy approached, she heard two voices – one was the newscaster on TV, and the other was one of the nurses.
"Ugh!" the woman scoffed as Daisy walked up behind the bunch, trying to peer over their shoulders. "That's our tax money at work."
Right about then, the nurse at the doorway noticed Daisy standing next to her, and the others turned and saw her as well. The lot of them looked at her with disapproving frowns as they filed out and returned to work, leaving Daisy alone in the waiting room with the TV. She hardly noticed their reproach, however, as she stared at the television screen.
"As you can see from footage taken earlier today by our own News 8 helicopter, the state police had an extremely difficult time apprehending the suspect in a chase that lasted more than two hours and began in eastern Choctaw, moving through Cedar City, south on Highway 18, and into Hazzard County."
The newscaster's voice was accompanied by bird's eye scenes of a bright orange car painted with the Confederate flag on the roof, flying along a wooded road with a dozen screaming police cars on its tail. The image switched to a similar scene on the streets of Cedar City, the General Lee skillfully weaving in and out of traffic and reaching the turn for the highway.
"The driver of the vehicle, Luke Duke, is wanted in connection with a series of armed robberies throughout the state, and police now believe that as many as five men may have been involved in the crimes so far. Acting on an anonymous tip, police nearly succeeded in capturing three of these men in Cedar City this morning just outside a branch of the Southeastern Regional Bank. They believe Duke was lying in wait to divert authorities and enable his accomplices to escape. I am told we are now taking you live to the scene where the chase has ended, and the police are arresting Duke as we speak."
As Daisy watched, the screen switched again to another video feed from the news chopper. The image bobbed up and down some as the helicopter circled Cutter Crossing, a three-way intersection thickly fenced in by trees where Luke had apparently blown a tire and skid sideways off the road. Police cruisers with flashing lights were all over the road, and any number of state troopers held handguns aimed in the direction of the General Lee. Daisy watched in shock as Luke climbed out of the General, hands raised in surrender. She could see the bloodstained white bandage on his arm where Anna said he'd been cut. Several officers moved forward and pulled him forward, slapping handcuffs on his wrists in front of him. Threat restrained, the other officers holstered their firearms, and Luke was led with sullen, complacent footsteps towards a waiting squad car.
At the edge of the camera shot, Daisy caught a movement yet unnoticed by the police, and she smiled. In another moment, the newscaster was commenting on the arrival of a tow truck on the scene. A moment after that, every state trooper on the scene and TV viewer except Daisy was shocked to see the handcuffed fugitive shove away from his captors and 'attack' the tow truck driver as Cooter opened the driver-side door. Luke jumped in and pulled the door shut while the newscaster dramatized the harrowing turn of events, a capture-turned-hostage situation. The tow truck tore off before most of the police officers could even bring firearms to bear, though a couple took poorly aimed shots at the retreating truck.
"For those of you just now tuning in, we have just seen, live, an innocent man taken hostage by a violent criminal. I'm sorry, folks, but we have to go to commercial – I just can't believe this. I pray that the police can catch this fugitive before any harm comes to that mechanic."
Y'all keepin' up with this? 'Cause I tell ya, I think I'm startin' to lose track.