Chapter 11: On the Subject of Family
By the time six hours had passed and full darkness had settled on the woods behind the Sutton lands, Daisy had made up her mind. Of course, Luke would never agree, but that was why she wasn't going to tell him. Uncle Jesse would approve, she was sure. Neither of them wanted to see Luke running headfirst into Capitol City alone, assaulted on all sides. So she'd just make sure he wasn't alone.
Uncle Jesse was asleep, leaning his head against the doorframe of the General and snoring softly. Luke was slumped against him, the picnic blanket and a strong fatherly arm wrapped around him, sound asleep since about fifteen minutes after Jesse and Daisy had stopped arguing with him. With a full stomach and warm surroundings, his body demanded the rest he'd been shortchanged the night before. When he had no conversation or argument to consume his attention, Luke soon nodded off, much to Jesse's satisfaction. After turning the C.B. and police scanner down to a whisper, Daisy and Uncle Jesse talked quietly about the situation for a while, but Jesse was fairly worn out himself, and Daisy urged him to rest as well. She kept guard, but the only disturbance to the quiet scene in the next few hours was Thomas Sutton returning briefly to check in on them.
Now Daisy reached over and shook her cousin and uncle, wishing she could let them sleep on. But, the night wasn't getting any longer, and she'd put it off long enough. Her uncle woke easily at a gentle shake, but Luke took more effort, clearly resistant to the idea. Jesse smiled down at his nephew as Daisy pulled the blanket away and Luke shrank closer against his uncle, muttering. In another minute, though, he was awake, sitting up and blinking sleepily. He yawned mightily as Daisy smiled at him. After regarding her for a moment, and reflecting on just who had really won that argument, he smiled himself and shook his head.
"You two are terrible," Luke declared with a gravelly voice. Looking out the window, he saw how dark it had become. "What time is it?" he asked worriedly.
"It's only just dark," Daisy assured him.
"Well, I better get this show on the road."
Daisy climbed out the passenger-side window. Luke followed, stretching, and they both went around to help Jesse out. Standing next to the General, Luke faced them both, taking off Sutton's borrowed coat for his uncle to return.
Daisy stepped forward to hug him one more time. "Take care, Luke."
"I'll call in on the C.B. as soon as it's done. Give Bo my best, if I'm not back by morning."
Jesse hugged him next, proud and worried all at once. "I love you, son. Be careful."
"I will, Uncle Jesse."
With a deep breath, Luke stepped back, and looked from his uncle to his cousin. "Alright, then. Wish me luck." Then he climbed into the General. The fierce, eager roar of the engine broke the peaceful quiet of the woods, and he carefully started off, heading back to the road towards Capitol City. Jesse sighed, one arm around his niece, watching him go. Things were much easier when all he had to worry about was a cranky dark-haired toddler who didn't want to take a much-needed nap.
"Come on, Uncle Jesse, let's hurry. I'm not letting him go alone."
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Soon Jesse and Daisy were back at the Suttons' farmhouse, returning the rancher's truck and belongings and picking up Dixie. Daisy turned onto the road and made her way to the nearest county road heading towards Capitol City, which she knew Luke must be taking. She drove without headlights so as not to be seen, as Jesse had taught all his children in their 'shine-running days. The gibbous moon high above was enough to see the road by, and she didn't want Luke to know he was being followed. Uncle Jesse provided an extra pair of experienced eyes in the passenger seat, watching for deer and listening for approaching cars.
It wasn't long before they came around a bend and saw the red flash of the General's brake lights up ahead. Luke was similarly running dark along the county road, though he had the added advantage of the police scanner, so he knew there weren't any officers on the road ahead as he listened to various patrol cars call in to their dispatchers. He continued on to the outskirts of Capitol City oblivious to the white jeep trailing somewhere behind him. Once he reached the city, Luke was concentrating far more on the buildings and parking lots on each side of the road than on the dark road behind him.
At this point, Luke was quite accustomed to searching while he drove, after his previous efforts, so he worked his way along the city fairly quickly. Still, there was a lot of ground to cover, so between that and avoiding the occasional police patrols, his search took him into the late hours of the night. For all the seriousness of his mission, a smile crossed his face as he thought of Daisy and Jesse's reassurances about Bo, and of his own foolishness in jumping to conclusions. Uncle Jesse was always telling the boys to get right out and say whatever they needed to say, straightforward-like, but Luke was still in the habit of holding things back, to protect his own pride or someone else's feelings. This time, though, he didn't say anything at first because he didn't want to believe it – and after that, there wasn't time. But Lord, he was glad Bo was all right.
It was well after midnight and Luke was running out of places to look. He hadn't seen any likely warehouses so far, and he definitely hadn't spotted the brown sedan or Chet's green pickup. He'd avoided the very center of the city, where the hospitals and police headquarters lay, but he didn't recall anything of the sort in that area anyhow.
Think, Luke. If the Goldthwaites owned a warehouse, where in Capitol City would it be?
Luke pulled over into an empty gas station, closed for the night, and pulled a map out of the glove compartment. He scanned the roads and highways snaking in and out of Capitol City, mentally highlighting the areas he'd already covered. The major and minor county roads often held depots and distribution centers just outside the city, but he'd checked all of them. Suddenly, the hair on the back of his neck stood up as headlights flashed on the road beside him, and Luke turned to see a city police cruiser driving up.
Thankfully, the shadows hid the General's distinctive paint job, and the patrol car just rolled on past with nary a thought to the parked Charger. Heart thumping, Luke looked back at the map, unfolding it a bit more to include Sweetwater to the southeast. With one finger he traced the major highways from the city through the county, and frowned – he'd already checked those. Luke looked closer at the map, and realized it wasn't quite complete. The old highway where the Sweetwater Café and the Goldthwaite's inn lay stretched north to south along the county, but it ended where it intersected with the new highway a few miles outside of the city.
That's not right, Luke thought. The old Sweetwater highway had continued further north before turning into the city – the map was missing a good three miles of road. And I'll bet… Luke set the map aside and put the General back into gear, pulling onto the empty city street.
If any neighborhood ever fit the description of 'the wrong side of the tracks', the eastern edge of Capitol City was it. The ragged old Sweetwater highway could hardly be considered a highway anymore, or a road at all, and with the tattered 'ROAD CLOSED' sign half-barring the thoroughfare, the city appeared to agree. The homes and apartments in the area had a similar ragged appearance, and more than a few long-closed stores and condemned old buildings sat with boarded windows and doors between those establishments still trying to cling to life. To Luke, it was like looking at a barren, dusty field devoid of green, where lush and bountiful crops once grew.
He edged the General carefully around the sign blocking the road and made his way along the old county highway. It was easy to see why it was blocked off. The asphalt was badly broken and cracked, with deep potholes and the ravages of winter freezing and thawing, and it was cheaper to simply close the little-used road than for the city to repair or demolish it entirely. There were a few more abandoned hovels out this way, fewer and farther between. Then long sections of rusted chain link appeared, lining large empty lots and darkened buildings in the distance.
Luke wasn't sure what made him ignore the majority of the structures he passed, but somehow he just knew he was on the right track, and his goal lay just ahead. The shadows grew deep and black, the buildings lonely with broad parking lots and barren fields between them. The General lurched over the broken road, passing a former lumber yard with cords of cut pine still waiting stacked on pallets, rotting. Then, just around a southward bend in the road, he knew he had finally found the warehouse, the Flanagans' hideout, the end of a three-day hunt.
It didn't look any different from the other buildings he'd passed so far. It was low and long, just one story with metal siding and a sloping trussed roof. An old delivery truck sat next to the loading dock, broken down, and a couple of rusted trailer hitches sat on the grass. No light shone out from the glass panes or the office door. The left gate hung half off its hinges, while the right side had rusted off entirely. The building was silent, and not a speck of dust stirred under the clear moonlit sky - yet Luke was sure this was it. Mostly because of the sign painted across the length of the warehouse, 'Goldthwaite, Inc.'.
Luke pulled off onto the side of the road well back from the warehouse, not wanting to give himself away with the sound of the engine or the red brake lights. A quarter mile behind him, Daisy pulled Dixie over as well, and she and Jesse watched Luke climb out and set off on foot. Carefully, they left the jeep and followed him.
Keeping to the shadows, Luke crept in close to the warehouse, his every sense alert for a sign of life or threat. The short length of the building showed nothing, so he made his way to the corner, and carefully looked around the back of the building. Bingo! Two vehicles sat there, relatively new and distinctly out of place in the ramshackle district - a beat-up green pickup and a brown sedan. They were here. Luke could feel the blood quicken in his veins, every bit the hunter closing in on his prey. Vengeance? No. Justice. But that didn't mean he wouldn't enjoy seeing them led away in handcuffs.
From the shadow of the neighboring warehouse, Daisy watched Luke slip around to the back of the depot, but Jesse put a restraining hand on her shoulder when she moved to follow.
"Let's wait and see, now," he said softly. But after a couple of minutes, even he didn't want to hold back any longer, and he took a step forward along the shadows.
Luke, in the meantime, cautiously crept all the way to the parked vehicles. Both engines were cold, and he took a look inside the sedan. Empty. Then the metallic click of a cocked .45 Colt revolver immediately behind him stopped Luke in his tracks.
"I knew I was right," a voice sneered triumphantly.
"Oh Lord," Jesse breathed as he stepped along and the pickup truck moved out of his line of sight in the distance, revealing his nephew, hands raised in surrender, with a gun held to his spine by a fierce Joel Flanagan.
He needn't have worried. In one swift movement, Luke dodged to one side and whirled around, knocking the gun from Joel's hands and sending it skittering under the sedan. The revolver harmlessly discharged as it struck the pavement - or not so harmlessly, as it roused reinforcements to the fight. Joel got in a lucky punch when Luke started at the sound, smashing the eldest Duke cousin's nose and sending him stumbling back a few steps. Luke soon recovered and paid Joel back in kind. In another minute David burst out of the warehouse, carrying a second gun that Luke similarly disposed of, and an all-out brawl ensued.
Daisy started forward to join the fray, but her uncle held her back again.
"Daisy, you get on back to Dixie, and call the police. He can handle himself for a bit. Besides…I've got a feelin' Luke's got a few words to say to those boys on the subject of family."
Well, if Luke don't, I know I sure do. Those boys deserve a good whuppin', and a long stay in the pen to boot.
Trivia Note: Can you spot the obscure reference to a Robert Frost poem?