Author's Notes: ALERT - Of all the chapters and stories I've written so far, this one is probably the most graphic and violent. You've been warned.
Chapter 12: The Ol' One-Two
Blood ran freely from Luke's nose as he swung his fist wildly, slamming into Joel Flanagan's jaw and knocking him to the ground. David was scrambling to his feet from Luke's last blow, and leaped onto the dark-haired Duke's back, throwing his arms in a strangling hold around Luke's neck. Enraged as a red-eyed bull, Luke threw him off with one fierce buck, sending him into the metal wall of the warehouse. Luke took a stumbling step backwards and regained his footing just as Joel threw another punch at him, catching a glancing blow to his face. Luke shook it off and swung ferociously with his left, blackening Joel's eye and sending him to the ground next to David. Breathing hard, Luke wiped at the blood with the back of his arm while waiting for the brothers to find their feet.
The Flanagans tried charging him together, barreling forward with shoulders set to tackle, but Luke deftly stepped aside at the last minute, grabbing David by the shirt and collar and shoving him to the ground, while Joel tripped and crashed on his own. Focused on his enemy, Luke gave a derisive snort, disgusted by their amateurish tactics. Riled as he was, the retired Marine could handle a dozen more like them. Ever the honorable fighter, though, he waited for them to regain their feet, taking a dancing step backwards as Joel vainly tried sweeping his legs out from under him. However, his adversaries were not as honorable as he.
"Get 'im, Chet!" David cried, looking past Luke.
Focused as he had been on the fistfight, Luke hadn't noticed the red-haired hulk waiting on the fringes. As it was, sheer reflex saved his life. Luke ducked and dodged just in time to avoid the full force of the baseball bat that would have crushed his skull, instead receiving only a light clip above one ear. It was still enough to send him reeling, dizzy and off-balance, straight into the arms of the Flanagan brothers. They grabbed his arms in fierce grips, holding him for Chet to finish the job. With a dark smile, he stepped forward and brought the bat back for a good swing, while Luke faced him, fierce and defiant, teeth bared in a snarl. Chet brought the bat whistling down, only to stop at the last moment, and look at David.
"What say we have a little fun?"
Luke fought the whole way as they dragged him inside. Nothing like being trapped in the wolves' own den. Just inside the door, Chet tired of the struggle and unexpectedly slammed a meaty fist into Luke's gut, driving the air from his lungs in a whoosh. His struggles were weaker as he gasped for air, and the three men were able to manhandle him to a metal post supporting the roof. There, Chet produced a length of rope, and the brothers shoved him up against the post.
Luke had started to regain his breath, though. When Chet reached for his wrist, he managed to tear his right arm free from Joel, sending the younger thief to the concrete floor. David tightened his grip on Luke's gashed forearm, spurring a shock of pain, but Luke was busy driving a fist into the elder Flanagan's jaw. David went flying, but Joel tackled Luke's knees, and they crumpled to the ground in a heap.
No sooner had Luke regained his feet than he received a second taste of burly Chet's fist. The two-against-one odds between Luke and the Flanagans had made for a rather fair fight, but Chet Goldthwaite violently tilted the scales in their favor. Luke tasted hot blood as his upper lip split against his teeth, and he staggered under the blow. Little Anna May's older brother followed up with a stronger left, leaving Luke squinting from one eye. Then the Flanagans were behind him again, trying to hold him for the red-haired hulk. Luke forcefully threw them off. His anger was starting to fade into desperation, but his punches were no less fierce. Joel went sprawling, and didn't get up.
Chet barreled after him, missing some swings, others finding their marks. Soon Luke realized he was being driven into a corner, so he dodged away, flying under Chet's arm and into David instead. The older brother had taken a breather, while Luke was panting by now, so the Duke took a few hits he might have avoided before he managed to pull clear. David Flanagan, however, had never really learned when to shut up, and he couldn't resist goading his enemy now, when he saw victory at hand.
"Tough, aren't you, Luke?" he leered. "You always were the brawn in the family. Come to think, you were the brains too, weren't you? Too bad Bo wasn't smart enough to…"
That was as far as David got, before a dark-haired whirlwind slammed into him with a whole new energy. One, two, three strikes, and the elder Flanagan was on the ground. He wouldn't wake until paramedics were leaning over him later on. Luke, however, still had Chet to reckon with - a fact he was reminded of when the brawny man gripped his shoulder from behind, painfully squeezing a pressure point.
Luke twisted around to wrench free of his grip, his right arm falling numb under the hold. He ducked back away from another heavy punch, and Chet cursed him as he hit the metal wall instead. However, Luke dodged in the wrong direction - straight into the corner. And then Chet had him.
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Jesse paced nervously in the shadows, for once unsure of the best course of action. Daisy was long gone - the C.B. hadn't reached anyone out here, so she was driving back towards the city to get into range. Jesse's heart had leaped into his throat when he saw Chet swinging that bat, and he'd broken cover then, running for the fight. None of the combatants noticed him, though, and Luke was dragged into the building, the door shut behind them. Jesse ran to it, trying the handle, but it was locked tight. He could hear the sounds of the continuing fight inside, and he smiled a little - Luke was no quitter, and he fought like the devil when roused to it.
But as the brawl went on and the silence outside persisted, Jesse grew anxious. Even Luke couldn't hold out forever against three men. Should Jesse find a way to break in? What if they tried to escape, when they found out Luke wasn't alone? Jesse could fix that, though. He quickly opened the hoods of both vehicles and yanked out every loose hose and part he could find. If those Flanagans and that Chet tried to escape, they'd be doing it on foot.
As he flung the parts out onto the open lot, Jesse's foot kicked one of the dropped guns. He could take care of that, too. He found the second gun, and carefully picked them up by the fingerguards, carrying them well away from the trucks to hide them in a scrap of shadow against the wall. The moon overhead was leaning down towards the horizon, and dawn wasn't far off. In the distance, Jesse heard sirens - lots of them. Hold on, Luke. Just a few more minutes.
Chet had other ideas. From inside the warehouse came the most horrible cry of pain Jesse had heard in all his life, followed by another, and he knew it was Luke.
"Luke!" Jesse cried, pounding on the door. "Luke!"
A moment later, Jesse was thrown to the ground as the door flew open, and Chet came through. Blood trickled from his nose, mouth, and knuckles, and he had a look of manic ferocity on his features. The sirens were close now, and Chet looked from the old man on the asphalt to the rapidly approaching sound, while the door swung shut again behind him. With a snarl, he ran past Jesse to his truck and climbed into the driver's seat. Four times he tried in vain to start the pickup, before pounding a bloody fist at the steering wheel and scrambling out to the brown sedan. He was still trying to start the Flanagans' car when blue and red flashing lights filled the empty lot and cruiser after cruiser poured into the open space.
While troopers exited their vehicles, drawing guns and shouting orders to Chet and Jesse, the Duke patriarch was back on his feet, pounding on the locked door again.
"Luke! Luke!" he shouted. Half a dozen officers came forward and pulled him away from the building even as they slapped handcuffs on Chet, and Daisy waited behind the police lines.
"No, you damned fools, he's hurt!" Jesse shouted angrily, but they wouldn't listen, dragging him away even as he struggled.
"Duke! We know you're in there! We've got the building surrounded! Come out with your hands up!" called an official-sounding voice over a megaphone.
Daisy held her uncle, looking up at him for information, but his fearful eyes were on the warehouse door.
"Duke!…" The voice stopped short as the door shuddered and swung open.
Breathing hard, rapid breaths, Luke stumbled out on shaky legs, one bandaged arm across his stomach, the other held vaguely in front of him from pushing the door open. There was blood all over his face and hands, and his left eye was beyond blackened, swollen shut and bleeding. Sixteen handguns were trained on his every move. He took two steps forward and fell hard to his knees, dimly hearing the shouts - one firm and commanding, "Put your hands in the air!", other more familiar voices calling his name in fear.
One frightened hand over her mouth, Daisy watched him slowly raise his arms, his face falling into a grimace of pain as troopers ran up and forced his hands behind his back. Others moved into the warehouse and shouted out their findings - the Flanagans still unconscious on the floor, and the stolen cash, nearly a million dollars in all, was packed in a crate off to one side, near a pair of cots and blankets and an assortment of discarded food containers. Luke, in the meantime, was dead weight to the men who tried to haul him to his feet, and he cried out that same terrible cry when they tried to manhandle him towards the waiting cruisers. There was no keeping Jesse back now - he broke past the line of officers, Daisy in his wake, and jogged forward to his nephew.
"Luke!"
Luke looked up with his one good eye. He'd already been shocked to hear the arrival of the police, and now he was shocked again to see Uncle Jesse and Daisy running towards him.
"Uncle Jesse?.!"
"Luke! Are you hurt? What hap…"
Luke bit back another yelp of pain as Jesse touched searching hands to his sides. Luke recognized the injury, from his boxing days in the Marines. "Chet hits like a sledgehammer," he grunted through grit teeth, "and he went for my kidneys." He hoped that was all that was wrong - a man could survive a kidney punch, but other hits to the gut were more deadly, and the way he felt…
"Well you heard him!" Jesse looked to the two officers holding his nephew up. "Get an ambulance and get him help!" he ordered, looping a firm hand under Luke's arm.
The officers realized there was something more going on than a black eye and bloody nose, and one went to call the ambulance while the other helped lower Luke back to his knees. Daisy knelt next to him, wincing to see the fight wounds on his face. Jesse stood at his shoulder, watching his hard, painful breaths, while the other officer stood at his side.
Behind the group, the warehouse door opened again, and a pair of officers emerged carrying a struggling Joel Flanagan, his hands likewise cuffed behind his back. When he saw Luke, Joel left off howling protests at the officers, and started snarling at Luke instead. Self-control didn't run in the Flanagan genes.
"You! You sonofabitch, I'll kill you for this! I'll kill you and I'll finish the job on your cousin! He's gonna regret the day we came back to Hazzard!"
Even with one eye, Luke could see the officers listening intently. "You think he doesn't already? All he was doing was making the mortgage payment, before you two walked in and kidnapped him!" Luke retorted. He spat blood onto the asphalt as his torn lip bled anew.
"Aw, you're breaking my heart," Joel sneered, struggling against the firm grips pulling him back and away. "Maybe if Bo didn't have sawdust for brains, he wouldn't have fallen for it!" The officers had heard quite enough, and shoved him more forcefully towards the waiting patrol cars. Luke glared after Joel as he was lead off, but the fight – and his injuries – had cooled his temper considerably, and he made no move towards the thief.
In another minute more wailing sirens approached - a pair of ambulances arrived, to tend to all four bloodied men. Luke's hands were uncuffed and he was helped onto a stretcher. Guarded the whole way by a state trooper, the paramedics loaded him up into the ambulance. Jesse and Daisy followed, but there wasn't enough room for them to ride along. They would have to follow in Dixie and the General.
"Wait!" Luke said as one medic moved to shut the doors. "Daisy - the tape!"
She stared at him in confusion for a moment, but then remembered what Cooter had said, about the voice recorder in the General. "I'll take care of it, Luke!" When she contacted the police, she had explained the situation to them, but they still weren't willing to let Luke go free until the evidence and stories were all sorted out - and that tape would only add to the evidence.
Then the ambulance doors closed, and with red and white flashing lights, it drove off onto the rough road into the city. Jesse and Daisy stood among the blue flashing lights by the old warehouse, at two o'clock in the morning, wondering whether things had just gotten better or worse. O' course what they don't know is, the hand of ill luck dealt out to the Dukes the minute Bo walked into that bank still had one last little petty dirty card to play.
Boy, I don't think I like the sound of that at all. But hey, that was some fight, huh? – I tell ya, Luke can be downright eloquent in 'splaining things sometimes, especially where his family is concerned.