Disclaimer: Yeah, yeah, the usual.
888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888
"So are we going to sit here all night?" Henri-Mae asked, and the tired tone of her voice made it sound much less snappish than it might have.
From the driver's seat, Gabrielle stirred slightly. "No," she said after a thoughtful pause. "I just wanted to be sure."
"Sure?" Henri-Mae resisted a yawn. The emotional ride of the day had left her much more drained than she anticipated, and her eyes felt ready to slide shut of their own will. So the fact that she hadn't seen a single thing – well, it was possible she just hadn't been paying much attention.
"Yeah," Gabrielle said, turning and smiling at her. She popped open the door. "Let's go. Wakey wakey, little deputy. Time for some payback."
They headed for the woods.
8888888888888888
"Looks quiet enough," Luke murmured from the passenger's seat. Since speed was of the essence, Bo had driven, as he had a good deal more eagerness to get to the barn as fast as possible. Luke would never say it, but when it came to handling the General Lee, few could drive like Bo. Sometimes, not even him.
"Yeah…wait, what's that?" Bo pointed, and there was the faintest golden glow coming from the very top window, which had been fractured and cracked with neglect and age. The dust film on it was so thick it was impossible to see through, and the untrained eye might have mistaken the light for a reflection of the full moon, which had just risen to its peak position in the sky.
"Enos," Luke said on the CB, "do you see it?"
"Sure enough, Luke," came Enos' voice, considerably hushed over the radio line. "I'm moving in—"
"No, wait," Luke said. "Let Bo and I move in. You watch, make sure nobody comes around and sneaks up on us, or tries to get out."
"Will do," the deputy said.
"Someday that boy's gonna get tired of taking orders from us," Bo said.
"Yeah, well, when that day comes, I hope I know it," Luke replied. "I think we should split up. You take the east end, I'll take the west."
Bo reached up for the frame of the car to pull himself out. "All right, cousin. Whistle if you find anything."
88888888888888888
"Split up," Gabrielle said from the edge of the grove of trees on the north side of the barn. "I'll look for Farrell, you see how many others there are. But don't engage, understand?"
Henri-Mae bridled a bit. Sure, Gabrielle gave off the kind of easy air that she could get to like, but now she was in some kind of military mode, and the experience and know-how just rolled off her in waves. There was a thin edge in her voice that could easy have become arrogance. But still, any port in the storm. Aloud, all she said was, "You want me to go around back?"
"Yeah," Gabrielle said. Then her eyes twinkled a bit in the bright moonlight, and she gave Henri-Mae a rather mysterious little half-smile. "Don't worry, Hen," she said, "when this is over, I'll stop bossing and start teaching. Let's move."
Henri-Mae started a bit. It almost felt for a moment like Gabrielle had read her mind…but that's impossible. People don't read minds. She slipped through the trees toward the back of the barn.
88888888888888888
Balladeer: Now the Duke boys had been hunting since he was old enough to walk. True, Uncle Jesse hadn't allowed Bo a gun until he was big enough to shoot it without falling over, but Bo had grown like a weed, so he'd been pretty young when the woods became his second home. Plus years of camping had taught him how exactly to respect the forest around him. So for him, the potential search of the barn seemed as easy as a walk in the park with a pretty girl on a sunny Sunday afternoon. Of course, he hadn't really expected to actually see a pretty girl. And if he had, it certainly wouldn't have been the very girl he'd brought into these same woods almost eight or nine years ago, and shared one of the most intimate experiences of his life—but I digress.
Henri-Mae had her back to him, and she was squatting low in the bushes. It was amateur, but Bo figured that given enough time and the proper teaching, she'd remember her country roots. And she had enough sense to keep her head low enough so as not to let her hair get caught on any of the lights coming from the barn.
The back doors of the place were cracked open, and there was a flickering of light coming from inside. It seemed to him like firelight, but inside a barn? It was unwise and unsafe, at best, downright stupid and deadly at worst.
There was a shifting and the door swung open. Henri-Mae ducked farther down, and pushed back, going for the thicker cover of the trees behind her.
Two men came out. In the night it was impossible to make out details, but one of them had the dark and lithe frame of one Agent Farrell, mostly distinguishable by the white bandage which set his broken nose. Bo resisted a smug chuckle, wanting to hear what they were saying. Farrell was talking in a very low voice, one that didn't carry. The man was a professional, all right. The only words Bo could make out were "truck," and "guns," and only those because of the absolute silence all around them.
Then Bo realized that Henri-Mae was backing up farther and farther. She was coming right for him. She was being quiet enough, save for the occasional rustle of a leaf, but at her trajectory she was going to bump into him, and God knew what might happen then.
Her foot slipped. It made a loud hissing noise, and Farrell stopped. Henri-Mae froze, watching. Farrell looked around, and then went back inside the barn.
Realizing he had a very small window, Bo reached forward, as it was only a few feet separating them now, and clamped one hand over Henri-Mae's mouth as firmly as his other one went around her waist. Being particularly long limbed and as strong as an ox, as Uncle Jesse had often told him, had its benefits. Henri-Mae's scream was smothered and she was in his grip hidden behind a thick fence of brush faster than Bo could have said, "Hazzard Derby."
88888888888888888
Someone grabbed her. Such things with her weren't unprecedented, but there was something about that hand over her mouth, a smell to the body behind her that gave off such intense familiarity that it froze her reaction time, and aside from the knee-jerk scream that came from her throat, she offered no resistance as she was dragged back into darkness.
The person who had her was damn strong, but she could feel a violent temperament a mile away, and he gave off none. Plus, there was that scent…sweet and musky at the same time, spice and grass and engine grease---
"It's Bo," he said, his voice barely a whisper. "Don't scream." His hand trembled as he pulled it away, as if ready to clamp back down. Only then did her heart remember to start beating, and beat it did, as if it were a huge drum in a very loud and untrained marching band.
"You scared the piss out of me," she said, her voice equally low, but anger making it shake. She hadn't realized how badly he'd frightened her until she was sure it was him. "You want to let go?"
He was wrapped tightly around her, and it was damn unnerving, the easy comfort of it. Blushing a bit, visible even in the moonlight, he unwound from around her so she could breathe as well. "You've been eating your Wheaties," she said, sitting up.
Bo just looked at her. Then, after careful consideration, he said, "So what brings you out here?"
"Well, I'd imagine the same thing as you," she said, looking back toward the barn. "For entirely different motives, of course."
"Excuse me?"
"Well, I'm obviously here on police business, whereas you're trespassing—"
"I think," Bo said, feeling the urge to fight with her rise up easily, "that it's more like I'm here as a concerned citizen, and you just want some payback for that bastard humiliating you like—"
Her head swung around and she pinned him with a sharp look. "All right," she said, her voice more of a hiss. "You want to fight or do you want to save the day? I figure you already know about the whole armored car thing?"
"You know about that too?"
"Why else would a bunch of honkeys be crawling around in the woods in the dead of night?" she sighed. "I take it Luke is around here somewhere?"
"Yeah," Bo said, unsure what to make of her attitude now. It was almost like the real Henri-Mae that he'd known years ago. "Who are you here with?"
"Me? Well, my date is the very same lady agent you and Luke have been panting over this last week," she said, shifting her weight off her haunches, feeling the muscles starting to burn. Plus her knee was acting up from that spill she'd taken on the racquetball court, damn scrape had left a pretty big bruise—
"I haven't been panting after her," Bo said.
"Yeah, right," Henri-Mae said, her teasing tone almost affable. "And moonshine is distilled from moonbeams. Anyway, she told me to see if I could count how many men there are around here, but so far all I saw was Farrell and some other guy."
"I thought that was Farrell," Bo said. "You mean you haven't run into any guards or anything?"
"Nope," she replied, frowning, "which is just plain sloppy."
"No," came a voice, "really sloppy would be you finding the guards before they found you."
Henri-Mae looked over her shoulder to see a shotgun aimed in her face. A look at Bo revealed that another muzzle had come from the thick and was hovering over his shoulder, which he'd seen. His hands were already in the air.
Balladeer: Just goes to show you should never underestimate city folk.
888888888888888
Inside, the barn was dimly lit, and it turned out that the flickering light was from a television that seemed to be stuck on an image of a fireplace. It was by far one of the most ridiculous things Bo had ever seen.
"Cozy, isn't it?" Farrell said from where he sat against a far wall on an old stack of hay that had been covered by a thick piece of plastic. "In other circumstances, it would almost be romantic."
"Why not turn on the damn lights?" Henri-Mae said, as they stood in the middle of the wide floor. The door had been pulled shut behind them, and everyone was still talking in low voices. "Or are you too vain to let us all see your broken schnozz?"
"I'm sacrificing my vanity for the sake of keeping your friends from knowing what we're doing," Farrell replied, one eyebrow cocking. He stood up, dusted off his coat and came over to her. "Oh, wait, I forgot, you don't have any friends."
Henri-Mae just gave him a sneer, rolled her eyes and shook her head. "So high school," she sighed.
"You, however," Farrell said, looking at Bo, even though he didn't move away from Henri-Mae, "seem to have a whole gallery of country rogues. Wherever you are, that cousin can't be hard to find. He must have had military training to say hidden in these woods---then again, sadly, you were brought down once again by this bitch here." He looked back down at Henri-Mae, taunting.
Bo bridled. "You shouldn't insult ladies," he ground out through gritted teeth.
"I'll remember that when I see one," Farrell chuckled. "You know, Bo, I guess I was wrong about you. I credited you with more brains. But it seems that you're led by your penis like all men."
"Sorry, I'm not you," Bo bit back.
Farrell laughed again, a bit louder and much nastier. "Whatever." He swung his arm around Henri-Mae's neck, yanking her closer to him. Her hands were still out, as the men with shotguns were still very close by and had them in point-blank range. Farrell would be lucky not to get brains on him, but he wouldn't be hurt if one of them did something stupid and those guns had to fire. She did, however, arch back her neck to get as much breath away from him as possible. Which wasn't much. "Nothing to feel too bad about, I guess. Damn pretty, isn't she?"
"You smoke too damn much," Henri-Mae muttered.
"Guess I just wasn't innocent enough for you," Farrell went on, this time to Henri-Mae. His eyes rolled to Bo. "But there's little to stop any of us now."
Both captives bridled. What the hell was he getting at?
Bo glared at him, but truth was his heart was pounding, fearing the worst. If they wanted to really hurt Henri-Mae, there would be little he could do to stop them without getting seriously hurt himself, if not killed.
"You so desperate to get your jollies on, you gotta force someone?" Henri-Mae said, her voice deliberately unaffected, her last defense in her vulnerable state. No fear, just like before.
One corner of Farrell's mouth curled into a grin. "Unfortunately, beautiful, I don't have the time to indulge you." His arm slid away from her neck, but his fingers lingered over her nape, sending unpleasant shivers down her spine. "Although it would be damn fun, wouldn't it?" He stepped away, and sauntered a bit closer to Bo. "Truth, though, I had credited you with more brains, country boy."
"You already said that," Bo pointed out.
Farrell just smiled unpleasantly. "Go ahead, change the subject. Avoid the fact that the girl who nearly ruined your reputation is the same girl you're risking your neck for right now. Because why else the hell are you here unless it's to defend her honor? Please, I saw your face in the Sheriff's office. How could you be so naïve to believe a word she ever says? And yet you do, like a lovesick puppy."
Bo wasn't sure if his cheeks were burning more with indignation or humiliation. Apparently Gabrielle wasn't the only Fed capable of reading people. His words were painful and struck home. "I guess I just don't like seeing girls get roughed up," he said, his voice uncharacteristically low.
Farrell shrugged one shoulder. "Ah, hell if I care. You want to spend your days defending a woman who clearly has it in for you, go ahead. Waste your life. But wonder always if it might have been any better to let her get what she had coming to her. Take her down a few notches…and maybe she'll even come crawling back to you." He winked, and sauntered away. "Tie them up, boys," he said, "and make damn sure there's no way they can wiggle out of here."