A/n: Hi again! Thanks to everyone who has stuck with me so far, and especially to those who have reviewed! You're just too kind to me. I hope I don't let anyone down.
Disclaimer: not mine! Except for bad guys. You want em, you can have em. Hmmm…no takers. Ok, moving on…
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On the road heading out to the Boars Nest, in the passenger seat of the dark-colored sedan the Dukes now hunted, Carrie Leigh turned a worried glance towards her man.
"We shouldn't a left that Duke boy where we did. There's no way it's gonna look like them boys took that money now!"
"Well, it wasn't like the old man in the truck give us much choice, honey," Jake freed up one hand from the steering wheel to rub her shoulder soothingly. "Look, I'm sure the only ones gonna be interested in the contents of that car are Boss, or blondie's buddies, and Boss is bound to have some way to turn the situation to his advantage either way. Ya don't got nothin' to worry about, Carrie Leigh. Trust me."
"Forgive me for havin' a little bit of trouble doin' that!" she shot back at him. "This ain't goin' at all like we planned…"
Jake glanced over at Carrie Leigh and grinned. "Who says we gotta stick to the plan?"
Boss Hogg's hired thief stepped on the brake, the sedan squealing to a stop in the middle of the deserted road. Carrie Leigh glared at him.
"Jake, what are you talkin' about? Why'd ya stop? Boss is gonna be waitin' on us and you're sittin' there grinnin' like a fool!"
The grin did not leave his face. If anything, it grew wider. "Let him wait as long as he wants! I say we take the money and head out of Hazzard!"
"You're talkin' crazy, you know that! Boss ain't gonna let this go…"
"Honey," Jake's tone grew softer, more intimate, "it ain't like Boss is strapped for cash, ya know? And who's to say if we'd took the money to him, he'd give us our fair share? You heard his reputation. Besides," he said, saving his most convincing argument for last, "by the time he finds out, we'll be long gone!"
Carrie Leigh stared doubtfully at him for a brief moment, and then a slow smile slid across her face. "I guess it ain't like Boss ain't getting nothing outta this deal," she conceded. "We get the money, he gets the Duke boys in a jail cell…but let's not stick around to see how he likes the arrangement, okay?"
Jake clasped her hands together between his own before turning the car to head out of town. "Baby, I promise you, this is gonna work out!"
Now that is one promise ol' Bo and Luke are bound and determined them two crooks ain't gonna keep.
Meanwhile, Luke pushed General Lee as hard as he dared, going at the fastest speed the car could manage over the rough terrain. Even so, he and Bo both knew that even if the car in question had kept to the same road heading to the destination they figured on, it already had too great a head start for even the General to catch up with it, even if the sedan's engine could use a little of Cooter's TLC.
And to top it all off, long about now ol' Rosco joined the chase.
Bo looked out the passenger side mirror and then back at the patrol car itself, wishing those flashing lights weren't closer than they appeared and groaning in disgust. "Oh great, cousin, here comes Sheriff Rosco P. Coltrane in hot pursuit," he said in a half-hearted imitation of Rosco.
"He loves it, he loves it," Luke added, his own voice as flat as the tire in the General's trunk. "We don't got time to deal with him! We gotta catch up to them two robbers, and get some proof that'll stand up even in Boss Hogg's courts that they's the ones that stole the orphanage money and we didn't!"
"So what do you want to do, Luke?" Bo asked, glancing back over at his cousin to see what the older Duke boy had cooked up in terms of a plan.
Luke sighed. "I don't know, cousin. I don't know whether it'd be smarter to lose Rosco, or keep him with us so we got someone official when we catch up to them two. Like Uncle Jesse says, he is the law in Hazzard, however crooked it may be."
Bo had to admit the truth in Luke's statement, despite the fact that it was a truth neither of them felt particularly comfortable with, however long they'd lived with it. Then a dark green sedan came screaming past them and drove all other considerations from their minds.
Luke looked over at his cousin and grinned. "Bo, you hear that?"
Bo answered with a grin of his own, "Music to my ears!" A distinctive sound the other car's engine had made that two boys long accustomed to the inner workings of an automobile was what had caught their attention, and it was the exact sound they were listening for. "Luke, it's gotta be them!"
"And looks like they're high-tailin' it out of town."
Face taut with determination, Luke spun the wheel in a tight U-turn that put the General hot on the couple's tail. He said, "Bo, you let Uncle Jesse and Daisy know what's goin' on. I'm gonna take another run at that dip in the road and see if we can close some distance between us."
When he says 'dip in the road, ya don't reckon he means Rosco, do ya?
General Lee flew down the dirt road, throwing gravel and all other obstructions to his path aside. Unfortunately for Rosco, he now became one of those obstructions, entering an unexpected and unintentional game of chicken as the General thundered past with the intention of cutting off the thieves and not in any position to make way for his patrol car. Rosco anxiously veered off the road, trying to avoid a nasty head-on collision…
It's nice to see Rosco stop to take in the Hazzard County scenery every now and then. They got some real picturesque lakes there, and ol' Rosco's just drinkin' it all in. By the carful.
Bo and Luke glanced back briefly to see how the Sheriff fared, breathing a quick prayer of thanks as Rosco's head broke water and he clambered frantically to relative safety on top of the submerged patrol car.
"Good, it looks like Rosco's okay. Let's let Cooter know what's going on, and call in the reinforcements."
Bo quickly made the calls over the CB while Luke moved the General into position. With Daisy, Jesse and Enos on their way in the right direction, and even Cooter promising to bring Rosco along for the ride, Luke found his moment to put the plan into action. General Lee sailed smoothly through the air, directly over the car they were trying to trap, crashing down a good car's length in front. The General skidded to a stop sideways in the middle of the road, the tune of Dixie sounding out a challenge.
Bein' as he was unaccustomed to Hazzard County's unusual driving conditions, ol' Jake was a mite shaken up by the sight of cars rainin' down from the sky. I think I would be too, if it was me bein' chased by the Dukes.
Jake turned the wheel hard, trying to pull a 180 to avoid the orange roadblock, but he took his turn too wide. There was a hideous scraping noise, the General's metallic scream as the sedan tore a layer of skin from the Charger's hide.
And there goes the General Lee's wax job. You reckon Daisy'll be understanding about it?
But the sedan fared worse, the man behind the wheel unable to pull out of his turn and flipping the car over into the ditch. Its tires spun uselessly as the two dazed occupants began dragging themselves out of the wreckage. Fortunately both were unhurt.
Bo and Luke, somewhat recovered from their own close call, ran over to the downed vehicle and cornered the pair. Bo said to the girl, "Looks like you won't be seein' no more dances for a while, sweetheart." She and her boyfriend looked at each other and held up their hands in surrender, too traumatized to resist.
Round about this time was when the cavalry started tricklin' in.
"Freeze!" Minutes later, a very wet, very angry Rosco P. Coltrane leaped out of Cooter's tow truck and stalked over to where the Dukes stood with their prisoners. "All right you Duke boys! I gotcha now! You ain't gonna weasel your way outta me arrestin' ya this time, not after ya—"
"Rosco you let them innocent boys alone!" the shrill voice cut the sheriff off in mid-sentence.
"Lulu? But I caught em…with the evidence…" a deflated Rosco stammered out an explanation which Lulu paid no mind to.
"Rosco," Luke said in exasperation, "we caught this girl and her boyfriend headed outta town with the money!"
"That don't make no neverminds to me—" Rosco began, but Boss Hogg, who'd had to share a car with an irate Lulu Hogg that wouldn't sit idly by and let her event be ruined, heard every word Luke said, and added the rest in his own mind concerning what that meant to his own scheme. He gasped sharply as he came to the frightening conclusion, "Them crooks was gonna skip town with my—with the charity money! Rosco, go round em up!"
"In what, Boss?" Rosco huffed, gesturing furiously in the direction of his patrol car, still drip-drying where it was hitched to Cooter's tow truck. "Ya expect me to carry em on my back like a dang mule?"
"No, like a dang jack—"
Behind the little group, the siren of Enos' patrol car sang out a merry tune, drowning out the rest of what Boss was gonna say. That was probably a good thing, cause Enos shouldn't be hearing the kinds of words ol' Boss was sayin' anyhow. Enos had to shake his head at the strange get-together the Duke boys had got together. They soon got him straightened out on who the guilty party actually was, and the deputy got the privilege of escorting the two thieves back to the Hazzard jail in his patrol car, which ruffled Rosco's feathers pretty good.
Bo and Luke approached Lulu Hogg apologetically. "We's real sorry about runnin' out on your dance, and ruinin' it for y'all," Bo began to say, but Lulu wouldn't accept it.
"Y'all ain't got nothin' to be sorry about!" she exclaimed. "Them two you caught was the ones that tried to ruin it. You boys saved all the charity money! I should be offerin' you a reward for all ya done!"
Boss Hogg turned pale at the suggestion. "Now Lulu, sweetikins…"
Luke and Bo glanced at each other, knowing what the other was thinking. "Now, Miss Lulu, we don't need no kind of reward for doin' what's right. But if you was really gonna offer one, how's about you just donate it to the orphanage along with the proceeds from the auction?" Luke suggested.
And so, Boss' scheme to steal the orphanage money ended up costing him more in the end, which wound up going to the orphanage anyway. Lulu felt so bad about the way her charity auction had turned out that she offered refunds to the girls involved, but they decided to try having the dance again instead, relieving Boss to no end. Havin' to pay all that back woulda probably did him in.
General Lee shoulda got a medal for his role in the capture of the thieves, but what he did get was a brand-new paint job, courtesy of Miss Lulu. Daisy informed the boys they'd be waxin' the General for the next dance.
To save himself further unpleasantness, ol' Boss even agreed to go with Lulu to the dance this time around, leaving Bo free to work his charms on the girls that never got to bid at the auction. Y'all Hazzard daddies can start worryin' again. Lulu did promise to save Bo a dance, an' he's plannin' to take her up on it . How you reckon Boss'll take that?
And that's how Hazzard County collexts money for its charitable enterprises. If you thought that was fun, ya oughtta drop by Hazzard in a couple weeks. Ladies Auxiliary is havin' a bake sale. Y'all don't wanna miss it.
The end
A/n: So, how'd I do? Let me know what worked, what didn't work, what not even Cooter could fix…Anyway, thanks so much for reading!
