"Moving?" Luke asked as he kept bouncing the baby while Kathleen continued to pack. "Why?"
"Cops………." She replied. "They showed up at the hospital today, asking if maybe you had been in. The car was gone this morning. I don't know if they found it or what, Jeremy, but we have to get out of here now!"
As the baby continued to wail, Kathleen finally looked at him as if she had only tuned into the sounds at that precise moment. Without a word, she exited the house and returned seconds later, hurriedly propping the crutches against the head of the bed before she took Will in her arms.
"There's a cardboard box under the sink. See if you can get it out and pack up all the cans from the pantry." Kathleen instructed as she put the baby in his own bed before pacifying the crying a few moments later with a teething biscuit. As she turned back to the closet, Luke got a feel for the crutches and slowly hobbled toward the sink.
"Where are we going?" Luke asked, having successfully extracted the box and placed it on the counter before opening a worn cupboard door.
"We're gonna go down to Acworth, lay low at Steve's place for awhile." She replied.
"Steve?" Luke questioned.
"Sorry, I keep forgetting." She fibbed. "Steve's my brother. He's an auto mechanic with an empty apartment above his shop. He said we could stay there and he'd provide groceries so long as you agreed to help him out free of charge. It might just work out for the best anyway. You'd be able to work without there being any employment paperwork for the cops to track you down. And I could go back to caring for Will.
While the thought of not being left alone with Will anymore sounded good to Luke, it was obvious to Kathleen that something else was on his mind, mostly because he stood there staring off into space, holding a can in his hand that he made no attempt to place back in the cupboard or into the box just below it. "What is it?" She asked.
"I remembered something." He replied.
Swallowing hard, she asked, "You did?"
"Yeah, it's when you's talkin' about the garage. I remember a garage with an apartment above it. No, well maybe………more like a loft?"
Kathleen simply shook her head as she continued to pack. "Hey apartment, loft, call it what you will. It's odd that your first memory is of Steve's garage, but at least it's coming back."
Impulsively kissing Luke as if the thought of his memory returning made her happy, she tied the bag off and hauled it out to the trunk of her car. Returning, Luke picked up the box from the pantry to hand to her, knocking a soda can off the counter in the process and busting it open.
"Never mind about that, just get in the car!" She advised as Luke briefly considered cleaning the spilled beverage out of unrecalled habit. About five minutes later, almosty everything Kathleen had brought to their temporary home had been ejected from it. Making her way out to the car, she made sure that her two 'men' were securely fastened in their seatbelts. Then, taking the seat behind the wheel of her white station wagon, she quickly drove away.
XXXXXXXXXXX
"Where'd Sammy say he found that car?" Jesse asked, feeling much better thanks to the medicine samples as he examined his side of Hackett's Mill Road from the pickup truck, finding no sign of a recent accident.
"He didn't say, Uncle Jesse. He's so worried about his mom I was lucky to get as much information from him as I did." Cooter replied from the driver's seat.
"I ain't your Uncle Jesse." Jesse replied. "But I guess I can understand Sammy. Still, I wish he could have told more. This dang road's so unoccupied there ain't even a house ta pull over at ta see if the residents might'ave seen anything."
"Hey ya'll." Bo said, speaking into the C.B. from the General Lee that was ahead of the truck, watching as a white station wagon was coming toward them. "I'm gonna see if I can get this feller to slow down a little bit, we might could ask him if he's seen anything." He suggested, sticking his arm out of the General's window as he began to wave.
XXXXXXXXXXX
The waving arm off in the distance immediately brought Kathleen's attention to the General Lee, the car she recognized from the picture in Luke's wallet. With a short gasp, she turned to Luke and tried to remain casual.
"Uh, Jeremy?" She asked, knowing how quickly Luke's memory could come back with the right stimulation and wanting to divert his attention. "Look under the seat there and see if you can find the map."
"The map?" Luke asked.
"Yeah, the Georgia map. It's under there." She said, pointing under his seat as she slowed down in order to distance the time until the General passed her.
"You don't need a map to get to Acworth it ain't but 15 minutes down south 75." Luke announced, amazed that he could recall relatively unimportant directions while drawing a blank on something as simple as his name.
"Would you just humor me and get the map, please?" Kathleen insisted.
Not really in the mood to argue, Luke bent down and did as he was told. "I don't feel anything under here." He announced.
"Keep feeling, it's under there somewhere." She advised watching the General draw closer as Will began to cry in the backseat. Turning her attention to the infant, she unintentionally drifted into Bo's path.
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
"Look out Bo!" Jesse exclaimed over the C.B..
Widening his eyes, Bo immediately put his hand back in the window and jerked the wheel to the right. As a tree appeared directly in his path, the only thing left to do was slam on the brakes and hope that the damage wouldn't be too severe.
XXXXXXXXXX
Turning back from the baby, Kathleen was horrified to see that she was on the wrong side of the road but also shocked that the General seemed to have disappeared. Turning back to the proper side, she glanced in her rearview mirror in time to see the orange stock car come to rest against a tree as a white pickup screeched to a halt behind it. As Luke raised his head to look at her, she stepped on the gas and hurriedly rounded a corner, out of sight of Bo and Jesse.
"Why the sudden hurry?" Luke asked.
"Oh, just wanna get out of here. Knowing the cops are around makes me nervous."
"Well you keep driving like this and there's gonna be one right at ya when he pulls you over for speeding.." Luke advised. "And I'm sorry but there just don't seem to be no map under this seat."
"Oh forget it. You said you knew where it was right?" She responded casually as she continued at a slightly slower speed, getting a confused look from her 'husband'.
XXXXXXXXXXXX
"You sure you're alright?" Jesse asked Bo as the three of them walked toward the river a few moments later.
"Not at the moment but that'll change soon as we fix tha General and get back to lookin' for Luke." Bo replied as the river came into view.
The men walked up to the riverside and stopped, staring for only a moment when Bo spoke up. "There's just one problem with us getting' water for that radiator."
"We ain't got nothin' to carry it in." Jesse verified, receiving a nod from Cooter. Looking toward the old mill, Jesse jutted a pinkie toward it. Maybe there's somethin' in there we can use."
But a quick search of the place turned up nothing but old, rotting boards that had been left to eventually wither away into the wilderness. "Hey Uncle Jesse." Bo then spoke up. "Didn't you tell us once that this old mill used to have a caretaker's shack out back?"
Jesse nodded. "That it did. As a matter of fact, it 'as your distant cousin Ben Baker that used ta live back there. Even if the shack's gone I wouldn't put it past Ben to have left an empty shine jug behind."
"Well that would do the trick. Lead the way." Cooter urged him.
After a short stroll around a wooded hill, the mill shack came into view, and standing a good distance ahead of it was an old well.
"You know, I'll bet we could use the bucket out of that well." Bo suggested.
"I betcha it fell apart a long time ago." Jesse verified. Even so, Bo grabbed onto the rope and began to hoist the bucket up, determined to see it for himself.
"Looks like we're in luck." Bo said a few minutes later, showing Jesse a full bucket of water that had emerged from the well.
"Well dump it out and we'll get some more back at the river. That thang's gonna be heavy with water and there ain't no use in us carryin' it no more than we have to.
Obliging, Bo turned the bucket over, and both men were surprised to see what appeared to be a wallet being disposed along with the water. But they weren't nearly as surprised then as they were a few moments later when they opened that wallet and found out exactly who it belonged to.
"Luke!?" Jesse yelled out, turning and jogging toward the shack as quickly as he could. But his rate was no match for Bo and Cooter, who bypassed his elderly man with the speed bestowed upon theirs youth. Throwing open the door, Bo looked around wildly as Cooter made his way inside, followed by Jesse.
"Is he in here?" Jesse asked.
"No, but it looks like someone was." Bo replied, noting that the sheets on the unmade bed were far too clean to have sat undisturbed for long.
"And fairly recently too." Cooter noted, finding the spilled cane of soda on the floor, its contents still fizzing against the worn linoleum. "But the place is plum cleaned out. If it was him that was here, don't look like he's got any intention of comin' back."
Bo banged his fist on the table in fustration. "Jesse, I don't know if Luke was in this cabin or not but it's obvious that whoever was knows something about him. I mean with his wallet in the well and all…….." Bo suddenly trailed off, grabbing onto Jesse's arm as a new thought came to his mind.
Cooter and Jesse, sharing the same thought, joined Bo as they ran outside. When they arrived at the well, Bo immediately stuck his head over the opening. "Luke! Luke!" He yelled.
"You really think he's in there?" Cooter remarked in horror.
"I don't know but I'm gonna find out." Bo replied, swinging his legs over the opening. Grabbing onto the rope that supported the bucket, he looked at Cooter. "Quick, but steady."
"You be careful." Jesse commanded as Cooter offered a confirming nod and grabbed onto the handle to keep the rope from unwinding too quickly.
Jesse felt horrified to think Luke might be in the bottom of that well, having been ambushed and left for dead for whatever reason.
But his horror increased even more when the worn well rope slowly began to unravel!
Ole' Bo always wanted to make a splash in the world, but I don't think this is what he had in mind.