Author's Note: A normal day in Hazzard is when the Duke boys get run into the pond. Not so much normal when one Duke boys get run into the pond, and can't get out of there.
Big thanks to JordynD for beta work and Gray Wolf for all the help.
Warning: The warning is placed here for Vinsmouse, who wanted a spew warning here, claiming it might be a bad idea to drink while reading the funnier parts. So please keep in mind that drinking any kind of beverage while reading this, might be hazzard'ous to the health of your screen.
Disclaimer: The Duke Boys are not mine, I don't own the Duke boys, nor the General Lee. I promise that once I'm through with them, there will be nothing broken that a trip to Cooter's garage can't fix….
The Days After The Night Before
Chapter 8: Starting To Mend, Could You Hand Me The Wrench Please?
"How's the General looking?" Luke asked as he joined the Cooter by the tractor. He had taken care of both his own and Bo's chores and now he wanted to talk some with Cooter.
"He's gonna take a whole lot of work." Cooter stated thoughtfully. "No mistakin' about it, a whole lot of work, but, I'll be able to patch him up again."
"I don' want Bo ta see him again until he's fixed." Luke said thoughtfully. "He was having nightmares about it, and it don't surprise me none. I don't want him to see how bad he's messed up and start thinking even more about it."
"I can understand that." Cooter grunted as he wrestled with a stubborn bolt. "Ya know, I was having a talk with my cousin when I got back last night. He said he knew of an old wreck we could have an' strip. Won't take care of all of it there, but it would be a start. Need some more than that, but I thought that if we went and picked it up, I could have most of it done within a week."
Luke beamed a grin at him. "That would be great Cooter, but I figure it would be more like one and a half weeks."
"Huh?" Cooter looked up at him with a frown.
"Ya can't go one week and never sleep Cooter. Ya might have pulled it off today, but believe me, Uncle Jesse will know and he ain't gonna like it. Especially not since you, me and he all knows ya's gonna be running over here every other day."
"Yeah, I reckon I am at that." Cooter gave him a grin that could rival the one Bo had, the one that made him look like he had been caught in the cookie jar, though Cooter's version had a bit of confusion to it, as if he wasn't sure what he was doing in the cookie jar in the first place. With Bo it couldn't be simpler. He was there because the cookies were there as well, and that was all the reason he needed. "One and a half weeks then," he grinned.
"And I'll be helping ya." Luke added, thinking that with Cooter it might be best to be sure that he had understood.
Now he looked at Luke with an expression of utter confusion that Luke wasn't sure even Bo could match, and he could pull of most of those expressions. "Uh Luke, then we'd sorta be back ta one week, wouldn't we?" he asked, sounding about as confused as he looked.
Luke shook his head. "Not really, We got some other work to do as well remember."
"Oh yeah," Cooter nodded with a big grin of realization dawning as he started to work on the bolt again. Then he paused, his hand dropping and turning to Luke. "Um, mind telling me what?" he asked with dusk setting over the realization.
Luke nodded grimly. "Cooter, someone ran Bo off the road, and left him in the pond, now what does that tell ya?"
"We gonna go looking for 'im?" Cooter asked with a thoughtful frown.
"Yeah, I'd like to teach him one damn good lesson." Luke let the screwdriver drop and glanced towards the house. "He was telling me how he was trying not to panic Cooter, said he was sitting there jus' reciting song lyrics to keep himself from panicking, said he was trying to do all he knew, and then some." He gave a small chuckle, only Bo… "I wanna teach him a lesson Cooter, a damn good one."
"I know Luke." Cooter looked up at him, and Luke was almost getting used to seeing him look serious, something he normally didn't do. "Uncle Jesse taught us all to fight fair if'n we were gonna fight, but right now I don't really care none. I'd hit him with a crankshaft if it came to it."
Luke looked at him, and there was something new in Cooter, something that had made its way there when he saw his best friend trapped in car half submerged in water. "Uncle Jesse would tell us that we have to be better than them, that we're Dukes and that Dukes don't fall so low just because someone did us a bad turn. He'd say that Dukes take their revenge on property and not on people." He shook his head. "But right now I don't care Cooter."
"Me neither." Cooter bent over the engine again, hiding his sadness in grease and oil.
Inside the house Daisy looked up every time that Bo shifted and sighed in his sleep. When it was clear to her that he was having another nightmare she went over to shake his shoulder gently to wake him up again. Sitting down on the edge of the couch and trying to brave a smile as his eyes snapped open and she could see the fear in them.
"Are ya okay sugar?" she asked softly as she brushed a few locks of hair away from his forehead.
"Yeah." Bo shrugged, "just had a bad dream."
"Wanna talk about it?" she asked still petting his hair. He had such nice soft hair that she gladly took the opportunity when he wasn't really likely to object.
"Not really," he shook his head. "Daisy, it scared me."
She couldn't help but smile, he said that the second after he claimed he didn't wanna talk about it.
"Its okay to be scared Bo." She tried to reassure him knowing it would have worked so much better if it had been coming from either Luke or Jesse.
"Luke ain't scared" he mumbled looking up at her.
"Luke is scared at times." Daisy twirled a lock around her fingers. "Even Uncle Jesse is scared at times. It ain't anything that ya have to be ashamed of darlin'."
"I ain't ashamed." He tried to sound convincing, but she knew him to well for that. "Well, not like that anyway," he went on slowly. "I just don't like it is all."
Daisy nodded understandingly as Bo rubbed at his eyes and looked around.
"Do ya know where Luke put that new car magazine of his?" he asked thoughtfully.
"No sugar." She really didn't keep track of where the boys kept them. Generally they could be found all over the house depending on where they had been sitting while they were reading.
"I think it's by his bed, could ya check?" he asked hopefully, the fact that it was the latest one meant that he had not yet read it. Luke usually insisted on reading them first. Still, whenever he wasn't around and Bo was bored, he would look in them, and today he didn't think Luke would really mind. He wasn't impossible after all, and during the circumstances Bo was pretty sure he'd bend the rules.
"Sure." Daisy disappeared into the boy's bedroom and returned shortly with a car magazine. "I think that he's done with it anyway, it's closed."
"Thanks." Bo gave her a grateful smile. it was the last one he hadn't read however. So if he was gonna be stuck doing nothing for some time, then he would have to start digging out the older issues. He took it and started reading, it was great for taking his mind of the things he didn't want to think about. Unless he started thinking about how good it was for doing that. Because when he was thinking about what he didn't want to think about he was thinking about it anyway, and it was thinking about it in any way that he didn't want to do. He shook his head and quickly buried his nose into the magazine.
"If it makes that boy feel better, he can have my car magazine. Thought I wish someone would just hurry up and catch them bad dudeds. At least Luke and Cooter seems to be getting somewhere with the General."