STRANGE FATE
"Daisy…," uncle Jesse stared at Daisy sitting on the floor, Enos's head on her lap as he was sleeping deeply, "did Enos sleep on the floor?"
"We were talking, after drinking a cup of hot milk, and Enos sat down and then he fell asleep, and… I didn't want to wake him up," Daisy looked down at Enos' hair, her hand still caressing him, a gentle red on her cheeks as she realized how much that situation was strange and awkward. Her voice woke Enos up, whose eyes focused slowly on the room around him as he was trying to understand where he was and how he arrived there, and then why uncle Jesse, Bo and Luke were looking at him that way.
"Possum on a gum bush," he sat up rubbing his eyes, "Sorry… I didn't realize I…," he looked at her, "Sorry Daisy."
Freed from his weight, Daisy stretched her legs and she stood up, "It isn't your fault, sugar, I should've woken you up instead of letting you sleep on the floor. MY fault."
"Nobody's fault," uncle Jesse smiled, his smile easing that strange atmosphere, "and now, get dressed and have breakfast."
Daisy headed to her bedroom and Enos to the guestroom, whereas uncle Jesse, Bo and Luke looked at each other.
"Do you think Enos told Daisy about what happened in L.A., uncle Jesse? Is it what they talked about?" Bo sat down, yawning.
"Daisy's goin' to tell us what Enos told her, don't worry, Bo," Luke moved inside the kitchen, helping uncle Jesse to cook breakfast, "after Enos leaves, she's goin' to tell us everything."
Catherine Burns was impatiently waiting for the bus at the bus stop, tired after the flight and the first bus bringing her from Atlanta to Hazzard County (a bus touching Hazzard County's border to head to Choctaw County), now waiting for a second bus that would have brought her to the town. Darn taxi's strike.
She looked at the landscape around her, so different from L.A.: no high buildings but high trees and mountains, no sea's scent mixed with smog but pines' scent mixed with wet soil's scent, no horns but silence, no asphalt but dust. She felt totally out of place, though the landscape was relaxing and beautiful, but she was too much used to L.A.'s chaos; she thought if Enos Strate, born in that place, had felt so out of place in L.A. the same way she was feeling out of place in Hazzard County.
Her hands under the water's jet of the sink, Daisy stared at the water flowing into the sink's drain. That night she didn't sleep at all, and she felt like if she was moving underwater, everything deadened and slow around her.
She yawned, wondering if Enos was tired as she was. When he left the farm, after breakfast, he seemed fine, and, despite his previous idea of asking for a period of convalescence (fortunately no other word about resignation, from him), he decided to go to work and have another try, and Daisy wasn't sure if it was a good or a bad thing. Since his leaving, she lazed around inside the farm, answering her uncle's and cousins' questions about what she talked about with Enos and how he ended up sleeping on the floor; she lazed around unable to do anything, and even now, after lunch, she seemed unable to wash up.
"Have a nap, Daisy," uncle Jesse's answered her umpteenth yawn.
A nap, good idea, "Good idea, uncle Jesse." She wiped her hands and she walked to the living room, anticipating the pleasure of a good nap.
"We're goin' to the town for shopping. Do you want to come with us, Daisy?" Bo opened the door, ready to go out, his eyes on her and a knowing smile on his face, an equal smile on Luke's face, "and we're goin' to stop at the Police Department, or wherever Enos is, if you want to."
The nap could wait. "Of course I want to come with you," she walked to the door, forgetting of her bed and of her nap.
Uncle Jesse glanced at the closing door, shaking his head and smiling, "Youth. And love."
A roar interrupted Catherine Burns' reflections, and an orange car stopped in front of the bus stop.
"Good morning, madam. Do you need a ride to the town? Next bus is at 4 p.m."
Catherine looked at the blond guy who's driving that strange car and then at her watch: 2 p.m. Two hours? She observed the two men and the woman inside the car, wondering if accepting their offer: she was so much used to the big city she was going to refuse politely (not a good thing trust strangers, it was her idea, being born in a city like L.A. and being a crime's reporter) but at the same time she was very tired and she longed for a hot bath and a long sleep in Hazzard's Hotel. Accept or not accept?
"Do you think Enos had lunch?". The woman's sudden question to the brown-haired guy and his soft and caring answer ("Enos isn't goin' to starve, don't worry") pushed her to a final decision: Enos wasn't a common name and Hazzard County was a small County, so they're probably talking of Enos Strate (unless Enos was a very common name in that place out of the World).
Reporter's instinct: she was there to talk to Enos Strate and to know EVERYTHING about him, and she could have some information from those men and that woman.
"I'd appreciate a ride to the town, thank you."
Surprised, she stared at the brown-haired man coming out the car through the window (through the window?), walking around the car and reaching her; he politely took her luggage from her hands and he gently put it in the trunk, then he walked again to her, offering his arm and pointing at the window of the back seat, "I'm goin' to help you, madam".
Catherine needed some time to realize what he was telling her, "Through the window?"
"Sorry, but it's the only way to enter The General Lee," the man smiled, amused by her confusion.
The General Lee? Had that car a name? An orange car with a 01 painted on its closed (!) doors and with the confederate flag on its roof?
She regretted to have accepted that ride, but now it was too late (and rude) to refuse, so she let the man help her enter the car… through the window, and she tried to think of it as a funny thing, something to laugh of when she would've come back to L.A, something to talk about with her friends in front of a beer in one of L.A.'s pubs. Beside, if the men and the woman were Enos Strate's friends, she couldn't lose the possibility to talk to them.
Finally sitting in the back seat of the car, she looked at them: the blond guy who's driving the car seemed the youngest of them, he was smiling and he had a gentle look; the brown-haired man was kind but somehow more distant and more serious; the woman was gorgeous but even more distant than the brown-haired man, her eyes focused on the road and her mind clearly elsewhere (her mind to Enos Strate, Catherine supposed due to the woman previous question).
"May I ask you why are you here in Hazzard? You seem coming from a big city, and it's strange to see someone like you in our County," the blond man's eyes, blue eyes, cheerful and kind eyes, looked at her through the rearview mirror, whereas the brown-haired man turned to her, blue eyes too, piercing and clever eyes but gentle eyes; the brunette sitting in the front seat, between the men, kept on looking at the road, unaware of their talking, so Catherine couldn't see her eyes but just her curly and auburn hair.
"My name is Catherine Burns, and I'm a reporter from Los Angeles, I work for The Los Angeles Time," she noticed the men and the woman stiffening, "and I'm looking for Enos Strate. He's a cop, he works here; he's a deputy. Do you know him?"
The abrupt braking made her bump against the front seat; she was right, they knew Enos Strate, and pretty well.
"Why are you looking for Enos?" the woman turned to her so Catherine finally saw her eyes, green hazel eyes, eyes open wide and looking at her in shock.
"Well, I don't know if you know what happened to officer Strate in L.A. I suppose you know everything, since it seems you know him pretty well. He's your friend, isn't he?" Step by step, Catherine pondered on what to say and what not to say, reporter's instinct.
The woman and the men looked at each other, silent but meaningful dialogue, and, at the end, the brown-haired man talked for them all; he was probably the oldest one. She wondered what's their relationship: brothers and sister? Friends? Boyfriend and girlfriend with their best friend?
"We don't know very much. Yeah, Enos is our best friend, and we know something bad happened to him in L.A. but he doesn't want to talk about it. He just talked about a beating and about his staying in Hospital for a long time. Nothing else. We think there's something more, a lot more, but… he avoids to talk about it."
"And we're worried for him," the green hazel eyes showed a spark Catherine knew pretty well: that woman loved Enos Strate, and she was really worried for him.
"May I ask you what's your name and what's your relationship with Enos Strate? It's something really personal… and delicate."
"Sorry madam. My name is Luke Duke, and they're my cousins Daisy Duke and Bo Duke."
Cousins. To her eyes they seemed more brothers and sister than cousins.
"And you're officer Strate's friends, best friends," Catherine's eyes lingered on Daisy Duke, "your best friend or… is he your boyfriend?" Woman's and reporter's intuition.
Daisy Duke looked at her with surprise and then with pride mixed to sweetness, "Yeah, I'm Enos'… fiancée, you may say I'm Enos' fiancée, and Enos' best friend since we were children."
Catherine had a deep sigh: what a strange fate. The first people she met as she arrived in Hazzard: Enos Strate's best friends and his fiancée. She observed them: were they saying the truth? There was no reason to lie, after all, and they seemed honest; she felt she could trust them. But she was still doubtful if reveal something so private and delicate to them.
She looked into Daisy Duke's eyes, teary and worried green hazel eyes of a woman in love. Catherine's heart (woman's heart, emotional heart) coupled with her mind (reporter's mind, pragmatic mind): if she had told them everything about what happened in L.A., it could turn useful to her, at some point. She felt they were protective and caring toward Enos Strate, and she needed them to reach that officer, and the best way to have them by her side was being sincere with them instead of cut off their fondness since the beginning.
"OK, I'm going to tell you everything. And then I'm going to tell you why I'm here."
Daisy stared at the woman sitting in the back seat of The General Lee: 40 years old, more or less, tall, short and brown straight hair, hazel brown eyes.
Strange fate: a reporter from L.A. looking for Enos. Not good. Her mind went back to the newspapers still hidden in her bedroom: she tried to remember the name of the journalist who wrote those articles about the riots and about Enos' beating, but she didn't remember that name (she didn't even read that name, in effect, her mind obviously focused on something else).
They already knew what she was going to tell them, but they decided (implicit and silent agreement) to pretend they didn't know anything. First: they could know something more from that reporter, something not written in those newspapers. Second: Enos didn't know they knew everything, and if that woman had talked to Enos (no way to stop her, and they knew it) she could have told Enos, some way or another, about their knowing everything (not good).
So, Daisy listened silently to Catherine Burns' words about a man claiming police brutality, about Enos testifying against his colleagues, about the riots after the trial, and about the beating: nothing new, just a cold report, cold but at the same time soft since Catherine Burns didn't linger on thorny and disturbing details, and Daisy was glad of it. Cold reports similar to the ones she read in "The Los Angeles Time", similar style.
"Now, I suppose you're wondering why I'm here. OK, the things I just told you are the same things I wrote in The Los Angeles Time, things everybody knows, public things, and if you had had the opportunity to read The Los Angeles Time, you would've known it… but… I understand you probably don't read The Los Angeles Time, here."
If that conversation hadn't been so dramatic (due to the topic), Bo, Luke and Daisy would've probably burst out laughing, with Catherine's surprise, but unfortunately there was nothing to laugh of.
"I'm here to know from officer Strate something I suspect but I'm not sure of, something REALLY serious. I think that… your friend wasn't kidnapped and beaten by protesters but by… other cops, colleagues. I'm talking about retaliation against the… rat… sorry for the word, not my word, anyway… retaliation against the rat breaking the Blue Wall of Silence. And I think your friend knows perfectly well who beat him up, but… he didn't tell it, or it's been covered up."
Daisy held her breath, and by her side she felt Bo and Luke too holding their breath and stiffening. She looked at Bo and then at Luke, the same shock and paleness on their face.
They were shocked, and horrified, and angry, and… sad.