‘Kira? Come on, answer me. What’s goin’ on? What’s he drivin’?’ Nothing. She didn’t answer. “Hey Luke. You’d better hurry up. She ain’t answerin’ me no more.”

“Hang on. You’d better get Jebb and Uncle Jesse on the CB. Get them up on Iron Mountain too.” Luke toed the accelerator as he spoke. Bo then reached forward to grab the CB mic.

“This here is Lost Sheep callin’ Uncle Shepherd and Racin’ Fiend. Y’all got your ears on?”

“This is Shepherd. What’s on your mind?”

“How about you Jebb? You out there too?”

“I’m here. What’cha need?”

“I just talked to Kira. She’s up on the bypass on Iron Mountain. Some jerk was givin’ her a hard time and then we lost the connection. Me and Luke are headin’ up there. How about y’all meet us up there?”

“That’s a big 10-4. I’m gone.” Jesse said on his end.

“I ain’t too far from there, only about ten minutes away, but I’ll make in five.”

“Well see ya there Jebb. We’re about the same distance away.”

“Still nothin’?” Luke asked.

“No. All I know is that some guy in a mask was drivin’ a white vehicle. She never got to finish tellin’ me what kind.”

“A mask? I don’t like this. That means that guy was up there rammin’ her on purpose.”

“But why?”

“You got me. We’re comin’ up on the bypass now. Keep your eyes open.” Luke pushed The General as fast as he could as he went around the winding mountain road.

“Hey Luke. Isn’t that Jebb’s bike?”

“It sure is.” Luke came to a fast stop and the guys jumped out of The General. Running over to the side of the road, Bo and Luke saw Kira’s truck resting very precariously on some of the rocks jutting up from the side of the mountain. It looked like Jebb had gotten here just seconds before they did. He was still climbing down toward the truck. As Luke watched, he saw the truck teeter on the rocks as Jebb tried to pull the driver’s side door open. “Jebb! Be careful! One good push and she’ll go over! Hang on a minute.” Luke went back to the trunk and found some rope that they use when ever they have to help get anyone out of any ditches and tied one end to the General. He then threw the other end down to Jebb. “Tie this to the hitch then climb on up.”

Bo headed back to The General, “I hope this works Lukas.”

“I do to. Take it nice and easy, Bo. Don’t go too fast.” Slowly the truck made its ascent back up to the road. Jebb had gotten back up to the road and watched nervously as Bo continued to carefully pull his sister’s truck back up to safety. Luke watched his cousin out of the corner of his eye. He couldn’t tell how bad Kira might be hurt through the tinted window, but she was bound to need to go to the hospital. “Jebb, jump on your bike and get back in CB range. Call for an ambulance and get Cooter and Rosco up here.”

“Rosco? He ain’t gonna do...”

“He likes Kira, remember. Now we ain’t got time to argue. Head back down the mountain and make sure they come up the right road.” Jebb wanted to stay but he knew that he had to go get help. So with one more look at his wife’s truck easing its way back up to the road, he ran back to his bike and sped down the mountain.

Finally, the truck was eased up onto the road. Remembering that the door was stuck when Jebb had tried the driver’s door, Luke went to the passenger’s side instead. Once he had the door opened, he found his cousin slumped against the steering wheel. Using his pocket knife, he cut the seat belt away. Carefully, Luke pulled Kira into his arms to get her out of the truck. When her head leaned against his shoulder he cursed out loud when he saw where the seat belt had cut into her neck. She was bleeding far too much from the wound.

“Luke? Is she alright?” Bo was doing his best to look over his shoulder to see his sister without getting in the way of Luke backing back out of the truck.

“Jebb better get back here with that ambulance fast. The seat belt dug into her neck.” Luke laid Kira out on the road and took off his shirt and used it to press up against the wound on Kira’s neck to slow the bleeding. “Go see if you can find a jacket or something in her suitcase. She’s goin’ into shock. We’ve got to keep her warm.”

“Shouldn’t be hard. There ought to be a blazer or something in there.” Bo went over to the truck and cut the rope that had been used to secure the suitcases and the tractor part in place. Going for the larger case, Bo figured that anything of his sister’s that he ought not see would probably be in the smaller case. When he opened the suitcase, he hollered out. “Hey Luke!” Grabbing one of the books that were sitting on top of Kira’s clothes and some new sheets still in the original packaging, he held it up for his cousin to see. “Look!”

Luke looked up at Bo to see him standing in the truck bed holding up a book. When he read the title, his jaw dropped before cursing out loud. “Get me a jacket, hurry up. And hide that book in The General. That’s the last thing Jebb needs to see right now.”

Luke turned his attention back to his female cousin and his shirt that no longer was blue in color. He’d seen this type of wound before. He knew that there was a delicate balance between applying enough pressure to slow the bleeding and applying too much pressure and causing the windpipe to crush. Luke put all of his concentration into finding that balance. Because this time, there had to be a different type of ending. Now there wasn’t just one life hanging in the balance, but two.

Luke sat there as the smell of the air took on the stench of rotting leaves and the humidity level shifted. In front of him, it was his bunk mate lying on the ground after being nicked by a bullet in the neck. He and Greg had only been stationed here for a measly two weeks after becoming fast friends in Boot Camp. Already they’d seen more death than either of them had thought possible in such a short amount of time.

“Hang on Greg. They went to get a medic. You just got to hang on a couple more minutes.”

“Luke, my folks.” Greg, a blond that had reminded Luke an awful lot of Bo, whispered. “I promised them I’d be comin’ home. I got to keep my promise.”

“And you will. Now stop talkin’. Ya gotta save your strength. They ought to be back any minute. You hear me. Don’t you die on me.”

Luke stared down at his hands as the blood continued to seep out from beneath his fingers. He tried his best to slow the bleeding, but no matter what he did, it just kept flowing. Before the medics made it to where Luke and Greg were held up at, Luke heard Greg make one last wet gurgling noise before the flow of blood was no longer being pushed up from under his hands. Greg’s had been the first death that he’s seen up close and personal. But it wasn’t the last.

“Luke. Luke!” Luke was pulled out of his reverie and saw that Bo was standing over him. “The paramedics are here. They need you to move.”

Luke nodded and stepped aside so that the men could do their jobs. Looking around, he noticed that Jebb wasn’t up here on the mountain. “Where’s Jebb?”

“Uncle Jesse met him down the road. Somehow, he talked him into going straight on to the Hospital. Said that Jebb wouldn’t be able to ride with Kira no how.”

“Did you...? You know.”

“Are you kiddin’? I put both of them books in our back seat.” Bo watched as his sister was loaded up into the ambulance. “I did tell the paramedics that we suspect that Kira might be pregnant though.”

“Good, they’ll need to know.” As the ambulance pulled out, he and Bo got into The General and followed with ease. Bo cast his cousin a sideways glance from behind the wheel. He knew the signs. Luke was reliving an event from another time and on another continent back there.

“You want to talk about it?”

Luke wasn’t surprised that even with his concern for his sister; he’d still picked up the tale-tale signs that indicated that Luke was being haunted by his stint in ‘Nam.

“Nope.” Looking over at the crease in his cousin’s brow, he added, “Not right now. Let’s just worry about Kira for right now.”

Bo nodded, accepting that Luke will tell him later. “Luke, ain’t we gonna have to tell Jebb what we found. I mean, he has the right to know.”

“Once we’re at the hospital. There ain’t no point in worryin’ him unless we know that there IS something to worry about. After all, we don’t know for sure.”

“She’d read nearly half of one of those books Luke. I doubt she got them just for curiosity’s sake.”

“Well, let’s worry about one thing at a time, Bo. And right now, that’s Kira.”




As soon as the ambulance arrived at the hospital with Kira, she was swept away so fast that the Dukes barely caught a glimpse of her. Jesse does remember thinking that his niece looked too pale. Even for her. Once in the waiting room, a nurse stopped Luke. If he was going to stay, he needed a shirt on. Luke was in no mood for rules and regulations just now. He turned to her in aggravation.

“Ma’am, I used my shirt to try to stop my cousin from bleedin’ to death. So I ain’t got a shirt right now.” Jebb winced as he heard Luke refer to how severe Kira was hurt.

The nurse looked Luke up and down and saw the blood dried on his hands and on his jeans where he’d wiped them. “Well come with me. You can get cleaned up and I’ll find some scrubs that you can wear.”

The nurse took hold of Luke’s elbow to guide him down the hall. That left the remaining three Duke Men to take up keeping a vigil in the waiting room. Each in their own style. Jesse found a seat off to the side and sat down, grabbing one of the Bibles that had been placed in the waiting room and set to reading scripture to find comfort. Jebb leaned up against the wall facing the door to the E.R. and stared at it with his arms crossed. Bo had already begun to move about the room pacing. Not really staying in one place for longer than a second or two. He eyed his brother in law and cousin, wondering how he was going to tell him about the books that he’d found in Kira’s suitcase.

“Bo! Would you stand STILL? You’re going to wear a hole in the floor!” Jesse had already had enough.

“Yes sir.” Bo looked over at his uncle and then back to Jebb. Walking over to the nurse’s station, he asked about Kira.

“Sir, she’s been taken up to surgery. It’ll be at least a couple of hours before word will be sent down here. I’ll be sure to let you and your family know the moment I learn anything though.”

“I’d be much obliged, ma’am.” Walking over to Jebb, Bo slung an arm across his shoulders. “How about you and I go for a walk?” Jebb looked over at the door that he knew his wife was behind somewhere, not really wanting to go any further away from her than he already was. “The nurse said it’ll be a while. We won’t be far.”

Reluctantly, Jebb pushed away from the wall where he had stationed himself to join Bo outside. Once outside, he took a deep breath. The air inside the hospital was suffocating; like it was too thick to breathe in.

“You wanted to talk about something? Couldn’t it wait?”

“No, Jebb. I don’t think it can. I wanted to show you something. Now I know that Kira told Daisy that y’all weren’t plannin’ to start a family right away. But that was back after you two first got married. Have you two changed your minds or anything?”

“Well, it wasn’t so much as decided; rather, Kira didn’t want no one to have a reason to think that we got married because we had to. She stayed on the pill and we ain’t really discussed it. Why are you so interested all of the sudden? Don’t you think that there’s enough to worry about right now?”

“I know that there’s plenty to worry about right now Jebb. And I don’t want to give you nothin’ else to add to that list of things either.”

Jebb eyed Bo, trying to measure Bo’s fidgeting. “What are you gettin’ at?”

By now, the two men had stopped right beside The General so Bo leaned into the backseat and pulled out two books. “Well, you see, Luke had me look for a jacket in Kira’s suitcase. He was afraid that she was goin’ into shock so we needed to warm her up. When I opened it up, these two books were sitting right on top of her clothes. I was wonderin’ if you knew why she might have them.” Bo held out his hands holding the books so that their titles were easily read. Jebb took them from Bo and stared at them. Both books were on pregnancy. “By the look on your face, I’m guessin’ that you didn’t know.”

Jebb shook his head as he leaned against the hood of The General Lee. “No. She’s been acting a little off for a while. Especially over the weekend. I just chalked it up to her havin’ been recruited to go see the kids out at the orphanage. Bad memories, you know. That sort of thing. She never let on that she thought that she might be pregnant. Shoot, she raced in the Motor Cross last weekend. If she thought that she was pregnant, she shouldn’t have been out there.”

“Maybe she didn’t know yet.”

“Maybe,” Jebb continued to stare at the books. He knew that even if Kira was alright, this wreck couldn’t have been good for the baby. Baby. He hadn’t really thought much about having a baby. He wanted a family, but he also knew that Kira had started out dead set against getting pregnant right away. That’d been alright with him. He figured that they had plenty of time.

“Come on. Let’s go back in so you sit down while we wait for any word on Kira.” Bo guided his sister’s husband back inside. Where the only thing that they could do is wait.

Once inside, Bo saw that Luke had returned wearing scrubs and was sitting next to their uncle. Luke raised his brow slightly in a silent question and Bo gave an ever so slight nod back in return as an answer. Bo sat beside his blond-haired cousin as he began to flip through the book that, it was obvious, Kira had already began to read. In the front of the book, Kira had written just two words. EARLY FEBRUARY. February; that must be when she’s due. That would make her somewhere around seven weeks along, maybe eight. For eight weeks, Kira had been pregnant and he didn’t even know it. EIGHT WEEKS!

Across the room, Luke quietly filled their uncle in on Bo’s discovery up on Iron Mountain. Jesse hadn’t thought that he couldn’t possibly have gotten any more worried about his niece than he already was. He was wrong. Boy was he wrong.




By the time the doctor sent word by way of a nurse that Kira was out of surgery and that he would be right out, Daisy had arrived to join the family after Cooter had swung by and picked her up after having towed Kira’s truck to the garage. The moment she’d walked into the waiting room she’d spotted the books in Jebb’s hands. No one had to say anything after that. It was as if everyone was afraid to.

“I’m looking for the Duke family,” to which six people stepped forward. Five Dukes and one Honorary Duke.

“She’s my wife. How is she?” Jebb stepped forward to get in front of his relatives.

“She’s out of surgery. She’s in recovery right now. She’s lost a lot of blood, but the artery has been repaired and we’re replacing the blood. She has a couple of cracked ribs from her run in with the steering wheel, but she should recover alright in a few weeks. She’s also suffered a sever concussion.” The doctor looked over his notes before continuing. “Now, there was a concern of Mrs. Duke possibly being pregnant.” Jebb’s heart stopped briefly while waiting for the doctor to either confirm or deny the fact that Kira was expecting an infant, or to give a crushing blow with just a few words. “The concern, as it turned out, was valid. Your wife is almost two months pregnant.”

“Is the baby alright?” Daisy asked. She knew that everyone had the same question.

“Remarkably, yes. Such a severe accident could have very well of terminated the pregnancy. Frankly, I’m surprised that it didn’t. We will, of course, have a prenatal specialist brought in to monitor the fetus. This kid is lucky. In all actuality, there is no real explanation why it has survived this far.” The family breathed a collective sigh of relief.

“Can I go see her?” Jebb really wanted to see Kira for himself.

“I’ll have someone come and get you just as soon as we get her stabilized and move her out of recovery and into a private room. Now, she’ll be on a breathing machine at first, just to be safe. So communication will be a bit awkward. And I insist that no more than two people go in at a time.” The family all nodded their understanding. Feeling slightly better, the six went back to sitting, standing and pacing the room.

Daisy took one of Kira’s books from Jebb and started to read through it to pass the time. This little tyke was already depending on Duke Luck to pull through impossible odds. He or she was already showing how strong Dukes are. And this baby would have twice the Duke blood in his or her veins.

When the family was told that Kira was in a room, they hurried upstairs. Jebb stayed with his wife as the others took turns coming in as the second person allowed into the room. Except for Jebb and Bo, no one stayed for more than a couple of minutes. After Kira was settled in, Jesse declared that the family should all go home. Jebb would stay but Bo would return to spell him later so that he could get some rest. Jesse made it clear that Jebb would have to leave at least for sleep. Reluctantly, he agreed that he and Bo would swap when Jesse allowed him to return to the hospital. Once everyone else left, Jebb sat in the chair next to the bed and started to read the other book that Kira had bought. He might as well. It’s not like he had anything else to do other than listening to the slow and steady rhythmic beeps of the machines in the room.

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