As soon as Jebb woke up this morning, his mother had forced him to eat. Even though food was the last thing that he wanted; for a couple of reasons. With it being the third day since Kira had been taken, he couldn’t stay still anymore. Despite the tremendous headache that he had from all of the moonshine he’d drank the night before, he’d gotten into the truck and headed out before anyone knew what he was doing. Bo told him that Kira was in the mountains somewhere. If that’s where she was, then that’s where he was heading. He’d be damned if he was going to waste another day sitting on a stump, waiting for a phone call that wasn’t coming.

Jebb was tired of having everyone walking around him like they were already at Kira’s wake. Well she ain’t dead yet and she ain’t gonna die anytime soon if he had anything to say about it. Not to mention there were two other Dukes counting on him to get their momma back safe and sound. He planned to be there when they were born and he also planned to spend the rest of his life with Kira at his side. He wasn’t about to let anyone else stand in his way of that. They’d already been through too much to give up now.




Throughout the night, Kira kept shifting her position, trying to alleviate the pain that seemed to be concentrated in her lower back. Her headache had gotten worse too. She would have thought that it would have gone away by now. And to make matters worse, of course, she was having a hard time keeping the dried fruit and beef jerky that she’d been given to eat down, too.

When Kira was taken up to ground level, she overheard the two discussing their plans for the day while she was taking care of business in the outhouse. Harry (the bigger of the two men) planned to visit their boss today, leaving Eddie to watch over their prisoner. When Harry came back, they’d be ready to take care of business. Kira had a sinking feeling that she knew just what that business was. And she still didn’t know how to help Bo find her.

When Kira asked how Jebb was doing, Kira noticed that Bo seemed to pause a little too long before saying that his parents were taking care of him; for her not to worry. Well that wasn’t exactly an answer. Once back in the root cellar, Kira sat back down as best as she could. When the cramping seemed to get worse, she started to get a bit concerned.

“Come on you two. I said that we had to be patient. You’ve got to wait for help to come. Y’all don’t want to be born in this rat hole, do ya? Just calm it down. This world ain’t quite ready for another pair of Dukes just yet.” Kira rubbed her stomach, hoping that she wasn’t going back into labor.

Kira passed on the information that she heard from the two men on to Bo, leaving out her concern that she might be going into labor. AGAIN. Of course, by the time the two men return for another trip to the outhouse, she couldn’t hide it any longer. She could hardly bite back the moans when a contraction hit her as she was making her back from the outhouse to the root cellar.

“Harry? What are we supposed to do?”

“Nothin’. It ain’t like it makes a difference. Besides, my sister was in labor for days before she gave birth. Let’s get her on down, then I’ve got a meeting to go to. I think that the boss will be more than willing to meet our demands. Because if he don’t, this girl’s family is probably more than ready to pony up.”

Kira would have told them that they didn’t need to bother with their boss, if it wasn’t for the pain of the contraction hitting as she was being locked away yet again. It looked like at least one of her kids was in a hurry to be born already and the other was going to have to just go along for the ride. They seemed to be in a hurry to make an appearance, in true Duke Fashion. And this time there was no stopping them.




“What were you thinking kidnapping that brat? You were supposed to kill her!” Shawn stared down his hired gun in his office. “The police came nosing around here. They think that I hired you to snatch her away. Why couldn’t you just do what you were told?”

“Well, once I saw just how much money you have on the line, I kinda felt like I was getting the short end of the stick. We’re doin’ all the work and you get all the money. You want her dead; you’re going to have to pay up. Big time. She’s in labor now, so if you don’t want a NEW brat to deal with, you’d better decide fast. Our price is a hundred big ones or we ransom her back to her family.”

“WHAT!”

“Well, you’re getting a half a mill if you can keep her from giving birth. Seems like you’d have the money to spare.” Harry gave a smug smile knowing that he had him.

Looking very unhappy about the turn of events, Shawn gave Harry a hard look. “Deal. Now go take care of everything, NOW!”




“Between everyone that’s been looking, I don’t think that there is a farmhouse, old shack, abandoned still site, or hunting lodge left in Hazzard that we ain’t searched yet. It’s time to face the fact that those men took Kira out of Hazzard, Bo.”

“Now what? Where do we start looking now?”

“I don’t know.” Luke looked out of the windshield. “I just don’t know.”




When Eddie came down the steps, he was carrying a bucket. Harry didn’t trust the girl to go up with just one of them to keep a gun on her so he’d told Eddie to take a bucket down to her instead of letting her go up to the outhouse; though Eddie didn’t really see the problem. Just what could a woman in labor do anyway? It’s not like she could run.

“Alright, here ya go.” Kira looked at the bucket then back at the man.

“Does it look like I’m in any condition to try to balance over a bucket?” Not to mention she wasn’t about to even try with him standing right there.

Eddie considered the question then figured that it couldn’t hurt to let the woman go up above ground for a bathroom break. “Alright, but don’t tell Harry. He’d kill me if he thought that I didn’t follow his orders.”

Kira slowly got to her feet and Eddie had her walk up the stairs in front him. When she was only a couple of steps from the top, Kira doubled over and screamed out as if she was having a contraction. Eddie leaned forward to check on his prisoner, lowering his gun in the process. When Eddie was in just close enough, Kira sent her elbow back into the gun man and sent him off balance on the stairs. With another jolt, Kira was able to push him into tumbling down the stairs as she raced as quickly as she could up the remaining three stairs.

Once up on the ground level, Kira closed the hatch-like door and was able to put the barricade on the door as shots rang out from the cellar. With the door barred, Kira backed away as she tried to get her bearings. She had two choices. Up or down. She knew that Harry was due back any time now. When he found that she was gone, he’d expect her to take the easiest way out; that meant that she’d go up instead.




“Jebb, it’s gettin’ dark. You can’t do that girl any good if you don’t take care of yourself. In fact, I’m pretty sure that she’d call you a fool for heading out today without a plan or food. Time to pack it up for the night.” Jesse called to his nephew.

Jesse knew that the others would come on in, whether they wanted to or not. Jebb? Well, he may need a higher authority to call him back. Looking over at his brother, he figured that if anyone could make that boy come home, it would be Jebb’s father. Leaving John to talk some sense into his son by way of the CB, Jesse went on to do the evening chores since Bo and Luke hadn’t come home yet either. He hoped that he wasn’t giving them too much credit in thinking that they’d come home on their own.




“Bo, it’s time to head back to Hazzard. A front’s coming through, it’s getting colder and it looks like it might snow tonight. Not to mention the light’s gone anyway. We’ll need to check in as soon as we’re in CB range, too.”

“I don’t know if I can go back and tell Jebb that we still ain’t found her, yet. Not knowing that Kira thinks that they plan to kill her just as soon as the one man gets back. If we don’t find her tonight...” Bo looked over at his cousin as if pleading with him that they had to keep looking. “I know everyone expects me to be able to find her with our link. It’s like they think that I have some sort of tracking device to find her. I don’t know how our daddies were able to find one another when they were in trouble. But just because they could do it doesn’t mean me and Kira can do that too. Just one more stop. Let’s just check the old Miller’s hunting lodge before we go back.”

“Alright. Just one more couldn’t hurt. Jesse ain’t exactly likely to go off on us for being late right now.”

Bo turned their uncle’s car up the next old trail that passed for a road in this backwoods area that was popular with some of the hunters when it was in season. Right now, all of those old shacks that were used for hunting lodges were abandoned during the off season. The Miller’s lodge fit the bill in the way Kira had described the place where she was being held. But of course half the lodges in at least four counties did too.

Going up the trail, it looked like someone else had recently driven up this way since the rains. Bo called out to Kira but she’d not answered in a while, causing him to worry that they were already too late.




Kira struggled to keep moving. She had no idea if she’d been missed yet. The pain was just getting too much. It was as if the more she walked the stronger the contractions got. It was far too cold out here too. Even colder than it had been in the root cellar. And the wind was biting something terrible. She was only in her pajamas and slippers; comfortable to lounge around the house in, but a horrible choice to wear on a hike in the middle of the winter.

Finally, Kira just couldn’t go any further. She found a fallen tree and sat down beside it on the opposite side of the tree that face the direction that she’d come from. There she started to cry in pain and frustration. She tried to call out to Bo to tell him that she got away but the pain from the contractions were keeping her from clearing her mind enough to use their link. Now she really, truly and utterly felt alone.




“Well, there are recent tracks, but I don’t see no car around here now.”

“Let’s check the cellar. We should know if she’d been here when we go down there.” Bo crossed the small yard to the root cellar. When he reached the door, he hollered out. “Luke!” When his cousin came over, he saw that the cellar door was riddled with bullet holes.

“Stay up here just in case. I’ll go down and see if anyone’s down there.” The two moved the barricade and Luke slowly made his way down the stairs. Looking around in the dark shadows, it was hard to see anything. He hoped that Kira hadn’t been kept down here. If it was this dark with the door opened, he’d hate to be down here with it closed. Reaching his hand out, he found a shelf with glass jugs on it. While he was still trying to get his bearings, he felt a body brush by him and heard it race to the stairs. “Bo! Comin’ your way!”




Jebb walked into his house dejected. He’d not had any luck at all. And his Uncle Jesse was right. In his mind, he could hear Kira calling him a fool for rushing out the way he did. She would have done it teasing like, but she would have done it. When Jebb walked into the kitchen, he’d expected to hear a lecture about how he needs to have faith in his cousins to bring Kira and the babies back to him safe. After all, if Bo can’t find her, with their unusual link, what makes him think that he could go off halfcocked and find her? Well his dad and mom might not say that, since they’d not been told about the link, though his dad might suspect. But his Uncle Jesse certainly would. That is if he wasn’t just as worried for Jebb as he was for Kira.

Instead of lectures, Pauline got Jebb some supper and sat beside him to make sure that he’d eat it. He didn’t even know if Kira’s been eating. It’d be so easy to leave the soup on the table untouched. He guessed that’s why his mother was sitting there watching as every bite went into his mouth.

Looking around, Jebb saw that the police had packed away their wiretapping equipment and the officer that had been left to operate it was gone too. That meant that they no longer expected a phone call. They were giving up. Giving up on getting Kira and the babies back. They no longer were in Search and Rescue mode. They were in Recovery mode. To them, Kira was already just another dead body waiting to be found. He couldn’t believe that it seemed that so many people were willing to give up already.

Taking a look at where the phone sat, the same phone that he’d waited on to ring ever since this nightmare began, Jebb just snapped. He sent his bowl crashing into the wall, stood up to send his chair flying behind him as he lifted the table up and flipped it over.

Pauline quickly ran out of the kitchen to get her husband and brother-in-law as her son began to destroy the kitchen piece by piece. When John and Jesse got to the doorway to the kitchen, they watched as the younger Duke continued to wreck anything he could get his hands on. With nothing else to do, the elder Dukes waited while Jebb tired himself out.

Jebb sent pots and pans hurling through the air, the dishes in the drainer soon were tossed against the wall and the floor. Even the refrigerator ended up on its side. Finally, exhausted, he sank into the middle of the mess that he’d created and started to softly cry. It wasn’t fair. It just wasn’t fair.

Once the well-deserved tantrum ended, both John and Jesse went to Jebb. They’d wondered just how long it would take before something like this would happen. It was going to be a long night; they’d have to watch him closely from here out.




Bo was ready for whoever it was coming up the stairs. He stood off to the side of the door to the root cellar and tackled the guy as he was taking his last step out of the hole in the ground. Once he had the man on the ground, he dodged a couple of punches as the man struggled beneath him.

“Let me go! She ain’t here no more!” Hearing the man’s comments, Bo lit into him. So his sister WAS here? Was? Past tense.

“Where is she you bastard! What did you do to her?” Bo started to pummel the man under him with renewed vigor. He continued to pound the man that was about Luke’s size until his cousin grabbed his arm, stopping his assault.

“What do you mean that she ain’t here no more? Where is she?” Luke asked while he maintained his hold on his cousin.

The man heaved in some breaths before he could answer. “She pushed me down the stairs a couple of hours ago and ran off. I don’t know where she is now.” Luke motioned for Bo to get up and grabbed the man up. He seemed concerned that Luke would finish what Bo had started so he stammered out, “Honest! I...I...I don’t know where she is now!”

“Come on.” Luke yanked the guy over to the car and had Bo pop the trunk. Throwing the man in, Luke closed it figuring that it would do for now until they could get him to the police. “Well, at least we know she WAS here. The thing is, it’s so dark now, it’ll be damn near impossible to make out any tracks in the woods.” Luke took in the landscape and saw the two choices that Kira would have had. In her condition, she would have needed to take the easier down slope. “Let’s split up. We’ll meet back here in twenty minutes, and then head down to get help if we ain’t found her. We got to find her before that front comes in.”

Luke headed into the woods with Bo getting ready to follow Luke in a parallel path down the mountain when he got a nagging feeling. Kira had said that there were two men up here, but one left to talk to their boss. She would have expected him back soon. And anyone would have assumed that in her condition she wouldn’t be able to handle an uphill hike. Bo turned and headed upwards. If he knew anything about his sister, it’s that she never takes the easy way out of anything. She wouldn’t have headed down.




Bo kept climbing higher even though he knew that Luke was likely waiting for him at the car by now. He couldn’t turn around just yet.

“KIRA!” Bo hollered out hoping to hear a response. He stopped moving and listened. He thought he heard something. His heart paused as he tried to make out what it was. “KIRA?” Up ahead. He knew he heard something. Picking up his speed, he headed over to a where a tree was down. Moans? He heard moans of pain. “Kira?”

Kira looked up as she heard her brother. “BO! Over here!” She tried to get up but couldn’t. She was in nearly constant pain now; between her back, the contractions, and the horrible headache. She didn’t remember having the headache the last time she was in labor.

“Kira!” Bo jumped over the fallen tree and knelt beside her. “Are you alright? Are you hurt?” Kira looked up at her brother and blinked. Now her vision was blurry, that’s just great. Bo took off his jacket and put it on her. Trying to warm her up as he saw her visibly shaking from the cold.

“I’m not hurt, I’m in labor.” Kira leaned up against the tree trying to relieve some of the pain in her back.

“Come on. We’ll get ya out of here.” Bo bent down and helped Kira stand and the two slowly walked a few steps before Kira stumbled as another contraction hit while she screamed out. Bo picked her up to carry her and carefully picked his way down the slope going as fast as he dared. “LUKE!” Bo hollered out as he neared the car. When he got within sight of the car, Luke looked up and saw Bo rushing down the slope with his sister in his arms. She’d gone up? Not down? How did Bo know? Luke opened the door to the back seat and waited for Bo to put her inside. “She’s in labor again, Luke. We’ve got to hurry,” Bo told his cousin as he slid in behind his sister. Luke shut the door behind him and got in behind the wheel and sent the car down the trail of a road as fast as he could. Bo sat sideways with his back up against the door and leaned his twin up against his chest as she continued to writhe in pain, still trying to warm her up.

“Hang on Kira. We’ll get ya to the hospital.”

“It might be faster to take her to the farm. Maybe we should take her to Uncle Jesse, instead.” Kira continued to moan as she felt another contraction, then she didn’t bother to hold off on the screaming. “Kira, try breathing. Uncle Jesse always tells a woman to breathe.”

“If you think that breathing will help, then you do it!” Kira leaned her head back as Bo moved her hair away from her forehead. When he gave his other hand to Kira, he instantly regretted it. It felt like she was breaking every bone in his hand. “OH GOD!” Bo nearly second his sister’s scream but held off, barely.

“Luke you’d better find some short cuts. I don’t think either of us wants to learn how to deliver a baby in the back seat of a car.”

Luke glanced into the back seat and nodded. “I’ll head to the farm just as soon as we get out onto route seven to head back to Hazzard County.”

“Oh, NO!”

“WHAT?” Both men shouted in response to Kira’s outburst.

“I think my water just broke.”

“Are you sure?”

“NO BO! I JUST FELT LIKE WETTING MYSELF!”

“Hang on!” Luke pushed the car as fast as it would go but it was no General. “As soon as we get into CB range, we’ll let Uncle Jesse know to be ready.” Kira wasn’t listening. She could only concentrate on one thing right now. The babies were trying to come NOW. She’d never thought that she could be in so much pain. Bo continued to smooth her hair as he murmured softly to her.

When Kira suddenly went limp, Bo instantly grew more worried. “Kira?” Bo asked as she started to convulse. “LUKE! FORGET THE FARM; GET US TO THE HOSPITAL, NOW!” He didn’t know much about women giving birth but he knew that this shouldn’t be happening. When Mary Kaye was at the farm and delivered, she didn’t do this.

“Hang on!”

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