Chapter 11: Avenging Angel
The first, a .22 caliber bullet, tore through Enos Strate’s left shoulder. The second, a 9mm, caught Steven Wayne Fortner between the eyes. The man dropped the gun and Daisy and fell to the ground.
Enos didn’t give the man a second glance, but holstered his weapon and ran to where Daisy knelt on the ground, a bewildered expression on her face.
“Daisy…”
He reached out gingerly and touched her shoulder, half afraid that she was only a dream that would vanish into the air, but needing to make sure she was alright. She said nothing, but turned to Enos and threw her arms around him, holding on for dear life. He could feel her shaking and held her to him, thanking God that he’d found her alive. The minutes slipped by until finally she began calm.
He would have gladly stayed there as long as she needed to, save for two things. First, he didn’t want her to have to see the man he’d shot, whose pale eyes now stared up at heaven (though Enos figured he was knockin’ on a different door right about now), and second, they were gonna freeze to death if they didn’t get out of the weather. He was relieved that she still had her coat, he reckoned she wouldn’t have lasted through last night if she hadn’t.
The rain continued to fall, making a strange and eerie sound as it struck the trees and ground and froze, slowly building layer upon layer of ice. If it had been under different circumstances, he would have thought it beautiful as the woods evolved from the muddy, decaying leaves and stark branches of winter into a glittering crystal wonderland. As it was, it would be a beautiful way to die if they didn’t get out of it.
He pulled back slightly, “Daisy, we’ve gotta get you outta here. Can you stand?”
“I think so.”
Enos stood slowly, helping her up, but she swayed and lost her balance. He caught her before she could fall and picked her up in his arms, wincing at the strain on his injured shoulder.
“My car’s not far. Just through the woods. Hold on okay, I promise I won’t drop ya’.”
She simply nodded and it struck him that this might have been the first time he’d ever seen her speechless. He had no way of knowing what had happened to her over the last six days, but he tried to keep his mind focused on putting one step in front of the other instead of the possibilities.
They reached his car and he let her down by the passenger’s side door, then opened it for her and waited for her to climb in. He shut it and went around to the driver’s side, noticing the ice on the windshield as he got in. It wasn’t as thick as on the rest of the car since the windows had been warm when he’d parked, but it was still going to take a couple minutes to melt. He started the car and fiddled with the knobs until he found the defrost and turned up the heat as far as it would go.
“We’ll have t’ wait until the windshield clears off a bit.” He turned to face her, concern etched on his face. “Daisy, he…did he…hurt you?”
She saw him flush slightly and caught the meaning behind his simple words. “No,” she said, softly. “He just left me down there ’till today. I’m fine, just cold and hungry.”
Enos, remembering his visit to the General Store, reached in his pocket and took out the peanuts he’d bought. “Sorry, it’s all I’ve got, but you’re welcome to them,” he said, handing them to her.
Daisy, now over the worse of her fright, was watching him with keen eyes. “Enos,” she said, quietly, “what are you doin’ here?”
He cast her a quick glance, and then looked away. “I reckon I’m trying t’ take ya’ back home. I’m just here temporary, with the Georgia State Police. I was the only one who knew the area.” If he’d been looking at her, he might have caught the flash of disappointment that crossed her face, but he wasn’t.
“Oh,” she said, simply. Neither said anything for a minute, until she spoke again. “Well I’m mighty glad you found me. Thank you.”
He nodded, still not looking at her. “You’re welcome, Daisy.” He turned on the windshield wipers. A large sheet of partially melted ice caught on the blades and slid off the glass, giving them a view of the road. He started the car and drove slowly to the end of the trail but then stopped the car, got out and walked into the intersection with Cedar Point Road. Daisy could see him muttering something to himself as he stood looking down the road.
Enos turned around and got back in the car, not looking pleased.
“What’s wrong? Is that Cedar Point? Cedar Point runs into Mill Creek Road.”
“I know the way, Daisy,” he said, more sharply than he meant to. “That’s not the problem.”
“So…what’s the problem?”
The road was impassible – at least in his car. They were fifteen miles into the mountains and there was no way they’d get down safely until the ice melted some. If they hit a ditch on the way down, there wasn’t enough gas in the car to keep it warm until someone found them. There was only one place he could think to go, but as much as he wanted to make sure Daisy was safe and warm… he didn’t want to be alone with her.
Daisy was one of those people who always felt the need to ‘set things straight’. If she thought she’d done or said something to hurt someone, she wouldn’t rest until she’d talked to them about it. Talking to Daisy about what had happened four years ago ranked somewhere below getting his wisdom teeth cut out and moving in with his ma’ on Enos’s lists of things he wanted to do. It was one thing to know she had never really loved him, but it was quite another to actually hear it coming from her lips. If he could get out of this and back to L.A. without having to have his heart re-broken, he’d be content to just know she was safe.
Daisy waited for him to answer, but he seemed to be lost in his thoughts, staring out the window. She touched his arm and he flinched, then shook his head.
“Sorry, did you say something?”
“Enos, what’s…,” a drop of dark liquid fell from the cuff of his coat sleeve and landed on the leg of his jeans where an alarmingly large stain had begun to form. “Enos, you’re bleeding!
“Yeah, I know. It’ll be fine for a little while. Small caliber, probably went right through.”
“But..we’ve got to get you to the hospital!”
He turned to look at her. “Daisy, we’re not goin’ t’ be able to get back t’ Hazzard right now, th’ road’s too bad.”
She rubbed at the fog on the window, trying to see outside. “We can’t just stay here.”
He closed his eyes and sighed. “I know a place we can go. Lake Chickamahony’s about five miles up th’ road. As far as I know, Lulu still owns th’ cabin that Mr. Hogg had there.”
“Well, let’s go check it out then.”
He pulled the car out, turning right, towards the border of Choctaw County and the lake.
Five miles might have been twenty-five at the pace Enos had to set to get there safely. Daisy had been mercifully quiet as he concentrated on the road, barely crawling around the curves. It was afternoon by the time they pulled up in front of the small cabin, nestled on the southern bank of Lake Chickamahony. Daisy got out and ran up to the porch and tried the door, but it was locked. Enos followed her up.
“Now, there used t’ be a key around here somewhere’s. I had t’ bring Mr. Hogg out here once t’ get some papers.” Lord only knew what kind of scheme he’d been unknowingly helping with at the time. Enos tipped back both of the dead potted plants that flanked the door and then the mat, but nothing.
“This what you’re lookin’ for?’ asked Daisy. She held one of the decorative knobs from the porch railing in one hand, and in the other hand she held up a key.
“Yeah, that’s looks like it.” She handed it to him, and he unlocked the door and swung it open.
The cabin was nothing special, certainly not on the scale usually befitting Jefferson Davis Hogg, but as far as Enos knew he’d never actually stayed there. Boss kept it mainly as a bribe for other county officials, and he doubted if it had been used since the man had passed away two years ago. The electricity had been shut off, but it had a rock fireplace that warmed the main living area, small bedroom, and bath, and a tiny kitchen with a propane cook stove. There would be no running water since the pump for the well wouldn’t work without electricity, but there was a hand pump outside to the rear of the cabin.
“We’d best try t’ start a fire,” said Enos. There was luckily a large stack of firewood next to the fireplace and a box of strike-anywhere matches and an oil lamp sat on the mantle.
“I’ll see if I can find any kindling,” said Daisy. “Though that wood looks about old and dry enough t’ burn itself.”
Enos had already stacked a couple of logs in the fireplace when she came back with her hands full of paper towels.
“All I could find,” she said, handing them to him.
“Those’ll work fine, Daisy, thanks.”
In no time they had a roaring fire and the cabin was nice and cozy. Daisy took off her coat and threw it over the back of the couch that sat in front of the fireplace. Enos tried to take his off as well, but the sleeve hooked his shoulder and he hissed in pain.
“Here,” Daisy pulled the right sleeve of his coat off and then eased the left one off. Her breath caught as she saw that his entire left sleeve was soaked in blood.
“It’s not as bad as it looks,” he assured her.
She helped him with his shoulder holster next, setting it carefully down on the end table by the couch, then moved in front of him and started to unbutton his shirt, but he stepped back, out of her reach. “I’m not an invalid, Daisy.” He turned away from her to hide his blush and began to unbutton his shirt. “There might be some alcohol or a First Aid kit here somewhere. It’ll be better than nothin’.”
She checked everywhere in vain for a First Aid kit, and had to settle with the only acceptable substitute she could find – a clean, white, cotton shirt and a jug of moonshine she found stashed under the bed. She carried them, as well as a pair of scissors she’d found to cut the shirt, back into the living room and found Enos sitting on the couch in front of the fireplace, staring into the flames. His sleeveless undershirt had managed to escape most of the blood from his arm and he held his stained shirt to his shoulder to put pressure on it.
“Well, I found alcohol…sort of,” she said, holding up the jug. “Uncle Jesse always said it could be used for medicinal purposes.”
“Well, I guess it’ll do,” he laughed nervously. “I never figured a little hole could bleed so dang much.”
“Um, this’ll probably be easier if you lie down.”
He looked apprehensively at the moonshine. “I don’t reckon easy’s gonna factor much in t’ this, Daisy,” he said uncomfortably. “I think I need a drink o’ that.”
She passed him the shine. He opened the jug and raised it to his mouth, and took a sip. He frowned and took another, then closed the bottle and shook it watching the bubbles dissipate immediately. “Wouldn’t that just figure..,” he said, disgusted.
“What?” Daisy couldn’t imagine what the problem was.
“Mr. Hogg stocked his cabin with backin’s.”
“What’re backins?”
“It’s the stuff left in th’ thump keg after th’ second run. Might as well be water than shine.”
“Sorry… I didn’t see anything else.”
He shrugged. “That’s okay, Daisy, I don’t s’pose it’s gonna hurt nothin. Just use it t’ clean the wound first.” He lay down on the floor so she could bind his shoulder.
She knelt down on the rug beside him, but her eyes were drawn to his right shoulder instead where a ugly white scar ran from underneath his shirt nearly the entire length of his arm. He knew what she was looking at and he closed his eyes and willed himself not to feel her touching him as her fingers gently traced the line.
“What happened?” she asked, quietly.
He frowned and looked back up at her. “I learned a lesson…”
The double meaning of his words wasn’t’ lost on her and she glanced away from him, not knowing what to say.
“Ya’ know, on second thought, hand me that pillow.”
She grabbed the pillow from the couch and handed it to him. Instead of putting it under his head, though, he covered his face with it. “Okay,” he said in a muffled voice, “go ahead.”
Daisy poured the whiskey over the gunshot wound in his deltoid. Muffled yelling came from under the pillow as he clutched it to his face and some backwoods words that would pass as cursing, at least coming from Enos.
“I’m sorry! Gosh, I’m sorry, Enos…”
He threw the pillow aside and looked up at her, red faced and watery eyed. “That’s alright. Just get it over with.”
She cut several long strips off the shirt and tied them together before wrapping them around his shoulder and upper arm as best she could. “Well, I’m no Florence Nightingale, but I think it’ll be okay.”
He sat up and inspected her handiwork. “Better than I could do, I’m much obliged.”
She was quiet, and he looked up to find her watching him intently. “We need to talk,” she said, quietly.
Enos, hoping to keep his sanity for at least one more day, wasn’t about to delve into that snake hole right now. Just in the little time they’d been together, the last four years seemed like a bad dream he was finally waking up from, and he felt himself falling into the same old trap that he’d worked so unsuccessfully to pull himself out of.
“I don’t want t’ talk, Daisy,” he said. “I’m tired, I ain’t slept in a week it feels like. Why don’t you look around, see if there’s anything else we might need.”
She hesitated, stalled by her conscience which had been screaming at her since he’d left Hazzard nearly four years ago to set things right. “Okay,” she said, finally. “You get some rest then. I’ll see what I can come up with.” Of course he wouldn’t want to talk to her. He probably hated her – and who would blame him after what she’d done? She couldn’t imagine how hard it must have been for him to have to come back to Georgia to look for her, the last person he’d probably ever want to see.
Wandering back into the bedroom, she found another white button-up shirt, which she exchanged for the shirt she’d been wearing for nearly a week, but she was stuck with the jeans she had on. The cabinets in the kitchen contained a box of raw spaghetti noodles, a stack of saltines which she grabbed, and a couple of cans of Pork n’ Beans.
Daisy went back in the living room to find Enos fast asleep on the couch, and she went over and knelt beside him.
“I don’t blame you for not wantin’ to talk to me,” she said, gently, “but I really am sorry.”
She pressed a soft kiss to his temple, and he stirred and rolled over onto his right side, facing towards her. Instead of getting up, she propped her head up on her elbow on the couch beside him, watching him sleep as the firelight danced across his face.
“I don’t even know what I’d tell you anyway. It’s like one of those horrible ‘B’ movies Boss used to buy cheap and show in his theater. The ones where you feel like askin’ for your money back afterwards ’cause nothing ended up like it should’ve. After everything’s said and done, all it comes down to is that I married a man I didn’t love ’cause I could never figure out how to say it to the one I did.”
She brushed his hair lightly back from his forehead.
“I can’t stop thinkin’ that none of this would’ve happened if I’d told you the truth – and I don’t mean four years ago. I should’ve told you twenty years ago, when you were at the Academy. But havin’ you around was always more important to me than you knowing how much I loved you. I know I made a terrible mistake, and that you think you never meant anything to me, but you’d be wrong. I do love you, Enos Strate, and all I’ve wanted since you left was for you to come back home again.”
She could have slept in the bedroom, but instead Daisy brought a pillow and quilt in and lay down on the rug, half convinced Enos would be gone in the morning if she didn’t. It was ridiculous, they were just as stuck here as they’d been before, but she’d spent too many sleepless nights wondering where he was and what he was doing to let him out of her sight. The rain had stopped some time since, but now the wind howled across the frozen landscape and keened softly through the cracks in the window casings.
A thousand moments, each bittersweet in the fact that they were from a time that was forever lost to her, ran through her mind as she lay staring up at the ceiling. Memories of nothing more than being together – her rambling on and on, and him content to just listen. He always had something to say, but unlike her, he seemed to be able to say in one sentence what it would take her an hour to explain, and she’d lay in bed at night deciphering his hidden meanings – because there always seemed to be one.
And in everything, there was regret. She missed the easy banter they used to share growing up. He had been her confidant, her best friend – but all that had ended right before her 16th birthday…
He’d come home from the Academy to get away from Atlanta, and they’d spent the day fishing with her cousins. Luke and Bo had given up early, leaving her and Enos alone by Hazzard Pond. She couldn’t even remember what they’d been talking about, all she knew was that he was leaving in the morning, going back to the Academy and in all likelihood it would be another month, maybe two before he could catch another ride up to Hazzard. As they talked, she came up with a plan…
“Enos, have you ever kissed a girl?”
Daisy closed her eyes, remembering. She’d played it off as nothing, never giving a second thought to the consequences of that day, but in return for a stolen kiss, she’d lost her best friend. He’d never been comfortable around her after that, and though they’d made up some of the ground they’d lost in the years after he came back from California, the closeness they’d shared growing up was always just out of reach.
She’d passed her flirting off as nothing, afraid (regardless of how Enos thought he felt towards her) that it would scare him away again. The day they almost got married, she’d hidden her feelings so well that no one had believed it was what she really wanted, least of all Uncle Jesse, Bo, and Luke.
She had a feeling Enos had snookered her with the hives excuse, and a sneaking suspicion that he was just trying to give himself an out and had finally come to his senses. After all, what man would want to marry a woman who had never even said she loved him?
So she’d married L.D., thinking for some crazy reason that the best thing would be to make Enos give up on her. No one told her he’d left Hazzard until the damage had already been done, and she found herself married to a man she didn’t love and hardly knew, while the one she did walked out of her life forever…or so she’d thought.