by: Marty Chrisman

Jesse and Daisy both had tears streaming down their faces, but this time they were tears of happiness, not of grief. Dr Malone had told them there was no hope, that there wasn’t anything more the doctors could do. There was no hope left….they were going to lose Luke. And his heart had started to fail, along with his other systems, even with the machines that were supposed to be keeping him alive. When the heart monitor flat lined, Jesse’s heart had stopped too. The doctor and nurses had rushed into the room and the doctor had shook his head ready to give up and declare Luke dead. Then Jesse stood up and bellowed “No, my boy ain’t gonna die like this! You try bringing him back!”

“Mr Duke….” Doctor Malone said sadly “It’s no use….he’s just hurt too badly…”

“I don’t care!” Jesse bellowed “You try to bring him back! If you can’t, then I’ll let him go…but not until I know you tried!”

Reluctantly, the doctor did as Jesse ordered even though he knew that it was hopeless. He gave Luke’s body 5 shots with the paddles with no luck and no change. He was ready to give up when the heart monitor fluttered, just briefly, but it fluttered. With baited breath the doctor watched the monitor, unable to believe what he was seeing, as the monitor beeped and began to register a heartbeat. Erratic and unstable but a heartbeat just the same. Quickly, the doctor grabbed a needle from the crash cart and injected the medication it contained directly into Luke’s heart muscle. Miraculously, he watched as his heart beat began to stabilize.

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by: Keith

UNCLE JESSE: Well, boys, as foolish as I feel askin’ this….you two alright?

LUKE: (shrugs) Believe it or not, Uncle Jesse, I ain’t in all that much pain, considerin’.

UNCLE JESSE: How bout you, Bo?

BO: ‘Cept for a couple of cracked ribs, I reckon I’m about the same as Luke.

DOC APPLEBEE: Which, I want you to know, is a miricle in itself. (to Uncle Jesse) Jesse, I’m gonna be blunt. After seeing the General Lee hooked onto Cooter’s tow truck, and seein’ what these boys looked like when they came in here……well, frankly, I should be wheelin’ Bo and Luke down to the morge right now rather than just settin’ a couple of casts on their legs.

LUKE: Aw, come on, Doc…it couldnt’ve been as bad as all that.

DOC APPLEBEE: Oh, it was. It was. Boys, I’ve seen auto accident victims come through here that didn’t look half as bad as you two did. They ended up leavin’ here paralyzed for life. You boys aughtta thank the good lord in your prayers tonight.

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by: Kristy Duke

A small worm of doubt mixed with guilt slowly begins to grow within me as I silently watch Trent slamming the door behind him, leaving me alone with Boss once again. Glancing around at Boss, whose round face is lit up in happiness and joy of another deal done, questions flare wildly within me. Why Garrett and Ethan? Hogg could have put an ad in the paper and he’d have a driver in no time around here where jobs are limited and with plenty of young people in need of a job. Yet he had set out to get Garrett specifically. He may be a Duke, but he’s not like Bo and Luke, Garrett never got in the way, but usually looked the other way. Yet he was the chosen Duke.

“We gone and done it, Rosco,” J.D. Hogg laughs as he grabs another cigar from his top drawer, his dark brown eyes twinkle in the light in his enjoyment, “we got ourselves a new sport shop . . .we’ll make a fortune out of this.”

“If you say so Boss,” I softly respond as I glance through the window lying on the side window to watch an old rusted blue truck pulling into Cooter’s parking lot before glancing back at Hogg.

“You don’t sound so excited, Rosco,” Hogg smiles as he lights his cigar, “I mean I’ll be sharing a big chunk of that money with you.”

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by: Marty Chrisman

“We’ve got him back!” The voice said from a long distance away. Why didn’t they just be quiet and let him alone. He was dead, he heard them say so. He wasn’t supposed to come back. And the pain, so much pain, how could one man live and still be in so much pain. Jesse and the rest of the family was planning their funerals, he’d been there. He’d seen it. He’d seen them both lying in their coffins in the living room at farm. Was he crazy? Had his mind slipped over the edge without him realizing it? He just wanted to retreat back into the darkness where it was safe.

            “Don’t you die on me, boy!” Uncle Jesse’s voice said gruffly in the same tone of voice he used when they were kids and in a lot of trouble. A voice that he had been conditioned since childhood to obey. And he had no choice but to obey. Death would have wait for another day. An alarm sounded shrilly as he drew a breath on his own, fighting the machine that was forcing air in and out of his lungs. Why didn’t somebody shut off that damn thing. It was giving him a worse headache than he already had. Maybe he really was still alive after all. It was all too confusing to try and figure out right now. It still all seemed so real in his mind. He could still feel the intensity of the  pain and the suffering his family and friends had gone through because both of them were dead.

            “Come on, sugar…please open your eyes.” Daisy. He could hear sweet Daisy’s voice begging him to wake up. He could tell that she was crying and he hated to make her cry. But he couldn’t seem to make his body do what he wanted it to do. 

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by: Marty Chrisman

Jesse quietly opened the back door and slipped outside. He walked over to the old picnic table and sat down. He just needed some time alone and a breath of fresh air. The house was crowded with mourners just like it had been for the past two days. Tomorrow Cyrus could come after the boys and take them to church for the service on Saturday afternoon. Jesse’s tired old eyes swept across the barnyard. He could almost see the boys as children climbing the old oak tree or Bo when he was just a little thing chasing the chickens around the barnyard because it was so much fun.

He smiled as he remembered catching them when they were 8 and 12 sampling some of his shine that they’d found hidden in the barn. He whipped them good for that but it wasn’t too many years later that they were right there by his side helping him make the shine and delivering it too. Moonshine was tradition in this part of the country and like most other boys their age it was first hard liquor the boys had ever tasted.

He remembered them building the General Lee out in the barn (with a little help from Cooter) and how proud they had been when they showed the completed car to him for the first time. And lord, them boys could drive but then Jesse could too and he was the one who had taught them everything they knew about handling a car. That car was such a big part of their lives. He knew that Cooter had towed the General out to his farm after the accident and had stored there in barn.

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