by: Kristy Duke

As the icy cold rain picks up to continually beat upon Bo and run down his neck, Bo comes to a halt to slowly glance around the dark woods before looking up at the sky to find it slowly lighting up. Lighting up enough for Bo to see the true reason why it is still so dark out, dark gray storm clouds cover most of the sky to threaten the storm that the weathermen have been predicting. “Great,” Bo states sarcastically before beginning to walk in the direction he had been going earlier only to reinforce the question to ring loudly within him. Where was he going? To the old farm, for sure, but how was he sure he was going the right direction in the woods he was only familiar with in the day light? Only to remind him of that steep drop off hill that these woods lead to in one direction or another, but which way?

“Bo!” Luke’s voice echoes off of the bare trees to make Bo halt suddenly in surprise. He knew sooner or later they’d realize he was gone and perhaps try to go after him, but didn’t expect it to be this soon. If he had known Luke would realize he was gone this soon, he’d have taken The General and not have worried over the engine alerting everyone of his departure. “If you hear me Bo, turn back and come home! Bo!”

Bo sighs heavily as he glances back before he slowly continues to walk forward. All they would do is attempt to persuade him not to go out on his own and maybe even claim it wasn’t all of his fault. But he couldn’t fight or ignore his guilt that yells differently within him, yelling that it was his own stupid fault that lost the farm. Only to assure him, that he has to do something to help get their family farm back. Even if he didn’t know what as of yet.

“Bo Duke.” Jesse’s voice slowly follows Luke’s and for a moment Bo looks back, knowing better than to disobey his uncle. “You better get your rear in gear and get it home! Bo!”

Inhaling deeply, Bo forces himself to do the one thing his mind and heart  tell him to do, he goes forward knowing the consequences would follow if Jesse knew he heard him and disobeyed him. “Keep going. You failed them enough, already,” Bo states aloud in attempt to calm his fears only to be startled by a swooshing sound a second later. Looking up, he finds a big black bird flying away from a tall branch and Bo shakes his head at himself and being scared of a bird. As he walks farther and farther into the woods, the more distant his family’s echoes get before they come to a halt to make Bo wonder if they had given up on him returning or if he had just walked out of hearing distance of them.

Minutes slowly pass by as Bo forces himself to walk in between the trees and the shrubbery while the sky slowly lightens above him yet the woods remain dark with the shadows that are cast upon the ground. Bo’s boots sink heavily down into the wet mud that covers the earth’s floor from all the rain Hazzard has gotten the past few days and he has to forcefully pull his feet up to walk at times. Glancing ahead, he nervously looks out for the drop off into that steep hill that he knows lies around the woods somewhere as he had come upon it years ago when Brody and him had went for a walk in the woods when they had skipped school. They had found it the hard way when Brody fell behind Bo only to alert Bo with a scream of pain and fear, when Bo looked behind him, Brody was gone. Luckily, Brody had only slipped a couple of feet before getting stopped by a thick tree trunk and was able to walk away with only a few bumps and bruises from it. But now with the thick wet mud and the darkness surrounding Bo, Bo doubts he could be that lucky if he were to stumble upon the hill on accident.

Taking another step, Bo is greeted with a low throaty growl and Bo comes to a halt in fear before he forces himself to slowly turn around before seeing a pair of gold eyes shining at him several feet away from him and several feet from the ground.  “No, no,” Bo hears himself say in fear as he takes a step backward only for the big animal to take a couple of steps closer to him. Bo takes another step backward only to run into a thick tree and the animal takes several quick steps towards him, growling angrily at him. The animal takes another threatening step closer to Bo and Bo flattens himself against the tree as he takes in the large dog that is massively covered in dark black hair except the chest that has a streak of white as well as around the large paws. The dogs sharp white fangs are visible as the dog continues to growl at Bo while Bo identifies the intense look to kill trapped in the wild dog’s sharp eyes. Eyeing the dog, Bo is hit with indecisiveness of what to do. He knows better than to run from a dog. To run would only encourage the dog to run after him, but to stand here looking at it would only show the dog that he is weak and vulnerable.

“Go away, dog,” Bo hears himself say at the dog who only intensifies his growling, the thick black hair standing angrily up before the dog lowers itself to the ground to make Bo’s mind up of what to do, run. Just as Bo quickly moves to the side of the tree where he had been standing, the dog lunges upward and toward where Bo had been only to hit it’s thick head against the tree. Inhaling deeply, Bo begins to run zigzagged through the trees with the dog growling, barking, and running after him. Bo feels his heart race rapidly within him as he feels and hears the dog growing closer to him with each step he makes before Bo can feel the dog’s nose touch the back of his leg. Bo attempts to pick up speed as he continues his run, the thick mud slowing him down, while his thoughts remain stuck on vivid images of the dog attacking him, of the dog’s large teeth ripping into his skin.

Feeling himself gain ground away from the huge beast, Bo slowly glances over his shoulder to find the dog several feet back from him, running wildly towards him with teeth bearing and a look of hatred in the bright eyes of the dog. “Damn,” Bo states feeling hopeless in his attempt to get away from the big dog who seems to be made of pure muscle and hatred.  Turning back around, Bo abruptly sees the abrupt drop off through the darkness a moment before his foot lands on the dirt and he hears himself cuss aloud as his body is violently thrown down upon the wet muddy ground and he feels himself grasp at the ground desperately as he is sucked downhill.  Pain explodes within Bo as he slides down the steep hill as he is thrown into trees and shrubbery and onto rocks repeatedly. The couple of minutes that it takes Bo to slide down the hill before his torn and broken body lands flatly against a large thick tree truck seems to last an eternity to Bo. Bo lets out a loud sharp cry of intense pain as he lands against the solid tree truck that stops his fall even though to Bo it feels as if he is continuing to slide down the hill.

Feeling the tree beneath him he forces his eyes open and the woods seems to spin rapidly around him in a thick haze while a thick and heavy darkness threatens to swallow him whole. Fighting off the darkness, he forces himself to look up the hill he had just slid down to look to him to be miles before his eyes adjust well enough to see the big dog staring over the edge of the hill, eyeing him with bright gold eyes. After a long moment of staring down at Bo, the dog lets out a loud bark and then a growl before it slowly backs away and out of sight from Bo. “Damn,” Bo begins to say before he is cut off with harsh and heavy coughing as breathing becomes painful and hard. For a long moment he rests against the tree, too afraid to move as to force himself to start falling once more and his thoughts slowly fall away from his slide and the dog to what Jesse and Luke will have to say when they see him. Of their anger and disappointment at him for running off as he had, for being dumb enough to attempt to walk through the dark unfamiliar woods by himself.

As Bo slowly attempts to pull himself up, pain harshly explodes within his throbbing body  and he is quickly thrown back down upon the ground in his pain and weakness. The icy rain picks up only to feel like sharp fangs piercing into his broken body repeatedly and Bo feels his eyes slowly shut before he surrenders to the blackness of unconsciousness.

 

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Luke reluctantly turns away from the thick wooded area as dread fills him with thoughts of Bo being alone in the unfamiliar woods, now knowing of the drop off that Jesse had just talked about. If only he hadn’t lost his temper at Bo yesterday while moving and hadn’t blamed him for losing the farm, Bo wouldn’t have taken it upon himself to try to save the farm himself. Or wouldn’t be out in the woods this early by himself. “Damn,” he cusses as he runs his hands through his thick hair and turns away from the woods and towards the house to begin walking around the corner and he hears Jesse and Daisy close behind him. Putting his hands into his pockets, he silently makes his way around the house and up the old front porch and back into the kitchen with Jesse and Daisy following him in. Without a word, Luke quickly walks over to the key ring plaque that hangs on the wall to pick up his key ring that consists of the new key to the house and a key to The General.

“What we going to do now?” Daisy breaks the silence between the three of them, tears in her eyes, “I mean we can just leave him out there by himself, can we? Will he come back? Why he leave?” She goes silent, embarrassed by her outburst of questions. “Sorry. I’m just worried. First the farm and now Bo.”

“Shhh it’ll be OK. Everything will be OK,” Jesse pats her on the shoulder, trying to reassure her despite his own fears and he finds himself eyeing Luke as well with Daisy.

Luke shrugs their attention away as he makes his way to the door. “The way I see it, Bo has either left to run away to spite me or he left because he feels responsible for losing the farm and feels like he has to do something to get it back. I’m willing to bet on the latter,” he pauses nervously, each hateful word he spoken to Bo echoes in his mind, “Look, I lost my temper with him yesterday while packing. I confronted him about now doing his share of the work,  which later turned into me blaming him for losing the farm. I said a few harsh words to him for what he did. At the time, I meant every word.” He goes silent for another long moment, feeling closed in and Closter phobic in the kitchen, “but they were far from the truth.”

Jesse and Daisy look questionably at each other, knowing just how strong of a bond the boys had with each other and just how much Bo looks up to Luke. “Look y’all were all mad and upset over losing the farm. Bo’s old enough by now to know things like that are said out of anger,” Jesse slowly states in his vague attempt to help his oldest deal with his guilt as he silently recalls his own words of accusations he had spoken towards Bo earlier to Luke. “What you thinking Luke?” Jesse finally speaks up to break his silence.

“I’m of thought to go out looking for him,” he pauses for a long moment as he opens the screen door, “the only place I can think of him going is back to the farm in order to see if he can find anything out. Just as I had suggested we did earlier,” he nods at Jesse, “so I thought I would start there. Problem is, is with him on foot, it would take him a lot longer than if I drove the car, so maybe I’ll drive around the woods as much as I can to see if I can somehow see him in there.”

“I’m going with you,” Jesse grabs his red hunting hat off of the counter and quickly joins Luke at the door, “that way you can drive and I can look. I will be able to see more than you would driving since you’d also have to concentrate on the road. Daisy,” he turns to his niece who he knows will insist on going to, “I need you to stay here in case he comes back for some reason or another.”

“But Jesse, I -” Daisy begins to argue as Jesse had predicted she would.

“I know, you want to come too. But we need someone to stay here in case he returns. If he does fall down that hill and by chance makes it back up it and back home, he’ll need some help. Though, he alls down that hill with all them trees, rocks, and shrubbery, I doubt he’ll be making it home on his own any time soon,” he sighs heavily, “all the same, I need you here for him. We’ll give you a call if we find something or anything. OK?”

Fighting back the tears, Daisy reluctantly nods. “OK. If that’s what you need me to do.”

“That’s what we all need you to do. As I said, we’ll give you a call once we find anything,” Jesse approaches Luke, “let’s get going, Luke. I don’t like this one bit.”

 

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Lighting a fresh cigar, Boss glances up at the gray sky that remains clouded over with thick gray storm clouds as the rain slowly tampers back down to a drizzle. Despite the dismal weather that had began the day, Hogg was in great spirit and for the first time in a long time he full of excitement, almost making him giddy. The day he had been dreaming about for so long has now became a reality. Not only has he legally got the Duke farm in his name, but he has the perfect idea of what to do with it that will help bring him more money. A boarding house. The only bad part about it is that the idea had came from his niece and her husband who now have forced their way into his schemes and into the Duke farm by being the cook and the repairmen. Meaning less paycheck to him. Shaking his head at himself he silently yells at him again, that it didn’t matter if he had to share the money with them, he finally got the Duke land, and that was what really mattered. He was already they richest man in that part of the state, had his other ‘businesses’ going that would bring him the money. This was only a bonus.

Looking up from his cigar, chills of excitement cross his round body to look up at the proud Duke farm that is now his farm standing a few feet away from him and he impatiently stands in his car as his driver makes his slow way around the car to open the door for him. Stepping out of the car, his brown eyes fall upon the expensive black Lexus that is parked to the far right side of the drive and questions wash over him. Inhaling on his cigar, he takes his gold pocket watch out of his inner pocket to look at it to find it to only be six thirty in the morning. Why would they be here this early? He questions himself as he slowly walks up the steps of the porch before shoving the question away.

“Uncle J.D.!” he hears from behind him and he comes to a halt on the second step to slowly turn around to find Rory standing near her expensive car with her auburn thick hair pulled up in a tight pony tail while she wears a thick denim coat, tight dark jeans, and expensive brown leather boots.  She smiles broadly at him and her green eyes seem to sparkle as she takes a step closer and the driver door slowly opens in front of her. Boss remains silent as he watches Rory’s tall and lengthy husband, Craig Hestler, steps out of the car with dark sunglasses covering half of his face before he takes them off to toss them onto the leather seats of his car. Craig offers Hogg a large smile of his own while his strong hand runs through his sandy blond hair that remains cut in a crew cut even after several years out of the Army.  His hand falls down from hair to fall deeply into the pockets of his black leather coat and he begins to kick a large rock with the toe of his boot. “Uncle J.D.!” Rory yells again as she makes her way past Craig and to Hogg who now steps off of the porch step.

“Well hi there Rory,” he endures a hug before he steps away from her and offers his hand to Craig and quickly withdraws it after Craig lets go. Looking at Rory, he says, “before we start, let’s get this straight. We are going to be business partners. I will be addressed by Boss or JD. Not Uncle J.D. How old are you now?”

She rolls her pretty eyes at him as she takes a step back from him, dropping her fake enthusiasm she had just shown him a moment ago. “Twenty-four,” she slowly states as she eyes Craig for a moment and then back at Boss, “and since we are setting things straight here, let me state that I don’t want your stupid sheriff anywhere near our business. He has a tendency to,” she feigns a thoughtful pose, “how do I say this nicely? Mess everything up. Craig and I have put a lot of thought and will be putting a lot of effort in making our business work and I don’t want him messing it all up as he has for you in the past. Heck, I don’t know why you even put up with him as you do,” she shakes her head before she points at Craig, “I have an idea. Why don’t you do yourself and this town a favor and get rid of him? You could hire Craig here to be your sheriff. He’d do a whole lot better of a job than what’s his face does and he wouldn’t be messing up all your plans and ideas as Rosco does.”

Hogg eyes her hardly before eyeing Craig and chills rush down his spine at the thought of hiring him as his sheriff and having to work with him on a daily basis. Hogg never liked Craig from day one, never trusted him, and could never understand what Rory saw in him or why she married him. He was even reluctant to follow up on this idea of their’s due to the thought of Craig living in Hazzard, the same town as Hogg himself, and having to do business with him. The thought of hiring Craig as his sheriff repulses him and Hogg finds himself biting his tongue in order not to say something aloud about it to Rory. Instead he says, “Whether you like Rosco or not, he’s my sheriff and he is going to stay that way. Who are you to come walking in here and telling me how to do my job and who I should hire and who I should fire?” He shoots an angry look at her as he tosses the butt of his cigar on the ground and steps it out, “This is my town and if I want Rosco as my sheriff, he’ll be my sheriff. Also, this here is my business, don’t you forget it. You want to disallow Rosco on my land and in my business you can leave town the way you entered it. Rosco and I can find ourselves a couple of locals to do your job and they won’t be complaining about my sheriff or how I do my job. Understand?”

Rory eyes him with fire in her eyes before she shoots a look at Craig who only shrugs. Looking back at Boss, she nods and says, “Yes sir. Just thought I’d be of some help and give you a suggestion. No need to get all upset about it. If you want Rosco in on our business, then he’s in. Just make sure he don’t mess it up.”

“I’ll worry about my sheriff. You worry about you and Craig there,” Hogg shoots back at her, questioning whether it was all that great of an idea to be trusting Rory like he had a couple of days ago when they put the idea into motion. He sighs heavily. It was too late to be questioning that now. “Anyway, we should be worrying over all that needs to be done in order to get everything ready for business and not about Rosco. Glad to see you here early. The sooner we get started, the better.”

Rory nods. “I agree,” she states taking Craig’s hand, “but I think before Craig and I get started with the house, I think we will go for a little walk and have a look at the property. Perhaps, we can come up with more ideas for the farm as a whole.”

Hogg eyes her skeptically. “Fine. Do what you want in order to get it ready. That is your job. I just stopped by to have a look at it and see if you showed up yet. I have to get back to town to do some business,” he pauses as he looks up at the farm house. He had planned on walking in and walking around it some more, but his distrust for Craig and his rising anger towards Rory on how she was treating and talking to him, is quick to persuade him into leaving earlier than he had thought he would. “I’ll stop by later on this morning or this afternoon sometime to check up on things. Give me a call if you need anything and I’ll see what I can do.”

Rory looks up at Craig and over at Jefferson Davis Hogg and nods. “Sure thing, J.D. Have a good day at work and we’ll have this place cleaned up and ready in no time at all. Wait and see,” she smiles at Hogg as he walks past her and Craig to his white Cadillac Convertible.

Climbing into the backseat that his driver opened for him, Hogg quickly sits down and fastens up before lighting another cigar. “Step on it,” he barks at the driver, “take me back to my office in town.” He rests back against the white car seat as he attempts to shove away thoughts of his encounter with his niece and the worries and concerns her attitude with him has built within him. Never before had she treated him that coldly, but then again, the last time he saw her was at her wedding two years ago when he had first met Craig. Perhaps Craig is changing her from the fun loving and enthusiastic girl he once knew her to be to be more like him. Cold, uncaring, and untrustworthy. “Damn,” he hisses as his thoughts slide from Rory and onto Rosco and all she had said. Only to have him thinking of how Rosco has been acting ever since he got his hands on the Duke farm. Not only has he been questioning his ways, but has also rebelled against him in letting the elder Duke go. Almost as if he’s siding with the Duke in his way of feeling sorry for them. Perhaps Rory had a reason to worry about Rosco messing things up after all. . .

 

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Bo is abruptly thrown awake full of agonizing throbbing pain exploding throughout his body and for a moment, he is plagued deeply with confusion and questions. Through thickly blurred vision he takes in the mud, trees, and rocks surrounding him before he looks downward at the rest of the hill down and he attempts to sit up to slide slightly more with sharp pain cutting through his throbbing pain. Lying back  down, he closes his eyes while feeling the world spin around him and he struggles to grasp what had happened that had gotten him lying against a thick tree on a steep hill plagued with intense pain. After a long moment of thought, his memory slowly comes back to him with thoughts of the big dog chasing him before he lost the ground under foot that had sent him rolling down  hill.

“Damn,” he hears himself wheeze aloud, pain flaring in his lungs with each breath he takes and he slowly grabs onto the tree and breathes in deeply as he slowly forces himself to sit up. Fear grows rapidly within him as he looks up the hill and he begins to question how he will be able to climb up the hill in order to get back home.

“Rory, what is your problem?” an aggravated male’s voice pierces through the silent morning to abruptly grab Bo’s attention. Bo hisses audibly as he slowly turns around to find what looks to be an attractive woman and a tall man standing at the end of the hill. “We all had this plan a month before you got into contact with that clown uncle of your’s. You agreed that it was a great plan. You were all for it. And now that we are in this stupid hick town of Hazzard to fulfill that plan, you’re having second thoughts?”

The woman shakes her auburn head at the tall man as she seems to wipe at her  eyes as she hugs her arms tightly against herself. “It’s not like that, Craig, and you know it! You lied to me. . .we had a deal. Me and you. Not Brian. And yet, Brian’s set up shop in the Duke’s barn.” She says exasperated, “Whether you like him or not, J.D. is my uncle, and if we are going to rob him as we planned, we need to work together as a team!”

The tall man shakes his head at the lady, hands on his hips. “Brian is my brother. He came down only to make sure to take care of any more trouble that may come along. That’s all. Nothing more, nothing less. C’mon Rory,” he states softly as he runs his thick hand rubs over his head, “nothing has changed. All is as planned. We go back to the Duke farm…I mean our farm, and we build it up, restore it, and before long we’ll have ourselves a boarding house. All the while Hogg will be trusting us and working with us while we will rob him blind.”

“Yeah, and how are to do that, again?” she asks, her voice full of unbelief.

“We went over this, Rory, we follow our plan, nothing will go wrong and we’ll be out of this hick town in no time. We’ll be rich on your uncle’s money while he’ll be broke with his own boarding house.” Bo silently watches, attempting to ignore his screaming pain, as the tall man she had called Craig steps forward to give her a hug only for  her to push him away.

“If only it’d be that easy. Sounded that easy before I knew you lied to me. You know how I feel about Brian and you know how I feel when you lie to me like this!” she stares at him for a long moment before wiping at her eyes again and takes something out of her pocket and opens it to look into it, “We had a plan and you messed it up when you brought that dumb brother of your’s along! Now if -” she goes silent as she turns around and Bo feels his heart come to a halt when she looks right at him. She turns around to face Craig, “We’ve got company, Craig.” She points up the hill at Bo and the man looks up  in the direction and Bo knows that he too has spotted him.

“No, no,” Bo gasps as he fearfully watches as the man threatenly begins to walk up the hill and Bo turns back around and as he attempts to stand up, he is quickly thrown back onto the muddy ground to send even more pain through his body.

“OK hick, you’ve been made. Now get up!” the man sharply says and Bo glances back to find the man standing over him from behind with a gun to his head.

Struggling through his pain to breathe, he throws a weak and bruised hand up to his right eye in order to wipe something out of his eye, taking his hand away, he finds his hand thick of blood. As Bo remains silently sitting in the mud, the guy presses the gun tighter against the left side of Bo’s head and Bo grabs onto the tree, trying to pull him up. Bo gasps as he begins to fall back down only for the guy to grab him tightly under his arm, yanking him downward toward where the lady stands, awaiting impatiently for them. “What do you want from me? I didn’t do -” Bo begins to say before he is interrupted by harsh coughing to spit up slightly, “anything.”

“You didn’t have to do anything. You heard too much,” the guy states while he roughly shoves Bo towards the woman only for Bo’s legs to collapse under him and he falls upon the ground. “Get up you idiot!” he yells before he bends down to harshly yank him  up again, this time grips grabs onto Bo’s upper arm to hold him up.

“So smarty,” the attractive woman spits out angrily, “what we do with him now?”

“This is where Brian comes in handy. We can tie him up in the loft, have Brian keep eye over him until we can figure out what else to do with him,”  the man says, his grip tightening on Bo’s arm, “let’s go.”

Before Bo can say anything, the man puts a gun tightly to Bo’s head and begins to shove him forward and the woman begins to follow behind them. “What if I don’t wanna go?” Go gasps as he begins to drag his feet.

Tightening his grip more so on Bo’s bruised arm and his gun tighter to his head, Craig hisses, “You don’t have a choice in the matter. You’re lucky I don’t decide to put a bullet it that ugly head of your’s now.”

Bo nods slowly only to enforce the pain to grow in his head and the world spins quicker around him. “That’s what I thought,” Bo forces out as they walk out of the woods and onto the familiar back yard of the Duke farm to send harsh emotions to rush rapidly within his pain throbbing body.