by: Marty Chrisman
Luke didn’t understand why he was leaving with Bo but thankfully he didn’t argue about it. Jesse didn’t think that even J.D. Hogg would go so far as to try and frame Luke for Angie’s murder. But Jesse wanted to make sure that Luke was safely hidden away until things got sorted out a bit.
Bo threw the suitcase with a few changes of clothes for both boys and some toiletries in it into the back of the pickup truck along with their sleeping bags and camping gear. Daisy brought out a cooler with food and drinks in it and handed to him to put in the truck with the other items Bo was taking with them. He didn’t know how long they would have to hide out but he knew if they needed anything else Jesse or Daisy would bring it to them.
The boys often hid out at Jesse’s old still sites when they didn’t want to be found. Jesse had always chosen his hiding spots well for his stills and nobody had ever found them during the whole time Jesse had made his living making shine. The sites were skillfully hidden throughout the hills that surrounded the Duke farm. There were 8 sites in all. Still site number seven was hidden away deep in a hollow. You had to almost be half mountain goat to even get to it unless you knew where the hidden dirt road was that led to it. (Which of course Bo did)
Nothing was left of the old still that had once sat on the spot except for the fire pit and the drainage ditch. The still itself had been dismantled and destroyed when the boys were put on probation after having been caught running shine. Bo parked Jesse’s truck next to the old site and the two boys began setting up camp. They worked in silence most of the time. Bo started a fire in the old fire pit, while Luke pitched the tent. When they had finished, they sat down on some rocks near the fire pit to rest.
“What used to be here anyway?” Luke asked, looking around the surrounding area with a faint frown on his face.
“One of Jesse’s stills.” Bo reminded him
“A still?” Luke said in a mildly surprised voice “Jesse made moonshine?”
“Yes, he did….” Bo said “And so did we….till you and me got busted running a load one night.”
“We were ridge runners.” Luke said with a smirk “You and me?”
“Yeah, we were ridge runners.” Bo said letting a hint of sarcasm creep into his voice. He was getting really frustrated with Luke not remembering anything. “And we were good at it too.”
“If we were so good then how did we get caught?”
“We blew out a tire going about ninety miles an hour. We went off the road and rolled the car about four times.” Bo told him “You really don’t remember any of this stuff, do ya?”
“No,” Luke said with a trace of irritation creeping into his voice “If I did I wouldn’t be asking all these stupid questions.”
“I’m sorry, Luke….it’s just I don’t what to say to ya….ya know?”
“Yeah, I know. I don’t know what to say to you either….” Luke told him with a deep sigh. “I wanna remember but no matter how hard I try…..I can’t…..”
“But you ain’t forgot everything…I mean ….ya still know what you like and don’t like….right?”
“I guess….but what good is it gonna do me to know that I like my coffee black and I don’t like buttermilk ….if I can’t remember my name, where I live or who the hell you are?” Luke said with a sharp edge to his voice
“Okay….I get your point.” Bo said “I’m sorry…”
“So am I.” Luke said with another sigh. He looked at his younger cousin with slightly narrowed eyes “You wanna tell me why we’re hiding out up here?”
“Cause Uncle Jesse told us to.” Bo said trying to evade the question. He didn’t want to tell Luke about the girl’s body or the investigation that seemed to trying to make Luke a suspect in her murder.
“Come on,” Luke said in an annoyed tone “I know there’s more to it than that. Now are you gonna tell me or not?” Even if he couldn’t remember anything, Luke still had the Duke stubbornness and Bo knew he wouldn’t back down. But Bo was still reluctant to tell him what he knew. So he tried to find a way to pacify him with revealing too much.
“Because Jesse thinks you’ll be better off up here until he figures out what’s going on.”
“You expect me to buy that?” Luke asked stubbornly He looked at Bo closely “Is somebody after me?”
“I don’t know.” Bo told him at least that much was true. “We don’t know how you got hit on the head….but those marks on your wrists prove that somebody had you tied up.”
Startled, Luke looked at the red marks around both wrists where the skin was raw and scraped away as if noticing them for the first time. “I don’t remember being tied up…” he said quietly
“That’s why Jesse figured you’d be better off hiding out here ….if somebody is after ya then the farm is the first place they’d look.” Bo told him. That much was true too. Bo hoped that Luke would let it drop for now. “Hey, you wanna go fishing? The poles are in the back of the truck.”
“Yeah….sure.” Luke said with a shrug of his shoulders. Bo shoved himself to his feet and walked over to the truck to get the fishing poles from the bed of the truck. He grabbed some sandwiches out of the cooler and a couple of cokes. He figured they could use some of the bread from the sandwiches for bait. He handed Luke his pole and the two boys walked to the mountain stream nearby. They found a comfortable place to sit on the bank and cast their lines into the water. Fishing was one of their favorite pastimes and they often spent hours doing it. At least there wasn’t much need to talk while they were fishing so the silence between them wasn’t so uncomfortable.
Luke stretched out, visibly relaxing for the first time in the past two days as he did something that he enjoyed. He grinned when he caught the first fish, a 3 pound trout. By the time the boys decided to quit for the day, they had caught enough fish to cook up a good meal that night. Carrying their catch back to camp, they started cleaning and filleting the fish. For a few hours anyway, it was easy to overlook the fact that Luke couldn’t remember anything and act normally as they worked together doing something they had done since they were children. Bo let Luke fry up the fish for supper since he’d always been better at that sort of thing than Bo had. There was nothing quite as delicious as fresh fish cooked over an open camp fire. As darkness fell, the boys laid out their sleeping bags inside the tent and got ready to turn in. It wasn’t long before they were both sleeping soundly.
Sometime during the early morning hours, Bo was awakened by Luke mumbling and tossing restlessly beside him. Leaning up on one arm, Bo glanced at his older cousin worriedly. Luke seemed to be dreaming and it didn’t seem like it was a very pleasant dream. Gently, Bo reached out to shake his shoulder to awaken him. “Luke? Hey, Luke…” he said quietly “Come on, Luke….wake up.” With a start, Luke opened his eyes and looked at Bo with fear showing clearly in the depths of those sapphire eyes. “It’s okay, cousin…” Bo told him quietly “You were having a bad dream….that’s all.”
“A dream?” Luke repeated in a confused voice, still not quite awake. He sat up and shook his head to try and clear away the cobwebs in his mind.
“You okay?”
“Yeah…..I guess so….just one hell of a headache that’s all.” Luke told him
“Do you remember what you were dreaming about?”
“Something about a girl….a young girl.” Luke told him trying to remember the fragments of the dream “She was in some kind of trouble…..”
“Do you remember anything else?” Bo asked anxiously, thinking that the girl Luke was referring to might be Angie Baker. Maybe Luke’s dream meant that he was starting to remember what happened.
“No….” Luke told him, shaking his head. He lay back on the ground and threw his arm up over his eyes. Bo looked at him for a moment in exasperation, then lay back down himself and tried to go back to sleep. Maybe Luke would remember something in the morning.