by: MacSas

August 1969

…He’d been spotted. There was no hope now. Taking his gun he stood tall, and fired…

The grenade thrown at him mercifully missed it’s target, but it succeeded in knocking him down long enough for them to advance on him. As he reached for his displaced gun, a harsh voice yelled, “Do tay len!”

Slowly, he raised his hands. Admitting defeat was worse than death. What really annoyed him was his fellow survivor leaving without him. Fury burned in him as he stood still and watched his captors talk rapidly amongst themselves. By leaving him behind, Luke Duke had almost certainly signed Kane Hardy’s death warrant. They were supposed to be comrades, friends, brothers.

A short Vietnamese solider motioned for Kane to turn around. His arms were pulled painfully behind his back. Harsh rope was used to tie his arms at both the wrists and elbows. It was uncomfortable and the rope took no time to start cutting into his skin.

A push in the back moved him forward. Two of his captors walked in front of him, two behind and one at either side of him. He was completely surrounded, paraded like a trophy through the jungle. The Vietnamese couldn’t hide their glee at their prize.

A little further into the jungle, closer to the village where he and his men had been ambushed, Kane spotted a tall man watching expectantly. He had a commanding presence about him, and eyed Kane as though he were deciding whether to toss him out with the garbage or not. This was the man in charge, Kane decided. There was more smiling and nodding, pats on the back and greetings between the man and his soldiers. After the man in charge gave a command to one of the men, Kane was turned abruptly to the right. Before him lay what was left of his platoon. The urge to vomit was so strong Kane could taste it. He refused to show any weakness however, and merely looked on his fallen brothers with unblinking eyes. Inside he screamed their names, begged them to sit up, prayed this dream would soon be over and he would wake. He knew it to be real though. It was too evil to not be.

The commander tied a rope around Kane’s already burning, bleeding arms, and pulled him forward. Like a dog on a leash, he was led back to the village; stepping over the bodies of those he had just shared a meal with not 2 hours before.

1985

Shawna didn’t know what to expect when she decided to travel to Hazzard County. She had heard Luke talk often of his county, the farm, and his family. It was hard for her to imagine that half of what he’d told her was true though.

A corrupt County Commissioner who worked hand in hand with a just as corrupt, if not slightly odd balled, County Sheriff. He and his cousin doing moonshine runs as lads. His cousin Daisy, making a pair of shorts a little shorter and creating a new trend. It didn’t seem, well, normal. And yet, Luke was the most warm, loving, genuine and generous man she had ever known. Maybe he was the exception to the rule in this town?

Hazzard County sounded like a place that some TV writer had dreamed up and made millions out of. Yes, she smiled, it sounded like the kind of town that would end up in a show almost anyone would watch.

As the Greyhound bus pulled into the township, she eagerly looked out the window. And she was surprised by how normal it did indeed look. Old buildings were arranged in a circle that boasted a beautiful park in the middle of the city centre. The main feature of this park was a gazebo placed in the middle. The white paint gleamed on the patchwork frame, indicating that it was well tended. A small ironwork fence that had been painted black surrounded the park itself. Flowers were everywhere.

As the bus pulled to a stop, Shawna took a moment to collect her thoughts. It had been more than a decade and a half since she’d last seen Luke. She still recalled the day he’d told her he was heading to a place called Paris Island to finish his training. When she’d asked if he’d go to Vietnam, he’d smiled and told her that ‘little scuffle’ would be long over by the time his training was finished. He’d been at Paris Island six weeks before being called to go to Vietnam.

Their romance had ended when he’d enlisted in the Marines, but they had remained firm friends, talking almost daily by phone. Vietnam had changed that. Some of the reports that had reached her ears about the war had been disturbing, even at that early stage. Yet, like most people, she’d trusted her government and they had assured the people at home that the war was not only winnable, but that things were going better than expected.

Yet, Luke had been injured and Kane had gone missing. It had been their first mission together. Shawna had been dumbfounded when her husband had written her about a guy named Luke Duke that he had become friends with. What were the odds? She knew Luke well enough to know that he wouldn’t say a word about their relationship.

It had taken Luke nearly a year to recover from the wounds to his leg. Yet he was returned to Vietnam as soon as he was fit enough. There was now a shortage of men in the winnable war that was going better than expected. Shawna shuddered, wondering what Luke had endured going back when he had desperately wanted to stay home. In a weird way, her former lover was her last link to her husband. But Luke never spoke about the war. When he’d arrived home after his second tour of duty, he’d simply gotten back to work at the farm. Life had gone on as if he’d never been away, almost as if he’d wiped those years from his memory. Luke Duke may have secrets, but so did she. Like the real reason she married Kane.

The exhaling of the bus brakes bought Shawna back to the present. She wondered at the anxious, almost school girl like feeling in the pit of her stomach. She stood and straightened her jacket. Running her fingers through her short blonde hair, she took a deep breath…

…Ready to face her past.