Silence slowly builds between us as the powerful engine hums loudly under the hood of The General as I redirect him to a sharp right onto another dirt road. My eyes continues to sweep across the dirt road to take in the hilly surroundings, the open pastures and fields, and the thick wooded areas in full attention of anything different than normal. So far in the past fifteen minutes, nothing different except the silence that builds between us. Bo’s normally talking about one thing or another, whether it is something that is bothering him, worrying him, or what he’s thinking about, a pretty girl, racing, cars, or music.  Today nothing except for his wheezy breathing as he struggles to breathe to remind me of Jesse’s concern this morning. His medicine doesn’t seem to even work anymore. I nod silently to myself as my thoughts fall onto finding him asleep in the barn when I had pulled him out of a bad dream, him yelling no and falling into an attack. Of him pulling his inhaler out and taking his medicine as he is prescribed to do only seemingly to help slightly if at all. His gasping had slowed and wasn’t as loud, though the pain was reflective in his baby blue eyes. If medicine don’t work, the only thing left is another visit to the hospital or perhaps a nebulizer of which he hates just as much as the hospital. At least of which I learned growing up with him.

“You want to talk about it?” I finally ask to break the silence and in hope of directing my thoughts away from his asthma, “About anything?”

Bo slowly looks away from his open window. “Not really,” he shrugs before building the wall he has seemed to build around himself, “there’s nothing to talk about.”

“Stop lying to me…to us, Bo. We all know differently,” I pause for a moment, “it may help to talk about it, storing it all within yourself isn’t healthy or good for you. After awhile it all is going to explode in one way or another. So why not let it all out and get it over with? It may help.”

For a long moment he is silent, as if thinking about it. “So you’ve said,” he finally responds, “but talking about it won’t make it disappear or to go away.”

“No, it won’t,” I nod as I come to a stop sign and quietly contemplate on which way to go. Turning left, I say, “but it will relieve the pressure within.” I once again go quiet as my mind goes blank on what to say to him that will help open him up. “Look, I won’t lie to you. I don’t know how you feel. I know what you are going through and how you must be feeling. But I don’t know what you are thinking or exactly how you feel…I can only imagine.

“I’ve seen plenty of men die violently, be beaten violently to death or near death. To see the blank look in their eyes, their wounds, and blood. I remember seeing it for the first time and just how shaken up I was. Or when I saw a close friend die painfully for the first time. I just,” I pause as my mind goes back to war, “I just wanted to die. But thought of home, of you, and knew I had to fight on. Things would get better. When my troop and I had been ambushed, when I had been wounded, and everyone else died…I couldn’t handle lying in that hospital knowing I was the only one left of my troop alive. Of the guilt I had felt, of the anger, and resentment. For a moment,” I go silent as I fight with the emotion entrapped within me, emotion that I had shoved back for so many years, “for a moment, I thought I’d go crazy. That I’d lose it. I dreamt of it for so long. I still do, it’s something that never leaves my mind. Then being forced to leave the Marines, go home…I should have felt glad and excited to be home. Yet I resented it for the longest time, lost myself by spending most my nights alone at The Boar’s Nest with a bottle of beer in hand. It didn’t help anything, other than to make you and Jesse worried about what I was doing.”

As I finish, he looks questionably at me for along moment and a hint of shock enters his eyes, shock that I revealed something so private to me, to him. Shock that I allowed my emotions to show, when I always worked hard not to allow them to show. “I’m sorry,” he finally says, “you went through that.”

I nod as I attempt to block out the vivid scenes in my head. “One night, Cooter confronted me at the Boar’s Nest. Made a scene of being upset about how I’ve been acting, what I’ve been putting my family through…for that fight I started with you,” I pause momentarily as my mind goes back to that night, at seeing the anger flare in Cooter’s crazed brown eyes as he grabbed my arm and forced me to sit in a corner table. Of his stubbornness and determination to help a lonely and miserable friend, even if the friend didn’t want the help in his attempt to help the rest of my family as well. “He made me sit down and talk to him, about what was going on in here,” I point to my head, “I didn’t have to go into every detail of war or what I went through, but what I was going through emotionally. And you know what?” I pause for a short moment before he reluctantly looks at me, “It helped.”

He eyes me silently for a short moment before his attention falls back out through his closed window and at the open pasture that lies a few feet away through his window. “I’m glad it helped,”he slowly responds before falling quiet, quiet except for his wheezy breathing that lingers on from his past attack. “But I don’t want to talk about it. Not now at least.”

“Well, I’m here when you do. You know that, right buddy?” I slowly asks to receive a nod from him as his attention remains out his window, “We’re all here for you…when you’re ready for it. We understand that you are going through a hard time and we want to help. In any way we can.”

“Thanks,” he responds awkwardly before asking, “Where’re we going?”

I force a smile at him before coming to a halt at another stop sign and once again go through the options. “We could go for the caves,” I slowly suggest, “or perhaps the ol’ swamp. No one would think of lookin’ there. Or we could go home or turn around. What you think?”

Bo eyes me for a short moment with emotion-filled blue eyes before he silently looks at the streets that surrounds us, the options that are now open to us. “Well the swamp holds more hiding ground than the caves,” he finally speaks up, “with abandoned houses and buildings. A way out of the wind and hardly anyone goes there any more.”

“The swamp it is,” I slowly respond as I press the accelerator down to go straight.

***BO DUKE***

Watching the familiar farmland slowly fading into the yucky and murky swampland, a harsh and irrational bad feeling slowly explodes within me to send my imagination running wild within me. Vivid thoughts of all that we could find or happen if we happen to come across the men responsible for beating Cooter and shooting Brodie. Chills run rapidly up and down my spine as my thoughts return to finding the paramedics guiding the stretcher out of the garage with Cooter covered in his blood and the dark blood stain upon the bank floor. “What if,” I slowly start to break the silence, “we do find the men who beat Cooter?”

Luke slowly takes his eyes off the road momentarily to look over at me before looking back ahead. “We call it into the FBI,” he shrugs, “or we drive into town and tell them ourselves. I already made a promise to Jesse that we wouldn’t do anything.” He shakes his head while his left hand goes through his thick dark hair, his signature while he’s lost in thought or worried about something. “There’s too many of them and too little of us. They’ve got guns and all we got on us is our pocket knives and our fists…we should have brought our bows and arrows.”

“You already promised Jesse we wouldn’t do anything, remember?” I question back and he slowly nods as the murky wooded area opens up into open swamp land. The gray sky reflects darkly upon the green water while the wind blows the top layer of water slightly into small waves. “But,” I slowly begin again while deciding on whether or not to pronounce my fear aloud to him. My fear to someone who’s always strong and resilient to such emotions. “what if they find us snooping around?”

“That’s a possibility,” Luke reluctantly responds, “you want to turn around? Go back home?” He stops the car to look over at me and I slowly shrug at him, no longer certain if we are doing the right thing. “Look, if you want to turn back or have a bad feeling about this, I don’t mind. Better safe than sorry. Rosco has the FBI here in town to look for these men…they know what to look for, we don’t. They have guns and experience and man power on their side, we don’t.”

I slowly glance away from him as I attempt to block out my imagination, block out Cooter’s death-stricken body lying on the stretcher, block out the thoughts of all that the gang is capable of doing. “I don’t want to turn around,” I finally respond, to afraid to show my fear to Luke, “it was just a question. You do what you want to do.”

Luke goes quiet as he peers out through the mud splattered windshield to quietly take in the normal scenes that surrounds us while he nervously taps a couple of fingers upon the steering wheel. After a moment he turns back to look at me with serious blue eyes that reflect nervousness and worry, emotions that often times remain hidden.  “Tell me what to do, Bo. Tell me where to go,” he finally replies his fingers come to a halt on the steering and his right hand goes back to his hair while his left hand grabs out his pocket watch, “it’s your call.”

I stare at him for a long moment before glance back out through my window while quietly wishing it all to go away, to wake up in our room to find it all to be a bad dream. “It won’t hurt to drive on a bit,” I finally shrug, giving up hope for it to go away, “see what’s a head.”

Slowly, The General moves forward before lurching up to speed and the scenery once again begins to flash outside my window.  “There’s old man Ritler’s place,” Luke slowly says as he turns around the small corner and a small cabin looking house comes into view, “and look -“ Luke cuts himself as he points at the small house, “the chimney! There’s smoke!”

“No one’s lived in that house for at least ten years since Ritler died in that accident,” I slowly speak up as I sit myself up straighter in my seat, “no one’s been brave enough to even think of entering his house. Not alone to live in it.”

For a moment, no one says anything as The General slows down to a crawl as we both take in the long abandoned log house that holds a small shed a few feet away. A small shed that has sparked many rumors through Hazzard as to what all may be locked within it. “Well Bo,” Luke begins to say as his fingers once again begins to drum upon the steering wheel, “I think we just found what we were lookin’ for. I think it’s time to -“ Luke lets out a small yelp of fear and surprise as a sharp whizzing noise is abruptly followed by the driver’s side front tire exploding. “Hang tight,” Luke grunts as he abruptly begins to fight with the steering before we quickly do a three-sixty and down into a deep ditch before banging roughly against a thick tree. “Damn it!” Luke cusses from the driver’s seat, pulling himself against the seat by pushing against the steering wheel. “Bo,” he slowly turns to me as pain erupts within my lungs and I am thrown into a painful and harsh coughing fit; another attack. “Your inhaler!”

I nod silently as panic washes over me as my coughing comes to an abrupt halt and I begin gasping painfully for air as a throbbing pain rushes into my head and the car darkens and spins around me. After a long moment of struggling to get my inhaler out of my pocket, I get it before taking a long desperate breath of medicine to be followed by the five breathes and another puff of medicine. After finishing the process with relief at being able to painfully breathe again, I slowly glance over at Luke who has a cut above his right eye brow from hitting the steering wheel. “Your bleeding, Luke,” I slowly state as more panic washes over me at what had just happened as my mind falls back upon Cooter and vivid pictures of all that he went through circulates within me. “You OK? What happened?”

“Someone shot out our tire. I’m fine,” he gruffly responds before looking over at me, “How about you?”

“I’ll be fine,” I force out before I slowly look away from him to glance out my window to find several large men walking towards us, gun and bats in hand. “Lukas.”

“I see ‘em, Bo,” he nervously responds as he pulls himself up to sit on the window ledge, “get out, better out there than trapped in there.”

I nod before I reluctantly climb out through my window before sliding slightly down the hill before I regain my balance to climb out of the ditch to be joined by three tall and muscular men. I nervously glance over at Luke to find him paired with a couple of men about the same size and height as the ones standing in front of me. Once more, pain engulfs within my lungs as panic and fear swarm rapidly within me as I desperately begin to search for a way out while I am reminded of the worry I had a few minutes ago. Of the bad feeling. “You’re the mechanic’s friends…and you,” he points at me, hitting me in the chest, “are the one that walked in as the paramedics were taking him out. Also the kid’s friend that we shot at the bank. Guess it’s your turn.”

I eye the man in front of me for a long moment before glimpsing at the two men that begins to circle around us and over at Luke.  Looking back at the man in front of me, anger swells within me towards all that they have done to the people of Hazzard so far, for Cooter and Brodie. Abruptly, I throw a tight and hard fist and it lands harshly against his left cheek and he staggers back a couple of feet in surprise. “That’s for Cooter and Brodie!” I gasp as Luke begins to fight with the men he is against. I watch nervously as the man angrily throws a  punch at me and I duck in time before connecting my elbow into his chest and he grunts. I yell out in pain as a hard object hits the back of my head from behind and I am thrown on the ground before being pulled up by one of the men that had been circling around us. I begin to fight against his strong hold, hitting and kicking against him and the others while Luke grunts a few feet away before sending one of his guys to the ground.

“You think you’re so tough, huh, blondie? You won’t think you’re so tough when we’re through with you!” the other man laughs as he takes a free punch into my stomach before I send a kick into his chest and he angrily backhands me across the face and I yell out in pain before being cut off by acute and harsh coughing once more.

I continue to kick and fight against his hold despite the pain in my lungs and the weakness that seems to run through my body as I struggle to breathe. “You won’t -“ I begin to say while I continue to fight before I am abruptly cut off by a loud explosion before Luke yells loudly in pain. I quickly look over as blood spits out from his stomach and he quickly crumbles upon the wet and cold ground. “No!” I yell as the pain explodes within my lungs while fear rushes rapidly within me. “Luke!”

“One down, one more to go,” the big man in front of me smiles broadly as he quickly grabs a bat from the other man that had approached me. “Not for long,” he laughs as he swings the bat and it harshly lands on my chest to send me coughing and gasping painfully for air. “Nighty, night, Duke,” he says, sounding distant as my asthma grows worse along with the pain that is brought on by my asthma. Through blurred vision, I once again see the bat quickly coming at me, this time hitting me harshly against the side of my head just a moment before I am thrown into a world of blackness.

***LUKE DUKE***

Pain explodes as my head abruptly bangs into the steering wheel as The General Lee lands harshly against the thick post of an old and tall tree that hangs half in the swampy water and half on land. “Damn it,” I slowly cuss as I pull myself away from the steering wheel and the throbbing pain in my head quickly accelerates as I stare through our cracked windshield. In the passenger seat, Bo gasps out in pain before he is thrown harshly into another attack of painful and harsh coughing while struggling for air. “Bo,” I slowly speak up as fear and worry rushes over me. Worry for Bo and fear of what had just happened before I force myself to look through the crooked rearview mirror to find at least five large men running from Ritler’s cabin. “Your inhaler!” I yell back at Bo as I drag my attention away from the group of men and onto Bo as his coughing comes to a halt, no longer able to breathe enough to cough. He nods slowly at me as he begins to struggle to get his inhaler before he pulls out his emergency inhaler and once again goes through the routine procedure.

“You’re bleeding, Luke,” Bo finally says after pocketing his inhaler once more, concern and fear  wrote boldly across his face, “you ok? What happened?” He remains breathless and wheezy despite his medicine.

“Someone shot out our tire. I’m fine,” I quickly respond, my attention falls back on the men that has now reached the dirt road. Turning back to Bo, I ask, “How about you?”

“I’ll be fine,”he slowly replies, though the fear and pain in his eyes seem to say otherwise. He slowly takes his attention away from me as the men reach our bumper. His fear accelerates across his face as he looks back to me, eyeing me with pleading eyes to do something. “Lukas.”

“I see ‘em, Bo,” I slowly state as my mind abruptly races wildly of what to do as I count them. Five to two. Five men with guns and baseball bats against two unarmed men. Taking a deep breathe in attempt to gain some courage, I pull myself out of the car and onto the window ledge before looking back in to say, “get out, better out there than trapped in there.”

He eyes me questionably as he nods and pulls himself out before we walk alongside our damaged General Lee to be quickly matched against two muscular men dressed in dark windbreaker pants and coat, their hoods pulled tightly over their faces. I nervously glance over to find Bo up against three men about the same size of the two that stands in front of me a few feet to my right, the one in the middle says something to Bo before fingering him in the chest.  “Hey Duke,” one of the guys in front of me says to pull my attention onto the two men that stands in front of me, one with a bat the other with a gun. As the man that stands on the right reaches out, I quickly shove his hand back to quickly yank his arm behind his back and drive a knee into his face. He yells out while blood rushes out from his nose and as I see the other hooded man come at me with the bat I quickly block his powerful swing with his friend’s back before I throw the bloodied guy into his friend. The friend falls a couple of steps back while the man I had broke the nose of to, collapses and falls down the ditch and into the murky water.

Looking up, the last one standing eyes me with dark eyes before he oddly holds his gun up in the air before he points it at me while taking a small cautious step to me. My mind races as I take a step back, look over at Bo to find one of the men to have a tight hold of him from behind, while his buddy punches him in the stomach to receive a kick from Bo.  The man in front of me takes another step in front of me, his gun aimed at me with his gloved finger resting heavily upon the trigger and I quickly take a unexpected step to him. Abruptly, a loud whizzing sound pierces through the silent morning before a heavy metal bullet rips sharply and painfully in my stomach, I hear myself yell out in pain as I weakly fall upon the dirt ground. Confusion falls upon me as I look at the gun man in front of me to find him in the same spot as he was a minute ago to confirm that it wasn’t him that pulled the trigger. Someone in the trees. “No!” Bo’s painful and fear-filled voice echos through the swamp and I look over at him and chills fill me at the sight of the horror captured in his eyes. “Luke!” With that the man in front of him says something before swinging the bat in his hands into his chest and he cries out in pain, now sounding distant though he stands a few feet away.

I slowly place my hand to where the pain continues to flare in my right lower stomach, just where I was hit and wounded at war. I breath in to receive a sharp pain while I feel the thick sticky blood covering my hand that I hold tightly to where I was shot while the gunned man steps over to me to kick me harshly in the side a couple of times. His buddy slowly joins him and I receive another kick from him before they harshly pull me up and more pain erupts within my body. “Bo,” I gasp painfully as I glance over as the man in front of him hits him in the head with the bat, Bo lets out a breathless yell before his head falls to his chest. “Bo,” I hear myself repeat as one of the hooded men hits me in the head with the butt of the gun and the world goes black.

***UNCLE JESSE***

An odd and awkward silence surrounds the old farm house as the chilly wind howls and blows harshly against the house, making the house cold despite the fire going in the living room. “C’mon Bo,” I stiffly whisper into the empty room as I dare a look down at the CB handle that I hold tightly onto before glimpsing at the radio that I’ve sat on the counter. Silence. “C’mon Luke.”

“Hey, there you are,” Daisy’s familiar sweet voice rings behind me and I slowly turn away from the gloomy window to face her as she approaches me, giving me a gentle hug as she reaches where I stand. “You called the boys?”

“Several times,” I shake my head as I glance back down at the handle in my hand, fighting the urge to call them on it once more, “and nothing.”

“Oh Jesse,” she forces a stiff smile as she moves over to the sink a foot or so away, “I’m sure they’re fine. They are probably out of their car doing one thing or another. Perhaps they went and visited Cooter or Brodie.”

I eye her for a long moment before shaking my head. “No. Luke said they were going to go out and look around while he attempted to talk to Bo. Or to have Bo open up to him,” I pause heavily as I glance back out through the front door, hoping to see their orange car coming into view. Seeing nothing, I slowly say, “I’ve got this bad feeling,” I let out a deep breath I had been holding in, “and my big toe is a hurting. It always hurt when they’re in trouble.”

She bites her lower lip as she eyes me momentarily before she confidently walks up to me to grab the CB out of my hand. “Bo and Luke Duke,” she says firmly into the handle, her voice quivering in her emotions, “C’mon Bo, Luke. Answer!”

Static once again comes from the radio to dig my worry deeper within me. “Nothing again,” I find myself to begin pacing the floor, “I should never have let them leave this morning…I had a feeling and yet I let them leave. I let them leave with Luke’s promise that they wouldn’t do anything other than look around, that they’d go get help if they found anything.”

“Don’t blame yourself, Jesse. They would have left with or without your approval,” she finally says as Jamie walks into the room carrying a notepad and crayons. “And if Luke promised you that they wouldn’t do anything, they won’t do anything. Luke’s smart, he knows they hold little to no chance against a gang of armed men.”

I nod solemnly as I quietly watch Jamie placing her notebook on the table with her crayons before she climbs up into the chair. “Daisy,” she looks up at Daisy, “can you color with me?”

Daisy eyes me momentarily before she smiles at the young girl. “Sure sweetie, what are we going to draw?” she asks as she sits down besides her to grab a green crayon out of the torn box.

“I was thinking about drawing the farm to send to Grandpa Jeremiah,” Jamie pronounces proudly to send my mind thinking of the past, of the last time I had seen my only remaining sibling. “He always talked about the farm, about wanting to come home again,” she pauses thoughtfully, “though for some reason, he says he can’t come to the farm again. That’s why he sent Garrett here with mom. But,” she pauses as she looks up at me and then Daisy, “I can’t remember why he can’t come to the farm. So I thought we could draw him a picture of it, to help him remember it.”

Daisy nods silently. “That is very thoughtful. I am sure your grandpa will like it,” Daisy finally says, “how about you draw the house and I’ll draw the barn?”

“OK. You’ll have to draw the animals. I can’t draw animals,” she proclaims as she gets black crayon out of the box before she glances thoughtfully up at me, “Uncle Jesse?”

“Yeah,” I slowly reply, looking down at Jamie.

“If Grandpa Jeremiah asks,” she pauses for a long moment as Kristy walks into the room carrying Shay. Looking back at me, she continues, “if Grandpa Jeremiah asks you real nice like if he could come to the farm, could he come? Just for a visit?”

“Oh Jamie,” Kristy says, embarrassment covers her face as she sets Shay down to sit on the other side of Jamie, “that’s between Uncle Jesse and your grandpa. Not you or anyone else.”

I watch them quietly as old emotions resurfaces again as the hurtful words we both had said yells back at me while I vividly picture the fight we had in the waiting room of the hospital in Atlanta. Of when I first found out about Bo and Garrett, four weeks premature and addicted to drugs.  “I’ll be back,” I respond instead as I grab my hat off the hook as I open the wooden door before stepping out into the windy afternoon.

“Jesse!” Daisy calls from behind me as she follows me outside and down the porch, “Where you going?”

Opening the door, I look at her. “Into town,” I flatly state, my emotions still flaring deeply within me just from the little girl asking about my brother. My mind still wrapped around the old memory I had fought so hard to push behind as I took care of their sick and dying baby after they abandoned him on my porch.  “To talk to Rosco.”

“To Rosco?” she questions, worry struck across her face, “The boys have only been gone for a couple of hours now, he won’t and can’t do anything about it.”

“He better damn well do something about it,” I harshly snap at her, “I am not about to sit and listen to him argue differently right now. I’ve been trying to reach them for twenty minutes now and they’re not answering, which isn’t like them. They’re in trouble, I can feel it. So he better damn well do something about it. Him and the FBI!”

She nods silently as she looks around, her auburn hair floats in the wind. “I’ll go -“

”No,” I harshly look at her before taking a deep breath, “Sorry, I don’t mean to snap at you. I just,” I slowly start, “I just want to be alone for awhile.”

Once again she nods silently as she watches me climb behind the wheel of my old white Ford truck before she takes a step back. “OK Jesse,” she slowly say as I back out of the drive way and out into the road to drive towards town, my thoughts bouncing back and forth from Jeremiah and his drug addicted babies to the present and throbbing pain my toe. Meaning something’s wrong.

*                                  *                                              *

“Jesse Duke,” Rosco says as he looks up from his desk that sits upon the small platform just left of the door that leads into the sheriff’s station. A questioning look spreads across his face as he eyes me for a moment before a couple of agents storm out of a closed office a few feet away from the file cabinets that line the end of the platform, the empty office area on the other side of J.D.’s office. “What can I do for you, Mr. Duke?” Rosco asks as he looks away from the agents that walks towards us and onto me. “The agents and I have work to do in order to -“

”Bo and Luke are missing, sheriff,” I abruptly say to interrupt him before the agents silently squeeze past me to walk up to Rosco’s desk to whisper something to Rosco.

“Missing?” Rosco asks, looking away from the agents before he motions me to his desk. I nervously glance at the suited agents and at him before I step up the small step to approach his des. “Since when?”

“A couple of hours ago,” I slowly reply to find them all looking at me, their activity coming to a halt to listen in and watch us.

Rosco rolls his eyes. “Will you stop wasting our time, Jesse. In order to place a missing persons form, they have to be missing for at least a day,” he pauses as he looks at the men standing next to him and at me, “and knowing your boys, probably longer than that for you.”  He goes quiet as an agent says something into his ear and he eyes me skeptically for a long moment before worry slowly enters his blue eyes. “Don’t be so upset, Jesse. You know your boys better than I do,” he nervously starts, “they’re probably out fishing, or out with a pretty girl, or visiting Cooter. Probably away from the CB and -“

”It’s not like that, Rosco!” I yell angrily at him to startle them all.

“What’s it like, then Mr. Duke?”one of the agents asks from standing right next to Rosco, his creamy blue eyes stares coldly at me, interrogating me silently. “The sheriff here is right for a change. A missing persons -“

”They’re not just missing persons. They’re in trouble. I feel it, I know,” I quickly respond, trying to gather their attention to fail, “Look Rosco, agents,” I direct them all, “two hours ago Bo and Luke left to drive around Hazzard to see,” I pause nervously, “to see if they could find anything out of order. To -“

”To look for Max and his men?!” the seeming to be in lead, agent yells, his eyes throw daggers of anger at me, “You know how stupid that is, Mr. Duke?! The FBI has been after his gang for the past year and has yet to stop them, to find them, to arrest them! If a whole group of armed and trained FBI agents haven’t been able to stop them, how they figure that a couple of hillbillies would be able to?!”

“My nephews are not stupid, agent!” I firmly state as I angrily approach him to stand a couple of inches in front of his face, “They promised me not to do anything, just to have a look, and then report anything they found to you. That’s all!”

“Yeah,” Rosco snorts in disbelief from besides me, “and you believed them, Jesse? You are talking about the men that beat their friend…I think I know them well enough to know that they’d love to get their hands on the men that did that to Cooter. To pay them some revenge.”

“Yeah, they’d love to pay some revenge for what they did to Cooter and if this gang wasn’t so dangerous and armed, they’d do it themselves. They know what they’d be up against to know they wouldn’t stand a chance against them!” I yell at Rosco, standing over him, “Luke promised me they wouldn’t do anything and when he promises something, he means it! None like you and Boss!”

Rosco eyes me angrily before the anger turns into hurt before he looks away. “Even if that’s what they did, Mr. Duke, it was very stupid!” the agent spits at me before he takes a step back away from me, “Those men are smart, Mr. Duke. They’ve always been a step ahead of us, meaning, they do their research and know everything about everything. And about everyone.” He shakes his head in disgust, “Meaning when they took down Cooter, they researched him from head to toe to know everything there is to know about him. Just like that kid they shot at the bank. Just to know what they’re up against. So if we know that those hicks in that orange car are close friends to Cooter,” he eyes me harshly, daring me to fight back, “they too know that Bo and Luke are close friends to Cooter. Just like Brodie is with Bo. Which would lead them into research on them…as I said, they know everything about everything.”

“You have a lot of nerve, agent -“

”Sergeant Frank Mills,” he interrupts me to show me his badge and id, “which means it doesn’t take a genius to figure out what they may do if they spotted an orange car coming close to their hideout. I’m willing to bet, they were looking for them to come…watching for them to find them. They would have been ready, would your boys be?”

I eye him for a long moment as my emotions explodes within me as I eye the other two agents for a long moment and then the sergeant before taking a dreadful step back to stand in front of Rosco’s old desk once more. I feel my body shudder as the scenario that the sergeant had just laid out, displays vividly within my mind to send my imagination running wild of all that would happen. Taking a step back while turning my back on the lawmen, I feel tears run down my cheeks, tears of fear and worry as I silently picture the pain and fear in Bo’s baby blue eyes while Luke struggles to defend his cousin. Of Bo’s fear and panic throwing his asthma into another attack. My mind flashes forward of seeing Bo and Luke in worse shape than Cooter, of attending their funerals and laying them in the ground besides the rest of my deceased relatives.

Reaching a wooden chair, I weakly sit down while wiping my hands over my eyes while struggling to fight out my imaginations and the vivid pictures it draws. “Mr. Duke,” Mills slowly starts up again, his rough edge seeming to melt a little with sympathy, “perhaps the sheriff here is right. Perhaps they got sidetracked…there could -“

”I know my boys, sergeant,” I angrily look up at him, “they didn’t get sidetracked and I trust my feelings enough to know they’re in trouble!”

He nods silently. “OK, sir,” he finally says softly, “we’ll be looking for your boys as we continue our search for Max and his men. For now, that’s all we can do.”

I eye him momentarily before I slowly stand up to walk to the door and walk out into the open hall way that leads to the door, my mind stuck upon the picture of seeing the boys locked and hidden within a thick wooden casket.  All because I didn’t stop them. Climbing out of the cold day and into the truck, I slowly say a prayer while I back my truck out of the parking spot to drive through town, eying the roads and alleys in hope of finding them. Hope, yet knowing I won’t find them there. “Bo, Luke,” I once again call through the CB, “Please respond. Bo and Luke!”

As expected, I receive static as a respond as I slowly drive out of town and onto a dirt road, blindly driving home with nowhere else to go.

*                                  *                                  *

“Uncle Jesse!” Jamie yells as she climbs down from the table with her notebook in hand to give me a hug. I reluctantly give her a soft hug before pulling her off of me to step away. “Look at our picture that we drew for Grandpa Jeremiah. Do you think he’ll like it?”

I force myself to look at Jamie who eyes me with innocent green-blue eyes while holding up her picture, pride in her face. “It’s fine,” I dryly responds, fighting the urge to tear it up, no longer in the mood to be hearing about my long lost brother. I quickly turn away from her to walk into the living room where Daisy slowly follows me and as she catches up to me, she places a hand on my shoulder to make me stop and face her. “We lost them, Daisy. I know we have,” I finally say, ignoring the tear that breaks lose to run down my face, “they all but confirmed it.”

“They’re fighters, Jesse,” Daisy gives me a tight hug for a long moment before she steps back, tears in her own eyes, “they won’t go down without a fight.”

“They don’t stand a chance against them, Sergeant Mills is right,” I say as I look up as Jamie stops at the open door way before looking at Daisy, “and with Bo’s asthma. . .,” I slowly trail off as I wipe at my face, “he definitely doesn’t have much of a chance to stand up against Max or his men.”

“Mommy,” Jamie runs back into the kitchen, “Uncle Jesse’s crying. Why’s he crying for?” I hear her ask Kristy in the kitchen.

Daisy offers me another hug. “Is that what they said?” she asks standing back up before she ushers me to the chair and I reluctantly follow her to sit in front of the fire.

“Pretty much. Max and his men has been a step ahead of the FBI for a year at least to show that they’ve done their research and know what they are up against. They research upon their victims so they’d know Bo and Luke were close friends to Cooter and Brodie, which would have thrown them to research upon them. Which means,” I pause heavily as Kristy walks into the room, “they knew who to look for. Knew Bo and Luke weren’t about to sit around and do nothing about Cooter’s beating or the shooting at the bank.”

“They were waiting for Bo and Luke,” Daisy finally finishes, “looking for The General to show up. No one would miss the bright orange car coming their way.”

I nod.  “They were waiting for Bo and Luke to find them, watching for them,” I pauses heavily, struggling against my emotions, knowing I should be strong for Daisy instead of crying in front of her. Of being so blunt about it all. “They were waiting and Bo and Luke walked right into their trap without even knowing what was coming.”

For a moment the room goes silent as I sit in front of the fire, feeling the warmth on my face while I stare at the shelf that rests a couple of inches above the fire place. At the shelf lined with old pictures, pictures with Bo and Luke, Bo, Luke, and Daisy, and one with all of us in it. Of the smiles and joy wrote across their faces to remind of better times. “Don’t give up hope, Jesse,” Daisy says as Kristy sits besides Daisy, quietly listening to everything, “you don’t know what happened. Perhaps they’re stuck somewhere, perhaps they’ve got them captive. The FBI are now aware of their disappearance and will be looking for them, they could still come across them and help them escape.”

“If Bo doesn’t get his medicine,” I slowly state, “they might as well as kill him. If they already haven’t done so.”

“Don’t give up hope, Jesse,” Daisy says firmly and Kristy nods in agreement, “the boys wouldn’t want that and neither do we.  We’ll get through this and until they find their,” she pauses as tears flood down her cheeks, “find their bodies, I’m going to believe they’re alive and they’ll be OK. They’re strong and stubborn.”

***BO DUKE***

Fear and confusion heavily runs through my weak and numb body as I am thrown awake with a harsh throbbing pain that pulsates in my head. “Luke,” I hear myself say aloud as I struggle to open my eyes for a moment to fail at doing so. Blackness surrounds me as I seem to spin in circles for a couple of long moments as the fire in my lungs grows fiercer as I struggle to breathe. Somewhere in the distance, I hear a voice before something lands on my shoulder and as I go to shove it away, pain explodes across my entire body. “Luke,” I hear myself gasp aloud as I struggle to awaken to find where I’m at, to remember why my body hurts so badly.

“They didn’t kill you,” a young voice says, sounding distant yet near as the blackness fades into a blurred grayness before clearing completely. Blinking my vision clear, I find myself lying upon a cold and hard wooden floor with dark shadows lingering heavily over me. “You OK?” the young voice asks aloud and I slowly glance up to find a boy kneeling besides me covered by the darkness of the room. I eye him suspiciously for a long moment before I slowly pull myself up into a sitting position to force the pain to erupt through me. Fighting desperately for air, I look away from the kid to slowly and cautiously glance around the dark room to find us to be in what looks to be a small and empty room, perhaps a room that was once a bed room. Just four walls, two boarded up windows, a closed door, the ceiling, and the floor and nothing else.

“Where am I?” I finally ask as I close my eyes, fighting against the pain while once again struggling to remember what had happened. What brought on all the pain and to where I now sit.

“Dunno. Some old and abandoned cabin,” the kid responds as I see his thin shoulders shrug up and down in the darkness, “Sergio brought you in. I thought he killed you, that is until you started coughing and talking.” He pauses, “Who’s Luke?”

I glare at him for a moment. “My cousin,” I finally respond, “Who’s Sergio?”

“Max’s main guy. The one Max entrusts most things with,” he responds as he slowly falls back to sit up, looking silently at me. Max. Slowly my mind revolves around the familiar name until I abruptly recall the wanted posters at the sheriff station, of Cooter’s beaten body, and Brodie with his arm in a sling due to a bullet in the shoulder.

“No, no,” I hear myself say as I shake my throbbing head as tears quickly run down my cheeks as vivid pictures run through my head like an old movie. Of The General’s tire blowing into small pieces and throwing us into the tree, being confronted by the big men carrying baseball bats and guns, of my attack, and of the blood oozing from Luke’s stomach. “Luke,” I once again says as the pain and surprise that flooded his eyes as he fell to the ground shines back at me and I feel my body begin to shake uncontrollably.

“No, what?” the kid asks as he puts a small hand upon my shoulder and I painfully shove it away, wanting to disappear. “What happened?”

“They shot Luke,” I slowly respond as I feel a tear fall from my face and onto my hand before I quickly wipe at my face, “they shot Luke. Where’s Luke?”

“I. . .I don’t know,” the kid stutters before he nervously stands up to take a couple of steps away from me, “they only threw you in here. No one else.”

I shake my head as fear and disbelief wash over my throbbing body as I hide my face in my knees as I struggle to breathe and to accept what is happening. “They killed him,” I finally say before I shove my hand into my pocket and am relieved at finding my emergency inhaler still there.

“What’s that?” the kid asks from a far as I begin to breathe in the first puff of medicine before taking five breathes and another puff of medicine, “What are you doing?”

Pocketing my inhaler with a little relief, I slowly answer, “It’s my inhaler. Helps me to breathe.”

“My cousin has asthma,” the kid says as he sits back down against the other side of the room, “but it’s not that bad. His mom says the doctors say he may outgrow it when he gets older.”

“Lucky for him,” I gruffly respond as I slowly look around the empty room that’s boarded in while recalling the smoke coming from Ritler’s chimney, of what had directed our attention to the place.

“I’m Keith Mueller…most people call me Keifer though,” he boldly responds and I am reminded of the kid held at gun point at the bank. The kid of one of the agents that is in town. “Who are you?”

“Bo,” I slowly reply, wishing the kid would shut up and leave me alone.

“Don’t worry, Bo. My dad’s one of the best FBI agents out there and I’m sure he’s doing all he can do to find me. When he does, he’ll make Max, Sergio, and the rest pay for what they’ve done,” he confidently stands up to walk back towards me, “and then everything will be alright.”

I nod silently at him as I slowly begin to think of what he must have gone through, to witness the bank robberies and shootings, to be kidnaped and hidden within a small and dark room. Yet his faith is strong in his dad to find him in time. “He’s in town looking,” I finally reply and he nods excitedly at me, “so I guess it’s possible.”

He goes silent as he approaches me and as he gets a foot ahead of me, I see the bruises that spread across his young face while his shaggy sandy blond hair fall into his eyes. As he reaches me he leans down and hugs onto me to increase my pain throughout my body and I fight the urge to once more push him back and away. In wanting to be left alone. Instead I force a smile at him as he stands back up while saying, “I’m sorry about your cousin.”

I nod silently at him as my mind continues to wrap around the series of events that led me to the small room with the agent’s son to send harsh emotions rush rapidly through me.

***LUKE DUKE***

I slowly awake to harsh throbbing pulsating in my head while a hot numb feeling penetrates within my lower right stomach to find myself lost within a small dark room. After my eyes adjust to the darkness, I take in the small dark room to find stacked boxes lining the wall in front of me the walls on each side of me is lined with wood covering the walls. ‘Where am I? How I get here?’ Questions races rapidly within me as I slowly attempt to move to find myself tightly chained to a thick metal pole that pokes me sharply in the back. “Damn it,” I slowly say aloud as I take in the thick, evil chains that runs down from my chest and down to my ankles. The chain that is wrapped around my chest, also tightly chains my hands together behind the thick metal pole to dig painful pressure against my skin. Through the thick chains, I see a heavy white clothe held against my right lower stomach where the hot and numb feeling continues grow worse, the white cloth is soaked dark red with blood. My blood.

“Bo!” I yell aloud as panic swells thickly through me as I am quickly reminded of what had happened, of what brought me here. Of The General’s tire being shot out to metal and sharp bullet penetrating deeply within my stomach from a gun shot somewhere in the distance, not from the man standing in front of me. The fear and panic that had spread across Bo’s beaten face shines brightly within me with him yelling out my name as I had fallen upon the cold ground. Of the men beating him unconscience before the men I was up against, does the same to me. “Bo,” I say my cousin’s name once more to quickly glance around the small room to find myself alone and Bo not to be in sight. ‘Where could they have him? Why kill him and keep me alive?’ Tears begin to form as solid answers begin to form in my head of why they would keep me alive and not Bo or what else they could have done to Bo. ‘Uncle Jesse is never going to forgive me,’ I slowly think as his warning and worry look back at me through my imagination as I begin to picture what he must be doing now, of how he will react.

Abruptly, the old wooden door that lies in the upper left corner of the room is thrown open and a large man with a hood covering his face walks in. The open door shows that darkness has now covered the earth outside to give me a sense of time, of how long I was out for. “Where’s Bo?” I boldly ask, refusing to give him any satisfaction at my pain.

“Ah. You’re awake,” he walks to me, a thin smile is show from under the dark hood before he reaches over and grabs a couple of wooden logs to him me in the face with them, “you have a good nap, plowboy?”

“Where’s Bo?” I ask again, putting more demand in my voice despite the pain that registers across my face from where he hit me, my nose starts to bleed from his impact.

“The blondie?” he questions, looking me coldly in the eye, “Sorry to say, but he’s dead. Max saw little to no use for him. Too weak and too stupid for any use. But you on the other hand…” He lets out an evil laugh that echos off of the weak wooded walls. “We’ve got plenty in store for you before you reach your death. I bet you wishin’ you didn’t go snoopin’ around like you did. Huh? I know Bo sure wished you all didn’t.” He laughs once more as he moves to the door before he stops thoughtfully before he walks back to me. “One last thing about your cousin. We didn’t just kill him,” he shakes his head and I struggle against the chains in anger, “we gave him what he deserved. A long, slow, and painful death. We had a lot of fun watching him die slowly as we all had a turn to beat him with anything we had…sad to see the fun die with him.” He shakes his head, “Don’t worry, once you run out of use for Max, you’ll be going out just like ol’ Bo…pleading us to stop.”

Being tightly restrained by the chains, I angrily spit in his face and he quickly jams the end of the log at my face once more. I yell out in pain as my head is thrown back and hits the pole behind me and the throbbing pain instantly grows worse. “Do what you want with me,” I spit back at him, “but you won’t get away for what you did to Bo.”

“See your bravery didn’t die at war,” he flashes another evil smile at me, “but it’ll do you a little good. Now don’t go too far, ya hear?” He laughs once again as he makes his way out the open door, slamming the door behind him before I hear chains rattle outside the door as he re-locks the lock they have placed on the door.

Disbelief and shock rapidly run through my body as the hooded man’s voice replays in my head, of his taunting words saying they tortured Bo to death. Tears begin to form in my eyes as I attempt to block out his voice and the vivid picture of Bo looking at me with pain and horror wrote across his face as he met his death. “No,” I state aloud, refusing to believe what the man had just said, “he’s lying. He has to be lying.” My words fall upon the old wooden walls while my mind runs through different scenarios of all they could have done to Bo to send horror, fear, and panic through me. “Sorry, Bo,” I finally say as guilt joins my emotions, “I’m sorry, Bo.”