by: Kristy Duke

Rosco P. Coltrane

Above me the ancient brown dusty ceiling fan swirls quickly above us to attempt to cool down the overly hot room as the fan whizzes almost rhythmically. I stare tiredly down at my paper work that seems to go on forever and I sigh at my mama’s lecture years ago back in high school about procrastinating, wishing that I would have listened to her as I look at my stack of paper work of reports. I place another report on the smaller stack of papers that is all that I got done as the doors open and I look up to see Enos stepping in, his face lit up in happiness of something.

“What got you smilin’ dipstick? You ain’t spose to be smilin’ at work, this is work and at work you work,” I snap at him and he glares down at the old floor as he fights to hide the grin, “What’s so good in that little world of yours?”

“Nuttin’ sir, it’s just. . .it’s just,” he says embarrassingly, “it’s just I got invited to dinner tonight at the farm with Daisy.”

“The Dukes?” I question and roll my eyes at him, “Enos! You know as well as I do that them Dukes are bad and are on the opposite side of us, which is the law, mind you! You are a law man and law men don’t integrate with criminals, especially criminals like them Dukes!”

“Aww sheriff, they ain’t that bad,” he says shyly as he places his black hat back upon his neatly combed dark brown hair and I come to think of the Dukes and all they have been through the past few months, of how Bo is acting to finding his uncle dead on the floor, “You and Boss just misunderstand ’em is all.”

Once again I roll my eyes at him, not letting on my sorrow for the Dukes for loosing their uncle who was a good man, as I notice the thick dust piled up on the fan. “Enos, I got something that will keep you occupied,” I reply hastily, “Clean the fans of them dust, dust makes me sneeze.”

“Yes sir,” he sighs as a tall slender man walks in wearing tight dark blue jeans, black leather cowboy boots, with a brown plaid shirt with a white cowboy hat hiding his jet black hair that matches his almost black dark brown eyes that dance with evil and hatred. I sigh nervously at the sight of Drake Shelbon, Boss Hogg’s new business partner that he has been working with over a year now doing all sorts of stuff Hogg wants him at a high price; though in my gut I have a feeling he is doing business of his own down here, but know I can’t prove anything or what he may be doing.

Shivers race up and down my back as he glares at me coldly with his hard cold black-brown eyes and take in his light tan complexion before he motions me to follow him. “What you wa-” I begin to complain as I show him my paper work as he glares at me even more coldly and before I can say anything I weakly stand up and begin to follow him into Hogg’s office where we find Hogg on the phone.

“But Lulu, I can’t come home for supper,” he is saying as he puffs upon his cigar, “I have a meeting I have to attend to and then I have to lock up the court house and then move over to the Boar’s Nest to keep out the riffraff,” he goes silent, “No it isn’t anything to get the boys into trouble, I know they’ve been through alot, sugar plum. I know I know, I framed them up several times since then, but trust me it ain’t nothing personal, I just have to get them out of my hair so I can run Hazzard my way and not theirs! You know as well as anyone does that Jesse was a long time friend and I dearly missed him, I wish there was something I coulda done to prevent it, I miss him too darling; but I can’t keep giving them Duke Boys excuses to break the law!”

Slowly he looks up at Drake who grins evilly at him, showing his gold left upper front tooth. “OK Lulu, I will be home early tomorrow night, I got to go now…so we can make some more dough. OK honey,” with that the over weight commissioner sets down the phone and smiles up at Drake who grins up at him as he welcomes himself down into a chair, “Well Drake, you are here early.”

“Don’t like being late, being late gets you into trouble,” he grins as he glares down at his expensive true gold watch, “ain’t that early either. I got your dimwit sheriff in here so he can join us in out my latest idea against them Duke Boys that will get them set away for good!”

Hogg glares at him to me with uncertainty in his brown eyes before expressing his true feelings, “I don’t know Drake, them boys have been through a lot and we should lay low on them. BO is really taking it hard I hear, he was exceptionally close to Jesse and -”

“Do you want to make money and get them out of your way for good or not? If not I can take all I got and go elsewhere!” Drake shouts and I notice Boss jump as I set a caring hand on his tense right shoulder and he glares up at me.

“Al. . .right,” he stutters as I sense his nervousness, “just nothing too harsh Drake, I may not love them Dukes, but I don’t hate them either!”

“Look I will take all I got and go now and you know what that will do to you ’cause when I leave, someone ends up getting hurt!” he yells and I jump in fear as he presses his knuckles against Hogg’s desk and cracks his knuckles slowly.

“I’m listening Drake,” Hogg says fighting to hide his fear.

“Alright then!” he grins looking up at me and I only nod in agreement, “How ’bout me and my boys rob that bank of yours and no one but them boys themselves won’t know it ain’t them!”

“What you suggesting, Drake?” Hogg asks skeptically.

“All we need is a few pairs of their cloths, we got wigs and everything just in case our ski masks get torn off! Now Daryl and Lyle are the same size as Bo and Luke and we have them wear contacts so they have the same color of eyes,” Drake smiles as he tells us his plan, “Now you will hide some of that jewelry in there or something big too to rob, they are getting it all! Lionel got a car just like their car and painted it the same way and we recorded their voice and we already said into a machine what we wanted to say, so we dubbed it to sound like Bo and Luke Duke! NO one won’t know it’s them, especially when they don’t have an alibi!”

“What you mean? Them Boys will have an alibi with someone, either Daisy or Cooter or someone,” Hogg asks.

“Not this time…you see we have to do this Saturday morning when they are suppose to go to their parole meeting with none other than you and guess what? They won’t show up! R.B. will run them off the road and kidnap them through the duration of the time and drug them up so they can’t remember a thing or even perhaps enough that they will admit to doing it,” Drake laughs evilly at his plan, “My Bo and Luke lookalikes will have guns and won’t be afraid-”

“No one, I mean no one, is going to get hurt! If so I am not apart of this and I will -”

“Don’t threaten me Hogg or I’ll find something against you! Listen to me, no one is going to get hurt…just enough to get them boys in deep trouble, and oh yeah the jewelry we got picked out is wanted, hot jewelry from Atlanta, everyone up there is looking for it. When they find them on the Dukes, they will be wanted for that crime too where a man got slightly injured, nothing too serious, but they won’t be getting out for a long time, Hogg,” he grins again, “How ’bout it? Afterwards we let the boys go and call FBI Agent Randy Floors, the lead agent looking for them stolen jewelry where they will find it on them Duke Boys.”

“I don’t like it,” I speak my opinion, ignoring Hogg’s stare and Drake’s evil glare, “look we may have been against them in the past, but nothing like that. I don’t like it one bit and I am not going to be a part of this! I may like chasing them and may have enjoyed being apart of Hoggs evil schemes against them in the past, but not now, not when they all are mourning over Jesse’s death!”

They all glare at me for speaking my mind as a bad feeling about Drake continues to enlargen within me. “Too bad, you’re apart of it sheriff,” Drake snaps, “you know too much, you not in it I’ll have you put away and tortured until you wished otherwise!”

“Don’t threaten Rosco like that!” Hogg yells, “I don’t like what you are doing or treating us here.”

“Too bad,” he says pulling out a large gun at us, “You two better make up your minds, if not y’all will be six feet under and this town will be without a fat, greedy commissioner and a dimwitted sheriff!”

Hogg looks up at me as we both say, “Alright, we’ll do it.”

“That’s what I was thinkin’,” he grins sitting back down as he lights a cigarette.

Bo Duke

I feel a trickle of sticky sweat accompany the rest roll down my face and down my bare chest and back as I work on one of the several fields that the Duke farm owns. I look up at Luke who works silently a few feet away with the old mule, concentrating on what he is doing as he as well is covered in sweat from the hot sun that pours down upon us. I sigh as I watch him working as I think of the past year and how worried he has been for me, acting even more protective than he was before I found Jesse dead on the living room floor. He has been there for me, offering his open ear, offering to do anything to help my pain with all his best intentions; Luke has always worried about me even over trivia stuff, but he has always been there but yet I can’t open up to him. When I try to open up to him, to talk to him of what I saw and how I feel, my heart tightens painfully as flash backs flash through my head of walking into the hot kitchen to smell something foul and then walking in to find his dead body sprawled on the hard wooden floor of the living room. Now watching him, I have a strong urge to join him to tell him what I saw as I was forced to say to them FBI agents, but something holds me back.

Looking down at the fresh soil my unwanted flash backs flash through my head clearly, over and over again, from driving home worried about my uncle not answer, to finding him dead covered in his own blood, to calling Luke at the sheriff’s station telling him what had happened. Once again I look up at Luke as the flash back continue to worsen against my fight against them, and I fight to tell Luke how I feel but the words are stuck in my throat. Suddenly the sight of my uncle lying on the hard wooden floor with the large puddle of his own blood covering his chest and the floor shines clearly in my head, stuck there focusing on every little thing about the sight of my uncle on the floor to every detail of the room as I found it. I feel my chest tightening and air coming hard to obtain as I fight back the image that remains stuck in my head as if it had been super glued there and I hear myself start to wheeze.

Panicly I glare up at Luke who seems too concentrated on his work to hear my wheezing or to notice me fighting for air. I try to yell out for him as I fight to get my inhaler only to start coughing chronically in a attack that seem to be occurring a lot lately. “Bo,” I hear Luke’s concerned voice ring out though sounds distant even though he is now only a couple of feet away from me. Weakly I fight to stay on my legs as the air don’t seem to come to me even though I fight desperately for it. Suddenly I collapse to my knees as I start to vomit through my fight for air and I feel Luke fighting to atrieve my inhaler from my right side jeans pocket and after a long moment fights to get it out. Quickly he helps spray a few sprays into my mouth until I stop coughing though I still remain fighting for air, though not as bad as before.

Relief hits me as air becomes more easy to get with each second and along with my strength and Luke slowly helps me to my feet as I notice the large puddle where I had thrown up at. “I’m sorry,” is all I can say, even though I fight to say how I feel, what I saw, instead it sticks in my throat and an apology comes out instead.

He glares at me questionably before he places a supporting arm around my shoulders and he walks with me. After a long moment of silence he asks, “Sorry? What for?”

It goes silent once again as I fight for words to express to him why I am sorry and what for, something I have been thinking about lately, though never able to word it or say it in fear that it will come out wrong. Looking at my older cousin I venture out to say, “For everything,” I go silent once again fighting for the words that don’t seem to come just as air wouldn’t come to me only moments before, “for that, for the past year or so.” Feeling his concerned blue eyes on me I pause once again at the thought of what he is thinking or feeling, though I refuse to look over at him, “I haven’t been worth much lately or done anything that didn’t cause you to worry or fret over me. I’ve only been gettin’ in the way and gettin’ you in trouble with me, for all that I am sorry. I will understand if you want me to go somewhere else to get out of the way, I’ve been only slowing you down on the farm by getting in the way of things and getting you into trouble with me, as I said I haven’t been worth a damn thing and haven’t accomplished nothing in the past year other than to get in your way of things.”

It goes silent as he leads to a shaded area under some large trees where he sits on the wooden fence and I hesitantly join him to sit besides him. I glare down at the muddy ground as I feel his worried sky blue eyes on me as more silence comes in between us as the cool breeze cools me down from working under the hot summer sun. “I don’t know where you got that idea from, Bo, or who you got it from, either way it surely isn’t true! First of all, Daisy nor I would ever kick you out, no matter what, we’s family and we stick together through thick and thin; we love you,” he says as he places a caring hand on my shoulder and for a slight moment I recall how it was before that horrid day before the flash backs strike again and I pray not to have another attack, “You are worth everything to me Bo, you mean the world to me and it hurts to see you in so much pain and being unable to help you any, to decrease that pain, I would do anything to take the pain you feel for you. Since that day I have been filled with guilt for forcing you to go check on Jesse and I would do anything if I could change what I had done, what I had put you through.

“You are worth so much and I am sorry you elsewise, because without you I am lost, I don’t know what I would do without you. A part of me already fills like I lost you to that horrid day as I see you hiding within yourself. I don’t want to loose you and I don’t want you to go anywhere, I enjoy your friendship, you are more than a cousin to me, you’re my best friend, you’re my brother and I will do anything in my power to help you with this evil thing that you are dealing with alone,” Luke goes on , “I wish it was me that went to check on him, it should have been me instead of forcing you to do so as I had. It may not be easier on me to see him on the floor like that, but I have witnessed death so much in war, I have seen death before whereas you haven’t, Bo. That all makes it worse on you. Therefore you are worth so much to me, to Daisy, to everyone, you really are and I wish that I could show you how much you mean to me, but I don’t know at the moment how to do it.

“You are definitely not in the way, we all enjoy having you in our lives as we had before and I wish I could make you see that. You haven’t slowed us down in any way or have gotten me into any trouble that I wouldn’t have gotten myself in anyway, you know how Boss and Rosco are as much as I do,” he goes on and I hear the sincerity in his thick voice as much as the worry, “And I don’t understand what you mean by you don’t do nothing, you’re doing something now, before the attack, weren’t you?”

“Yeah, but not much,” I sigh continuing to glare at the ground, refusing to look up at him, to see the great worry and concern clouding in his bright blue eyes for me, “and I haven’t been worth much around here lately and you have to admit that.”

“No I don’t, because it is not true and you should know that, and if you refuse to believe me I will find a way so that you will know how I feel for you. It hurts me to hear you think all that you are or think you are sorry for as much as it hurts to see you suffer like you are. You don’t know how much I missed you when I was at war, you were all I thought about, getting home to see you and how you have grown and changed. Your letters helped me fight to live, it gave me something to live for instead of giving up as so many soldiers I knew did. You have done a lot and you mean a lot to me, if not for your support while I was at war, I may not be here today,” he says with more sincerity in his voice, “and you have been helping out here on the farm, maybe to you it don’t seem like much, but to us it does. You are going through a hard time right now and I understand -”

“No, you don’t understand, you nor anyone else will ever understand!” I yell as anger fills my body toward him as I jump to my feet, “So don’t try saying you understand how I feel, for you don’t, nor does anyone else, how could you? You weren’t there, you were too busy playing around with your girl friend to be there! Why-”

“I didn’t mean it like that BO, why don’t you give me a chance to explain?” Luke pleas calmly to me, though in his eyes I see his desperation to get to me.

“I don’t care! You’ll never understand, none of it!” I yell as I fight back the tears as the flashback continues to play in my head, “And while you’re at, stop making excuses for me, for why I am the way I am! I don’t need your pity nor any one else’s! Pity gets you no where so stop it!”

He glares at me as a large lump forms in my throat as I fight through my anger of what to do next, fighting back my urge to chicken out and run and hide from him after yelling at him, but my anger keeps me standing in front of him, looking for confrontation from him. “Help me understand Bo, talk to me, what happened what you feel, you tell me, you help me understand,” Luke continues to plea with me, “I can’t understand how you feel if you don’t talk to me, all I know that you are suffering and I want to help!”

“There ain’t nothing you can do to help and you know it as well as everyone else nor will you ever understand! You stopped understanding the day you left on that damn train!” tears streak my face and I quickly jerk to leave only for Luke to grab me by my right elbow forcing me to face him. The anger and confusion in his sky blue eyes sends a large shiver of fear through me though I refuse to show him anything.

“What you mean by that, Bo?” he orders me, his patience has worn thin replaced by anger by me reaching his sensitive area.

“Let go of me, Luke!” I yell back at him as I try to fight him, “You wanted me to talk to you and I did, now let me go! I mean it.”

“Whatcha gonna do if I don’t, Beauregaurd? You can’t run to Jesse no more to tell on me,” he says out of anger, of anger that he has never had with me before and more fear runs through me, overcoming my anger at what he just told me. Through my fear I begin to tug at my arm, trying to make him let go though his grip only tightens and pain streaks through my right arm and he quickly traps me up against the wooden fence, “What you mean by that Bo? Tell me and I’ll let you go…you know we don’t talk about it, and yet…tell me Bo.”

I glare at him as I let my tears streak my face freely as I fight for air through an upcoming attack. “I didn’t mean nothing by I Luke,” I beg him through my fear, giving up my tough guy act, “really I didn’t and I didn’t mean no offense toward you. I am sorry, now let me go.”

Anger glows in his blue eyes and through his eyes I can almost see the flash backs that are flashing in his eyes at me mentioning him getting on the train to go to war. A tear reaches his left eye, of which he never let be seen, him cry, but now it shows as it starts down his left cheek as he continues to glare at me without any emotion towards me. Suddenly he snaps out of his flash back, of staring blankly at me with his angered expression that seemed to stick, and is replaced by great guilt and embarrassment as he slowly lets go. “Bo I-” I interrupt him as I punch him squarely in his nose before I begin to run.

My fist burns as I continue to walk ahead, forcing myself not to look back at Luke who shouts out my name. Ahead I cross the dirt road and down a ravine of trees that leads down to a thin creek where I begin to follow with no clue of where I am going.

Luke Duke

I glare at the empty field where my cousin just ran off at as I hold my handkerchief to my blood nose that he created by his punch, a punch I deserved. I sigh at the sight at the heavy blood flow from my nose slowly slowing down from where it had began as I watch the empty field where my cousin had run off, now out of sight. Slowly I force myself to walk forward where his foot prints are printed in the soil where he had walked off in his temper as I think of what had happened. I force my dirty handkerchief into my pocket at my nose stop bleeding as I walk to the ravine where he had escaped to and glance both ways to not find him anywhere but to see trees and everything that has always been there.

Carefully I walk down to the small creek to find his boot prints in the thick mud along side the creek and I glance ahead to where it leads to not find him anywhere but begin to follow it along. The hot sun beats down upon my bare skin as I walk ahead thinking of all that I said and done that started the argument to the moment I snapped at him. His statement about me not understanding since I got in the train plays over and over in my head as I try to figure out what he means by that, but deep down I know what he means. I was always there for him before I left for war, I placed him ahead of everything, my friends, girl friends, extra school activities, or anything really; I did what he wanted to do and protected him from anyone who meant any harm to him and picked him up and dusted him off when he fell. I was there for him in the past to play with him even when my friends were over or what not to just talking to him or listening to him and I recall the nights we talked to one another about anything and everything until Jesse told us to go to bed. I think of how I have been like since I have returned home and it strikes me like a knife between the differences of how I have been treating Bo and guilt soars within me about everything. Since I have returned from war I have been hanging around with my friends even when he asked me to go look at something, or when he had a race I went with my friends or girl friends instead of his races figuring I’d hear about it when I got home, and I can’t even remember the last time we went to bed talking. Glaring into the creek I recall the time at The Boar’s Nest when I watched Stephen and his friends beat Bo up badly without stepping in to stop them. I have been too concerned about myself, about my painful past that I could have prevented to pay any attention to him. Then to think of all the nights I have came home drunk, calling him to pick me up who he would obediently do even when he had his friends over or a girl friend without complaining, even though it must have hurt him to see me that way.
Anger soars within me as I think of how I have been treating him and I come to realize that is why he hasn’t been talking to me as he use to, because I have treated him poorly. Even after Jesse’s death and funeral I didn’t treat him much different than before other than to plea with him to talk to me, like he use to, when I knew Bo won’t open up to someone he don’t know. He don’t know me no more, I have changed and I haven’t even noticed it, but he has because he has been on the receiving end of my anger of my pained past that keeps haunting me no matter what I do. I knew Bo looks up to me and yet I treated him so poorly and I wonder if he will ever forgive me or if he will return home.

After a long few minutes of tailing his foot prints in the mud I stop as I think of my behavior and attitude towards him, how much it has changed and for the worse. Slowly I begin to head home in realization there is nothing I can do for him now, not until he has had his time alone, not until he is willing to return home. Walking back upon the field tears streak my eyes with knowledge that Jesse would be able to handle Bo, to help comfort him through his time of need and yet I can’t even get close to him. The closest I got to it was his apology a few moments ago and I lost my chance in my own anger at my own past and leashed out on him for bringing it up, for bringing up his own pain. “Please help me, Jesse,” I finally call for help looking up into the bright cloudless sky.

Quickly I grab my red plaid shirt off the post as I lead the old mule back to her stable before I walk past a couple of pastures, one filled with a assortment of colored cows, the other filled with a assortment of colored horses. I watch the animals roam freely in their pastures eating hay or grass or chasing another animal before I walk past them to the dusty dirt road. Glancing both ways and not seeing a vehicle I walk across the street and to the front lawn of the old farm house that seems to be falling apart of which Jesse always kept up with, making it seem like home.

I sigh wearily before I step upon the old wooden front deck and walk into the kitchen where Daisy is folding clothes and watching her dinner in the wood burning oven. She looks up at me with worry before asking, “You home early? Where’s Bo? You OK?”

“I have failed,” is all I can say before I take my perch in front of the sink and glare out through the window.

“You’ve failed? At what, Luke?” she questions from behind me as she folds Bo’s long legged faded blue jeans.

“At everything, at keeping this house up to date with everything, at the work that needs to be done,” I sigh as an old dark green car passes the farm on the dirt road, “most of all I have failed Bo, I failed to comfort him and to be there for him.”

“You don’t really believe that do you?” she questions and I glare back at her, “Well it is not true, so it isn’t how Jesse kept it, but it is up and standing, the fields are doing great this year and we got no sick animals. No one expects you to be Jesse or to take his place Luke, you are doing a good job at taking care of this farm, just as Jesse did,” she pauses for a long moment, “and as for Bo, he is going through a hard time and you are being too hard on yourself. He isn’t about to let anyone get close to him right now, I know it is hard for you to acknowledge that seeing how he confided in you for everything, but he has emotional scars that will haunt him the rest of his life. He don’t know how to handle it and as Applebee tol’ you, all there is to wait for him to be ready to open up to you or anyway, all he needs is time, Luke. You are there for him more than anyone else is, so I don’t know why you are being so hard on yourself, you know all that.”

I look back at her before I glare back out the window at hope of seeing Bo walking up to the house, but instead find an empty yard and an empty road. “Yeah I do. He apologized to me today after he had another attack about everything, about slowing us down, to getting in the way, to him getting out so he will be out of our way, oh and for getting me and him into trouble. I tried to tell him otherwise, but ended up messing it all up again and got him angry at me,” I start to tell her what had happened between us and finish off with what I came to realize while thinking of what his statement means and the more I think of it, the more truth there is in it. He’s right, I don’t understand. “So yes, I have failed him Daisy and there is no way around that. I have failed him when he needed him most and when he slightly opens up to me, I have to mess it up. That may have been my only chance and I lost it due to my temper that I never get -”

“Except when your six years is brought up…we all know it is a hurtful subject, Luke, he knows it and that is why he brought it up. I won’t lie to you, you leaving like you did, hurt him a lot, in ways you will never understand,” she pauses dramatically, “but he won’t tell you that because you are his cousin, his best friend and he knows it hurts you to think or mention it all. And yes I have noticed the difference in your behavior towards him since you have returned, so has Jesse…everyone but you saw it. I don’t know what to tell you, because I surely ain’t no psychologist or doctor, but perhaps if you open up to him, he’ll open to you. I don’t know, but it can’t hurt, either of you even if he doesn’t open up, it may do you some good to talk to someone about it.”

I shrug not knowing what to say or to say anything at all before I turn to her and say, “I don’t know, Daisy, I really don’t know any more. All I know is that I have failed and that I may have just lost my best friend for good.”

“No you didn’t,” Daisy says confidently to me, “one thing you surely don’t understand about Bo is that he may have a temper, but when it comes to the ones he cares about the most, he always comes around; just give him time. He still looks up to you Luke, which may be hurting him more than anything, and he tries to understand where you are coming from, to why you have changed. He may not understand it, but he is willing to try, Luke. You know why? Because in his eyes, you are his best friend and always will be…he don’t think of how you treat him lately, but how you treated him in the past with hope that you will revert back to who you were before you left. That is why he will never stay mad at you, Luke, because he understands that you went through something horrible or bad and that is why you have changed…but the difference between you and Bo is that you see how you were wronged at war, all that you went through and are able to do anything to drown your painful memories, while Bo sees the you, you once were, he sees the potential of who you could be if you were able to move on, Bo has hope. You are his best friend, he may not show it now, but you are and at the end he will forgive you as he has done in the past.”

I glare at her with wonder if what she is saying is true or her subtle way to help me feel better. “Well he shouldn’t have to fight for an image of me of what he wants…I should be him. It isn’t his fault that I left, I left because of me, not him, it was my choice knowing that I would see what I saw, just didn’t know the extent of it,” I say turning around to face her, “it was my choice and I ended up taking it out on him and all of you for that matter. I’m sorry. If I have to lock myself in some closet to make myself to change back, I’ll do that, I will do anything to get his trust again, to be able to turn to him and be able to talk to him freely about anything that is troubling me.”

“As I said, tell him what you went through, it may help both of you as I said,” she grins getting up and hugs me tightly in comfort before letting go.

Bo Duke

I glare up ahead as the hot summer sun shines brightly down through the trees upon my aching bare shoulders as I think of all that was said between Luke and I. Guilt suddenly rushes through me as to what I had said to him about war, I knew better to say and yet I said it anyway, I said what I felt knowing it would hurt him. My mind seems to turn into a whirlwind of emotions and thoughts skipping to the next as quickly as the last had left to return soon after, from one subject to another, from Jesse to Luke then back to Jesse. The sight still shines clearly in my head like a color glossy photo in my head of Jesse lying on the floor when I had walked into the room, covered in a pool of his own thick sticky red blood as my words to Luke echoes in my head. Guilt and anger tugs at my heart and soul as I continue to walk along side the old creek, the creek where Brodie and I ran to at times to skip school just to mess around, but now it is only me with no one like Brodie to talk to. I sigh thinking of walking to his old farm house from here, but decide against it at the thought of his dad that hates me so much, not for anything that I did, but for something that my parents did, though I don’t know because Jesse never spoke of them and got irritated when I asked about them or if they were to be brought up.

Continue to walk along the muddy edge of the creek my mind skips from finding Jesse upon the living room floor to Luke, to the relationship we once had years ago, before he had left for war. I recall the several times he passed on going on dates to be home with me or to take me fishing, or his friends for that matter, especially when he knew I was upset, no matter how big his plans were, he’d cancel them for me. He made me feel special, as if I was worth something by him placing me first, always by my side to make sure that I wouldn’t get hurt, protecting me from the school bullies that use to pick on me and make fun of me because of my height or how I was different than them. He’d make sure they wouldn’t hurt me and if they did, he always made sure they would pay for it, but all that has changed. He don’t care whether I am here or not any longer, choosing to hang out at the Boar’s Nest with his friends most of the nights out of the week, ending up calling on me to pick him up when he becomes too drunk to drive home. I sigh recalling the night a couple of weeks ago when I went to go pick him up from the Boar’s Nest, he really wasn’t drunk, not by the standards he normally got, but more so didn’t feel like driving home; so he called on me to take him home as if I run some sort of taxi services just for him. I sigh as I think of that night picking him up when Stephen and his three big friends swarmed around me while Luke just sat a couple of feet away with a couple of his friends with a beer in hand as Stephen began pushing me to one of his friends before it became into a full beating of fists coming at me in my stomach, chest, and face, none stop. I close my eyes at the thought of the beating that seemed to last an eternity before they stopped at Sheriff Rosco’s urging or threat of arresting them, leaving me on the floor covered in my own blood fighting back blackness while Luke sat there and watched over the rim of his beer glass, laughing with his friends.

Emotions rage through me like a raging river at the thought of the past, at how it was like, all the happy memories and sad memories that we shared together, how we did everything together. He was my best friend, my hero who I loved more than anything, him and Uncle Jesse and now I lost both of them. Tears beam in my eyes and I fight to keep them back as my mind races from thought to thought from past to present. Angrily I kick a pebble into the shimmering creek and watch the small splash as I walk along, wishing that I could at least have my best friend back since I can no longer have Jesse back. More memories flood through my head of my loving uncle, how he was always there for me, to patch up my scrapes when I fell, to listen to my exciting stories of what had happened, to wiping away my tears without thinking I was childish. He too was there for me, through thick and thin, no matter how much trouble I had caused him or how much I made him worry with all my crazy car tactics when I went chasing after Brodie and Cooter in our cars, he was always there for me no matter what and now he isn’t there for me any more…when I need him the most. He would know what to do now, where to go to, and who to turn to. Now I don’t even have that, I no longer belong at the Duke farm, Luke always seems to be angry at me for one reason or another, looking at me out of hatred more than love as he once did, and Daisy, I don’t know. Daisy seems to look down at me ever since Luke got home, almost as if she is siding with him, thinking I am too childish, especially after the day I saw Jesse lying on the floor covered in his blood. Now I have no one to go to or nowhere where I belong and I wonder if I should even return home, if they would even notice that I was gone.

Tears slowly shimmer down my face against my fight as I begin to think of where to go now that I have ran off on Luke, after hitting him as hard as I did, when he didn’t deserve it. I did for saying what I did, I knew it was a touchy subject but I said it anyhow out of my own selfishness. Guilt once again soars within me as I think of Luke of what I had told him out of my own anger, even if it is what I feel, I should have kept it to myself so it wouldn’t hurt him. Oh well I did and there is no turning back and I begin to think and wonder if there is no turning back, no going back to the farm that I once called home, felt welcomed at, but don’t feel that way any longer. I just want to go somewhere else where no one knows who I am to judge me by my past or by their past, to not be able to see the anger and hatred in my cousin’s bright sky blue eyes that were so full of love before he left for war.

Suddenly I stop near an old large rock that sits along side the creek, marking that the caves are somewhere close as I hear some ruffling up in the hills followed by yells and shouts of pain. Slowly I locate two men beating upon a smaller, but muscular man who has blood racing down from his nose, a taller man than the others stand to the side wearing a large white cowboy hat, tight dark blue jeans with a tight black plaid shirt and black cowboy boots. Fear strikes me as the man off to the side yells out, “Dayson, where you put it at? You tell us that, I’ll call my men off.”

“You expect me to believe that?” the beaten man manages to question sarcastically to get punched in the stomach and he yells out in pain.

“Your choice, we’ll find it sooner or later,” the tall muscular man says as his two men continue to beat him roughly and the smaller man stops fighting back for reasons I can’t think of.

“I tol’ ya to let me out and you wouldn’t have that,” Dayson grunts to the man as he is kicked in the stomach by the lean and tall man’s heel of his cowboy boot and he is thrown to his knees upon the muddy hill and the tall muscular man along side the lean man kicks him in the face with his heel and Dayson drops to the mud full of blood.

I watch as the man that portrays the leader out of the three attackers begins to glance around and I pray that he doesn’t see me as I see his piercingly evil dark eyes from the distance where I am at, his dark hair grooming out of his cowboy hat. Though they are a few feet away I notice the scar on the back of his right hand, long and jagged as he grabs for his gun that he had tucked into the waist of his tight jeans. “You say that again?” he asks pointing the gun at Dayson’s chest, “Where’s the box, you fool?”

“I ain’t gonna tell you Drake or your men for that matter. You might as well as shoot me for I know your plans are and have been for over a year that you have been here at this little hick town and I am not going to be a part of your scheme to take control of this hick town, to make it your drug fortress!” Dayson yells through his pain and my heart races in fear, “Go for it Drake, I know it won’t be the first or last person you kill…it don’t matter, one day, Drake, you will be stopped. You are not unstoppable or invincible, neither-”

He is cut off as lean man kicks him in the stomach before he is motioned back by Drake before he re-aims the gun at Dayson’s chest. I jump in my anticipated shock as the loud gun fire rings off, echoing off the cliff’s walls and Dayson yells a last yell as blood spurts out from his chest and his muscular body goes still and the three men glare over at his body. “I want y’all to search the perimeters, that box gotta be around here somewhere,” Drake orders. His two men nod as the begin to separate to look around, begin to dig around in the thick wet mud as does Drake, but he seems to be too worried about looking around.

I continue to watch as my heart races tightly in great fear of being seen as the men continue to search frantically for some box that they killed the other man over, in front of my eyes. Seeing the dead man lying there, I am reminded of Jesse lying on the living room floor, covered in his own blood and once again I begin to imagine how it had happen, but this time more clearly and more fearfully than I had ever had before. I feel my body begin to tremble in fear at seeing Jesse so clearly in my head as more tears streak my face in that fear as well as the grave fear of them finding me, with thought of what they would do to me if they caught me and I can imagine me turning out to be like the dead Dayson up there.

Within me I feel my lungs go afire as they tighten up and air becomes sparse to me once again and panic soars within me as I fight back coughing for air. Slowly I become to feel dizzy and lightheaded as I hear myself wheezing loudly and as I get my inhaler out of my pocket I yelp out in fear as my right foot slip into the warm creek water, making a big splash as I spray some puffs into my mouth. I glance up in fear just in time to see Drake rushing at me and I try to think quickly of what to do as I quickly rise to my clumsy feet and begin to run as he shoots at me, missing me by an inch. Glaring ahead through the thick sun I hear Drake calling for his two goons to follow in his pursuit of me as I continue to run, with hope of being able to reach the caves, where I may disappear without them knowing it if I am lucky enough.

Another shot rings out and I pray that it doesn’t hit me and sigh in relief as I hear it splash into the creek. I continue to maneuver through trees and rocks, criss crossing my paths as I had done many times with Brodie when we got into trouble. I glance back ahead as I hear their footsteps getting closer behind me, with hope to see the caves and I sigh as I see them getting closer. Concentrating on the caves I fight to think of a plan of how to escape into them without them noticing me going in there, when they are so close behind. I glance behind me to find Drake just out of reach with his men just behind him to ahead where the caves inch closer as I race ahead, fighting to think of away for them not see me escape in there. Quickly I begin to race up the steep hill to fight to get to the top of the arched rocky cliffs, hoping to bid me time and space from the men that seem trigger happy. Racing up the cliffy hill I gasp for air as I fight for footing and I hear them fading behind slowly, though still fighting to keep up. I sigh thanking the good Lord that I am more equipped with how to do it than they seem to do as they all seem to slip from time to time, landing on their chins or so cussing out at me to stop to talk to them.

I sigh in relief as I reach the double arch caves that meet up at the bottom, looking like a big rocky M and I begin to cross over to them, making sure I go over the loose rocks that tumble at my feet with hope they won’t be so careful. My lungs seem to be on fire with each breath I take coming more harsher to attrieve as I continue to fight with my footing while I glance back at them who look like the three stooges now that they are out of their territory chasing after me.

Slowly I reach the first cave and I watch my footing as my cowboy boots tempt to slip on the wet rocky cave roof and I pray to make this work, to be able to return home even if Luke is angry at me; at least he won’t kill me for it. I hear them cursing as they fight to their feet and I glance behind as Drake draws his gun at me as he did Dayson, aiming between my shoulder blades and I pray not to get hit, not to die here, and not like this by some evil crooks that is most likely tied in some way to Hogg who don’t know who he is messing with.

Trying to concentrate on my footing with only hope to relay on to not getting hit on his aim and as time passes by slowly I think of Jesse and how he must have felt all the times Brodie and I got ourselves in this kind of trouble. Behind me, I hear Drake yelling out that is shortly followed by the explosion of him pulling the trigger as he falls and I yell out in piercing pain as the large silver metal bullet rips it’s way through my right shoulder, tearing through muscle that shoots pain throughout my body. I continue to yell out in fear as I am throw forward with the force of the bullet landing face first down the middle of the two caves hitting my head several times harshly against the rocky walls of the caves before I land awkwardly upon my right hand and wrist in the middle of the two caves, where they meet at the bottom. Blackness edges it’s way into my mind as I glance up at the three men looking at one another through my blurred vision and I urge myself to forward.

Through the great pain that rages in my body I force myself to crawl slowly, military style on my forearms that sends pain shooting through my right arm as I refuse to look at any damages before I am in the clear. After a long few seconds I pull myself into the dark first cave and crawl half way through to where darkness covers, but where I can still see the entry way.

Air is limited as I sit still against the cold wall as I stare at the entry way, too afraid to move as I watch the entry way before I force myself to grab for my inhaler, to no longer find it my pocket. Panic soars with me as I realize that I must have dropped it when they started to chase me and the cave begins to twirl around me in my lightheadedness as my head throbs fiercely as does my shoulder that burns as I feel the sticky blood ooze from the wound down my shoulder. I sigh painfully as fiery pain shoots throughout my body and I force myself to look down at my pained hand to cause more dizziness to rush in my hand. I gasp painfully at the sight of my bloody right hand and lower arm as the bone pierced through the skin at my wrist, splinters of bone seem to have been scraped up as the rest of my hand and lower arm feels all mushy with the great pain that swells in it.

I glance up in fear and in pain as the three men quietly passes by the mouth of the cave, not even bothering to look in. “Where could he have gone?” Drake asks as blackness slowly creeps in and I slowly give into the pain and the blackness with hope they don’t find me here.
Slowly I awake to great pain and bone chilling coldness as my blurred vision slowly clears up to find myself to still be in the cave where I had passed out at. Blood has covered me as the throbbing of my head, shoulder, and arm shoots throughout my body as I slowly recall what had happened. Fearfully I look up at the mouth of the cave to see the pitch blackness of the night with only a hint of light that must be coming from the moon. Seeing the amount of blood shocks me as I think of all the blood I had seen on Jesse before I force myself up through the dizziness that continues to plague me, causing me to spit up and looking down I see blood mixed in with my saliva.

Forcing myself to step forward through my pain and weakness I slowly reach the entrance of the cave, hoping to see a clear sight of no men lingering around so I can return home to get help. Painfully I sigh as I find air hard to atrieve as I see nothing out of the ordinary lingering around and I force myself out into the humid summer night as the pain increases with each step I take.
After what seems to take an eternity of pain, I reach upon the front lawn at the farm, where I had collapsed several times on my way home. I feel my body weakening and the pain increasing as I fight to get to the front door, in hope that Luke will listen enough to get me help or care enough to get me help. Once again I force myself forward as pain floods my weakening body as I am once again thrown to the ground as I continue to fight for air. Lying upon the muddy ground I begin coughing chronically for air as I fight to yell for help in hope that someone is awake, but nothing but a forceful wheeze escapes through my coughing as the air becomes more harsh to get.

Through the pain and blood that escapes from my wrist and shoulder I fight to get up, dizziness invades more harshly as I once again spit up blood as I cough for air. I cry out in pain and frustration as I once again am thrown to the ground, too weak to even stand upon my knees for support and I glance up at the front door only a few feet away. Blackness quickly takes over me for a short moment or for a few minutes to awaken gasping painfully and forcefully for air as pain shoots throughout my body.

I jump in pain and fear as an odd noise rings over me followed by a hollow beat and I gasp knowing it has to be them, they followed me! Forcefully I look up to find Luke racing out of the farm house, his face pale with worry and fear. “Bo!” he shouts as he reaches me to check my pulse, “What happened? No wait, let me go get you a blanket while I call for an ambulance!”

Luke Duke

Quickly I slam down the icy cold black receiver of the old phone from talking panickly to the operator with hope that they would hurry. I rush to Jesse’s old room with hope to find that thick quilt that Jesse loved so much, carrying it around the cold nights while he sat in front of the fire. Thinking of him, my heart tightens in sadness at the thought that he is gone and feel the shame of using his loved quilt on Bo who is covered in his own blood, but it is the only blanket that will warm him up the most. I sigh in relief to find the thick navy blue quilt on a shelf in his closet and I tug it down as I race out of the room to the kitchen door and fight with the handle to open it. I pray for my cousin as I jump off the deck as I find my cousin seizuring only a feet away from the deck where I see that his bleeding has increased since the few minutes when I was inside.

After what seems to take an eternity, I finally reach my cousin and drop to my knees as I place the quilt around him, tucking the sides under him. Fearful at the sight of his closed eyes and still body, I quickly check his pulse to find a weak and unstable pulse, his breathing is weak and barely noticeable. I continue to pray in fear for my cousin and for help to be here soon as the dark sky seems to continue to darken above us while I watch my deathly pale cousin lying on the ground, covered in his own thick blood. Slowly I drag out a clean handkerchief from my back pocket and I reach over and press it tightly to his thick cut on his right upper forehead and blood quickly seeps through the thin material to show the ugly bruise that surrounds the cut. Looking at my cousin seizuring I try to think of what had happened to create all of this and what all his injuries could be.

Slowly, the distant sound of the piercing siren becomes audible and I glance up with hope before I look back down at Bo who seems to be loosing the battle for life. “No Bo…you gotta be OK, everything is going to be OK,” I say with hope as I flip the blanket off his chest for a moment, his red plaid shirt is torn and stained darkly with thick blood, his right wrist bone sticks out of his right wrist and hand, his right wrist and hand is covered thickly with blood, but through the blood I notice the large swelling and bruising that coats it. Covering him back up I run my hand through his thick blond hair that Jesse and I had done when he was a child to help comfort him. “Hear that, Bo? You gotta, buddy…it’s help, help is on it’s way! All you gotta do is fight to hang in there, so they can help you…please Bo, I beg you.”

Glancing up as the sirens become louder, today’s earlier events roll through my head, of all that was said and done. More guilt fills me as I think that this wouldn’t had happened if I hadn’t made him run off like I did, if only I hadn’t said anything. I told him to tell me what was wrong and when he did I lost it and snapped on him, I sigh at the thought of him never talking to me again. My heart stops in deep fear as a worse thought jumps into my head, a worse thought of him never talking to me again. What if he don’t wake up? “Bo, c’mon Bo, you gotta fight this,” I urge him panicly as fear soars quickly through me at the thought of never being able to apologize to him, to never be able to go fishing with him, or to ride in The General with him. Tears enter my eyes at the thought of loosing my cousin and no longer having him in my life any more, to not have my best friend with me by my side. I sigh at the thought of loosing him to my anger and hatred not toward him, but was directed toward him; at the thought of loosing him with us still angry at one another for all that I have done to him, of which he has only repaid me by his love and devotion even after I had allowed him to get beaten up so badly the other night. “Look, whoever did this to you, won’t get away with this Bo, I promise you. Please wake up, I beg you…I will change I promise.”

I glance up as the sirens pierce through me as they pull up next to us and I slowly stand up as I swipe my tears away to meet up with three men around my height. “He’s right there,” I point to Bo on the ground as they drag out the old stretcher, “I don’t know what happened, he just crawled here and landed there, I really don’t know all his injuries, I was too afraid to move him.”

The older one nods annoyingly at me before they walk past me to where Bo lies and I watch as the scoop him up on the board to place on the stretcher where they quickly attach an air mask over his nose and mouth. I watch in continued disbelief as they insert three IVs into his left arm before they slowly begin to roll him into the old modeled ambulance where I ask, “Can I ride along?”

The two younger paramedics look over at the older paramedic who nods for me to join them for the ride. I slowly climb up into the ambulance before it quickly takes off.

 

Static rolls over the intercom as an older female voice comes over asking for a Doctor Denzling to report to room two-fifteen as the bright lights of the waiting room reflects off the shinny linoleum floor. My heart pounds in great fear and worry for my cousin as all that was said between us before he had ran off plays in my head with the sight of him lying on the ground, covered in his own blood plays in my head, playing tricks at me. I sigh as I drop into a deep and long silent prayer for my cousin to be OK, to be able to hear his voice once again whether it is yelling at me in anger or hatred, but to hear his voice full of life once again, to be able to see the life that was absent when I found him in our yard, in his face and eyes. I die to hear his laughter full of childish excitement or to be able to comfort him and to tell him that everything is going to be OK, or to hear him talk to me or to anyone, to tell me exactly how he feels even if it isn’t something I want to hear. Thinking of him, I begin to wonder if he would talk to me if he walks away from this, if he would ever be able to forgive me for everything I had done to him, all that I had made him go through.

I glance up as someone walks next to me and I find it to be Daisy who holds a worried look on her face as she sits down next to me. “OK, what happened, Luke?” she questions, “Why did I get a call from a doctor and not you? HUH Lukas?”

I shrug. “I don’t know Daisy, I refuse calling you at work with tears in my voice only for your bartender Dave to answer and notice my voice. No it is not a pride thing on my part as I know you will make it sound to be, but I knew I wouldn’t be able to get enough through for him to understand,” I answer as tears enter my eyes again, “I don’t know what you want me to say…I don’t have money for the pay phone outside and the only way they’d let me use the phone up front is if I let him say what I needed to say.”

“You could have just said that,” she says flatly, “so what is this about Bo being here? What all happened…that is all that he told me is that the is in the emergency room.”

“Yeah I heard him,” I say as I once again wish that he would have went farther to why he was here, “I really don’t know what had happened. I was sitting up staring out the window, everything in the past year was going through my head as I was certain that he ran off and wasn’t coming home. It was only a couple of hours ago so it was still dark out side when I saw this figure crawling into our yard, well he was half walking half falling type of thing before he collapsed on our yard. I ran out to see who and what was wrong.”

It goes silent as I fight to control myself as a doctor calls out for another couple who cries on each other’s shoulders in the far corner. I watch as they walk to the older short doctor before going on, “When I got out there I saw that it was Bo, he was covered in his own blood and was barely recognizable. I ran into the house and called for an ambulance and for a blanket…I got Jesse’s quilt, I know we agreed to not to use to keep it fresh, but it was the only warm one I knew of,” I pause once again, tears streak my face freely, “When I got out he was unconscious and seizuring. I wrapped him up as best as I could and noticed his right wrist bone puncturing through his skin and his hand and arm was largely swollen and bruised under the blood. That is all I know as of now.”

She nods as she wipes the tears out of her eyes and I roughly do the same to my eyes as guilt swarms through me as fear and worry consumes me for my cousin and I pray for word on him quickly. “Look, Luke,” Daisy says looking at me, “I don’t know what happened or how bad he is or if. .. if he could die, but I am going to say this anyway even though I know it isn’t going to work. Please don’t blame yourself for all of this as I know you are, Bo wouldn’t want you to and I am sure he don’t blame you.”

“Why wouldn’t he? Especially over the year, all that I had done to him,” I sigh feeling the tears build up even more, “I mean I should have gone and checked on Jesse, but forced him to do it instead, telling him if he didn’t go that I’d tell Jesse he didn’t care enough to check on him, that I’d show him a few of my new Marine moves on him out back. I should have gone and yet I tortured him with my threats and when he called to tell me to pick him up at the sheriff’s station, I didn’t hear his tears that rung clear but that he was disturbing my date and I tol’ him so…that he was gonna get it for making me go get him. When I got there, I didn’t care about his tears, but called him a big cry baby even after he tol’ me what he saw and what happened. I was a jackass and then that night at the Boar’s Nest when I allowed Stephen to beat him up like that was uncalled for and why? I did it out of hatred and anger, but not toward him, but at what I saw at war, and I took it out on my best friend. I don’t blame him if he would blame me and never forgive me, I just wish…I wish I could tell him I was sorry and beg for a second chance…he is my best friend and yet…”

“Well you can tell him now if ya wish,” calls a husky male’s voice as Daisy is about to whisper something to me. I slowly turn around to see a tall balding light brown hared doctor who looks to be in his mid forties.

“Bo?” I ask standing up swiping at my eyes, “How is he Doctor…”

“Doctor Wayben,” he smiles wearily, “Well your cousin seems to be strong and stubborn, or perhaps dumb to fight against his odds that he was faced during the night. I am not going to lie, he still has a good chance to die, but he seems to be improving that as time goes by and he is still in serious condition, but for all his injuries that he has he is better than expected to be. Your cousin was shot in the shoulder and he has lost a lot of blood from that going unattended for so long, he has a severe concussion from hitting his head hard on something very hard, he has internal bleeding, of which we haven’t been able to stop all the way. He has shattered his right arm and hand with his wrist bone puncturing through his skin…and his asthma seems to have worsened. Through a CAT scan we have estimated that the shooting and the concussion happened a couple of hours before you called the ambulance, which means he must have passed out.”

“So is he going to be OK, doctor?” I ask panickedly.

“Well he went a long while without his inhaler, must have lost it or something,” he looks at his clipboard, “that it has caused an infection in his air way, luckily we got it in time or that alone could have killed him. Right now, he looks like he will be OK, he is awake and asking for you Luke.”

“Me?” I ask with disbelief.

“If you are Luke, then yes it is you,” he grins at me, “follow me unless you don’t want to see him.”

“No I wanna see him,” I say and Daisy urges me to go.

Slowly I follow him through the long hall ways in silence before he says, “He is awake, well duh huh if he is asking for you? Anyway, he won’t talk to us or tell us what had happened, perhaps he will tell you. I can get Rosco here or any police here within minutes if you want that, but if he won’t talk I don’t see the use of calling the police on it for now, until someone can tell him to tell the authorities.”

I nod as he stops in front of a dark wooden closed door and he motions in there. “Well there ya go, I’ll be around if ya need me for anything,” he smiles before I watch him walk by.

Slowly I open the door and walk in to close the door behind myself before I look up at my lean cousin who lies in the hospital bed and my heart tightens in fear as he seems to be asleep. His skin remains deathly pale as his heart and breathing monitors beep annoyingly and his four IVs drip slowly into him, to echo off the walls, a bandage is wrapped tightly around his wound on his head and his right hand and arm is plastered in a ugly white cast all the way up to his elbow. His thin chest remains bare so the succors can stick to his bruised chest, looking at him I come to think that most of his body seems to be bruised or cut up.

“Luke?” he asks weakly as he slowly moves his head to look at me, pain shoots from his baby blue eyes and I quickly go to the side of his barred in bed.

“Shhhh I’m right here buddy,” I say as I run my hand through the top of his blond hairs and the sight of the strong death in his eyes sends shivers up and down my body, “I’m right here, I’m not gonna leave you, never.”

He looks at me questionably with a tint of disbelief that seems to break my heart even though I know I deserved not to be trusted, I broke his trust and I broke his heart at doing it. “I am . . .sorry,” he gasps painfully for air, his breathing, even with the air tube in his nose, is forceful and wheezy, “I didn’t mean what you-”

“Don’t apologize, Bo, and yes you did mean it…and it is the truth, I just didn’t want to admit to it. I should be the one to apologize, not just for yesterday afternoon, but for the past year that I have treated you like crap! You are my best friend, Bo, you still are and I love you more than life itself…I know you don’t believe me, because of how I have treated you and I don’t blame you, but it is the truth. I guess I just had this need to take my anger and hatred of war on someone and it ended up to be you. I am so sorry Bo,” I say as tears streak my face, “There is no excuse for how I have treated you and I don’t blame you if you never forgive me or want to hang out with me again or be like we were before. But I want that and am willing to change to do so, I promise you right now Bo, I will change back to who I was before I had boarded on that train years ago; I will be the Luke Duke that you know and not the Luke Duke that I have become over the years. I am sorry, Bo…I don’t-”

“Now you stop it,” he forces out as the pain seems to increase by the second, “Look, I don’t want you to change for me or for anyone, but for yourself. Yes, you have been a jackass, but you have also been through a lot and I imagine you seen alot, though I don’t know what all you went through or to the amount of how bad it was, but I know it must have been horrid to go through what you went through. It is only natural to have to find a way to get over it, to not see it or to take it out on someone else. I may not have understand it all the way, heck I don’t understand all of anything, but I was never that angry at you to never forgive you for it or to look past it. I love you too much to not be able to forgive you, especially when you took it on yourself to apologize, to say your sorry, to make it past your pride to tell me how you feel. Thank-you Luke…I don’t want you to change for me, but for yourself.”

“OK,” I say as I bend down and hug him tightly, not wanting to let go, “I will, for both of us. OK? I really mean that, no one tol’ me to tell -”

“Well duh Lukas…we all know you would do the opposite if someone were to tell you to apologize,” he smiles weakly at me and great fear enters his eyes, almost as much as the pain that radiates in his eyes.

“OK,” I answer taking his left hand, “What happened, Bo? Who did this to you? I want to know…because who ever it is, I promise you, won’t get away with this.”

He glares at me with fear strong in his eyes as I see the flashbacks rolling in his eyes as tears slowly begin to break through and I hug onto him once again while telling him that it will be OK

Bo Duke

Quickly I force myself to lie back down on my pillow as pain shoots throughout my body and I flinch at the pain as I try to block more tears from falling as I wipe away the tears that streaked my face. I sigh as I look up at Luke trying to figure out if it is worry I see in Luke’s eyes or anger or perhaps even disappointment at seeing me cry once again, or perhaps all three of them. I sigh as I think of how confusing he is, a minute ago he was saying he was sorry and now anger is written deeply in his sky blue eyes. “I’m sorry, Luke,” I say again trying to apologize, not wanting to see the anger in his eyes or the disappointment.

“I already tol’ you have nothing to be sorry for, I am the one that is and should be sorry,” he says softly to me as he sits down into the hard metal fold up chair that is sitting next to my bed, “I have no excuses, I mean I can tell you all that I saw, all I heard, and what I went through at war, but none of that will ever be enough, because there is no real excuse for all that I have done to you. I am sorry and I hope one day you can forgive me.”

I look at him as tiredness shines through the emotions he fights to hold back, but some of it shines through his strong armor that he has always had to shield away his emotions. “I already have, a long time ago,” I almost say in a whisper as it pains me to talk or to try to breathe.

He looks at me for a long moment as tears clog his eyes, something I had never seen in his soft gently sky blue eyes before, tears. “Bo, what happened?” he says looking at me as more anger enters his eyes and I slowly begin to realize that it isn’t me he is angry at, but toward who had done this to me; almost like in the past before he went to war when he would get so angry at anyone who would push or hit me or say something to hurt my feelings, the same anger shines in his eyes that shone in his eyes back then with the need to seek revenge on them. A sense of relief enters me to see the same worry and concern in his eyes as he had back then, almost as if things were returning to the way things were; but they never will or never could return to the way it was, because Jesse is dead and now I know who did it! “What happened? Who did this to you? Please tell me, I know you wouldn’t tell your doctor, but please me. This is important to me Bo, whoever did this to you must pay…I am not about to let them -”

“They’re dangerous,” I cut him off in fear of what he is capable of doing as the sight of him going out by himself to seek his revenge closes in on my mind, ending with a similar occurrence that had happened to Jesse. “You can’t go out by yourself, they’ll kill you too, like they did Jesse.”

He looks up at me from glaring down at the pale white flooring that reflects the lights back up at you. “You mean,” he says unable to finish.

“I don’t know,” I shrug, “that is only what I am thinkin’ and nine times out of ten I am wrong anyway.”

“Well we don’t have much murderers hanging around Hazzard, but I would have figured he woulda gone elsewhere to hide other than sticking around,” Luke says as more anger fills his eyes as well as confusion, “the same kind of bullet was in you that was in Jesse…Bo, you gotta tell me what happened…I want to know, so I can protect you from whoever did this to you, I am not about to loose you too, especially not to the same jackass that took Uncle Jesse away from us!”

I glare up at him as a stray tear rolls down his right cheek as what had happened shines clearly in my head as my lungs go afire with more pain as I fight to breathe and panic quickly sets in. “I didn’t know where I was going after I had left or to be honest what I was going to do, I should never had punched you, you had the right to be upset with me; that was all that I was thinking about when I got to the large rock by the creek. You know it?” I ask and he numbly shakes his head, “When I heard these men fighting and I looked up to see these two men beating up on this other guy, real bad like and the other guy wouldn’t even protect himself anymore. There was a tall guy that stood off to the side wearing this cowboy hat and he kept asking him where the box was and the guy wouldn’t tell him, because he didn’t want to be a part of it anymore, saying something that he wouldn’t be the first victim of his that he killed or the last, that he knew his plan of taking over Hazzard to turn it into his drug hideout,” I say choking back my pain, fighting against blacking out that keeps threatening me as the sight of it remains clear, “then the guy in the hat shot him and I couldn’t breathe and all I could think about was Jesse. I tried not to cough knowing they would hear me but as I got my inhaler it slipped into the mud, when I tried to get it, my boot slipped in the water and they saw me.”

I pause and he glances up with pain sketched in his face, pain for me and Jesse while anger flares in his eyes. “I tried running, but they kept shooting at me, I figured all I needed to do was find a way to hide in the caves without them knowing I went in there. So I ran to the tops of the two caves joined together at the end and the guy in the hat tried shooting at me and would have shot me in my back, but slipped on the rocks. When he shot me I was on the caves and I fell in between the rocky caves, landing on my arm, hitting my head on the wall. I crawled into the cave and watched them go by before I passed out.”

“Good thing you made it home as you did,” Luke says sadly as he wipes away his tears, “if not. . .” he lets his sentence slip, not wanting to finish what he was thinking.

“I’m scared, Luke,” I finally say through my pain that throbs through my body, “They’ll come back-”

“I won’t let them get to you, Bo, I will do anything that I can for them not to get to you,” Luke says running his hand through my tops of my blond hair above my bandage, “I’ll have Cooter, I, Brodie, and Dobro standing by your side twenty-four seven if need be. I am not going to let them get to you, to hurt you any more than they already have, I promise you, Bo.”

“But they need to be stopped, Luke, before they kill someone else,” I insert as the pain flare up within me and tears enters my eyes, “I hurt…everywhere. I can’t. . .breathe, Luke…I’m scared.”

“I know buddy,” he says as fear enters his eyes over coming his anger for the time being as I hear a monitor hit a flat line before I fall into blackness once again.

Luke Duke

His words stick in my head as I once again find myself alone in the waiting room as the doctors work upon my cousin who had blocked out when his monitors reached a flat line. Fear races through me as I think of his deathly pale skin that was mostly bruised or cut up, or the death that had shone in his baby blue eyes before he passed back out. Quickly I force my eyes tightly shut to block the last images before I was ushered out of the room only to see a life that may lie ahead of me, a life that is empty and lonely without Bo in it. Slowly I reopen my eyes and pick up an sport magazine that was on top of the pile of magazines and try to concentrate on the baseball photos mixed in with a few articles on football and basketball but find hard to do so. Quickly I slam down the magazine back upon the pile at the thought and the baseball pictures in thought of Bo who is the sports fan of the family, mainly baseball and NASCAR, and the few people in the waiting room glare up at me.
I glance back up at the clock that etches upon three fifteen in the morning, forty-five minutes of waiting in the waiting room. Once again I pray for my cousin to be OK, to be able to see him again, for him to see me to hug onto him to tell him it will be OK. Thoughts swirl in my head from all that he has told me so far to loosing my cousin and I feel my hands become sweaty as I realize I have been clenching my fist tightly closed in anger at the men that had done this to Bo. If only I’d have…

“Luke,” his doctor walks in and I look up at him before I quickly get to my feet.

“How is he doctor?” I ask not bothering with fighting back the tears that is apparent in my eyes and in my voice, “Is he OK? Please tell me he’s going to be OK, I mean I know you see this every day with their mourning visitors. But he has to be OK, doctor, he just has to be!”

He looks at me as if I am crazy and I sigh worriedly for my cousin in realization to how pathetic I had sounded. “It looks like he was a lot weaker than what we thought he was,” he says sadistically.

“No…no,” I utter unable and unwilling to hear the rest, “Look you can’t have lost him, he was my best friend. I mean just last year I. . .we lost our uncle who raised us, and now him? He is a brother to us and he don’t deserve to-”

“You didn’t let me finish, Luke,” he smiles wearily as to show that he feels my pain, “He was a lot weaker than what we thought or saw, but don’t give up on him yet, he needs you there to believe in him, that he can do it.”

“What are you saying, doctor?” I ask confusingly.

“Look, his infection in his air way was a lot worse that cut off any air from getting to him and his asthma made the fight unbearable to him,” he explains, “and the internal bleeding…gave him a cardiac arrest. We were able to get to him in time to save him, but he is very weak right now…we had to stick an air tube down his throat to help him breathe and to fight off the infection.”

“Will he be OK, though? Will he be able to walk through here when this all is over with?” I ask, wanting a for sure answer.

“As of right now, it is hard to tell,” he shrugs apologetically, “he shows promise and he is fighting it…but he sure isn’t out of the forest, yet. We did all we can, it is up to him now…some help from you won’t hurt any either.”

“Yes sir,” I answer sadly, “Can I see him?”

“Yeah, he is still unconscience,” he sighs, “his chances would be better if he would awake.”

I nod before he slowly shows me the way once again where we walk in silence and I stop at Bo’s door to watch his doctor walk down the hall, his heel of his shoe echoes off the hollow walls. Slowly I face his blank door trying to prepare myself before walking in before I force myself to walk into the room. My heart seems to stop within me as I step forward to my cousin who lies asleep on his hospital bed, at the sight of my deathly pale cousin that a tube sticks out of his mouth with the tubes in his nose still in. Looking at him, he almost looks peaceful lying there as if he were only sleeping, though the bruises and his pale skin says otherwise.

“C’mon Bo,” I beg him as I sit next to him as I run my hand through his hair for comfort, “please wake up BO, I am right here…I am not going anywhere, unless you want me to. Please wake up. Everything is going to be alright, you just have to fight it, buddy.”

Bo Duke

Annoying beeping of the machines ring out in an un-rhythmatical form, sounding unclear and very distant along with the slow dripping of the IVs that sound as if they are echoing off the walls. Slowly I win the fight to open my heavy eye lids to find bright lights shining into my harshly blurred vision and for a moment I wonder where I am and what had happened. My vision slowly clears up as I stare into the harsh piercing lights as I fight to remember where I am and what happened that slowly comes to me. Lying still upon the stiff hospital bed harsh pain shoots through my body as fear once again takes me as it’s hostage.

I close my eyes in my struggle to fight against the fiery pain that ripples through my lungs, that ripples throughout my whole body. Loosing the battle I open my eyes back up at the dull and bright ceiling as I fight to readjust my position that sends a larger ripple of pain that shoots through my air ways and lungs with the harsh pain as if something was rubbing against or scratching against my air way. Slowly I glance down at my worn and battered body to find a large tube shoved in my mouth and down my throat in my answer to what was causing the pain. Seeing the tube in my throat my fear escalates within me along with my pain which is accompanied with confusion of what had happened.

The room seems to spin crazily around me as I search for answers in my head that winds up turning into flash backs of the past year, at seeing Jesse lying on the floor to being shot the other day. Frantically I search around the small room as the beeping of the machines slowly beep and I recall the piercing silence before I had passed out, figuring it is for the best that I am stuck listening to such an annoying sound. Gradually I look at my right side where I find Luke asleep as he sits closely to my right side on a hard cold fold up chair, his head leans against the ugly brightly painted white wall. Looking at my older cousin, I notice his tear streaked face that looks to still be a little damp from his tears as his right hand rests over my right casted hand.

I glance up as a thin doctor walks in with a couple of nurses and he smiles at me as he looks over my chart at the end of the hospital bed. “How you feeling, Beauregaurd?” he asks and I go to snap at him in anger for using my full name only to get choked upon the large tube in my throat, causing more pain to tear through my body, “Calm down, son…you can’t talk with that tube in your throat. This is for your best interest…I am glad to see you awake.”

I glare at him as tiredness welcomes it’s way into my body as I look away from the doctor as the nurses change the bags to my IVs. I look over at Luke as if to ask him for help even though he lies asleep in an awkward position against the hard wall. I glance up as the doctor seems to mutter something before he slowly turns around and the nurses close the door behind him. I feel the pain increase within me as I glare out the bright haze that shines in through the window, that only allows me to see the bright blue sky that holds a couple of white puffy clouds.

Glaring out the window, my mind plays back flash backs once again, seeming to stop at the sight of Jesse’s still dead body covered in blood. I feel my body shudder in great fear, fear at the sight of Jesse, fear at thinking of witnessing the men kill another, fear of them coming back to get me, and a greater fear of dying because of them. Feeling the shudder roll down my body, great pain quickly ripples through my body before I slowly feel the pain slowly begin to edge away to the pain killers they must have given me; leaving my body numb.

Besides me I hear a slow moan as if in pain and I slowly glance over to see Luke stiffly sitting up from leaning against the wall. For a long moment he glares out the window as if too afraid to look at me, staring out the window in a deep trance-like stare. “Bo,” he says softly as he glances down at me and I fight to say something only to get choked by the large tube, “It’s alright, I’m here for you buddy. Don’t try to talk buddy…it’s there to help you breathe and to. . .to help fight the infection.”

I look up at him as tears enter his sky blue eyes as runs a caring hand through my blond hair above my bandage as the scenes of what brought me to here runs through my head. Slowly I dare to reach over and grab an old piece of a receipt from the hospital’s cafe and an hospital pen. Using my casted arm I write against the pain that it causes to write: “DRAKE” onto the piece of paper as best as I can and hand it to Luke. Luke looks at it for a long moment before he looks up at me with a tear that shimmers down his cheek. “Drake? He’s the one that did this to you?” he asks and anger begins to cloud his fear filled eyes, “Look Bo, he won’t get away with this…I promise you that, I am not going to let him get away with this! I will-”

Forcefully I shake my head to go into a painful coughing spasms into the tube that tears at my air way and lungs and it slowly stops though the pain continues to soar through my body. Luke looks at me worriedly and I slowly close my eyes for Luke to yell, “No Bo,” slowly I open my eyes and look up at him before I take the paper back from him and slowly begin to write painfully, “You no, Luke! I don’t want to loose you too!” He looks at the paper for a long moment and I feel as if I am back in school and passing notes back and forth. “OK, if you don’t want me to seek revenge on them, I won’t,” Luke finally says, “But they are not getting away with this…I’ll think of a way to do it. Perhaps go to Atlanta and report it to the FBI if Rosco don’t listen. I am not letting them go free for doing this to Jesse…and especially not this to you!”

Looking up at him fear soars within me at the thought of not making through this, of dying as I wonder if this fight against death is worthless, perhaps it is best if I were to just give up, give in to the pain, in to death. “Look Bo,” Luke says sitting back down as he runs his hand back through my hair, “I see that look in your eyes. It hurts don’t it?” I nod numbly, “I see it clearly in your eyes and your fear…but look, Bo, you can’t give up on yourself, you can’t give into this! Dammit Bo! Can’t you see?! I can’t loose you!”

I look at him as he hides his face into his muscular hands as he trembles in his temper that he just lost, in his own fear. Slowly I reach over and caringly take his right hand and he forces himself to look up at me to show me the tears that streak his face. “Please Bo, you have to fight this…you have to make it through this, to fight against this,” Luke pleas with me as fresh tears enter his eyes, “You are going to be OK, Bo, you have to be. Please, Bo…please don’t give up. I can’t afford to loose you, I can’t afford to loose my best friend, the one person that means the most to me. You are going to be OK Bo, you have to be.”

I look weakly up at him before sleep takes over me and everything flashes in my head in a beginning of a nightmare.

Luke Duke

I jolt awake from another cat nap that had taken over me as I feel Bo’s casted right arm jump from under mine. My heart races within me as I see him jump awake and from the look in his baby blue eyes I read the nightmare that played so lively within him while he slept. Tears quickly enter his eyes and begin to spill over to run down his soft pale skin. “It’s OK, Bo, it’ll be OK,” I say to him feeling my heart tightening painfully within me as he glares unbelieving at me, “You gotta trust me Bo…you are going to be OK, you have to be OK. If I loose you…”

I can’t force myself to go on as thoughts of a life without him rushes through my mind once again as I feel a cold salty tear escape my eyes as I glare down at the floor. I glance up at him as his weak casted arm lifts up to catch my tear from my cheek and I embarrassingly wipe my face from my tears. I look at him as he smoothly looks away, glaring out the window and I slowly grab a one-subject notebook I had bought from the store in the hospital, that had laid on his night stand. “What are you thinking, Bo?”

He glares at me as his tears shimmer brightly in his pained eyes that shines as brightly with pain as it does fear. Slowly he takes the open notebook and the black ink pen that I bought along and for a long silent moment fights with the pain to be able to hold the pen. I watch as he slowly begins to write his answer, his writing looks more like a first grader’s hand writing than his with his pained arm and hand. He looks at his covered answer for a long while as the tears continue to roll freely down his pale cheeks before he shows me his answer, “JESSE.”

My heart weakens as I stare at his answer for a long time and once again I feel the tears swell up in my eyes, not so much for loosing such a great man, but at the thought of all the pain Bo is in; physical and emotional pain for over a year now. “He’d be proud of you,” I fight to say through the large lump in my throat, “You know that, don’t you? He always proud of you…of us.” He nods, but the sadness in his eyes tells me that knowing that isn’t enough for him, “I know buddy, it hurts…if it feels any better, I feel it too. We just have to go on with our lives, that is what he would want us to do. As he always said he is going to a better place to fulfill the good Lord’s plan, we can’t be selfish can we?” Slowly he shakes his head no but the tears still run down his face.

Slowly I watch him reach for the pen that had rolled off his lap besides him on the bed and he slowly writes something on the notebook, fighting to write through the pain. After a long moment of listening to his irregular beeping of the machines he shows me what he has painfully written, “I wanna go home.”

“I know buddy,” I say fighting back more tears as I run my hand through his hair and behind me I see Daisy walk in out of the corner of my eye, “it will come, I promise, you just have to get better.”

Bo glances up at Daisy who smiles weakly and from her swelled eyes is apparent that she has been crying. “Hi y’all,” she fights to say, “how are y’all?”

It goes silent before Bo goes back to writing painfully and through his baby blue eyes I see his frustration as clearly as his pain and fear. “What if I don’t get better?” he shows me his sloppy hand writing and Daisy leans against me to see it.

I look up at him as my body goes weak in my chair and the fight with my tears almost seem impossible to hold back as I stare at his words on the page. The words that has been tearing at my heart since that night I found him on our front lawn. Carefully I take his casted hand with my other hand as I say, “Don’t say that Bo, you gotta be Ok…you are going to be OK,” I say as he only stares at me with his defiant eyes, “they say it is up to you, you have to fight it Bo…you hafta. You understand? I can’t loose you.”

“We can’t loose you,” Daisy corrects me.

He continues to stare at us and looking into his ghost like face and his half empty eyes, while the other half is vacant of great pain and great fear, my heart tightens even more painfully within me. “I don’t know if I can,” Bo shows me his message that I didn’t notice him writing, which only tightens my heart even more.

“You gotta try, that is all we can ask for; for you to try, please Bo,” slowly he nods and he winces in pain at the tube in his throat. Longly he stares at the ugly tube that is stuck down his throat and I try to imagine how he must feel with that in there. I look up at his monitors before I stare into an almost trance into the TV shaped monitors only for his breathing to go flat and Bo begins to cough hoarsely. I glare down worriedly as Daisy runs into the hall way, to find that he has pulled the air tube out of his throat while he continues to glare away from me. “Bo!” I yell at him, not knowing what else to say, “You trying to kill yourself??!!!” I close my eyes as tears streak my face freely and I open my eyes when he yanks at my hand for my attention and in his baby blue eyes he asks for understanding on my part. “Why Bo? I can’t…no I refuse to loose you!”

I look up as Daisy returns with his doctor who glares angrily at Bo before moving by his side. “You’re gonna wish you didn’t do that, cause it’s gonna hurt more going down than it did you yanking it out,” he threatens as he picks up the tube from Bo’s chest and I protectively grab Bo’s right arm as his doctor fights with it and as he closes on Bo’s mouth Bo grabs at it with his other hand and his doctor motions another doctor to come in to help hold him down. Bo squirms in pain at the doctor’s grip before fighting for air painfully to yell out in pain as the tube is once again shoved down his throat and taped to his mouth. “Look, this is your warning, y’all…one more time and I will be left with tying his arms down to the bed.”

Together we watch as they walk out together, talking and laughing about something. Slowly I glance down at Bo to find his eyes shut and tears roll down his cheeks freely and Daisy puts a firm hand on my shoulder. I look up at her and she whispers, “He’ll be fine, Luke…that there was him caving into his pain and fear. He don’t know what he wants or what to do.”

I nod as I glance back down at Bo to find him with his eyes open, his baby blue eyes show how sorry he is as well as the pain and fear Daisy had mentioned. “I know buddy…I didn’t mean to yell at you,” I try to apology, but sorry gets cut off at the lump in my throat, “you just scared me…I know I haven’t been there for you Bo, lately, but I promise to change. I will. We will start a new now and after you leave this place. I promise you that…if I don’t you have permission to run me over with the General.”

A thin smile reaches his mouth before he writes down, “Really?” he looks at me for a moment as I nod and he goes back to writing, “Like before?”

“Like before, little cuz,” I smile using his nickname I had called him before I had left for war, “now you gotta rest and get better. OK?”

He looks at me in fear to Daisy who nods at him, telling him to get some sleep. He nods as he fights with sleep visibly before he writes back on his paper, “I don’t wanna be alone.”

He looks up at us almost as if embarrassed and I smile comfortably at him. “They’re gonna hafta pick me up remove me, cuz, even then to win my fight, which they can’t do,” I smile at him as I still hold his hand for comfort, “I’m not going no where, cuz, now you get some sleep and that is an order.”

He nods slowly before he gives into his sleep and I look up at Daisy who hugs me from behind. “Have faith in him, Luke. He can pull himself out of this,” she smiles weakly at me, “He’s a Duke, ain’t he? Sure he is and he will be just fine, all he needs to know is that we are here for him. Now, sugar, I am sorry to leave y’all alone, but life does go on and therefore I have to go to work…you know how Hogg is when I’m late. You wanna order something? I can send Enos to send it to you, he has been asking to see Bo in awhile.”

I look at her before ordering their breaded chicken sandwich with tatter tots and watch her walk out before glaring back at Bo who lies a sleep, flinching every so often in another on coming nightmare and I can imagine the nights to come where he will awake with the nightmare.