Wrong Side of the Briar Patch 2/27
Title: Wrong Side of the Briar Patch
Author: NDF/TS Blue
Fandom: Dukes
Rating: PG, maybe. It's not quite all sunshine and roses, anyway.
Summary: It's a summer of freedom and hardship, of love and calamities. Daisy and Bo have just graduated into adulthood and Luke is back from war. It ought to be the best time of their lives, but one disaster follows another. Who would want the Dukes hurt? Prequel, gen.
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Two: Torture on a Time Delay
June 29, 1974
Times weren't, Bo had been made to understand, anywhere near as wild as they had been when Jesse was younger. When their uncle did the delivering for the family, at least some of the time. Back in the days when you couldn't spit to your left or your right without hitting at least one other moonshiner, maybe two or three, and half of them were crazy and ornery to boot. When competition was thick and mean and bore names like Black Jack and the Reaper and Poison Ivy, and the revenuers were the least of your problems.
"Luke," he said, because he'd been driving since he was thirteen, delivering for nearly a year and he was a fine driver. A natural. All of Hazzard agreed that no one could handle a car better. "There's got to be four of them." But he wasn't schemer, wasn't sly or slick, and being outnumbered like he and his older cousin were, after midnight, on a narrow road dipping down into Black Hollow at high speed without headlights, he needed a survival plan.
Luke turned to look over the boxes of their wares and out the back window of Tilly, the family's solid but nimble 'shine running car.
"Six," he corrected.
Scratch that, they needed a miracle.
"Six cars?" His voice squeaked, though he was almost eighteen and long past the days when it should have. "Where did Joe get them all?" The Federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms was no backwater excuse for law enforcement; it was a force to be reckoned with. And Agent Joe Higgins, who had been working the tri-county region for the last couple of years, was like a dog after a bone when it came to chasing down moonshiners. Still, that dog usually hunted on his own or with a couple of others that might include a Hazzard County Sheriff and a hastily sworn-in deputy, not in a large pack.
"Don't matter where they came from, it's where they end up that counts. Head for the swamp, Bo."
It was awfully early in the game for that, Bo felt. Or should have been. They were supposed to be climbing into the hills to Wigley's Mountain and over Taylor Ridge, but all those roads were switchback trails without even a guardrail alongside them and with that many pursuers-
Times weren't what they had been, when Jesse had to outrun not only revenuers and local law, but also had to fend off other moonshiners that could be territorial and mean. A man had to cut his own path through the hills, find his own customers without stepping on too many toes, but when your product was a pure and sweet as Jesse's the clientele just about came knocking at the old farmhouse door.
Still, the screech of his tires and smell of burnt rubber - as he took the hairpin turn off Ridge Road to careen down Bluestone Quarry Drive - told him that times were bad enough.
"Luke," he said, daring a glance into his rearview mirror. They had rules, the Duke cousins did. He and Luke drove as a team, with Bo's eyes always on the road in front and Luke's everywhere else. Except he never had been able to fully submit to that philosophy. (And Luke did his own share of cheating by reaching for the steering wheel from time to time, when he was supposed to keep his hands to himself.) "Ain't you got no better ideas?"
Luke probably snorted, must have offered up a smirk. There was no light to see him in and no time to look, but it was a cinch to guess. The pool of Luke's responses to Bo's helpful suggestions was pretty darn shallow.
"Reckon I would," came the answer, edged with sarcasm. "If you wasn't driving like a turtle." That was an insult to his honor and his skill as a Duke. And tough talk coming from a man that had been relegated to side-seat driving for close to a year. Luke wouldn't admit it, but Bo was better than him. "You'd do a mite better," his smug older cousin counseled. "If you hadn't been out partying all night last night."
"It wasn't all night." But a proud smile tugged at the corner of his lips at the memory. Of the party in the thick woods off Potter's Road, the bonfire and the cassette tapes playing, the dancing and drinking someone's smuggled-in moonshine that didn't hold a candle to Jesse's. Of the way Nellie Robinson's shirt had stuck to her skin with sweat after she'd been dancing for a while, and the way the two of them had found some deep shadows to spend a little private time in. "Besides, you was there, too." And that might have been the best part, celebrating with Luke.
His and Daisy's graduation, which had been forever in coming. Luke was three years ahead of them, and his legacy had been a thing of beauty. The troublemaker who'd never been caught, the menace that teachers still flinched about years later when they met Bo. The epitome of what the old-timers meant when they said families like the Dukes were from the wrong side of the briar patch. It would have been hard enough to live up to Luke. But for almost his whole twelve years of schooling, Daisy had been right there in the same grade as him. Five months older than him, sitting in all the same classrooms as him since she'd moved into the Duke farm late in their first grade year. She was quiet, respectful, attentive, bookwormish and if that wasn't bad enough, she'd gotten good grades. Teachers weren't sure whether to punish Bo for not being half the student his girl cousin was, or just be relieved that he wasn't nearly the terror that his male cousin had been. Too many years spent in too many shadows, and about the only good thing he could say of them was that they were finally over.
And that Luke, who never missed an opportunity to say an unkind word about how Bo was still a kid, had for once treated him like an equal. Had come to the graduation last Saturday evening and offered up a wink when Bo went to claim his diploma. Had joined him at the "official" party at the Boar's Nest, where the graduates were offered a sip of champagne each, and told by all the town elders to go out into the world and make something of themselves. And finally, a few days after pomp and circumstance was done, Luke had accompanied him to the "unofficial" party and told him to have fun. Had said to do what he wanted because even if he was still more than a month away from eighteen, he was a grownup now.
Even though Bo had no clear plans to behave like any kind of adult at all. Heck, there was no reason to, just as there had been no reason (other than the ongoing threat of a whipped hide from Uncle Jesse and a lifetime of taunting from Luke) to finish school. He didn't need to know trigonometry to run moonshine, and he didn't need to put on a suit or otherwise give up his wild ways, either. Besides, the Marines had grown Luke up enough for the both of them.
"I wasn't drinking like moonshine was going out of style. And watch that-" tree, but Luke never got there; he was too busy ducking low toward the dashboard, like that was going to do him any good at all. Low was as bad as high if they hit anything at the speed they were going. But Bo had no intentions of hitting anything, least of all a silly tree. He swerved, skidded, felt Tilly lurch to one side before settling to the middle again, and careened down the old dirt fire road that offered a more direct descent than the paved switchback road. "Or dancing," Luke mumbled, as he went looking the dignity he'd left under the dashboard, "with everything in a skirt."
Which only went to prove he'd done more than his share of growing up and Bo didn't need to do any at all.
"You're just mad because I ain't hungover."
"I ain't hungover neither." Of course Luke wasn't. He'd just admitted that he'd hardly touched the liquor last night. Which was good, since it had been his oldest cousin that watched out for him and Daisy through the night, made sure that all their fun was of the good and clean sort, then brought them safely home.
"All of them can't be revenuers," Bo pointed out, catching another quick look at the pursuing cars in his rearview mirror.
"No kidding," Luke answered back. "Keep your eyes on the-path." Because calling it a road would be too generous.
"No, I mean, they ain't all law," Bo clarified. Because sure, scrawny Joe Higgins could scrape together a small posse under dire circumstances (which these didn't precisely qualify as, if you asked Bo) but not a one of them should have been able to make that turn onto the fire road. And he and Luke still more tails than a nest full of possums. "Maybe ain't none of them law." Since it seemed they'd all come along for this part of the ride.
"And that's," came Luke's smug explanation, "why we're going to the swamp. Now put your foot on it."
For once, Bo didn't have much of a clever answer, so he did as he was told.
It wasn't, Luke figured somewhere around the time he realized that Maudine had thrown a shoe again, going to be his day. Not that the shoe was the worst of it, just one more hassle to pile on top of the others.
A pile that was already stacked thick and high with last night's moonshine-run-turned-fox-hunt, where he and Bo were the quarry. The swamp hadn't been enough to shake all of their pursuers, which went to prove that at least three of them had not been the law. The whole bunch had been blacked out and some of them had been lost early, but a number had made it to the edge of the swamp and then the last three had dogged him and Bo until finally they dumped their wares into the water (and there had to be some dizzy gators in there this morning) to lighten their burden. Then and only then had they lost the last three.
Afterward, they'd had to come home to Jesse, tails tucked and Bo's head down, expecting they'd get whipped like naughty pups. But when they'd told their tale, there hadn't been any yelling. Just a strange reflected glow of the last embers of the fireplace in Jesse face, a hollow look and they'd been sent to bed. It was, after all, only a couple of hours until chores, and there was no extra rest for farm-boys-by-day, (failed) delivery-boys-by-night. Besides, Daisy was already sleeping, so the house had to stay quiet.
Luke'd had the audacity to hope that he and Bo had gotten off easy. But it was just torture on a time delay.
Waking up was to the tune of a thunderclap, and early chores were wet and mud-slicked. Breakfast was bland oatmeal, because the eggs had to go to town to be sold in the general store. After all, there was no cash in the house when 'shine ran through the county's creeks instead of customers' livers. A lull in the rain seemed like relief and he and Bo had gone back to the barn to get serious about the day's work, putting Maudine out to pasture while they cleaned her stall. The goats were making nuisances of themselves, but eventually Jesse came along to take them out to be milked.
Luke had almost deemed the day salvageable when he went back out to check on Maudine and found that she'd been using the fence as a handy shoe-removal tool again, and while he'd been checking booth her hoof and the fence for damage, there'd been that engine hum that let him know that there was nothing about this day that was going to be any good.
"What's he doing here?" Bo asked from where he wasn't quite doing his share of chores. Sitting on a hay bale and studying the blade and handle of a shovel as if he were going to fix it, which might have been halfway convincing if it had been broken in the first place.
The engine ran far too smooth, was tuned and tinkered with and otherwise cared for with far too much money to be any friend of theirs. To be anyone other than Jefferson Davis Hogg, business owner, land broker, casual moonshiner and one-time partner of Jesse Duke. Though that last one never had rung completely true to him and Bo; as long as they'd lived in the farmhouse, hardly a civil word had been spoken about the man within its four walls.
"What's he doing anywhere?" Luke answered back. "Come on, help me with Maudine and we can go find out."
"Why, hello there, Beauregard, Lukas," they found themselves being greeted when they made their way toward the porch, where old J.D. and his stinky cigar were holding court. Making grad gestures with his pudgy little arms while ashes fell over the cracked floorboards and it was a good thing they'd been subjected to the morning's thundery deluge, otherwise the fool might be starting a hundred tiny fires. Preaching whatever was on his mind today to Jesse's impassive face, to the chickens in the farmyard, to the goats tied to the post, and to the birds in the trees. To anyone who might listen, on purpose or accidentally. "How are you this fine morning?"
"That's just Bo," his cousin reminded them all (but J.D. in particular) for the hundredth time. The thousandth, but it was so much wasted breath as far as Hogg was concerned. In one ear and out the other because he wasn't listening and would call them each whatever struck his fancy on any given day. Today, apparently, was of a formal nature. J.D. was dressed for church, even if it was only Saturday, complete with gold braiding on his boots and hat, and a three piece white suit everywhere in between.
"Ah, there's the future of this fine county," he remarked, voice wavering with conjured emotion, cigar pointing squarely at Bo, whose dirty hands were in the pockets of his dirty jeans, dirty boots squelching in mud as he took those last few steps to the porch. Hair in messy ringlets around his face, eyes squinted down with suspicion or distaste (a look that never did sit well on Bo's pretty features), mouth twisted with whatever objections he was set to make. "Just as I'm always saying, we are only as strong as our youngsters' backs, only as smart as our children's schooling, only as fine as…" there was something about china in there, oats and mules, the plough and the hoe, the sword with which to do battle. All things that one Jefferson Davis Hogg would know nothing about, his soft, pink hands stained only by nicotine, his back bent only because of the impressive weight he hauled around his midsection. Not that it mattered a bit. He was practicing some sort of speech, and the Dukes were practicing ignoring his every word.
"You are of voting age, ain't you, boy?" brought them back from where they'd drifted to. Boy was either him or Bo, and the answer depended which one he was asking.
"J.D.," Jesse interrupted before they could get around to figuring that out. "What was it you came here for? I know it wasn't Bo there's vote, because I reckon that when that boy turns eighteen," which would be about a month before the upcoming election, "he'll vote his conscience."
Those words dangled for a bit, waiting to be understood, then just went and flew right over J.D.'s head all the same. The man was running for commissioner of Hazzard County, and he'd been shuffling from here to there making sure everyone knew it. Making promises that he'd be better than Commissioner Chadwick ever hoped to be, but it was a moot point. Chadwick had been around since Jesse was slim and handsome and playing the field for a fine filly of a wife, and he didn't have too many marbles left by now. Hardly ever showed up in the courthouse, but he was loved. It would all come down to whether Hazzard wanted a sweetheart of a doddering old man, or someone halfway competent, but crookeder than old Withlacoochee River. Luke wasn't sure which way he wanted it to go.
"J.D.?" Jesse nudged.
"You're right Jesse," Hogg said, taking a long draw on his cigar and letting the smoke out slow. Stealing extra seconds, because the man was a thief and wanted everything he could get from his prospective constituents, even if all they had was time. "I ain't here for Bo's vote. I'm here to help you out."
"Help me out," Jesse mumbled, pushing himself up off the porch railing he'd been leaning on. Rolling his eyes in that way that called Hogg a precious fool without even saying a word. Bo sauntered up to the top step of the porch, and Luke held to the farmyard. Hogg was neatly surrounded by suspicious Dukes. "Just how, exactly, were you planning to do that?"
"Well, now, Jesse," J.D. simpered. Smacked his lips together and all but closed his eyes because what he was about to say was so delicious that they should all take the time to savor it. "I thought I'd just take this little piece of property off your hands, since it don't grow nothing but rocks," funny how that made Bo take a step forward. Towering over the fool that would impugn the land of his ancestors. "And corn. And corn, well it ain't worth what it once was, is it?" A conspiratorial wink and another pull on his cigar. "I'll pay good money, more than it's worth."
"What's that supposed to mean?" Bo demanded before Luke could finish climbing the steps to get next to him. Taking hold of his arm just above the elbow a second too late and Bo shook him off with the impatience of a toddler.
"Bo," Jesse said, just that quiet little syllable and it was enough. Bo's head dipped and a yes, sir was implied. He'd be polite to the guests, but only because he valued his hind end and didn't want it whipped. "What Mr. Hogg may be referring to is that back when he and I were in business, corn sold differently." Leaving up to the imagination what he meant by that, because the Dukes had run 'shine back when Jesse was young and they still ran it now. The only difference was, now it had to be a secret. None of them could admit out loud what they did in heavily wooded hollows between jagged peaks of mountains, or why they drove so fast in the dark. Not since the revenuers had taken special interest in Hazzard County about a quarter century back. "At least during prohibition," which was when Duke corn liquor had sold for the highest price, historically speaking. "But that don't make no never mind. We sold as much Duke land as we ever aim to, back in the Great Depression," he added pointedly.
"You sure about that, Jesse?" J.D. smirked back at him. "Because I'd give you a fair price. Why, I'm willing to offer you a hundred fifty dollars an acre-"
"A hundred fifty; you've got to be out of your-" there was no holding Bo back that time. Not that it mattered what he was saying because Jesse was hollering just as loud. Luke left them to it, folding his arms across his chest. He was halfway interested in what the fat man had to say, but he was also perfectly willing to let him get yelled at for as long as Jesse wanted to do it. Figured the old man might even run out of steam before he finally got around to trying to lecture his boys for last night's poor showing on the road.
"It's a fine offer, Jesse, special for a friend like you. See, this old farm ain't worth much and you're getting older now. I reckon that money would let you retire. And it'd get these kids of yours off to a solid start. They wouldn't have to spend their whole lives scratching at dirt that ain't never going to produce no real crop, like you done and like your daddy done before you."
"Now just you wait a dang minute," Bo started up again, or kept going. Luke couldn't swear he'd ever really stopped. Just this time, it was accompanied by a finger leveled in J.D.'s face. "This dirt's better than any other you can find in Hazzard, and what would you know about dirt anyway when you ain't never grown nothing bigger than your own belly?"
"Bo!"
Chin jutted, Bo tried to stare their uncle down. To tell him silently that J.D. Hogg didn't deserve their civility, and in the end he failed. Blond bangs falling into his eyes, he dropped his hand to smack against his leg and let his head dip. Yes, sir.
Luke released his arms from their fold, dropped one across Bo's shoulders. I agree with him, the gesture said, or at least he hoped it did. Even if I'm too smart to go mouthing off about it.
"Now, J.D., I apologize for what my youngster just said to you there. But I reckon it's time you was taking leave of us. We got chores to do and since we ain't selling-don't you waste your breath interrupting me now-we ain't selling this land, we'd best set to taking care of it."
"All right," Hogg agreed, still cheerful despite the fact that he'd been insulted or snubbed by everyone that stood on the porch (and just look at that, Daisy had come to the door and was glowering out through the screen at him, too). "Just remember I offered."
June 30, 1974
There was no air in his office. None at all, just sweat, and that was before his unwanted guest showed up with his meticulous suit and his acrid cigar. Then there was less than no air, a dizzying concept. Like negative numbers learned at a school desk all those years ago. Rosco never had much liked math, but that year they learned negative numbers had been the worst. That was when he realized you could have less than zero and he hadn't cared for a lick of school after that.
Any more than he cared for a visit from Jefferson Davis Hogg.
"Well hello, Rosco. How are things in the sheriff's department these days?"
He was friendly enough, at least on the surface. Personable, and it was only polite to inquire after a man's job after all. It was just that when J.D. Hogg asked questions, it boded well to answer carefully.
The man came around for two reasons, and two reasons only. The first was to collect money and the second was to remind anyone who might need reminding that he owned just about everything that there was to own in this town. If he didn't own one house, he owned the one next door and he could just decide to build an extension right up to the property line or get the zoning changed and turn it into a parking lot. Whichever suited him at any point and that meant everyone ought to jump when he told them to, because he could make lives miserable at the slightest provocation.
He didn't own Rosco's little one-bedroom house in town, but the one in which his mother and sister Lulu lived was a different story. An antebellum on Ash Street with columns in front and high ceilings. It was split into four apartments, one of which his mother and Lulu shared. Paid for from Rosco's paycheck, straight into J.D. Hogg's bank account because whatever inheritance the lawman's father had left was long gone now.
"A mite hot," was how things in the sheriff's department were that afternoon. Sundays were usually quiet too, and this one had been until the present loud interruption had appeared. "If you don't mind, I think I might," push past you and escape out into the squad room where there's air to breathe. But he couldn't say that, couldn't go anywhere. J.D. Hogg had the doorway tidily blocked off with his belly and his wide brimmed hat and that smirk that knew precisely how uncomfortable Rosco was. "Turn on my fan."
"By all means." No one could say that J.D. Hogg was anything less than a magnanimous and well-mannered leech on society. "Go right ahead."
So Rosco did and for a glorious moment he could breathe, he could imagine better days spent in better ways: courting Bessie Mae by Hazzard Creek, under the shade of a live oak hanging heavy with Spanish moss.
And then he realized that he was still being spoken to, loudly and ever more insistently over the drone of the fan. Which was old and rattled and no matter how much of a breeze it set up, it couldn't blow him out of here and back to those better days.
He turned the knob back down to a lower setting, and the fan shuddered, creaked and settled at barely moving the air at all.
"What was that?" he asked. And it would take a hundred fans, maybe a thousand, to blow away the trouble that still stood just inside the threshold of his office door.
"I was just saying," J.D. started up again, laying his rotten old cigar on top of the shelf that held all of Rosco's police manuals. Flammable things, and he halfway wanted to get the cigar away from them, but that would mean touching it. Holding it himself, because his office didn't have an ashtray, and J.D.'s hands were busy, taking off his hat and fussing with what little hair he had underneath. Combing his fingers through it as though it had been mussed by the fan, when it hadn't been anything but a greasy mop of frizz for as long as anyone in Hazzard could remember. "That it seems to me you got a problem."
Oh, he had a few and most of them started and ended with the man standing in front of him. But no, that wasn't fair. It wasn't J.D. Hogg's fault that Rosco'd had to let three deputies go last month because the county was too broke to pay them. And it wasn't J.D. Hogg's fault that the youth of Hazzard County didn't seem to know that they'd do better to behave themselves and not make mischief wherever they could. And it wasn't J.D. Hogg's fault that Bessie Mae, with her sweet smile and her soft curves, had stopped coming around to the sheriff's station or to his home. That she'd firmly told him to stop calling on her and leave her be, because she'd found another man. One that paid her more attention and didn't leave her to wonder if he'd show up for a dinner of her scrumptious fried chicken, or whether he'd be out all night chasing the ghosts of bad guys that had run off.
But he didn't explain any of that to the gluttonous man in front of him, who had stopped messing with his hair and his hat and retrieved his cigar like it was his only friend in the world. (And maybe it was.) He just stood where he was, waiting for it, whatever it was going to be. Tried to be tough and impassive, tried to maintain his posture and his calm, but a few seconds of silence and he could feel his shoulders starting to slump. "What problem is that?" he finally gave in and asked.
"Moonshiners."
Rosco almost giggled, thought better of it. Didn't want to be stuck in this airless office all day, sweating and explaining what was so funny.
He had a policy when it came to moonshiners. He didn't bother them if they didn't bother him. For the most part the moonshiners kept to their half of the bargain, and if they ever riled up revenuers or the law of other counties, Rosco would help out where needed. Otherwise, he left them be.
Besides, the man in front of him ran his own line of moonshine, here and there. Serving swill to those infirm or otherwise unknowing enough to drink what might as well have been turpentine for all that it resembled good liquor.
"I'll take it under advisement," he offered instead. It was the sort of thing powerful men had said around these parts for all his life, and it always worked, too.
"Best you do." Except, of course, with a mule as stubborn as J.D. Hogg. "Especially them moonshiners that run through Black Hollow to Wigley's Ridge." That was Jesse Duke's territory and everyone knew it. Including the man in white, standing in front of him and smiling like a cat with a mouse's tail hanging out of its mouth. "By the way, rent's due on your mama's place. It's getting time for a new lease, too. Reckon I may have to reconsider that gem of a deal I've been giving you."
And with that, J.D. Hogg flicked the ashes from his cigar onto Rosco's floor, turned his wide body around in an awkward half circle, and bid his adieus.
Leaving Rosco to turn his fan up onto high and do his best to ignore everything but the air it provided.
Author: NDF/TS Blue
Fandom: Dukes
Rating: PG, maybe. It's not quite all sunshine and roses, anyway.
Summary: It's a summer of freedom and hardship, of love and calamities. Daisy and Bo have just graduated into adulthood and Luke is back from war. It ought to be the best time of their lives, but one disaster follows another. Who would want the Dukes hurt? Prequel, gen.
______________________
Two: Torture on a Time Delay
June 29, 1974
Times weren't, Bo had been made to understand, anywhere near as wild as they had been when Jesse was younger. When their uncle did the delivering for the family, at least some of the time. Back in the days when you couldn't spit to your left or your right without hitting at least one other moonshiner, maybe two or three, and half of them were crazy and ornery to boot. When competition was thick and mean and bore names like Black Jack and the Reaper and Poison Ivy, and the revenuers were the least of your problems.
"Luke," he said, because he'd been driving since he was thirteen, delivering for nearly a year and he was a fine driver. A natural. All of Hazzard agreed that no one could handle a car better. "There's got to be four of them." But he wasn't schemer, wasn't sly or slick, and being outnumbered like he and his older cousin were, after midnight, on a narrow road dipping down into Black Hollow at high speed without headlights, he needed a survival plan.
Luke turned to look over the boxes of their wares and out the back window of Tilly, the family's solid but nimble 'shine running car.
"Six," he corrected.
Scratch that, they needed a miracle.
"Six cars?" His voice squeaked, though he was almost eighteen and long past the days when it should have. "Where did Joe get them all?" The Federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms was no backwater excuse for law enforcement; it was a force to be reckoned with. And Agent Joe Higgins, who had been working the tri-county region for the last couple of years, was like a dog after a bone when it came to chasing down moonshiners. Still, that dog usually hunted on his own or with a couple of others that might include a Hazzard County Sheriff and a hastily sworn-in deputy, not in a large pack.
"Don't matter where they came from, it's where they end up that counts. Head for the swamp, Bo."
It was awfully early in the game for that, Bo felt. Or should have been. They were supposed to be climbing into the hills to Wigley's Mountain and over Taylor Ridge, but all those roads were switchback trails without even a guardrail alongside them and with that many pursuers-
Times weren't what they had been, when Jesse had to outrun not only revenuers and local law, but also had to fend off other moonshiners that could be territorial and mean. A man had to cut his own path through the hills, find his own customers without stepping on too many toes, but when your product was a pure and sweet as Jesse's the clientele just about came knocking at the old farmhouse door.
Still, the screech of his tires and smell of burnt rubber - as he took the hairpin turn off Ridge Road to careen down Bluestone Quarry Drive - told him that times were bad enough.
"Luke," he said, daring a glance into his rearview mirror. They had rules, the Duke cousins did. He and Luke drove as a team, with Bo's eyes always on the road in front and Luke's everywhere else. Except he never had been able to fully submit to that philosophy. (And Luke did his own share of cheating by reaching for the steering wheel from time to time, when he was supposed to keep his hands to himself.) "Ain't you got no better ideas?"
Luke probably snorted, must have offered up a smirk. There was no light to see him in and no time to look, but it was a cinch to guess. The pool of Luke's responses to Bo's helpful suggestions was pretty darn shallow.
"Reckon I would," came the answer, edged with sarcasm. "If you wasn't driving like a turtle." That was an insult to his honor and his skill as a Duke. And tough talk coming from a man that had been relegated to side-seat driving for close to a year. Luke wouldn't admit it, but Bo was better than him. "You'd do a mite better," his smug older cousin counseled. "If you hadn't been out partying all night last night."
"It wasn't all night." But a proud smile tugged at the corner of his lips at the memory. Of the party in the thick woods off Potter's Road, the bonfire and the cassette tapes playing, the dancing and drinking someone's smuggled-in moonshine that didn't hold a candle to Jesse's. Of the way Nellie Robinson's shirt had stuck to her skin with sweat after she'd been dancing for a while, and the way the two of them had found some deep shadows to spend a little private time in. "Besides, you was there, too." And that might have been the best part, celebrating with Luke.
His and Daisy's graduation, which had been forever in coming. Luke was three years ahead of them, and his legacy had been a thing of beauty. The troublemaker who'd never been caught, the menace that teachers still flinched about years later when they met Bo. The epitome of what the old-timers meant when they said families like the Dukes were from the wrong side of the briar patch. It would have been hard enough to live up to Luke. But for almost his whole twelve years of schooling, Daisy had been right there in the same grade as him. Five months older than him, sitting in all the same classrooms as him since she'd moved into the Duke farm late in their first grade year. She was quiet, respectful, attentive, bookwormish and if that wasn't bad enough, she'd gotten good grades. Teachers weren't sure whether to punish Bo for not being half the student his girl cousin was, or just be relieved that he wasn't nearly the terror that his male cousin had been. Too many years spent in too many shadows, and about the only good thing he could say of them was that they were finally over.
And that Luke, who never missed an opportunity to say an unkind word about how Bo was still a kid, had for once treated him like an equal. Had come to the graduation last Saturday evening and offered up a wink when Bo went to claim his diploma. Had joined him at the "official" party at the Boar's Nest, where the graduates were offered a sip of champagne each, and told by all the town elders to go out into the world and make something of themselves. And finally, a few days after pomp and circumstance was done, Luke had accompanied him to the "unofficial" party and told him to have fun. Had said to do what he wanted because even if he was still more than a month away from eighteen, he was a grownup now.
Even though Bo had no clear plans to behave like any kind of adult at all. Heck, there was no reason to, just as there had been no reason (other than the ongoing threat of a whipped hide from Uncle Jesse and a lifetime of taunting from Luke) to finish school. He didn't need to know trigonometry to run moonshine, and he didn't need to put on a suit or otherwise give up his wild ways, either. Besides, the Marines had grown Luke up enough for the both of them.
"I wasn't drinking like moonshine was going out of style. And watch that-" tree, but Luke never got there; he was too busy ducking low toward the dashboard, like that was going to do him any good at all. Low was as bad as high if they hit anything at the speed they were going. But Bo had no intentions of hitting anything, least of all a silly tree. He swerved, skidded, felt Tilly lurch to one side before settling to the middle again, and careened down the old dirt fire road that offered a more direct descent than the paved switchback road. "Or dancing," Luke mumbled, as he went looking the dignity he'd left under the dashboard, "with everything in a skirt."
Which only went to prove he'd done more than his share of growing up and Bo didn't need to do any at all.
"You're just mad because I ain't hungover."
"I ain't hungover neither." Of course Luke wasn't. He'd just admitted that he'd hardly touched the liquor last night. Which was good, since it had been his oldest cousin that watched out for him and Daisy through the night, made sure that all their fun was of the good and clean sort, then brought them safely home.
"All of them can't be revenuers," Bo pointed out, catching another quick look at the pursuing cars in his rearview mirror.
"No kidding," Luke answered back. "Keep your eyes on the-path." Because calling it a road would be too generous.
"No, I mean, they ain't all law," Bo clarified. Because sure, scrawny Joe Higgins could scrape together a small posse under dire circumstances (which these didn't precisely qualify as, if you asked Bo) but not a one of them should have been able to make that turn onto the fire road. And he and Luke still more tails than a nest full of possums. "Maybe ain't none of them law." Since it seemed they'd all come along for this part of the ride.
"And that's," came Luke's smug explanation, "why we're going to the swamp. Now put your foot on it."
For once, Bo didn't have much of a clever answer, so he did as he was told.
It wasn't, Luke figured somewhere around the time he realized that Maudine had thrown a shoe again, going to be his day. Not that the shoe was the worst of it, just one more hassle to pile on top of the others.
A pile that was already stacked thick and high with last night's moonshine-run-turned-fox-hunt, where he and Bo were the quarry. The swamp hadn't been enough to shake all of their pursuers, which went to prove that at least three of them had not been the law. The whole bunch had been blacked out and some of them had been lost early, but a number had made it to the edge of the swamp and then the last three had dogged him and Bo until finally they dumped their wares into the water (and there had to be some dizzy gators in there this morning) to lighten their burden. Then and only then had they lost the last three.
Afterward, they'd had to come home to Jesse, tails tucked and Bo's head down, expecting they'd get whipped like naughty pups. But when they'd told their tale, there hadn't been any yelling. Just a strange reflected glow of the last embers of the fireplace in Jesse face, a hollow look and they'd been sent to bed. It was, after all, only a couple of hours until chores, and there was no extra rest for farm-boys-by-day, (failed) delivery-boys-by-night. Besides, Daisy was already sleeping, so the house had to stay quiet.
Luke'd had the audacity to hope that he and Bo had gotten off easy. But it was just torture on a time delay.
Waking up was to the tune of a thunderclap, and early chores were wet and mud-slicked. Breakfast was bland oatmeal, because the eggs had to go to town to be sold in the general store. After all, there was no cash in the house when 'shine ran through the county's creeks instead of customers' livers. A lull in the rain seemed like relief and he and Bo had gone back to the barn to get serious about the day's work, putting Maudine out to pasture while they cleaned her stall. The goats were making nuisances of themselves, but eventually Jesse came along to take them out to be milked.
Luke had almost deemed the day salvageable when he went back out to check on Maudine and found that she'd been using the fence as a handy shoe-removal tool again, and while he'd been checking booth her hoof and the fence for damage, there'd been that engine hum that let him know that there was nothing about this day that was going to be any good.
"What's he doing here?" Bo asked from where he wasn't quite doing his share of chores. Sitting on a hay bale and studying the blade and handle of a shovel as if he were going to fix it, which might have been halfway convincing if it had been broken in the first place.
The engine ran far too smooth, was tuned and tinkered with and otherwise cared for with far too much money to be any friend of theirs. To be anyone other than Jefferson Davis Hogg, business owner, land broker, casual moonshiner and one-time partner of Jesse Duke. Though that last one never had rung completely true to him and Bo; as long as they'd lived in the farmhouse, hardly a civil word had been spoken about the man within its four walls.
"What's he doing anywhere?" Luke answered back. "Come on, help me with Maudine and we can go find out."
"Why, hello there, Beauregard, Lukas," they found themselves being greeted when they made their way toward the porch, where old J.D. and his stinky cigar were holding court. Making grad gestures with his pudgy little arms while ashes fell over the cracked floorboards and it was a good thing they'd been subjected to the morning's thundery deluge, otherwise the fool might be starting a hundred tiny fires. Preaching whatever was on his mind today to Jesse's impassive face, to the chickens in the farmyard, to the goats tied to the post, and to the birds in the trees. To anyone who might listen, on purpose or accidentally. "How are you this fine morning?"
"That's just Bo," his cousin reminded them all (but J.D. in particular) for the hundredth time. The thousandth, but it was so much wasted breath as far as Hogg was concerned. In one ear and out the other because he wasn't listening and would call them each whatever struck his fancy on any given day. Today, apparently, was of a formal nature. J.D. was dressed for church, even if it was only Saturday, complete with gold braiding on his boots and hat, and a three piece white suit everywhere in between.
"Ah, there's the future of this fine county," he remarked, voice wavering with conjured emotion, cigar pointing squarely at Bo, whose dirty hands were in the pockets of his dirty jeans, dirty boots squelching in mud as he took those last few steps to the porch. Hair in messy ringlets around his face, eyes squinted down with suspicion or distaste (a look that never did sit well on Bo's pretty features), mouth twisted with whatever objections he was set to make. "Just as I'm always saying, we are only as strong as our youngsters' backs, only as smart as our children's schooling, only as fine as…" there was something about china in there, oats and mules, the plough and the hoe, the sword with which to do battle. All things that one Jefferson Davis Hogg would know nothing about, his soft, pink hands stained only by nicotine, his back bent only because of the impressive weight he hauled around his midsection. Not that it mattered a bit. He was practicing some sort of speech, and the Dukes were practicing ignoring his every word.
"You are of voting age, ain't you, boy?" brought them back from where they'd drifted to. Boy was either him or Bo, and the answer depended which one he was asking.
"J.D.," Jesse interrupted before they could get around to figuring that out. "What was it you came here for? I know it wasn't Bo there's vote, because I reckon that when that boy turns eighteen," which would be about a month before the upcoming election, "he'll vote his conscience."
Those words dangled for a bit, waiting to be understood, then just went and flew right over J.D.'s head all the same. The man was running for commissioner of Hazzard County, and he'd been shuffling from here to there making sure everyone knew it. Making promises that he'd be better than Commissioner Chadwick ever hoped to be, but it was a moot point. Chadwick had been around since Jesse was slim and handsome and playing the field for a fine filly of a wife, and he didn't have too many marbles left by now. Hardly ever showed up in the courthouse, but he was loved. It would all come down to whether Hazzard wanted a sweetheart of a doddering old man, or someone halfway competent, but crookeder than old Withlacoochee River. Luke wasn't sure which way he wanted it to go.
"J.D.?" Jesse nudged.
"You're right Jesse," Hogg said, taking a long draw on his cigar and letting the smoke out slow. Stealing extra seconds, because the man was a thief and wanted everything he could get from his prospective constituents, even if all they had was time. "I ain't here for Bo's vote. I'm here to help you out."
"Help me out," Jesse mumbled, pushing himself up off the porch railing he'd been leaning on. Rolling his eyes in that way that called Hogg a precious fool without even saying a word. Bo sauntered up to the top step of the porch, and Luke held to the farmyard. Hogg was neatly surrounded by suspicious Dukes. "Just how, exactly, were you planning to do that?"
"Well, now, Jesse," J.D. simpered. Smacked his lips together and all but closed his eyes because what he was about to say was so delicious that they should all take the time to savor it. "I thought I'd just take this little piece of property off your hands, since it don't grow nothing but rocks," funny how that made Bo take a step forward. Towering over the fool that would impugn the land of his ancestors. "And corn. And corn, well it ain't worth what it once was, is it?" A conspiratorial wink and another pull on his cigar. "I'll pay good money, more than it's worth."
"What's that supposed to mean?" Bo demanded before Luke could finish climbing the steps to get next to him. Taking hold of his arm just above the elbow a second too late and Bo shook him off with the impatience of a toddler.
"Bo," Jesse said, just that quiet little syllable and it was enough. Bo's head dipped and a yes, sir was implied. He'd be polite to the guests, but only because he valued his hind end and didn't want it whipped. "What Mr. Hogg may be referring to is that back when he and I were in business, corn sold differently." Leaving up to the imagination what he meant by that, because the Dukes had run 'shine back when Jesse was young and they still ran it now. The only difference was, now it had to be a secret. None of them could admit out loud what they did in heavily wooded hollows between jagged peaks of mountains, or why they drove so fast in the dark. Not since the revenuers had taken special interest in Hazzard County about a quarter century back. "At least during prohibition," which was when Duke corn liquor had sold for the highest price, historically speaking. "But that don't make no never mind. We sold as much Duke land as we ever aim to, back in the Great Depression," he added pointedly.
"You sure about that, Jesse?" J.D. smirked back at him. "Because I'd give you a fair price. Why, I'm willing to offer you a hundred fifty dollars an acre-"
"A hundred fifty; you've got to be out of your-" there was no holding Bo back that time. Not that it mattered what he was saying because Jesse was hollering just as loud. Luke left them to it, folding his arms across his chest. He was halfway interested in what the fat man had to say, but he was also perfectly willing to let him get yelled at for as long as Jesse wanted to do it. Figured the old man might even run out of steam before he finally got around to trying to lecture his boys for last night's poor showing on the road.
"It's a fine offer, Jesse, special for a friend like you. See, this old farm ain't worth much and you're getting older now. I reckon that money would let you retire. And it'd get these kids of yours off to a solid start. They wouldn't have to spend their whole lives scratching at dirt that ain't never going to produce no real crop, like you done and like your daddy done before you."
"Now just you wait a dang minute," Bo started up again, or kept going. Luke couldn't swear he'd ever really stopped. Just this time, it was accompanied by a finger leveled in J.D.'s face. "This dirt's better than any other you can find in Hazzard, and what would you know about dirt anyway when you ain't never grown nothing bigger than your own belly?"
"Bo!"
Chin jutted, Bo tried to stare their uncle down. To tell him silently that J.D. Hogg didn't deserve their civility, and in the end he failed. Blond bangs falling into his eyes, he dropped his hand to smack against his leg and let his head dip. Yes, sir.
Luke released his arms from their fold, dropped one across Bo's shoulders. I agree with him, the gesture said, or at least he hoped it did. Even if I'm too smart to go mouthing off about it.
"Now, J.D., I apologize for what my youngster just said to you there. But I reckon it's time you was taking leave of us. We got chores to do and since we ain't selling-don't you waste your breath interrupting me now-we ain't selling this land, we'd best set to taking care of it."
"All right," Hogg agreed, still cheerful despite the fact that he'd been insulted or snubbed by everyone that stood on the porch (and just look at that, Daisy had come to the door and was glowering out through the screen at him, too). "Just remember I offered."
June 30, 1974
There was no air in his office. None at all, just sweat, and that was before his unwanted guest showed up with his meticulous suit and his acrid cigar. Then there was less than no air, a dizzying concept. Like negative numbers learned at a school desk all those years ago. Rosco never had much liked math, but that year they learned negative numbers had been the worst. That was when he realized you could have less than zero and he hadn't cared for a lick of school after that.
Any more than he cared for a visit from Jefferson Davis Hogg.
"Well hello, Rosco. How are things in the sheriff's department these days?"
He was friendly enough, at least on the surface. Personable, and it was only polite to inquire after a man's job after all. It was just that when J.D. Hogg asked questions, it boded well to answer carefully.
The man came around for two reasons, and two reasons only. The first was to collect money and the second was to remind anyone who might need reminding that he owned just about everything that there was to own in this town. If he didn't own one house, he owned the one next door and he could just decide to build an extension right up to the property line or get the zoning changed and turn it into a parking lot. Whichever suited him at any point and that meant everyone ought to jump when he told them to, because he could make lives miserable at the slightest provocation.
He didn't own Rosco's little one-bedroom house in town, but the one in which his mother and sister Lulu lived was a different story. An antebellum on Ash Street with columns in front and high ceilings. It was split into four apartments, one of which his mother and Lulu shared. Paid for from Rosco's paycheck, straight into J.D. Hogg's bank account because whatever inheritance the lawman's father had left was long gone now.
"A mite hot," was how things in the sheriff's department were that afternoon. Sundays were usually quiet too, and this one had been until the present loud interruption had appeared. "If you don't mind, I think I might," push past you and escape out into the squad room where there's air to breathe. But he couldn't say that, couldn't go anywhere. J.D. Hogg had the doorway tidily blocked off with his belly and his wide brimmed hat and that smirk that knew precisely how uncomfortable Rosco was. "Turn on my fan."
"By all means." No one could say that J.D. Hogg was anything less than a magnanimous and well-mannered leech on society. "Go right ahead."
So Rosco did and for a glorious moment he could breathe, he could imagine better days spent in better ways: courting Bessie Mae by Hazzard Creek, under the shade of a live oak hanging heavy with Spanish moss.
And then he realized that he was still being spoken to, loudly and ever more insistently over the drone of the fan. Which was old and rattled and no matter how much of a breeze it set up, it couldn't blow him out of here and back to those better days.
He turned the knob back down to a lower setting, and the fan shuddered, creaked and settled at barely moving the air at all.
"What was that?" he asked. And it would take a hundred fans, maybe a thousand, to blow away the trouble that still stood just inside the threshold of his office door.
"I was just saying," J.D. started up again, laying his rotten old cigar on top of the shelf that held all of Rosco's police manuals. Flammable things, and he halfway wanted to get the cigar away from them, but that would mean touching it. Holding it himself, because his office didn't have an ashtray, and J.D.'s hands were busy, taking off his hat and fussing with what little hair he had underneath. Combing his fingers through it as though it had been mussed by the fan, when it hadn't been anything but a greasy mop of frizz for as long as anyone in Hazzard could remember. "That it seems to me you got a problem."
Oh, he had a few and most of them started and ended with the man standing in front of him. But no, that wasn't fair. It wasn't J.D. Hogg's fault that Rosco'd had to let three deputies go last month because the county was too broke to pay them. And it wasn't J.D. Hogg's fault that the youth of Hazzard County didn't seem to know that they'd do better to behave themselves and not make mischief wherever they could. And it wasn't J.D. Hogg's fault that Bessie Mae, with her sweet smile and her soft curves, had stopped coming around to the sheriff's station or to his home. That she'd firmly told him to stop calling on her and leave her be, because she'd found another man. One that paid her more attention and didn't leave her to wonder if he'd show up for a dinner of her scrumptious fried chicken, or whether he'd be out all night chasing the ghosts of bad guys that had run off.
But he didn't explain any of that to the gluttonous man in front of him, who had stopped messing with his hair and his hat and retrieved his cigar like it was his only friend in the world. (And maybe it was.) He just stood where he was, waiting for it, whatever it was going to be. Tried to be tough and impassive, tried to maintain his posture and his calm, but a few seconds of silence and he could feel his shoulders starting to slump. "What problem is that?" he finally gave in and asked.
"Moonshiners."
Rosco almost giggled, thought better of it. Didn't want to be stuck in this airless office all day, sweating and explaining what was so funny.
He had a policy when it came to moonshiners. He didn't bother them if they didn't bother him. For the most part the moonshiners kept to their half of the bargain, and if they ever riled up revenuers or the law of other counties, Rosco would help out where needed. Otherwise, he left them be.
Besides, the man in front of him ran his own line of moonshine, here and there. Serving swill to those infirm or otherwise unknowing enough to drink what might as well have been turpentine for all that it resembled good liquor.
"I'll take it under advisement," he offered instead. It was the sort of thing powerful men had said around these parts for all his life, and it always worked, too.
"Best you do." Except, of course, with a mule as stubborn as J.D. Hogg. "Especially them moonshiners that run through Black Hollow to Wigley's Ridge." That was Jesse Duke's territory and everyone knew it. Including the man in white, standing in front of him and smiling like a cat with a mouse's tail hanging out of its mouth. "By the way, rent's due on your mama's place. It's getting time for a new lease, too. Reckon I may have to reconsider that gem of a deal I've been giving you."
And with that, J.D. Hogg flicked the ashes from his cigar onto Rosco's floor, turned his wide body around in an awkward half circle, and bid his adieus.
Leaving Rosco to turn his fan up onto high and do his best to ignore everything but the air it provided.