Hi, everyone! While I'm not 100 percent done writing this one, I'm close enough to start posting it.
A couple of notes - first, this is sort of a sequel to Duke Luck Shines on Hazzard. You don't have to read that one to understand what's going on in this one, but you do need to know the timeline. This is after the boys have been busted for running moonshine, and they're on probation, but the General does not yet exist. This story doesn't always follow canon events, either, or at least not those presented in Happy Birthday, General Lee. I won't make a case for the inconsistencies within the series here, I'll just say that there are plenty of them and I have a habit of choosing what I like and disregarding the contradictory stuff.
Speaking of timelines, this story incorporates some real events that took place in March of 1976. You'll see those when they come by. I am not completely true to the actual events, but I use a lot of them.
There will be more notes as the story progesses; I won't bore you with them all here.
Disclaimer: I do not own the Dukes or settings for this story, and no money is being made. Though this story contains some real events, it does not involve any real people, living or dead.
Cheers!
Chapter 1 – One-Sided Conversation With a Mule
The rumbling overhead was enough to set Jesse Duke's teeth on edge. Had it been thunder, it wouldn't have bothered him nearly so much. But of course, it was more threatening than thunder, what with it coming from within the second floor of his own house. He'd tried to ignore it, but when he heard a familiar crash, he could stand it no longer.
"Boys!" the patriarch hollered up the stairs. "I want you to quit that, this minute."
All he heard in return was laughter and continued thumping. Taking the stairs two at a time, much as he would have done a decade earlier, the white haired man yelled again.
"Bo! Luke! Now you boys just settle down right now!"
Finally, his two nephews went silent. Though he did not need to, Jesse showed the youngsters the courtesy of knocking on the door to the bedroom that they shared.
"Yes, sir?" came the voice of the younger of the two.
Always one to take charge, Luke called, "Come in."
Doing as his older nephew suggested, Jesse struggled to hold onto his anger. Apparently neither boy had moved since hearing their uncle's voice a few moments ago. Precisely as the patriarch had predicted, Bo's bed had been pushed out of position, and Luke's had half tipped on its side, putting yet another scar on wall to its right. Between the beds were two very guilty looking young men, Bo on his back with an arm around Luke's neck, while the older boy was squashing the younger into the floor with most of his weight. Four earnest blue eyes, two indigo and two misty, looked up at him, as if unaware of the ridiculous positions of their bodies.
"You boys is too old for this. One of these days you're gonna break somethin' or hurt each other. Bo…"
"Yes, sir?" the young blonde answered automatically.
"Get out from under your cousin there and go down and get at Maudine's stall."
"Yes, sir," the boy repeated without enthusiasm, as Luke got up and extended his hand, helping his younger cousin up. The boys smirked at one another in tacit challenge to see this through later, and Bo left the room.
"Now, Luke, I don't know what gets into you boys sometimes," his uncle began. "But I don't want to see no more of this kind of behavior, not in the house. There's a whole outdoors you boys can roll around in, if you're of a mind to be fools."
"Yes, sir," his dark haired nephew answered, but without quite the same respectful tone that Bo had used. This was the older, supposedly more responsible one, but he'd also developed quite an independent streak, right from the time he was small. And that part of his personality hadn't exactly diminished during his years in the Marines when he was stationed in Vietnam. While this boy understood orders and rank, he also knew how to be rather disobedient from time to time.
"You put this room back together, then you come downstairs and help your other cousin in the kitchen."
"Aw, Jesse…" Luke would have taken cleaning up after the family mule over cooking, any day. Jesse Duke knew exactly how to punish each of his boys.
"You do as I tell you, boy. You ain't so big I can't still tan your hide if I so decide."
"Yes, sir." This time Luke meant it, his uncle could tell. He placed a hand on the young man's forearm and gave it a gentle squeeze.
"That's my boy," he said with a wink, seeing how Luke's eyes brightened just a little bit at the praise. He might be a something of a challenge, that one, but he still responded well to a kind word.
"What're we makin'?" Luke asked without much gusto.
Daisy matched his gloom with some of her own: "Well, it's gonna be beans, rice and corn and that's all it's gonna be, so don't you go givin' me a hard time about it."
Eyebrows raised, Luke decided on a more careful approach to this cousin. Bo might be his equal in a wrestling match, but Daisy could take him easily, as she did not hesitate to use weapons. Her older cousin spotted at least three within easy reach; a frying pan, a spatula and a whisk. The latter two wouldn't hurt so bad, but the frying pan was closest, so he decided against taking any risks.
"I ain't plannin' on givin' you a hard time, sweetheart. I'm here to help."
"Oh, I'm sorry, Luke. I didn't mean to yell at you. It's just – we ain't got much that I can make, and I know you boys work hard, and you need a good meal…"
Luke laid a gentle hand on the heavily burdened shoulder of the only surviving female Duke. Sometimes he forgot just how much she'd taken on when their aunt had died a good dozen years ago. It seemed natural by now that she did so much for the small family, but, as Luke suddenly reminded himself, she didn't have to. Daisy had chosen to try to fill some very big shoes, and it always bothered her when she thought she wasn't living up to her aunt's legacy.
"It's okay," he told her. "We'll eat what there is, and no complainin', I promise you." Daisy's head dropped as she nodded, and Luke reeled her into an embrace. "I know we're struggling Daisy-girl, but we'll work it out. You'll see."
The beautiful young woman pulled away and resumed her preparations. She pointed Luke in the direction of the ears of corn that needed shucking. Daisy didn't mind that her protective cousin was comforting her, but there was still work to be done, and she couldn't indulge in too much of Luke's attention right now. She knew that he and Bo had been working extra hard, preparing the acreage and sowing a whole new crop this year, and while she couldn't always be of tremendous help in the fields, she could at least keep them in decent meals. Even if it was just beans, corn and rice, it would be the very best beans, corn and rice the three men in her life had ever tasted.
"Ya know, Maudine, all that goes into you is hay and oats. How come what comes out smells so dang bad?"
Jesse had to laugh as he heard his youngest charge's one-sided conversation with the aging mule. Leave it to that boy to try to reason with the livestock.
"How's it going, Bo?" The older man decided to announce himself, so that the blonde would have a human to vent his frustrations on.
"Oh, just fine, Uncle Jesse," the boy answered in tone that made it clear that 'fine' was exactly the opposite of the way he felt about things. At 19, the youngster still hadn't mastered sarcasm, but Jesse had no doubt that his older cousin would teach it to him, just as he'd taught the boy everything else. For now, though, Jesse was glad that at least one of his kids was still young enough to be emotionally transparent.
"Maudine there, she don't mean to make you mad, you know. It ain't fair to yell at her 'cause you're upset with me."
"Aw, Uncle Jesse, I ain't mad. It's just, me and Luke was only havin' some fun, you know? We wasn't gonna hurt nothin'," Bo said, as he continued to withdraw the mule's deposits.
"You wasn't plannin' on hurtin' nothin', I know. But you and Luke ain't kids anymore. You could do more damage by mistake than you mean to, the way you two get goin'. You might even hurt each other."
"Aw, Jesse, we'd never."
"Not on purpose, I know. I'm glad you boys is like that, never wantin' to hurt the other. But you're big enough now that wrestlin' thataway you could break a bone or pop somethin' out of joint. An' you know, Bo, this year we really can't do without either one of you."
Guilty eyes slid away from the patriarch's matching deep blue glance. The teenager knew that the family wouldn't be in such need if not for him. After all, they'd managed without Luke for three years while he was serving in the Marines. But since Luke's return less than a year ago, the Dukes had been forced to give up their business, a trade that had been handed down for more than 200 years. Moonshine whiskey had kept the family and farm together since before the Revolutionary War, and while the sale of homemade alcohol products had gone in and out of vogue, they had always managed to keep one step ahead of the law when delivering their own special brew. That was, until last summer, when Bo and Luke had gotten caught making a 'shine run. Bo had been behind the wheel, and had never really forgiven himself for what happened. Though he and Luke had been given probation rather than a prison sentence, thanks in large part to fancy footwork by the very ATF agent that had caught them, the family was now in the process of trying to earn its living solely from the crops they could grow. So far it had been an uphill climb, and one Bo was certain the family wouldn't have had to make, if Jesse or Luke or anyone else had been driving that night.
Misunderstanding the youngster's bodily shift and downward stare, Jesse softened all the same. "It's time you and Luke grew up some, is all I'm sayin'. Don't get to playin' so rough. We all need to stay healthy, you understand?"
"Yes, sir," the teen answered, still entrenched in his own misery. "I'm done here. Think I'll go check on the cotton, see how it's doin'."
Jesse nodded, knowing that the cotton could certainly grow without Bo to watch it, but figuring the youngster needed to walk off some of what had transpired that afternoon. Sometimes that boy was terribly sensitive.
"Dinner's in an hour; don't be late."
Just nine months ago, Jesse would not have pictured a day like today. First off, his oldest, newly back from the Marines, had been avoiding his family as much as possible while still living, working, eating, and sleeping under the same roof with them. Then there was Bo, shy around Luke, but confident behind the wheel of a car. At the time it seemed that they'd both become so adult that Jesse figured they'd outgrown the playfulness of their childhood. His boys might not have been very happy, but they'd seemed comparatively mature.
Since getting caught on that moonshine run in August, the younger Duke men had worked extra hard, preparing the farm to support itself with new crops. The corn, which they'd grown in such abundance in order to make the whiskey, wouldn't sell for much on the open market, and wasn't worth harvesting for any purpose other than feeding the family and those very few neighbors that did not grow it themselves. There was, however, a cotton mill in Hazzard, and the family could produce plenty of that particular crop on their land. In turn they'd sell it to the mill for processing, thereby sustaining themselves and keeping the land that meant so much to them all. The four of them had tilled more fields than they'd ever planted before, and just last week they'd sowed the new crop. What Bo was going to look at now was only barely emerging and wouldn't flower for another month at least. But it was the future of the Duke family, and Jesse wouldn't chastise his youngest for taking an interest in seeing that it was in good condition.
For all the maturity they'd seemed to have last summer, come the New Year, those boys of his had reverted to the behavior they'd exhibited before Luke had ever gone away. They spent their days in the barn, building an engine for a racecar that they did not yet have, and their nights at the Boar's Nest with a young lady apiece, and never the same one twice in a month. They'd also begun playing rough games with one another again, like they hadn't done since Bo was smaller than Luke and always testing his strength against his older cousin. Well, things had changed since then, and Bo was now taller than Luke, and Luke was far stronger than he'd been before running thousands of miles through Southeast Asia with all of his belongings on his back. Unless those boys of his stopped acting like kids, there might be no farmhouse left to live in after awhile. And now that the cotton was in the ground, they'd cranked up their wild behavior yet another notch.
Jesse didn't know exactly when Bo and Luke had taken that wrong turn, but he'd have to do his best to keep them busy, so they came back around to being the responsible and mature young men he'd worked so hard to raise.
Bo joined the family at the table just in time. He got a stern glance from Jesse for his tardiness and another for lifting the lid off one of the serving bowls and trying to sneak a look at the food before grace. It seemed that this was a day that he was destined to disappoint his family. And, without thinking, he did it again.
"Where's the meat?" he asked, innocently.
"Bo!" both cousins yelled at him. With a quick glance, the blonde could tell he'd hurt Daisy and angered Luke, but he didn't know exactly how he'd done it.
"Everyone just simmer down," Jesse suggested, as calmly as he could. "Bo, just eat what's in front of you. Daisy, it looks real good."
"Sorry," Bo muttered, though he didn't know why he was saying it, or to whom.
The boys skipped going out that night, with Bo citing a lack of money for his reasoning. Luke didn't know why that mattered, since they didn't go to drink; more to socialize, if you could call it that. But if Bo wasn't going, Luke would stay behind as well. As the two of them got ready for bed much earlier than usual, light blue eyes searched darker ones, a little worried.
"You feel all right, cousin?"
"Yeah, just tired, I reckon."
"Somethin' on your mind?"
"Naw, I just want to sleep is all," Bo answered, getting into the bed parallel to Luke's.
"Okay, cuz, but if you got somethin' to say, I'm right here, all right?"
"I know it, Luke. Good night."
Luke had lived with him long enough to know not to bother fighting the younger boy. He'd come out with whatever was bothering him soon enough. "'Night, Bo."