Author's Note: Action/Adventure with a side of angst. In other words, not so dark and back to my roots.

Relevant canon is as follows: this takes place after Brotherly Love and The Boar's Nest Bears. It precedes Twin Trouble, because it borrows the "new lawyer in town" from there (and in fact, since the Dukes meet him here, this story might just preempt the episode).

This first chapter is longer than long, but that's not going to be a trend going forward. The structure kind of called for this. Plus, I'll keep future author's notes to a minimum.

Which means I'll state here once and for all that I do not own Dukes characters or settings. Original characters... those are mine and not a ton of fun to be around. Try not to run into them in dark alleys.

Also, I'll thank readers in advance for any and all feedback.

Cheers!

Chapter One -- Serious This Time

I. You Have the Right to Remain Silent.

The cell with the window, what he and Luke had dubbed the honeymoon suite. Not that it had mattered which of the basement enclosures they wound up in. The two smelled equally rank, chilled down the same way in the darkness and grew just as sweaty during the day. Both too small for two grown men, and yet Rosco had almost always seen fit cage them together. Dark spaces, echoing thunderously with every tiny movement, and nothing to deter shade-dwelling insects and rodents from walking right in and taking up residence in that same nine-by-nine square of concrete. And it was every bit as familiar as their bedroom at the farmhouse.

Except today, when there was no one breathing the same moldy air, stinking of sweat and frustration, no wide hand making a mess of dark curls, as if the fingers raking through there could scratch a brilliant plan to life.

In all his life, there hadn't ever been a place Luke couldn't follow him into, if he wanted. Didn't work both ways, though. Bo's life had been one big game of catch up, always too small or too young, starting from when Luke first went off to school. Funny now to remember how eager he was to join his cousins there and how betrayed he felt when he realized that it was primarily a place where he was tortured through long and meaningless hours of sitting still, learning things that would have little bearing on his adult life.

Most places he chased after Luke to were better than that, though. Used to be he wasn't allowed to go fishing, not until he proved he wouldn't talk too loud and scare away all the fish, or go splashing off into the pond and drown himself. Took him awhile to follow Luke off in pursuit of girls, but when he realized what that was all about, he stopped resenting all the pretty fillies that turned his cousin's head, and started noticing their finer features himself. Pursued his cousin into the soulful art of driving as soon as he could convince their uncle to let him give it a try, then wound up learning mechanics out of necessity. The only real Do Not Enter sign that ever stood between him and Luke was the Marine Corps. Too young to join, and by the time that stopped being the case Luke was back from the service and making him swear he'd never take a tour of duty. War, he said, was nothing Bo needed to get involved in, and peacetime couldn't be counted on to last for any length of time. The Reserves were a compromise, one Luke hadn't wanted to make but Jesse had tipped the dispute in Bo's favor. Military service could be good for a man, he said.

Finally, though, Luke had wound up going a place his kid cousin would never even get close to, turned out to have something that Bo had no stake in. More than a dull little domestic morning of watching Luke stumble through the process of baking pies got interrupted by that knock on the door a few weeks ago; it was at that moment that everything Bo had ever been came to an end.

It wasn't that he didn't like Jud. (He didn't like Jud.) Or that he wouldn't, in time. When the guy learned how to be a better Duke, maybe, how not to dump his problems on his family's front porch, then try to sneak out the back door. When Jud figured out how not to let Luke get hurt (close to killed, actually) on his behalf, then whine about how it was all his fault instead of doing anything to help, maybe then Bo would figure out liking him.

Or maybe it couldn't happen until Luke's little brother stopped being the center of everyone's attention, and that might just never come to pass.

Luke's real brother – Bo couldn't compete with that. He hadn't been in the habit of thinking of himself as just a cousin, but once he realized the truth, there was no going back. He was Luke's cousin, and probably his best friend, but until Jud showed up, it had never really occurred to him that he and Luke would do anything but live their lives out side-by-side. Even those days he'd spent with Diane Benson, he'd known to be an anomaly. It was only a matter of time, he figured three years ago, before Luke would see things his way. His stubborn cousin would work himself around to understanding, then join Bo and Diane on the Carnival's rounds, finding new fans in each city they stopped at. It would only be a year after that, he reckoned, before him and Luke made a big enough name on the Carnival of Thrills tour to find themselves on the NASCAR Circuit.

It might not have gone down quite that way, but it was close enough. Sure he broke up with Diane and him and Luke made their way to the NASCAR Circuit through the traditional means of dirt-track racing. Together they left and together they stayed until they came back together, by mutual decision. It was just another adventure in his life that led him to the false conclusion that he and Luke would follow the same path. Naïve thought.

Family, Luke was his family and in all his life he'd never really needed more than his tight-knit clan. Somehow he'd reckoned they never needed more than him either. They'd stay together – the three Duke kids under their Uncle Jesse's protection – forever. He should have known better. Then again, most of what he knew about adulthood came from the stories of Hazzard's old-timers. No one from Bo's own generation had ever officially grown up or anything, and the habit seemed to have gone the way of horse-drawn carriages and one-room schoolhouses. Settling down had stopped happening sometime after the last generation of Dukes had been just about wiped out; seemed like an unhealthy practice. Growing up in Hazzard put Dukes at risk of leaving their children behind as orphans.

But when Jud showed up and gave Luke family of a different nature – a closer relation than any of them had had since Jesse lost his brothers and taken in three bereft children – well, it changed the way a man thought about some things.

Dating Miranda Taylor marked the first time he'd ever considered anything to be bigger than the moment it took place within. She wasn't Diane, didn't flatter him and offer glamour or fame. She was just a girl (pretty enough, with her shining dark hair and striking gray-green eyes) with a small-town childhood of her own, and a family history that rivaled the Dukes'. Sure, she'd been raised by her own parents in the small town of Ashville, Florida (only place hotter'n Hazzard, she'd said one Indian-summer day) along with her too many brothers. But their livelihoods had been about as hand-to-mouth as an Appalachian family's, and while there hadn't been any moonshining, Miranda assured him that she was no stranger to men on probation. She was a sweet thing, in need of a knight in shining armor. Ready to be loved, looking for a fresh start and a new home.

If he had to grow up, if he had to accept that Luke had a real brother, if that meant he needed a family beyond his cousins and uncle, there were much worse people he could do all that with than Miranda Taylor.

II. Should you choose to give up this right, anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law.

It was serious this time. He had himself one Duke boy in the slammer. Cuffed and stuffed the boy himself, not a half hour ago yet. And this time, this time—

Boss was happy, anyway. Crowing away in his office, sucking down sweets while singing tuneless songs of glee. It was easy to giggle with the man, better than those days when he got yelled at and told to take his fool carcass somewhere, anywhere Boss wasn't.

This time, as far as Rosco knew, his brother-in-law wasn't behind it. Or, not entirely behind it, anyway. That Benjamin Taylor fellow, he'd been around before, behind closed doors and choking on cigar smoke while Boss told him – something. Kicked Rosco right out and he'd learned not to take that kind of thing too personally. It was for his own protection, really. The less he knew, the less he'd have to play sheriff, snooping into places where he'd long ago learned he had no business. Lulu gave Boss three square meals (and countless oblong snacks) a day, and in return, Rosco got protected from the dangers of Hazzard. In the safe job of Sheriff.

Oh, it used to rankle him, make him snappish like Flash when someone rubbed her wiry fur backwards, standing on end in a prickly mess. His childhood afternoons of scrapping with other boys on the playground had always stopped cold when Lulu's formidable shadow towered over them. Dirty kids, trying for all the world to engage in the meritorious activity of shoving each other's faces into the grass, and all it took was "Rosco's sister's here!" and they'd all suddenly remember that their mamas wanted them.

Made sense when he was a scrawny seven-year-old; most of the kids were bigger than him and fairness wasn't more important than winning, not on the Hazzard School playground. Used to be fine that nobody wanted to mess with Lulu Coltrane, who had weight, a screeching voice, and maternal instinct on her side. But somewhere around the age of ten, when boys and girls alike started calling him crybaby-Coltrane (which wasn't fair, because he didn't cry and it wasn't like he even asked for Lulu's help) and going out of their way to, all accidental-like, send him flying into the walls of the gymnasium when they were supposed to be shooting baskets, it started to put a crimp his style. It took until after Lulu graduated (and thankfully she was five years older than him, so that left him with a lot of years to prove himself before he got done with school) for Rosco to come into his own.

After that, he was a man. A deputy by the age of eighteen, and he had himself a gun and no need of a big sister's protective arms. Not that it stopped Lulu one bit, but he didn't need her. He could take care of himself.

And man he'd stayed, earning his stripes to the point of becoming sheriff, making people at least hate him if not exactly respect him. It had been fine, really, when he'd had deputy minions to menace and a comfortable retirement to look forward to someday. Reckoned he'd find himself a cabin up there on the rim of Lake Chickamahoney and teach himself to fish. By that time Lulu had married the only tormentor Rosco had left, Boss Hogg. Changed their relationship, made the commissioner go from mean to vicious. Made him cantankerous, cruel, and eventually made him Rosco's only friend.

And instead of Lulu fending off bullies, it was him and his sister fighting over Boss Hogg. A marked improvement. In the end, a tacit truce got called. Lulu got her "sweet dumpling" nights, and Rosco got his "little fat buddy" days. Turned him into an insomniac for a while there, but ever since he'd gotten Flash, sleep was easy. Nothing better than dog snores (and the occasional lapping tongue) to put a man to sleep.

Sleep, Boss wanted him to do it half the day, too. Like whenever some new stranger showed up in the courthouse, all but looking down his nose at the law of Hazzard, and demanding to see the commissioner. Most times doors got closed with Rosco on the wrong side, stuck in the company of his damn-fool honest dipstick of a deputy. That part was probably all for the best, though. If he knew for sure what went on in that office, well he might have to do things that would ruin lives. Lulu's, Boss's, but mainly his own. Because ever since his pension got defeated in the general election of 1978, his retirement on some far off and glorious day relied on him staying out of those things his brother-in-law did behind closed doors.

Whatever scheming sorts of meetings might have taken place between Benjamin (not Ben or Benny, though the man was no better than any farmer in Hazzard, he was pretentious enough to insist on being nothing less than Benjamin) Taylor and the Boss, they hadn't been a part of what happened today, at least as far as Rosco could tell. Sure didn't seem like it this morning, when Benjamin showed up red-eyed and yammering too fast about how his baby sister was missing, last seen going out for a horseback ride with Bo Duke. Borrowed horses, Old Man Miller's to be precise, and it turned out that they were just as gone as the girl. That part, at least, made sense. There'd been a rash of horse rustling in Hazzard, the kind of crime that kept the natives up in arms. In a county where no one had ever learned to lock their doors, even after all the strange crime sprees over the years – including that one where all the shiny, new tractors in town got yanked right out of their barns, but tractors weren't horses, didn't nicker when a man approached, didn't have personalities. Until Flash, Rosco had only half understood farmers' attachments to livestock. Now that he'd learned the real meaning of companionship, well, if it meant stepping in dog mess every now and again, it was worth it. Yep, horse rustling was a much more serious crime than tractor theft (and it wasn't just because Boss had been behind the tractor scam that made him think that way).

Thoughts of Flash made the sheriff come closer to sympathy than scorn when Taylor reported his sister missing, then Old Man Miller (who had a first name, and once upon a time, back when boys wore their hair cut above their ears and none of that wild fluff hanging in their eyes, Rosco had known it) showed up in that same five minute span, complaining of the loss of two of his gentlest geldings, sweet-tempered animals that he'd lent to Bo Duke yesterday. Not that Miller reckoned the Duke boy had any hand in their disappearance; he'd lent those Duke kids his horses more times than he could count, and they'd always been quietly returned to the stables, watered, fed and brushed by the time Miller went out to check on them.

The morning's activity left the sheriff with two mysteries to solve, and the horse farm was the obvious place to begin his investigation. So he did, even when that Taylor boy kept whining in his ear at the pitch of a distant chainsaw about how Bo and Miranda were known to ride through Harper's Woods. The sheriff ignored complaints about a missing person being more important than missing horses; the boy had no understanding of how Hazzard law worked. Besides, Old Man Miller was a resident whose tax money supported some part of Rosco's salary, and Taylor was just a lay-about transient like all boys his age. And then there was the fact that police work was Rosco's life, he knew what was best for his county and—

"Enos," he finally gave in, and called for the deputy's backup. "Meet me at the Miller Farm."

"10-4," was music to his ears, meant he'd be able to unload that Benjamin Taylor boy soon and get to the heart of his investigation. It looked to be a tough one, what with horse hoof prints leading away in every direction from the Miller stables. A man could follow each one for miles before finding anything.

Seemed forever before that dipstick of a deputy he'd been saddled with, back from Los Angeles but no faster than the same molasses he'd ever been, to get to the scene. Rosco all but shoved one of his prized field radios in Enos' hands and gave him explicit instructions to take the Taylor boy with him to Harper's Woods, and not to call in unless he had something worth investigating. It was a wild goose chase he was sending the boy off on, but then if there was anyone that was fit to hunt after birds that weren't even smart enough to fly south in winter, it was Enos Strate.

Which was what made it so surprising that, less than fifteen minutes of progress tracking hoof prints later, the deputy was hollering over the field radio. Proper radio protocol forgotten, the foolish boy was babbling something about a bloody jacket belonging to Bo Duke.

III. You have the right to have an attorney present during questioning.

It might have been all the fences they'd built and then rebuilt over the years since they got big enough to hoist the lumber by themselves. Uncle Jesse wasn't young, never in his kids' memory anyway, but he'd been stronger once. Now, even on his laziest day, Bo wouldn't want their uncle to try digging post holes for fear of the ache it would set into his shoulders. Besides, fence building was penance for playing rough; fishtailing around town was all well and good until someone's fence got knocked over. Didn't matter whether it was the Dukes or the law that did the knocking, it was up to him and Bo to fix what Rosco could never have, even when the sheriff had the strength of youth behind him.

They'd gotten good at their second trade, him and Bo had, leaving behind stronger and straighter fences than what they'd destroyed. Neat and carefully arranged, that was the thing he'd learned from fences, they served their purpose best when they ran in straight lines.

Or maybe it was the military that had influenced his thoughts about the stability of things that were in tight formation. Drill instructors yammering in recruits' ears about their posture, how tightly their strong bodies fit together. "Backside to bellybutton," was the insistent instruction wherever they went, perfectly straight lines important for reasons that were never exactly revealed.

Could have been sitting shotgun with Bo Duke all these years, just about losing his lunch on some of those dangerous curves of the Hazzard roadways. Whatever it was, Luke had developed a fondness for simple things and straight lines.

Except those bars that stood between him and Bo now. Aligned and unforgiving, and hovering there on the other side of them, Bo was scared. Not that he was admitting to any such thing.

"I'm okay," had been his first words, and he repeated them now. "I'm okay, Luke." Because the first time he'd said it for everyone's benefit; for Uncle Jesse, who reached through the bars to pat Bo on the shoulder, then Daisy, who kissed his flushed cheek.

They were smart people, his uncle and cousin, knew enough to console Bo then step back, letting Luke get to the bottom of the matter. A man couldn't fix a thing unless he knew exactly in all the ways it was broken, so Luke had stepped right up to the cell, hands gripping bars until his fingers hurt from clenching down so hard. Bo had his own handholds on two consecutive bars, right in front of his chest. That tight little stance there, the way the corner of his cousin's pink lip was trapped between his teeth, those things belied the words Bo kept repeating about how he was all right. No broken bones, no blood, to that Luke would agree. But Bo was far from okay.

"What happened?" Luke asked, voice low and calm. Had to soothe that lip out from between Bo's teeth if he was ever going to get to the bottom of this.

"I don't know," was all the answer he got. Wasn't helpful, any more than the way Bo was shaking his head. "They said—Enos told me Miranda's been reported missing."

Miranda. Luke might have figured she'd be at the bottom of whatever mess Bo had gotten himself into. That girl was… well, she was exactly Bo's type, when he thought about it. Skinny, little thing that was just the right height to fit into the crook of his long arm and rest her head against his big, strong shoulder. Looking up at him with those light-colored eyes from between those long, dark lashes, she could twist Bo right around her fingers and turn him into a knotted up fool.

But Luke knew better, could see past those stories of an idyllic, sunshine childhood on a horse farm in the sticks of Florida. No one who'd had so many good things as a kid would choose to make their home in poor, backwater Hazzard as an adult. The girl wanted something, wanted more than she was admitting to. Wasn't money, if it had been, she would have been gone after that time Bo brought her home to meet Jesse. Sow belly and black-eyed pea dinner, eaten off a chipped plate while sitting on a splintering chair. She had to have recognized there was nothing to marry into, and she should have been gone.

But she stayed; she went for a ride in the General with them. Begged Bo to stop the car after a couple of routine ninety-degree slides. Crawled out of her window and over to the grassy edge of the road before her stomach gave out. Bo drove her home granny-style, with Luke shaking his head all the way. She wasn't Diane Benson, she wasn't after Bo's driving skills. But she was hungry for something, and it wasn't just Bo's love. Of that Luke was sure.

Deep breath. Luke let his head drop down as he sucked in the air, caught sight of how white his fingers were, gripping the bars. Needed to let go of them, needed to get the blood flow back into his hands. Needed to—

"Enos told me they found my old jacket, the one I been letting her wear," that ratty brown thing Bo hadn't put on in years, looked just a ridiculous on Miranda as it ever had on his cousin. "He said it was…" Bo's voice was catching in his throat, made Luke wish for the kind of strength that could bend metal, melting away the obstructions between himself and his cousin.

"Luke." That was a quiet warning from behind him. Uncle Jesse, wise old man. He stayed back but his tone reminded Luke that they already knew this part, had heard it directly from a gloating Boss Hogg. The jacket was covered in blood, the girl was missing and last seen with Bo. The evidence was circumstantial, but enough to hold that no-good Duke boy until his sheriff could get to the bottom of things. Things like horse rustling, which had been a common problem in the county this week, and conveniently, Old Man Miller's horses were just as missing as Miranda Taylor. And had also last been seen with Bo Duke. Open and shut case, the commissioner was sure, once Rosco finished collecting the evidence.

"All right," Luke answered, reckoned it would take care of Bo and Jesse all at once. Concentrated on his right index finger, forcing it to loosen from its grip around the bar. It came away sore; used to being bent now, it didn't want to straighten out. Luke ignored its complaints and moved on to his middle finger. Once it got loose, the rest followed along like obedient little brothers. One hand free of the bars, and he let his body sway inward, closer to Bo's. Found his aching right hand squeezing Bo's shoulder. "All right, we know that part. What happened before that? When you last saw her?"

Bo's head was shaking, he was about to come out with denials to accusations Luke hadn't made. His face red with what wanted to be anger, but his eyes gave him away. Bo was scared, terrified of Luke not believing him. Like it was even a remote possibility.

"All right, you Dukes." Now that right there was not a smart man. That was a man that was—"You've got to get out of here, now. This prisoner's restricted to a half hour visitation—ijit!"

That last word stood out as the most intelligent in the bunch, seeing as it was followed by the sheriff cowering back down out of his swagger. Probably in response to the way Luke was glowering at him; seemed like he'd been told that he could scare a grizzly bear under these kinds of circumstances.

"Half hour visitation? What kind of—"

"Now, Luke, ijit," Rosco stammered. "It ain't, they ain't my rules. He's been accused of a felony. Gij!" The man was just about backing into the stairwell he'd just emerged from, up to the safety of his squad room. Must have been the two steps Luke had taken toward him.

Jesse slid into Luke's line of vision, smooth as butter on hot toast. "The boy has a right to counsel, don't he?" It was growled, but the words were a lot more civilized that what Luke might have come out with.

"Now Jesse," Rosco responded, like the old friends and long-term enemies they'd always been. "You know well as I do that you ain't no lawyer."

"What I am or ain't don't matter one whit and you know it, Rosco." Jesse was going to threaten to tan the sheriff's hide in a second, all bluster and no follow-through, but no one outside of the Duke family knew that. "I ain't got to have no degree to counsel that boy."

"No, uh—" Rosco stammered, that pea he substituted for a brain probably going through the two or three things he actually did know about the law. "No you ain't. But them—" the stuttering fool had the good sense to wince as he looked at Luke and Daisy. "They got to go."

"Luke," came from behind him, Bo calling him back. The voice was as neutral as his cousin ever got, wasn't asking him for anything more than to stay calm. Not to make waves, because in the end, Bo was going to wind up spending a lot more time with Rosco than he was his family, and he didn't need the sheriff going into this thing – whatever it was going to turn out to be – with a grudge.

So Luke stepped back up to the bars and faced his cousin. Held his eyes long enough that there was nothing in the world but the two of them, then said, just as quietly if they were in the dark of their bedroom talking about things no one else should hear, "I'm going to get you out."

Bo gave him a brave nod, one that had complete confidence in Luke's ability to save him, before they reached through the bars and gave each other a pitiful excuse for a hug. Quick thing, because Luke had things to do, had to be on his way—

"Luke," that was Uncle Jesse, grabbing him by the arm, unwanted touch as he was about to push past Rosco and up the stairs. "You wait for me at the garage, boy." And don't go pulling some fool stunt, the old man's fading blue eyes said, in the way they flicked from one side of his face to the other. Mind me.

Luke sighed. A temporary setback, that was all. He could tolerate the half hour that Rosco was likely to hold Jesse to in counseling Bo. Seeing as he had no leads yet anyway. "Yes, sir."

IV. If you cannot afford an attorney, one will be appointed for you.

Bo was standing up to his full height, showing Jesse just exactly how he wasn't beaten, that he had every expectation that things would turn out just fine soon enough. That was his youngest, trusting the world to treat him fairly, and if that didn't happen, his family would be there to make things right in the end. No reason to worry, not with Luke storming off to right whatever wrong was done to the boy. And right after Luke's dramatic exit, Daisy had marched as close to her baby cousin's face as she could get, and tearfully made all the same promises about how they'd fix everything, Bo wouldn't spend a single night in jail, not if she could help it.

Problem was, couldn't either of Bo's cousins even properly wrap their heads the charges yet: kidnapping (with Enos out there right now searching for a body to turn it into a murder charge) and horse rustling. Exactly the kind of idea that didn't bear thinking about, the things that would happen if the boy got convicted. It was certainly much easier to get mad, to imagine breaking Bo out of jail, followed by charging off in the General Lee to solve the crime themselves. And it was fine for Luke to plot that way most times, but not with a felony charge weighing against Bo. Escaped felons meant state troopers invading Hazzard with guns drawn, and Bo as their intended mark. Not exactly the game of cat and mouse they normally played with the Hazzard Sheriff's Department.

"Jesse," Bo begged him, the first words out of his mouth. "You've got to calm Luke down." Just about broke his heart, the way his youngest was worrying so hard after his cousin's state of mind. There had been a good hour between Bo's arrest and Cooter getting the word out to the rest of the Dukes. Showed up on their south forty, wheezing out words about how he'd tried to reach them on the C.B., but they'd never answered his calls. (Daisy had joked once about how the only place they didn't have a transmitter was on the tractor; didn't seem like such a ridiculous thought anymore.) Without taking time to breathe, Luke was all over the mechanic, just as close as the grease on his coveralls, demanding to know what was wrong with Bo. Boy was pretty alert when it came to his cousin and danger, but it hadn't taken Luke's sixth sense to make all three of the Dukes, working out there in the midday sun, figure out that something had happened to the youngest of the clan. He'd been sent to town in Jesse's pickup to collect the newly sharpened tractor blade out of the Hazzard Garage; if Cooter saw fit to drive his tow truck right out into the Dukes' half harvested field, it could only be because something was wrong with Bo.

It took the family another five minutes to get the story out of their friend, about how Rosco had screeched up to a halt, his sliding cruiser missing the pickup by no more than a hair, even as Cooter and Bo were loading the tractor blades into the bed. How the sheriff must have regained some of his youthful vigor, what with the way he'd slapped the cuffs on Bo fast enough that the boy didn't have time for one of those famous Duke boy escapes. How Rosco insisted he was serious this time, that he had Bo cuffed and now he was going to stuff him under the jail. How Cooter hadn't followed them to the courthouse, didn't know the details of the accusation. Instead, he'd tried everything to contact the Dukes before he'd given up and driven out to the farm.

After the information exchange, it was a fifteen minute drive to town, and another endless stretch of what must have been minutes for all that they felt like hours, arguing with J.D. Hogg to get access to Bo. Through that whole time, every bit of Luke's focus was on getting to his cousin, and it seemed like Bo had spent the same duration just thinking things through.

"Don't let him get himself hurt, Uncle Jesse. Whoever hurt Miranda—"

"Now Bo, we don't know that she's hurt," Jesse advised, because if there was one thing he'd learned in the years since he was a strapping young man the likes of his nephews, it was that things were often not what they seemed.

The boy waved him off. "She might be. Don't matter." Oh, but it did. She was the first girl Bo had ever brought home for a formal dinner. The first girl he'd stuck with, despite the tension she put between him and Luke. "Just make sure Luke don't go sticking his foot in the hornet's nest. Nor Daisy neither," he added, but they both knew that the girl's fit of temper would take a different form. She'd cry and rage and probably insist on accompanying Luke wherever he went, but she wouldn't go starting any trouble on her own.

"I'll take care of them, son," he agreed, because it was a good bet that he and his nephew didn't have a lot more time alone before Rosco came back to kick Jesse out, too. "You don't worry about it. You just tell me what you know about Miranda."

The sigh his youngest let out was painful to hear, frustration and anger doing their best to crowd out any sense of worry. "I don't know, Uncle Jesse," he snapped. If they'd been at the dinner table, the boy would have gotten reprimanded, and he knew it. His eyes dipped down in shame at bad behavior that was perfectly acceptable under the circumstances. "Me and Miranda went for a ride on Rainbow and Henry yesterday," two of Orren Miller's gentlest geldings. Horses Bo would select for a romantic ride, not his usual preference for speed. "We brought them back, I took her home," to her brother Benjamin who was renting what used to be old Hobie's cabin. The poor town drunk had fallen behind on his payments and gotten himself kicked out by Boss Hogg. Might have been the best thing for him in the end; his daughter Sally Jane over in Chickasaw had taken him in. Far as Jesse knew he was staying sober for his grandkids over there. "We was supposed to meet up tomorrow," Bo continued, pulling his uncle back to the problems in front of them. "To go out to the pond. Maybe have a picnic." Oh, Jesse knew better than that, knew what his boys did with girls out at the pond. But there was no point in quibbling now. "That's it."

Nothing to it except—"When did you give her your jacket?"

Bo shrugged his shoulders, but for all that careless posture, his eyes were moist. "Few days ago?" he guessed. "We was out by the pond after dark. She got cold, so I dug it out of the General's trunk. Told her to keep it."

"Was she wearing it yesterday?"

Another shrug, this one more violent than the last. "I don't remember. I mean, I think she must have been, in the morning. But by the time we brought the horses back… when I took her home, I know she didn't have it on no more. I just—" the boy was getting really frustrated with himself now. "I don't remember if she was carrying it or not."

"All right," Jesse agreed. It seemed like a good idea, Bo would do better to be reassured than prodded for more answers right now. "Come here," he added, because he knew they'd be pried apart soon. He waited for Bo to get close enough, then reached an arm into the cell to hug him. His youngest child clung to him miserably for the minute or two before they heard Rosco stomping down the stairs. "Don't you worry, boy," Jesse whispered. "We'll figure this out."