The Beverly Hillbillies Go To Middle Earth

The Beverly Hillbillies go to Middle Earth
By Sinda

Chapter 5 – Had Too Much Corn Liquor Tonight to Think of a Good Title


Come, listen to a story ‘bout a man named Jed
On his way home, went to Middle Earth instead
Now there ain’t no corn for the liquor in the still
But you know if there’s a way to fill her jug, then Granny will
Simbelmynë that is
Flower liqueur

~~~***~~~

Elly May set Éomer down at Granny’s feet. “Granny, can you save him? He says he doesn’t think he’s gonna survive!”

Granny looked him over and frowned. “I don’t see nothin’ wrong with him, Elly.”

It was about that time that Jed showed up. He gave Éomer a dark look before saying, “So, my daughter tells me that the two of you are getting married. I hope she’s right. She told me about all the things you been teaching her.”

Éomer stammered, “Well, yes, eventually we shall wed, but first I have to single-handedly take the black gate of Mordor…”

Jed shook his head. “Don’t think so. What I think is that you’re gonna’ marry Elly May as soon as we get back to Edoras.”

Éomer took one look at the sword in Jed’s hand and the frying pan in Granny’s hand and finally nodded. “That would be good.” He sighed. His uncle, Théoden, would undoubtedly say the same thing. He was trapped. Still, if he went to Mordor right after the wedding and taunted Sauron…

~~~~~~~~~

The wedding proceeded as planned, though there were many tears. Éomer’s eyes were barely dry once throughout the entire ceremony. As they walked away towards the wedding chamber, Elly May finally brought up a subject she had been afraid to broach before.

“Éomer, I was wondering if’n maybe I could help you with the horses. I mean, I love critters and I’ll miss all the ones I had back home so I thought they’d keep me company while you’re not around. Course, I thought I’d better ask you, ‘cause I know it’ll keep me pretty busy and we might not have quite as much time for…other things…if you know what I mean.”

Éomer’s eyes lit up as Elly May’s words sunk in. “Elly, that would be wonderful. Yes, I am willing to sacrifice to keep you happy and I desperately need help with the horses.” He turned to kiss her. Once or twice a night he could live with. Suddenly, things were looking up. He took her hand and happily led her to the wedding chambers.

~~~~~~~~~

“Yes it is true that the Lady of Light may be of some help,” Haldir had told Miss Hathaway, earlier, “but I refuse to bring you with us. You bring great evil.”

“No, you are confusing us with the fellowship,” Miss Hathaway told him.

Haldir shook his head. “I meant the old woman.” He had leaned a bit closer, sneering. “Furthermore, you keep that Orc-for-brains, Jethro, away from me or I will not be responsible for my actions.”

“Yes, maybe we should travel with the others for a while before making our way to Lórien,” she had said, wisely.

Haldir had agreed that it would probably be in all of their best interest to do so and they had gone their separate ways. Now that the wedding was over, it was a waiting game to see what happened with Gandalf and Pippin in Minas Tirith.

~~~~~~~~~

Excitement rolled through Edoras as word of the lit beacons spread. Gondor was calling for help and Rohan was going to respond.

Once again, Granny was loaded…Granny was loaded into her rocking chair on the horse cart, that is. A new still had not yet been built, but they were going to Minas Tirith and she hoped to be able to build one there.

“I hear that Minas Tirith is a beautiful city,” Mr. Drysdale was saying. “I’ll be glad to get away from all this war and death and spend some time in a more sophisticated atmosphere.”

Again, Miss Hathaway kept her mouth shut, remembering that this battle would be even more devastating than Helm’s Deep. Her heart fluttered a bit at the thought of seeing the wizard again. Théoden was a nice enough man, but he seemed a bit dense. She had used her feminine wiles to the best of her ability and still he had shown no interest. He was as bad as Jethro and she had been after that young man for ages.

“Aw, Uncle Jed,” Jethro was saying, dejected. “I wanted to go with my new girl! It just wasn’t gentlemanly to let her walk back by herself!”

“Now, Jethro, she had a whole bunch of other elf girls to walk with, so I’m sure she’s not all alone. Besides, based on what I saw, she could handle herself pretty well.”

“She sure could!” Jethro grinned, ear to ear. “I’ll just betcha’ she’d whomp the other girls mud wrestling, too!”

Jed just shook his head and looked away. His nephew sure had strange taste in women. Jed thought that Jethro’s new girl was about the most masculine looking woman he’d ever seen, but what did he know? In fact, he thought that a lot of those elf girls might not be girls, but Jethro must know something that Jed didn’t.

~~~~~~~~

“Now, ain’t that a sight for sore eyes?” Jed asked, spotting Minas Tirith in the distance. “Ain’t that purty?”

“At last!” Mr. Drysdale said in relief. “We have finally made it to civilization.” The gates to the city opened and they entered, awed by its splendor. They found the wizard who was not in a good mood to say the least.

“I think that stupid people should be taken out and fed to the eagles,” he was mumbling, “and stupid hobbits, too!” He glared down at Pippin. “What in Mordor were you thinking?”

“I just thought that…” the hobbit started, nervously.

“No, you were NOT thinking, as usual, Peregrin Took, that’s the problem. Did I not say to keep your mouth shut? Did I not? I very distinctly remember telling you to keep your mouth shut!”

“Well…” Pippin answered.

“But, oh no, let’s not listen to the wizard who has been on this earth for many thousands of years longer than you! No, the stupid hobbit, whom I might add was loaded on Shireweed at the time…” He stopped his tirade long enough to look up and see the audience that was gathered in front of him.

“Oh, not you again!” Gandalf said before he could stop the words. “Minas Tirith is not a good place to be right now. Have you seen any sign of the others from Rohan? We await their reinforcements.”

“Well, now, I believe that King Théoden will be along shortly,” Jed replied. “Reinforcements for what?”

“You shall see soon enough,” warned the wizard. “Where is your daughter? We will need her to fight.”

“Well, I reckon she’s still on her honeymoon, but they’ll be along shortly. She’d hate to miss a good fight.”

“In the meantime, I suggest that you all get something to eat and maybe try to rest. I predict that it will be a very long night.”

~~~~~~~~~

Mr. Drysdale followed the others, upset that his rest had been disturbed. “What could possibly be so important that you had to wake me?” he asked Miss Hathaway, irate.

“That,” she said, pointing over one of the city walls.

The man’s eyes almost bugged out of his head as he looked out at the sea of Orcs covering the landscape.

~~~~~~~~~

The battle began. Jethro was too busy eating to notice, but the others did, scurrying from place to place trying to avoid the projectiles being launched at them. Gandalf was everywhere and if you didn’t watch out, he’d just run you over. Jed had to duck as a large wooden rabbit came flying over the castle wall and shattered into a million pieces. The Orcs that had been hiding inside didn’t look too good.

Mr. Drysdale seemed frozen in place until hit, square in the stomach by a catapulted head. Looking down at the dismembered head that he now clutched in his hands, the man began shrieking at the top of his lungs.

“Nazgul!” somebody shouted, hearing the shriek. There was a moment of panic before Mr. Drysdale was finally carted away to a room where he couldn’t be heard.

When the Rohirrim showed up, there was much rejoicing, though the horse lords didn’t seem in any great rush to join the battle. It got worse quickly when the Oliphaunts showed up, swinging their tusks this way and that.

“Woooo-doggy,” Jed said. “Those are the biggest durned elephants I’ve ever seen, don’t you think, Granny? Granny?” He looked around only to see the woman leaping over the wall, several levels lower.

“Here we go again,” he said, running after her.

~~~~~~~~~

“Ride now! Ride now!” Théoden was saying as he went by hitting the pikes.

“Mr. Éomer? Why aren’t we riding now?” Elly May asked. “He said to ride now!”

“It is a ritual we observe,” he tried to explain, “a way to motivate the Rohirrim. He will ride by three or four more times yelling out other inspirational statements and then finally, he’ll charge, then we’ll wait a minute before we charge.”

She shrugged, glancing at her watch. It had taken almost an hour for him to pass everybody by the first time and the Orcs were growing impatient from the looks of things.

~~~~~~~~~

“Granny, now you come down here right now!” Jed was saying, growing perturbed at his mother-in-law. “I’m sure these soldiers can handle the battle without you being right in the middle of it.”

Granny batted the cave-troll on the head two or three more times, clinging to his neck as he finally slumped to the ground. Ignoring Jed, she ran over to the next one and began to climb up him just as deftly. It was no easy task, with the heavy frying pan and Jed cringed when she clamped the handle between her teeth.

“Now, Granny, you’re gonna’ go and break your new…dentures,” he finished as the frying pan, dentures and all, dropped at his feet.

“I told you it was a bad idea,” he told her. Now she had the cave-troll by the ear and was twisting as hard as she could. Screaming in pain, the creature dropped to his knees and Granny finally let go, hopping to the ground.

“Now, what’d I tell ya?” she said to the troll, “Git going!” Covering his injured ear with his hand, he turned and ran away, whimpering, deciding that he’d rather face the wrath of Sauron.

Granny turned to attack another troll, but Jed caught her first and carried her, kicking and screaming, back to the massive door. There was a gigantic hole where the door had been battered in and they simply stepped inside, dodging the weapons that the trolls and Orcs were swinging.

When Jed saw an Orc coming towards him with an axe, he just turned Granny in that direction and she got him with her frying pan.

~~~~~~~~~

Elly May sighed as Théoden went by for the third time, still yelling “Ride Now” and that stuff he was saying back at Helm’s Deep about wrath and ruin and a red dawn. Occasionally he added a new inspirational cheer, but it was hard to tell because his voice was almost gone by now. She looked over to where the Orcs had begun to build fires and set up tents for the night. She noticed that some of them were pulling out harmonicas and decks of cards. Even the Oliphaunts were looking bored now.

~~~~~~~~~

Jethro looked up from the table full of food to see Gandalf break through the door. Stuffing a few more grapes into his mouth, he watched as the wizard and the halfling tried to convince Lord Denethor not to light the fire. Even Jethro thought that lighting a fire was pretty stupid. The idiot had just poured oil all over himself and the wounded guy, now here he was flinging a torch around. Uncle Jed wouda’ tanned his hide for doing something so stupid. Jethro chuckled around a mouthful of food. He thought about helping, but he just couldn’t stand to see the rest of the food going to waste.

The wizard approached the pile of wood and Lord Denethor dropped the torch. Jethro shook his head, smiling. Sure enough, now the guy was on fire. Jethro could’ve called that one. He watched as the flaming Steward of Gondor ran through the door. That’ll teach him not to play with matches, Jethro thought.

“Hey guys,” Jethro said around a mouthful of food, “lookee here! There’s all kinds of food if you’re hungry.”

The wizard gave him a disgusted look. “We are in the midst of a battle!”

“Unless you’re waiting for Granny’s Warg mush to finish cooking,” he suggested.

Pippin and the wizard looked at each other before rushing to the table to grab some food.

~~~~~~~~~

“Is it for real this time?” Elly asked, excited. “Can we ride now?”

“No, now we have to wait for him to go over there and start the charge, and that’ll be another fifteen or twenty minutes.”

The Orcs seemed to be sitting around their campfires, drunk now. It sounded like they were telling stories and singing. She noticed some of them had begun to climb into their tents for the night. Somewhere one of them yelled “Go Fish!” while another started a round of “Ugluk, row your boat ashore.”

When the time finally came to charge, they had to sound horns to wake up the last twenty of so rows of the Rohirrim, who had been too far away to even hear any of the pep rally. The Orcs were caught off guard when the horse lords finally got moving and were easily run over. Elly May wondered if that had been the plan all along. About that time, Aragorn showed up with the Elf, dwarf and a bunch of green guys. It kind of seemed like they were cheating, using the dead guys, but Elly didn’t really care. She was tired from sitting on the horse in one spot for the last three hours. She hung on as Éomer tore a path through the sleeping and drunk Orcs. Of course, they were a lot harder to reach, being on the ground, so there was much cursing from the Rohirrim.

~~~~~~~~~~

“Mr. Drysdale? Mr. Drysdale?” Miss Hathaway was calling. She finally found the man curled up in a fetal position behind a huge chunk of wall that had fallen down, still clutching the decapitated head. She sat down next to him and pulled him against her chest, patting his back and telling him it was going to be all right.

~~~~~~~~~~

“Now, let me see if I understand this,” Jed was saying to the others. “There are still more of these guys that need to be defeated, but you let those green ghost fellers go?”

Aragorn slapped his hand against his forehead. Why hadn’t he thought of that? Damn! He smacked his head again until Legolas finally calmed him down.

“Aragorn, we have trusted you this far and it’s the only really stupid mistake you have made…if you do not count the time you stopped Théoden from killing Grima Wormtongue,” he placed his hand on the ranger’s shoulder. “We will trust you to lead us against the Black Gate now.”

“I was also kind of wondering why the wizard didn’t just use his staff and get rid of all those Orc fellers like he did with the Nazgul when they attacked,” Jed said, just wondering.
Aragorn and Legolas both turned to look at the Wizard who stammered something about mountain men not understanding the ways of Wizards and Hollywood.

Jed shrugged and scratched his head. What did he know? He looked around. Now, where had Granny wandered off to this time?

~~~~~~~~~

“And I just thought I’d like to get to know you a little better,” Miss Hathaway was batting her eyes and trying to pose seductively as Gandalf backed away from her. Now that Théoden was dead, the playing field was narrowed. “I just love the intelligent types,” she said, running a finger down the front of his robe, “and the pointy hats…well, I won’t tell you what THAT does to me.”

Gandalf looked around wildly for an escape and finally saw Aragorn and the others getting ready to march on the Black Gate of Mordor. He hadn’t planned on joining them, thinking it was a pretty stupid idea himself, but if he had to choose between almost certain death and Miss Hathaway, he’d be going to Mordor.

As the wizard turned to leave, Jed caught up with him. “Uh, mind if I tag along? I think Granny may be heading that way and I want to head her off at the pass if I can.”

The wizard shrugged. Personally, he would have let Granny go in the first place. She might end up being their best defense at the black gate.

~~~~~~~~~~

This was it. The gate had opened and they were completely surrounded by a legion of Orcs and trolls. Jed was walking through the soldiers looking for Granny but he wasn’t having any luck. All of a sudden a loud noise drew everybody’s attention to the tower. They watched as the great eye flickered out and the tower came crumbling down. There was much rejoicing.

~~~~~~~~~~

“So, I hate to keep asking stupid questions, but bear with me for a minute here,” Jed was saying, scratching his head. “You sent giant eagles to pick up the two little fellers and bring them back?”

“Yes, Jed,” Aragorn was growing impatient. “The eagles will bring Frodo and Sam back here.”

“O.K.” Jed nodded. “Now, why couldn’t you have sent the little guys to Mt. Doom on the eagles in the first place? Seems like they spent an awful long time walking there, facing all these perils when you could’ve just had giant eagles fly them over the mountain and drop the ring in.”

Aragorn looked at the man in silence. His face red, he slapped his forehead again. “Damn! Damn! Damn…”

~~~~~~~~~~

Miss Hathaway was thrilled that Legolas and Gimli had agreed to escort them to Lórien, where they would seek Lady Galadriel’s help. The hard part would be keeping the Marchwarden from killing Granny and Jethro on sight, but she hoped that Legolas could intervene…if Legolas didn’t kill Jethro first. They’d start out first thing in the morning.

~~~~~~~~~

The trip back to Minas Tirith was a long one and still there was no sign of Granny. Jed was glad when they reached the city and he saw Elly May running up to him. At least his daughter had survived the battle.

“Paw!” she said, “Guess what? I kilt more bad guys than both the elf and the dwarf put together!
And lookee here what I taught these fellers to do!”

They all turned to watch as Elly May yelled out a few orders to some of the Oliphaunts. At her command, they each climbed up on a little stool she had set out for them. At her next command, they reared up on their hind legs. It wouldn’t have been so bad if the men had gotten off first, but they screamed now as they clung to the backs and ears of the large beasts, hanging on for dear life.

“And you know what else? Granny went and met her a sweetheart and I got me a new critter, all in one!”

Jed frowned as Granny came out, hand in hand with Gollum.

“Look, Jed, I saved him when he was going to fall in the fire inside that mountain,” Granny said, smiling at the creature. “Can I keep him?”

Jed just shrugged. If Granny’s new boyfriend kept her out of trouble, why not?

“My precious,” Gollum was saying to Granny. Jed thought they looked just about right for each other.

~~tbc~~