SPN fic: Fire in the Hole 6/9, part two
Fire in the Hole, 6/9 (Part Two)
Chapter 6/No Regrets, Coyote (Part Two)
Bobby was just finishing up the dishes when Winchester came back into the camp, glowering mad, the kind of anger that had Singer cataloguing where his guns were, that he recognized from earlier altercations with the man. He strode down the dusty path, not meeting Singer’s eyes, jumped into the Impala, and roared out the site, down the hill and out of earshot.
A good twenty minutes later, Dean followed so slowly it was painful to watch, face pinched, eyes hooded and watchful, something of a beaten dog in him. Singer guessed what had happened up at the hoist works; it didn’t take a great imagination to work it out.
Small talk ensued, Dean cleaning anything within range: guns, knives, surveying gear. A habit. Almost like he was waiting for what would happen next. And sure enough, two hours passed and Singer’s phone rang, and they got into the blue pickup, heading for Virginia City.
What a colossally fucked up family, Singer thought, taking the corner fast, Dean in the passenger seat beside him, all manner of crap sliding along the dash - feathers, rocks, pieces of last century’s mining equipment, maybe even the century before that. It was dark, and the headlights picked out some signage, advertising tours in Virginia City - the Fourth Ward Schoolhouse, an authentic Samuel Clemens Walk, even a ghost tour of the cemeteries.
“Carl said that he was keeping an eye on him and wouldn’t call the cops unless he started something,” Singer felt like he had to reiterate, calming himself more than the kid, because he wasn’t looking forward to this, not at all.
Dean’s lips curved a little, not really a smile. “Wouldn’t be the first time. Maybe it’d cool him down.”
Singer looked over. “That what you think? Night in the pokey’s gonna cool him off?” Added it anyway, even though he knew Dean hadn’t meant it. “With his record? In this state?”
Dean hunched over, his knee bouncing up and down, one hand to his mouth, chewing his nails clear down to the quick.
Carl, the bartender at the Bucket of Blood, had recognized Winchester, known that he’d been in before with Singer at his side. Carl liked Singer, as did most people, and called him first, before the cops. Because, he’d said, it was heading in that direction.
Repeated it once they were in the door. Glad you brought reinforcements, you’ll probably need them, he said, gesturing with a towel to the end of the old-fashioned bar.
The Bucket of Blood was crammed with tourists, flags and pennants pinned to the dark beams, a wall of mirror reflecting bottles of Jack and Grouse and Wild Turkey. The band had started up and it was loud, the barnboard dance floor crowded. Not a great place to start a fight. Pretty damn noticeable, in fact. Winchester was at the far end of the bar, crouched with his hands laced together on his forehead, hard to tell in the noisy gloom if his eyes were open or shut. He had a platoon of dead shot glasses in front of him. Straight up deliverance, nothing between him and oblivion.
Not as though Singer didn’t understand the urge. In fact, he understood it all too well. He thinks he’s lost a son. Still, they needed to get him out of here in one piece, not draw attention to themselves in the process. Sweet talk the man, and could have laughed.
Singer sidled up to one shoulder; Dean took the other. The boy remained silent, his face trying to stay composed, and Singer took the lead. Only fair. He’d encouraged Dean to try his brother again, and this was what had come of it.
“John,” he bent his head down to Winchester. The man didn’t move. “John, time to go.”
“Fuck off,” Winchester bellowed.
“Dad,” Dean tried from the other side.
Slowly, Winchester turned, one hand coming up, grabbing his son’s tee shirt in a fistful of cloth, pulling him down. Singer didn’t hear what he said, but he knew one thing for sure: Winchester was a mean drunk, and Dean had taken enough for one day.
Singer grabbed John’s arm as he was distracted, applied one thumb to a pressure point deep in his armpit and while Winchester was coping with the sudden agony that caused, Dean and Singer hauled him to his feet.
“I’ll do that again if you don’t behave,” Singer advised placidly in Winchester’s ear as the man panted in pain. And then, above the bent dark head, “Grab his coat, Dean. We’ll put him in the truck, drive him up to the campsite.” He didn’t want to leave Dean alone in the motel to deal with Winchester in this condition. The boy was grown, sure, but a parent was always a parent.
A kid was always a kid.
Dean did as Bobby asked, maybe glad for instructions as they pushed and carried Winchester towards the door. Glad not to be in charge when it came to this, maybe, glad to be a kid.
Winchester lurched between them, his head coming up as they neared the door, the band finishing its set. “How ‘bout some music?” he suggested, loudly.
“I don’t think so, John,” Singer replied. He recognized his own anger now, that slow burn. Always took a while, but once it was there, it lasted some time. Winchester had been asking for it for days now. Maybe months. Maybe a year.
Out the door into the cool night air, boots loud on the boardwalk beneath their feet.
“Always such a hard ass,” Winchester shook his head at Singer, probably forgetting that his son was on the other side, holding him up. “That’s why he likes you, Bobby. Nothin’ to do with you personally.”
Singer glanced at Dean across Winchester’s back. The boy’s face was stiff, eyes big in the single lamp above the door. “Because I’m a hard ass? That’s a new one.”
“Because you’re like him.” And Winchester didn’t have to say more. “Hard ass. Fucking rigid little asshole. Big fucking mouth. Always needing to know, asking questions.”
Happy birthday to you, too, Singer thought, unable to look at Dean now.
“You calm down, John. I think you’ve said enough.”
Winchester barked out a bilious laugh, and Singer tried to drag him towards the truck, but now Dean wasn’t moving.
Winchester had his fist in Dean’s shirt again, turned to him, voice low, scraping the road like an unhinged muffler. “What the fuck is wrong with you, hanging around still? Too fucking dumb to get out of the way, aren’t you?”
Winchester’s voice dropped a register, not angry, not castigating the boy. Examining him, hand cupped to jaw. Finding sorrow like it was a penny dropped on the ground. “What happened. It shouldn’t have happened. I’m sorry. God, I’m sorry.”
He shook his head, and Singer’s attention went from father to son. Dean’s face was pale, expressionless. Winchester was now addressing the boardwalk. “We hunt, don’t we? That’s what we do.” Winchester kept shaking his head, over and over. “It’s what separates us…Because it has purpose.”
“That’s right.” Singer thought the best policy right now was to keep Winchester calm. Just agree with him. He’s not exactly wrong, get him to the truck, because his son doesn’t have to hear this.
Singer gestured to Dean: Move. They were halfway to the gravel parking lot when Winchester asked, “Why’d you keep Evan from it?” Point blank, and Singer didn’t know if Winchester was trying to hurt him. Mean drunk.
Singer shrugged, eyes on the truck. Five more steps. “Promised his mother. Cathy’s a might persuasive, in case you failed to notice.”
Dean stopped. Winchester was a heavy man. Dammit, maybe the kid shouldn’t be taking any weight. Singer had forgotten about the broken back, the paralysis. “Dean, you go get the Impala,” Singer said to him as he unlocked the truck, poured Winchester in. “Follow me up. He can sleep in the tent. You can crash in the camper if you don’t feel like driving back down to Carson City.” If you don’t feel like being alone, he could have said, but didn’t.
But Dean didn’t budge, was quiet, maybe felt like he’d disappeared and maybe he had. From the truck, Winchester chuckled, door still open. The sound was liquid. After a moment, he stopped, addressed Singer again. “Didn’t keep him safe, though, did it?”
Dean turned away like he’d been hit, and Singer felt his chest tighten. He lowered his head to Winchester. “You keeping your kids safe, John?” he asked under his breath, not wanting Dean to hear it. Knives out now.
Winchester was momentarily silent, but when he spoke next it was loud, no way Dean didn’t hear it as he walked away. “I’m keeping one of them safe!” And Singer slammed the passenger door, came around the other side.
Winchester sighed, turned his head as Singer got in the driver’s seat, eyes following Dean’s back, waiting until he got into the Impala. “They’d be better off together. Shit, I don’t know anymore, Bobby.”
Maybe they’d be better off without an asshole for a father, Singer thought, but bit his tongue to keep from saying it. He started the truck, waited for Dean to pull in behind him before leading them out onto the highway to Gold Hill.
Singer was no longer in the mood to avoid Winchester’s shit. “You think dragging Dean around on all these hunts, keeping your eye on him, you think that’s keeping him safe? What kind of life is hunting, anyway, John? C’mon. We chose to do this. He never did.”
Winchester laughed for a long time after that, finally petering out into silence, just the rattle of the loose undercarriage providing night music. “It’s what Dean wants, it’s what he’s always wanted. I have a hard time saying no to that one because he never asks for anything. But Sam,” and he lingered over the word. “Sam’s out of it now. I don’t like it, but I respect the guts it took. I just wonder if sometimes--” and the campsite swung into view as Singer pulled in, the fire banked before they’d left an hour ago.
“What? What do you wonder, John?”
John’s hand was up at his mouth, dark eyes bleak. “Maybe Dean should have gone with him. Maybe I shoulda forced him to. That’s all.” Confused, contradictory words. Truth, maybe, or close to it. Winchester stared out at the night, and the Impala slowly crested the hill behind them, parked, lights going dim.
“It would have killed him,” Singer said, sure of it. Didn’t matter if Winchester was beekeeping or fixing cars or running a McDonalds. It wasn’t the hunting that Dean wanted, and Winchester couldn’t see it.
“Might kill him still, staying.” Winchester’s eyes were large, searching, desperate to make sense of it, but he’d run out of time. “He almost died, Bobby.” And he turned, wanting to know. “How d’you live with it, Bobby? How do you live with losing one?”
But Dean was already opening the truck’s passenger door, and Winchester shook his son’s helping arm away, staggering off into the darkness, heading for the small tent pitched beside the camper.
--
How many bars now, Dean tried to guess. I’ve run out of them. Who the fuck knew that Winslow Arizona had this many down-on-their-luck taverns? Jesus. A bunch of bottle blondes, three of them as a matter of fact, remembered John from earlier in the day: he had left with Wendy. All of them sighed, one twisted a strand of hair around her finger.
Some fine man, they said. I’ve seen him around, with that smile of his, broad shoulders, a way of making a woman feel like she’s the only one in the joint. He dances, too. Knows how to lead, which most assholes don’t. Knows what he wants, all right. Giggles all around. I like a man who knows what he wants. I’d go with him again, any day of the week.
You have to be fucking kidding me, Dean thought.
He could feel their eyes on him as he moved away from the bar area towards the pool tables at the back. It’s a girl, my lord, in a flatbed Ford, slowing down to take a look at me. This place, that song, stuck in his head like chewy taffy on a hot day. Gonna kill Dad. Leaving him with that ass crap song, taking off with some girl named Wendy.
And all her friends, apparently.
Dean leaned against the divider between the pool tables and bar, his back to the server, studying the tables, not knowing what to do next. Go knocking at every cheap motel in town, of which - like bars - there was no shortage. The truck was a giveaway, but he hadn’t seen it, either. His dad might drink a little too much now and then - who didn’t? - but this…this…tomcatting around? Shit, this was new. Disturbing on some level that Dean wasn’t really anxious to analyze.
The tables were empty. Only one tall man, just knocking balls around. It was dinner time, and Dean had been trying to find John for a day and a half. Don’t wait up, was all the man had reiterated over the last two weeks.
Don’t wait up. Isn’t that supposed to be my line?
He realized the tall guy was looking at him, light colored eyes, hair in a stupid-looking ponytail, like he made candles or sandpaintings or something. Probably made fake kachina dolls to sell to unsuspecting tourists.
“You want a game?” the man asked.
Dean checked his wallet. “What’s it worth?” he asked, smiling. He could use some cash.
The tall man, silver streak at either temple, shrugged. “Why don’t we say twenty bucks? You break.”
Dean agreed, selected a stick from the rack, rolled it experimentally on the table. The man brushed by him, looking for the triangle. “You on your way to the Grand Canyon?” Laughter in his voice.
Thinks he’s got an easy mark, Dean thought. “Nah. My old man says it’s a waste of time. Too touristy. We’re hunting.”
“Too bad, young pup. One of the world’s wonders. Everyone should see it once in their life.” He smiled, and Dean recognized something he liked: a fellow bullshitter. “I’m Truman May.”
“Dean.” They shook, and Dean was surprised at how cold the guy’s hand was.
“Okay, Dean, whenever you’re ready.”
An hour later, Dean knew two things: May was probably the best pool player he’d ever crossed cues with, and the pool hall only took cash. Luckily, May was magnanimous about winning three games straight without letting Dean sink a single ball.
“Your stick’s okay,” May said, passing him a Coke. “You got real talent.” He looked Dean over, thorough but not unkind. Sizing him up, not to take him on, not in any way that made Dean uncomfortable. More like he was thinking about giving Dean some pointers and wanted to know if he was going to be wasting his energy.
Dean raised his eyebrows. “You want another game? ‘Cause I’m tapped out.”
May smiled, shook his head. “Hope you don’t take this the wrong way, but I should be moving on.” He glanced over at the burly server behind the bar. “They don’t like me coming in here, fleecing the tourists.”
Dean, unruffled, shrugged. “Tourists deserve what they get.”
May seemed to find this amusing. “You’re probably right.”
“Take the ones that keep driving off that stretch of highway,” Dean said, not looking at May, eyes on a group of native guys that had just come through the door. They took one look at May, then left again.
“Which stretch?” May lingered on the words like they were candies, sweet in his mouth.
Not many other bars to try. Dean wondered again where his father was, why they were sticking around Winslow for so damn long. Still, it wasn’t bad here, playing pool, even if he was losing money. Good company. “Highway 87, north of here, heading up into the Navajo Reservation.”
“Hopi land,” May corrected.
Dean looked at him. “Thought it said Navajo on the map.”
May pulled a face: maps were for idiots. Maybe they were. “I know where you mean. Dumb ass tourists. Think they’d be able to keep their cars on a perfectly straight stretch of highway. Must get…mesmerized or something.”
“That’s what I was thinking,” Dean murmured, returning the stick to the rack.
Behind May’s slender shoulder, Dean could see the bartender come from behind the counter. “I thought I told you--”
“Just leavin’,” May said with a conspiratorial smile. See what I have to put up with? “I think you have potential. You ever want to learn a few tricks, Mr. Dean with No Last Name, I live up that piece of highway you’re talking about. Place with a lot of cars, pool table in the middle. You’ll find me if you come lookin’.”
And darted away as the server came closer.
Despite being sixty bucks lighter now than when he walked in, Dean felt pretty good. They’d come here because of the highway, but John had suddenly become more concerned with the womenfolk of Winslow fucking Arizona than hunting whatever was causing the accidents. At least he wasn’t fighting, wasn’t coming home stinking of tequila and letting his mouth get out of control. In fact, the last few times Dean had seen him, John had seemed…cheerful.
Fuck, something was wrong. Unnerving, and Dean wanted his father here now, right now. Maybe John would return here once he was through with Tinkerbell. Good enough reason to stick around, especially if he could win back some of his money.
A half hour later, the group of native guys that had stuck their heads in earlier returned. Dean, still nursing the Coke May had bought him, waited until they’d ordered some food, until they’d played a game. Then he crossed the floor, three at the table, one lining up his shot.
“I’d put some money under the chalk, but I’m pretty broke. I’d give you a good game, though.”
The biggest of them laughed, teeth white against sun-toughened skin. “Yeah? You give May a good game?”
Dean grinned in return. One of the other men - they all looked like brothers, same round faces, dark eyes glinting like they knew some joke Dean didn’t - offered to play Dean for his watch, and Dean agreed, negotiated for a beer and a burger platter in exchange.
Done.
They were pretty good players, actually, and it took several games for Dean to win dinner from them. They weren’t exactly friendly, but they were polite and he slowly gleaned bits of information from them: they were off-rez Navajo, owned a construction business in town, but came from up north, originally. Four cousins from Leupp.
“So, what’s May’s story?” Dean finally asked, mopping up ketchup with his last fry, feeling all right in the company of these men, nothing going to die tonight. Wasn’t going to have to kill anything except time.
Joe, the eldest of the cousins, brother to Luke, settled into a chair beside Dean, eyes on his cousin Mitch, currently at the table. He shook his head and Dean didn’t know how much of the real story he was going to get. “Wouldn’t mess with him.”
“You know him, though?” Dean was uncertain what Joe had meant, because it wasn’t as though it was a warning, more a statement of fact.
Luke, sitting on a barstool he’d brought up to the table, drank Coke, smoked like a chimney. He waggled his hand back and forth. “Can’t really say that either.”
Well, this was getting interesting.
“What d’ya know about Highway 87, where that couple from Idaho died last month?” He paused, realized it sounded like what it was: a fishing expedition. “I saw a bunch of crosses there. Old flowers by the side of the road. Perfectly flat, though. Weird.”
He’d seen a lot more than that, but he’d been on reservation land, and he was unsure how these guys would feel about that, about what his dad had done while they’d been there.
Luke slid off his barstool, his Coke glass empty. “I heard they all veer off the road, trying not to hit coyotes.”
Joe nodded in agreement, and Dean was pretty sure they were having him on. Almost sure.
Mitch joined them, gestured for Calvin, his brother, to take his shot. “Coyotes warn travelers, helpful little fuckers. But May? Who knows someone like him?” He shrugged. “He tells good jokes.”
“Plays mean stick.” Luke nodded.
“And the women--” They all chuckled, Calvin coming back, whistling under his breath, silver and turquoise gleaming at his neck, from his wrists.
“He told me to swing by his place.” Maybe he should be direct. They might be teasing him, but he was fairly sure they wouldn’t steer him directly into danger. Again, almost sure.
The rest looked to Joe. “Don’t take your gun,” he said solemnly. “You won’t be able to find his place if you do.”
Luke bent down and whispered something in Joe’s ear. The older brother appeared to consider whatever Luke had said. “He’s not bad. But he’s tricky, hey?” For the second time that night, Dean got a long hard look from a stranger. Then Joe gave the eyebrow equivalent of ‘what the hell’. “Better a white guy takes care of this, bad luck for us. If you’re serious about making the highway safe, get him when he’s hoofing it under the moonlight, not while he’s playin’ pool.” He nodded to his brother. “You give him one, Luke, it’s okay.”
And Luke passed Dean a chunk of silver, big as a fava bean, maybe. It had some letters stamped on it, and was shaped like a small hand. Luke considered Dean levelly. “Silver’s good for protection. Good for getting rid of stuff, too. You look like you know that.”
Dean nodded, realized just then that maybe he’d been supposed to come in here this night, that things beyond his easy reckoning were falling into place. He didn’t like the feeling much.
Mitch nodded. “Won’t do much like that, though. Used to tip our arrows with it when we needed to hunt with silver. You make arrows?”
He didn’t make arrows. But he made other things. So he bobbed his head, thankful for any advice.
“Next time,” Joe said, “You can buy us dinner without cleaning us at the table, hey?”
Dean laughed at that, decided his dad wasn’t coming back here, and called it a night.
--
After last night, he was owed, dammit, and that was all the leverage Dean needed when it came to this.
His father, whey-faced, nursing coffee like it was mother’s milk, not even able to look at the bowl of Cheerios Bobby placed in front of him, didn’t have a fucking leg to stand on, and Dean was going to push it for all it was worth.
So I phoned my brother on his birthday. Fucking sue me.
He kept his tongue, though, because it never paid to speak out of hand to his father, to air thoughts raw and dripping; they were grudge-carriers, both John and Sam. Alike, fuck them both. Lasting damage could be done so easily. Dean silently handed his father two big bottles of water for his backpack as they prepared to go underground, following established rules of engagement.
I ought to be scared of him. But John looked so down this morning, harsh mountain light never forgiving, looked like he’d slept on stones, had painted circles under his eyes, sweated it out alone in the tent. He’s all I got.
Enough that Dean had told him, softly but without argument, that he was going down into the mine with them this morning, still in the same clothes he’d worn yesterday, unshaven, mouth washed out with coffee. Strange, that all he felt was washed-out anger, and not even directed at his father, not really. Angry at everything. The way his back and legs were stiff from the hard camper bed. The gentleness with which Bobby Singer invested refilling a cup of coffee unasked. The fact that the Impala needed a wash, that half the trees of the Sierra Nevada were underground, that people had avariciously taken protection from the bones of the earth to make trinkets.
Leaving the Winchesters to deal with things that walked the deep and dark while they went on with their ordinary lives, oblivious. Fuck them all.
He swallowed the last of the coffee and didn’t look at his dad as he followed Bobby into his truck. They were going to drive up to the area around the Kentuck hoist works today, Bobby had said. He’d tagged no fewer than seven ratholes that needed plotting on his map. The man was thorough, Dean would give him that.
They arrived, and each took a clipboard, flashlight, some food, water. Bobby walked them to where his surface survey had identified the unexplored ratholes. Dean knew that he’d be given the easiest. It was hard to miss, the way Bobby would direct him to the safest jobs. Looking out for him, not pissing off John. Today it irritated Dean, this kindness.
The rathole didn’t go down so much as in. As ratholes went, it was a walk in the park - narrow but tall, its entrance obscured by sagebrush and a lone piñon. The truck was twenty feet below them; the climb up was a short one. Bobby and John’s ratholes were higher still on the mountainside. Bobby asked Dean once again if he wanted a partner, but he didn’t: he didn’t want his father, he didn’t want Bobby. He didn’t want anyone.
In lieu of that, Bobby then asked Dean to check his watch, told him two hours, meet back at the truck. Any weird noises, any smells that aren’t right, you get the hell out of there. It’s useful information, but not if we have to come looking for you to get it.
In he went without one word, one look, at his dad, Dean’s way of showing his anger. One turn and it was dark, so black that if he hadn’t had the flashlight, he’d have been blind. There was a difference between a dark night and the darkness of underground, which was complete and profound. The earth itself was hugging him close and he didn’t mind. Pretty soon it grew warm; sweat trickled between his shoulder blades, prickling.
The rathole narrowed.
Dutifully, he penciled in when the tunnel took a turn, made readings of the temperature, looked for indications that ore had been taken out. He found several lengths of pipe, but he knew that this was normal, was probably used to pump out water at some point. The air was good so far, smelled of rock and water, even a slight breeze, which he also marked down. He wondered how old this tunnel was. A hundred years old? Older? Before the fire, or after?
After, he decided, when he found an empty bottle, recognizing the type from others Bobby had collected from bigger adits. Maybe the thirties. He checked his watch. An hour to go. Getting out would be faster than going in; he wouldn’t have to write every damn thing down. He had time to explore a little further.
Unexpectedly, the tunnel widened, and he had a choice: right or left. The right tunnel was timbered, wider. An older tunnel. The miners in the thirties, small independents trying to eek out a living by scratching the worked-over area, must have broken through to one of the old systems.
Dean unbuttoned his shirt’s epaulette and attached the flashlight to his shoulder, freeing up his hands. Moving his shoulder, he was able to train the flashlight on his clipboard, where he indicated this new intersection. This was the sort of thing that got Bobby all jazzed. The big systems were pretty well mapped, but often only up to the date they were closed; these ratholes weren’t part of the company maps.
He was doing this when the underground breeze stiffened, cool air when everything down here was so goddamn hot. He looked up, flashed the light around, but saw nothing. He uncapped his water, took a long swallow, replaced it and retrieved a bag of corn chips from his pack. He filled his mouth, then placed a few at the convergence.
Waited, feeling like a scientist in a lab.
There: knock. Strong. Just a single tap, but clear and distinct. Down the rathole, not the older mine. The breeze came again, cool against his cheek. From the old mine, probably part of the Kentuck; it looked big enough. One of the fire mines. He wasn’t far down, he knew. He’d been mostly walking in, not down. Might take him twenty minutes to resurface, tops.
Again: tap. It came from the rathole, not the main mine. He knew from the last time that he should follow the taps.
The tommyknockers were telling him to follow the rathole. And it jived with what Bobby wanted him to do: map the rathole. Probably ten more minutes, then he should turn around.
He packed up his water and the bag of chips, leaving the tommyknocker offering. Catch more bees with honey, which was something his father would never learn. He kept the flashlight on his shoulder, not quite as precise as holding it in his hands, but he liked having his hands free.
He was just turning to go up the rathole when he heard it.
His phone had a distinctive ringtone and he was reaching for his pocket before he realized a number of things: he was inside a mountain where no signal could penetrate; the sound was coming from down the timbered recesses of the old mine, not his pocket; and he’d thrown that phone away yesterday, miles from here.
All of that didn’t matter.
Without hesitation, he turned down the main adit of the Kentuck mine, long collapsed at the entrance, sealing it off at the surface, and moved toward the sound. His phone rang five times, then fell silent, only the sound of water, rushing somewhere far down some tunnel. Shit. Dean knew this must be a trap. There’s no way a signal gets down here.
Then it came again, and it was close, down another drift. I should be marking this down. Had time to think that before he registered that he was standing on wood now, not gravel or rock, and then he heard the splinter and his heart dropped, and the wood he was standing on gave way.
He felt the drop in the rush of air, in the way his stomach curdled violently, body remembering another plunge, another fall, and it might have been desperation, or it might have been sheer cussedness, but he thought: I am not doing this again.
He had time to flail spectacularly, grabbing onto whatever his hand encountered, a piece of jagged wood, a bit of pipe. One millisecond, and his whole weight was on his fingertips, the flashlight still strapped to his shoulder, a mad beacon lighting nothing useful. The backpack weighed him down, but he couldn’t shrug out of it. One hand clutched a length of timber; the other a ridge in a pipe that traveled down into the blackness.
How far down Dean had no idea, but it could be hundreds of feet. A shaft, he thought. A fucking shaft, used to transport men and supplies and ore up and down into the mountain. Not a drift, which ran horizontal. A shaft, which went down. His hands were sweaty, dirty, his whole body felt hot and cold in an instant. His left shoulder, so recently healed, twanged complaint at the sudden wrench.
Don’t pop out, don’t pop out, ohpleasepleasedont.
Dean got one elbow up, feet scrabbling to find anything helpful, awful yawning hole beneath him, the sound of his thin gasps horrifyingly loud, heart thudding like a cavalry charge.
The breeze came from the hidden shaft and it wasn’t cool anymore. It was hot. On it, the smell of sulfur. Sweat pouring down his face, down his back, air squeezing his lungs like a wet washcloth, Dean’s left foot found a timber running crosswise, and he was able to take some weight off his arms. Off his back.
Oh, god, it hurts.
The ringing came again. His phone, only one person he could think of who would call, only one call he’d been waiting for but not expecting, and the heat coming from the shaft intensified.
Two elbows up, and slowly, back snapping electrically with released lightning, Dean crawled from the shaft, lay panting on his belly for a few seconds, thankful his flashlight was still working on his shoulder, that he wasn’t alone in the dark. He moved his legs, could move them, tried to get to his knees and elbows. His lower back was on fire.
Far, far below, the ringing continued, going past five, and behind it, laughter.
--
A long shot, but not impossible. The moon was so bright it was almost good as daylight. John sighted the coyote in the crosshairs just as it came over the rise from the next gully, and he pulled the trigger.
The shot was loud across the winter desert; Dean would hear it from the secondary trail he’d followed, would come. John wanted to examine his kill first, though, because he wasn’t sure a shot from a rifle was enough, and he got out a box of salt from his side bag as he trotted over the rough terrain. A simple salt and burn should finish the job, some little Hopi legend causing tourists to stay the hell away from traditional lands.
Easy in and out job, clear case of a nasty supernatural animal becoming hazardous.
And Dean had wanted somewhere warm. Jesus, not exactly warm up here on the plateau, but maybe they’d go to New Mexico next, get a little warmth in their bones. John wasn’t bothering to go quietly over the stony ground; he’d hit his mark. He had enough experience to know what killing something felt like.
He’d done a lot of night maneuvers in ‘Nam, and this brought it back, though never had there been desert like this over there, this dry cold sky, stars like spilled salt across the vast theatrical backdrop.
The coyote looked remarkably like a plain old dog, laying there, eyes glinting in the moonlight. Nothing spectacular, one more dead beast, fur the color of sunburned prairie grass. John stood over the body for a moment, then shook some salt on it.
“Whatcha gonna do now?” a voice asked behind him, and no one snuck up on John Winchester like that. He whirled, bringing up his rifle. A tall man stood there, a grin on his face. “You fixing on eating him?” He bent down a little, touched the coyote’s bloody muzzle. “Little bit of salt, little bit of fire.” He shook his head in wonder. “Man, the shit you guys put in your mouths. Weird.”
“Who are you?” John asked, not letting the rifle bob, not a bit.
The man stood slowly, moonlight catching one side of his furrowed face, creased as a wino’s paper bag, silvering hair pulled back in a loose ponytail. “Poor little guy. He was just trying to warn you.”
It was John’s turn to smile, so he did. He only had plain lead in the gun; it might not take this down, whatever it was. Better catch up with us, Dean. You’re the one with the holy water and silver bullets. “I hear he’s been ‘warning’ tourists up and down this highway.”
The man smiled wider. “Oh, he’s been trying.” He cocked his head to one side, something canine about the gesture. “Does that make him evil? Does that make him worth killing, John?”
Hurry the fuck up, son. It knows my name.
“This guy’s been running innocent families off the road.”
“What? This old thing? Just trying to tell people that they’re heading somewhere they shouldn’t be. Not his fault they keep comin’.” He shook his head sadly. “You people. No respect. There’s lines, hey?”
Coyote, John thought quickly. To the Hopi, Coyote was just evil, but they were farmers. To the Navajo, Coyote was a devious trickster, and they were hunters. Like him. They respected Coyote’s power, acknowledged that he had a role to play. Gotta stall. “So, you’re causing the accidents? Been fifteen deaths in the last twenty years. You should see the crosses and the flowers on the side of the road.”
Coyote, looking like a man tonight, nodded. “Touching, truly it is. But they wander too close to the edge, and it’s dangerous there, isn’t it John? You know that. Easy to go over the edge, like flying. No glory in it, really.” He bent down again, hand reaching out to the dead animal, fingers stretching over the narrow skull. “You should just take it easy.”
With one motion too quick for John’s eyes to follow, Coyote grabbed the skin of the animal John had killed, snatched it right from its inert body, and threw it over John as a fisherman might toss a net into shallow waters. It covered him, blotting out the powder dusting of stars, and John staggered back, his rifle coming down, the velvet darkness seeping into him.
It felt good.
Coyote crossed his arms, looked into the distance. Smiled. “You go enjoy yourself, hey? Lighten up while you still can.”
And then Dean came over the rise, an old shotgun in his hand, worried expression on his white face, bruises from that New Years party fading into a dark yellow barely discernable in the moonlight. Huh, John thought, looking around the empty night. Where’d he go?
Because Coyote was gone, and damn if John could remember why it might be important for Dean to know about it.
“So,” Dean said, looking down to the dead desert dog bleeding at John’s feet. “That’s what the fuss is about? I thought one of the witnesses said it was huge.” He nudged it with the muzzle of his gun. “Still, if the Tribal Police get wind of us here, there’ll be trouble. Let’s get back to town.” He took two steps, looked back quizzically when John didn’t follow. “It’s a drive, and I’m bushed,” he prodded.
They’d come in the truck, the Impala parked at the Winslow Teepee Village, and John turned up the music loud in the cab, hummed along. He wasn’t surprised when Dean fell asleep, head against the window, swaying a little with every bump. It was way past midnight, late.
He left the engine running when they got to the motel, nudged his son with a gentle hand. “I’m gonna loosen my load, Dean. You look beat. I’ll see you in the morning.”
Dean, bleary eyed, was in no shape to argue. “Sure,” he said, confused, sliding out the seat and John tossed him the room key.
Wigwam key. Fuck, that was funny every time.
The tequila was good, and by number five John was feeling no pain, and the bartender was telling jokes and it occurred to John that he should have remembered that it was Dean’s birthday, or had been up until midnight. Damn, not the first time he’d forgotten, but the first time he remembered when he could still do something about it.
I should go back and wake him up. Buy him a beer.
Then a woman named Stella - like the stars, he thought, holding onto the idea of cake for just a moment longer - sat beside him, and one hand rested on his knee and John didn’t think about having a son older than he’d been when he’d been shipped overseas, didn’t think about candles bright as stars or about Mary in the hospital, Dean a sleepy bundle in her arms.
Didn’t think about it, at all.
--
TBC
Note: The wigwam motel is actually in Holbrook, AZ, just down the road a bit from Winslow. Coyote lore mostly ganked from “Coyote in Navajo Religion and Cosmology” by Guy H. Cooper in the Canadian Journal of Native Studies VII, 2 (1987).
I’m not usually a songfic girl. However:
There’s no comprehending
Just how close to the bone and the skin and the eyes
And the lips you can get
And still feel so alone
And still feel related
Like stations in some relay
No regrets, Coyote
Joni Mitchell, Coyote
Read Chapter 7
I’m already halfway through writing the next chapter, so I promise the wait won’t be as long next time. On the other hand, I DO have this wacky-ass comic book to do, right? Also, I'm travelling around over the next few days, so it might take me a while to get back to y'all, please don't hate me for my perverse inability to locate myself next to appropriate technology. Hey, anyone have a key to my house? Please?
--
Chapter 6/No Regrets, Coyote (Part Two)
Bobby was just finishing up the dishes when Winchester came back into the camp, glowering mad, the kind of anger that had Singer cataloguing where his guns were, that he recognized from earlier altercations with the man. He strode down the dusty path, not meeting Singer’s eyes, jumped into the Impala, and roared out the site, down the hill and out of earshot.
A good twenty minutes later, Dean followed so slowly it was painful to watch, face pinched, eyes hooded and watchful, something of a beaten dog in him. Singer guessed what had happened up at the hoist works; it didn’t take a great imagination to work it out.
Small talk ensued, Dean cleaning anything within range: guns, knives, surveying gear. A habit. Almost like he was waiting for what would happen next. And sure enough, two hours passed and Singer’s phone rang, and they got into the blue pickup, heading for Virginia City.
What a colossally fucked up family, Singer thought, taking the corner fast, Dean in the passenger seat beside him, all manner of crap sliding along the dash - feathers, rocks, pieces of last century’s mining equipment, maybe even the century before that. It was dark, and the headlights picked out some signage, advertising tours in Virginia City - the Fourth Ward Schoolhouse, an authentic Samuel Clemens Walk, even a ghost tour of the cemeteries.
“Carl said that he was keeping an eye on him and wouldn’t call the cops unless he started something,” Singer felt like he had to reiterate, calming himself more than the kid, because he wasn’t looking forward to this, not at all.
Dean’s lips curved a little, not really a smile. “Wouldn’t be the first time. Maybe it’d cool him down.”
Singer looked over. “That what you think? Night in the pokey’s gonna cool him off?” Added it anyway, even though he knew Dean hadn’t meant it. “With his record? In this state?”
Dean hunched over, his knee bouncing up and down, one hand to his mouth, chewing his nails clear down to the quick.
Carl, the bartender at the Bucket of Blood, had recognized Winchester, known that he’d been in before with Singer at his side. Carl liked Singer, as did most people, and called him first, before the cops. Because, he’d said, it was heading in that direction.
Repeated it once they were in the door. Glad you brought reinforcements, you’ll probably need them, he said, gesturing with a towel to the end of the old-fashioned bar.
The Bucket of Blood was crammed with tourists, flags and pennants pinned to the dark beams, a wall of mirror reflecting bottles of Jack and Grouse and Wild Turkey. The band had started up and it was loud, the barnboard dance floor crowded. Not a great place to start a fight. Pretty damn noticeable, in fact. Winchester was at the far end of the bar, crouched with his hands laced together on his forehead, hard to tell in the noisy gloom if his eyes were open or shut. He had a platoon of dead shot glasses in front of him. Straight up deliverance, nothing between him and oblivion.
Not as though Singer didn’t understand the urge. In fact, he understood it all too well. He thinks he’s lost a son. Still, they needed to get him out of here in one piece, not draw attention to themselves in the process. Sweet talk the man, and could have laughed.
Singer sidled up to one shoulder; Dean took the other. The boy remained silent, his face trying to stay composed, and Singer took the lead. Only fair. He’d encouraged Dean to try his brother again, and this was what had come of it.
“John,” he bent his head down to Winchester. The man didn’t move. “John, time to go.”
“Fuck off,” Winchester bellowed.
“Dad,” Dean tried from the other side.
Slowly, Winchester turned, one hand coming up, grabbing his son’s tee shirt in a fistful of cloth, pulling him down. Singer didn’t hear what he said, but he knew one thing for sure: Winchester was a mean drunk, and Dean had taken enough for one day.
Singer grabbed John’s arm as he was distracted, applied one thumb to a pressure point deep in his armpit and while Winchester was coping with the sudden agony that caused, Dean and Singer hauled him to his feet.
“I’ll do that again if you don’t behave,” Singer advised placidly in Winchester’s ear as the man panted in pain. And then, above the bent dark head, “Grab his coat, Dean. We’ll put him in the truck, drive him up to the campsite.” He didn’t want to leave Dean alone in the motel to deal with Winchester in this condition. The boy was grown, sure, but a parent was always a parent.
A kid was always a kid.
Dean did as Bobby asked, maybe glad for instructions as they pushed and carried Winchester towards the door. Glad not to be in charge when it came to this, maybe, glad to be a kid.
Winchester lurched between them, his head coming up as they neared the door, the band finishing its set. “How ‘bout some music?” he suggested, loudly.
“I don’t think so, John,” Singer replied. He recognized his own anger now, that slow burn. Always took a while, but once it was there, it lasted some time. Winchester had been asking for it for days now. Maybe months. Maybe a year.
Out the door into the cool night air, boots loud on the boardwalk beneath their feet.
“Always such a hard ass,” Winchester shook his head at Singer, probably forgetting that his son was on the other side, holding him up. “That’s why he likes you, Bobby. Nothin’ to do with you personally.”
Singer glanced at Dean across Winchester’s back. The boy’s face was stiff, eyes big in the single lamp above the door. “Because I’m a hard ass? That’s a new one.”
“Because you’re like him.” And Winchester didn’t have to say more. “Hard ass. Fucking rigid little asshole. Big fucking mouth. Always needing to know, asking questions.”
Happy birthday to you, too, Singer thought, unable to look at Dean now.
“You calm down, John. I think you’ve said enough.”
Winchester barked out a bilious laugh, and Singer tried to drag him towards the truck, but now Dean wasn’t moving.
Winchester had his fist in Dean’s shirt again, turned to him, voice low, scraping the road like an unhinged muffler. “What the fuck is wrong with you, hanging around still? Too fucking dumb to get out of the way, aren’t you?”
Winchester’s voice dropped a register, not angry, not castigating the boy. Examining him, hand cupped to jaw. Finding sorrow like it was a penny dropped on the ground. “What happened. It shouldn’t have happened. I’m sorry. God, I’m sorry.”
He shook his head, and Singer’s attention went from father to son. Dean’s face was pale, expressionless. Winchester was now addressing the boardwalk. “We hunt, don’t we? That’s what we do.” Winchester kept shaking his head, over and over. “It’s what separates us…Because it has purpose.”
“That’s right.” Singer thought the best policy right now was to keep Winchester calm. Just agree with him. He’s not exactly wrong, get him to the truck, because his son doesn’t have to hear this.
Singer gestured to Dean: Move. They were halfway to the gravel parking lot when Winchester asked, “Why’d you keep Evan from it?” Point blank, and Singer didn’t know if Winchester was trying to hurt him. Mean drunk.
Singer shrugged, eyes on the truck. Five more steps. “Promised his mother. Cathy’s a might persuasive, in case you failed to notice.”
Dean stopped. Winchester was a heavy man. Dammit, maybe the kid shouldn’t be taking any weight. Singer had forgotten about the broken back, the paralysis. “Dean, you go get the Impala,” Singer said to him as he unlocked the truck, poured Winchester in. “Follow me up. He can sleep in the tent. You can crash in the camper if you don’t feel like driving back down to Carson City.” If you don’t feel like being alone, he could have said, but didn’t.
But Dean didn’t budge, was quiet, maybe felt like he’d disappeared and maybe he had. From the truck, Winchester chuckled, door still open. The sound was liquid. After a moment, he stopped, addressed Singer again. “Didn’t keep him safe, though, did it?”
Dean turned away like he’d been hit, and Singer felt his chest tighten. He lowered his head to Winchester. “You keeping your kids safe, John?” he asked under his breath, not wanting Dean to hear it. Knives out now.
Winchester was momentarily silent, but when he spoke next it was loud, no way Dean didn’t hear it as he walked away. “I’m keeping one of them safe!” And Singer slammed the passenger door, came around the other side.
Winchester sighed, turned his head as Singer got in the driver’s seat, eyes following Dean’s back, waiting until he got into the Impala. “They’d be better off together. Shit, I don’t know anymore, Bobby.”
Maybe they’d be better off without an asshole for a father, Singer thought, but bit his tongue to keep from saying it. He started the truck, waited for Dean to pull in behind him before leading them out onto the highway to Gold Hill.
Singer was no longer in the mood to avoid Winchester’s shit. “You think dragging Dean around on all these hunts, keeping your eye on him, you think that’s keeping him safe? What kind of life is hunting, anyway, John? C’mon. We chose to do this. He never did.”
Winchester laughed for a long time after that, finally petering out into silence, just the rattle of the loose undercarriage providing night music. “It’s what Dean wants, it’s what he’s always wanted. I have a hard time saying no to that one because he never asks for anything. But Sam,” and he lingered over the word. “Sam’s out of it now. I don’t like it, but I respect the guts it took. I just wonder if sometimes--” and the campsite swung into view as Singer pulled in, the fire banked before they’d left an hour ago.
“What? What do you wonder, John?”
John’s hand was up at his mouth, dark eyes bleak. “Maybe Dean should have gone with him. Maybe I shoulda forced him to. That’s all.” Confused, contradictory words. Truth, maybe, or close to it. Winchester stared out at the night, and the Impala slowly crested the hill behind them, parked, lights going dim.
“It would have killed him,” Singer said, sure of it. Didn’t matter if Winchester was beekeeping or fixing cars or running a McDonalds. It wasn’t the hunting that Dean wanted, and Winchester couldn’t see it.
“Might kill him still, staying.” Winchester’s eyes were large, searching, desperate to make sense of it, but he’d run out of time. “He almost died, Bobby.” And he turned, wanting to know. “How d’you live with it, Bobby? How do you live with losing one?”
But Dean was already opening the truck’s passenger door, and Winchester shook his son’s helping arm away, staggering off into the darkness, heading for the small tent pitched beside the camper.
--
How many bars now, Dean tried to guess. I’ve run out of them. Who the fuck knew that Winslow Arizona had this many down-on-their-luck taverns? Jesus. A bunch of bottle blondes, three of them as a matter of fact, remembered John from earlier in the day: he had left with Wendy. All of them sighed, one twisted a strand of hair around her finger.
Some fine man, they said. I’ve seen him around, with that smile of his, broad shoulders, a way of making a woman feel like she’s the only one in the joint. He dances, too. Knows how to lead, which most assholes don’t. Knows what he wants, all right. Giggles all around. I like a man who knows what he wants. I’d go with him again, any day of the week.
You have to be fucking kidding me, Dean thought.
He could feel their eyes on him as he moved away from the bar area towards the pool tables at the back. It’s a girl, my lord, in a flatbed Ford, slowing down to take a look at me. This place, that song, stuck in his head like chewy taffy on a hot day. Gonna kill Dad. Leaving him with that ass crap song, taking off with some girl named Wendy.
And all her friends, apparently.
Dean leaned against the divider between the pool tables and bar, his back to the server, studying the tables, not knowing what to do next. Go knocking at every cheap motel in town, of which - like bars - there was no shortage. The truck was a giveaway, but he hadn’t seen it, either. His dad might drink a little too much now and then - who didn’t? - but this…this…tomcatting around? Shit, this was new. Disturbing on some level that Dean wasn’t really anxious to analyze.
The tables were empty. Only one tall man, just knocking balls around. It was dinner time, and Dean had been trying to find John for a day and a half. Don’t wait up, was all the man had reiterated over the last two weeks.
Don’t wait up. Isn’t that supposed to be my line?
He realized the tall guy was looking at him, light colored eyes, hair in a stupid-looking ponytail, like he made candles or sandpaintings or something. Probably made fake kachina dolls to sell to unsuspecting tourists.
“You want a game?” the man asked.
Dean checked his wallet. “What’s it worth?” he asked, smiling. He could use some cash.
The tall man, silver streak at either temple, shrugged. “Why don’t we say twenty bucks? You break.”
Dean agreed, selected a stick from the rack, rolled it experimentally on the table. The man brushed by him, looking for the triangle. “You on your way to the Grand Canyon?” Laughter in his voice.
Thinks he’s got an easy mark, Dean thought. “Nah. My old man says it’s a waste of time. Too touristy. We’re hunting.”
“Too bad, young pup. One of the world’s wonders. Everyone should see it once in their life.” He smiled, and Dean recognized something he liked: a fellow bullshitter. “I’m Truman May.”
“Dean.” They shook, and Dean was surprised at how cold the guy’s hand was.
“Okay, Dean, whenever you’re ready.”
An hour later, Dean knew two things: May was probably the best pool player he’d ever crossed cues with, and the pool hall only took cash. Luckily, May was magnanimous about winning three games straight without letting Dean sink a single ball.
“Your stick’s okay,” May said, passing him a Coke. “You got real talent.” He looked Dean over, thorough but not unkind. Sizing him up, not to take him on, not in any way that made Dean uncomfortable. More like he was thinking about giving Dean some pointers and wanted to know if he was going to be wasting his energy.
Dean raised his eyebrows. “You want another game? ‘Cause I’m tapped out.”
May smiled, shook his head. “Hope you don’t take this the wrong way, but I should be moving on.” He glanced over at the burly server behind the bar. “They don’t like me coming in here, fleecing the tourists.”
Dean, unruffled, shrugged. “Tourists deserve what they get.”
May seemed to find this amusing. “You’re probably right.”
“Take the ones that keep driving off that stretch of highway,” Dean said, not looking at May, eyes on a group of native guys that had just come through the door. They took one look at May, then left again.
“Which stretch?” May lingered on the words like they were candies, sweet in his mouth.
Not many other bars to try. Dean wondered again where his father was, why they were sticking around Winslow for so damn long. Still, it wasn’t bad here, playing pool, even if he was losing money. Good company. “Highway 87, north of here, heading up into the Navajo Reservation.”
“Hopi land,” May corrected.
Dean looked at him. “Thought it said Navajo on the map.”
May pulled a face: maps were for idiots. Maybe they were. “I know where you mean. Dumb ass tourists. Think they’d be able to keep their cars on a perfectly straight stretch of highway. Must get…mesmerized or something.”
“That’s what I was thinking,” Dean murmured, returning the stick to the rack.
Behind May’s slender shoulder, Dean could see the bartender come from behind the counter. “I thought I told you--”
“Just leavin’,” May said with a conspiratorial smile. See what I have to put up with? “I think you have potential. You ever want to learn a few tricks, Mr. Dean with No Last Name, I live up that piece of highway you’re talking about. Place with a lot of cars, pool table in the middle. You’ll find me if you come lookin’.”
And darted away as the server came closer.
Despite being sixty bucks lighter now than when he walked in, Dean felt pretty good. They’d come here because of the highway, but John had suddenly become more concerned with the womenfolk of Winslow fucking Arizona than hunting whatever was causing the accidents. At least he wasn’t fighting, wasn’t coming home stinking of tequila and letting his mouth get out of control. In fact, the last few times Dean had seen him, John had seemed…cheerful.
Fuck, something was wrong. Unnerving, and Dean wanted his father here now, right now. Maybe John would return here once he was through with Tinkerbell. Good enough reason to stick around, especially if he could win back some of his money.
A half hour later, the group of native guys that had stuck their heads in earlier returned. Dean, still nursing the Coke May had bought him, waited until they’d ordered some food, until they’d played a game. Then he crossed the floor, three at the table, one lining up his shot.
“I’d put some money under the chalk, but I’m pretty broke. I’d give you a good game, though.”
The biggest of them laughed, teeth white against sun-toughened skin. “Yeah? You give May a good game?”
Dean grinned in return. One of the other men - they all looked like brothers, same round faces, dark eyes glinting like they knew some joke Dean didn’t - offered to play Dean for his watch, and Dean agreed, negotiated for a beer and a burger platter in exchange.
Done.
They were pretty good players, actually, and it took several games for Dean to win dinner from them. They weren’t exactly friendly, but they were polite and he slowly gleaned bits of information from them: they were off-rez Navajo, owned a construction business in town, but came from up north, originally. Four cousins from Leupp.
“So, what’s May’s story?” Dean finally asked, mopping up ketchup with his last fry, feeling all right in the company of these men, nothing going to die tonight. Wasn’t going to have to kill anything except time.
Joe, the eldest of the cousins, brother to Luke, settled into a chair beside Dean, eyes on his cousin Mitch, currently at the table. He shook his head and Dean didn’t know how much of the real story he was going to get. “Wouldn’t mess with him.”
“You know him, though?” Dean was uncertain what Joe had meant, because it wasn’t as though it was a warning, more a statement of fact.
Luke, sitting on a barstool he’d brought up to the table, drank Coke, smoked like a chimney. He waggled his hand back and forth. “Can’t really say that either.”
Well, this was getting interesting.
“What d’ya know about Highway 87, where that couple from Idaho died last month?” He paused, realized it sounded like what it was: a fishing expedition. “I saw a bunch of crosses there. Old flowers by the side of the road. Perfectly flat, though. Weird.”
He’d seen a lot more than that, but he’d been on reservation land, and he was unsure how these guys would feel about that, about what his dad had done while they’d been there.
Luke slid off his barstool, his Coke glass empty. “I heard they all veer off the road, trying not to hit coyotes.”
Joe nodded in agreement, and Dean was pretty sure they were having him on. Almost sure.
Mitch joined them, gestured for Calvin, his brother, to take his shot. “Coyotes warn travelers, helpful little fuckers. But May? Who knows someone like him?” He shrugged. “He tells good jokes.”
“Plays mean stick.” Luke nodded.
“And the women--” They all chuckled, Calvin coming back, whistling under his breath, silver and turquoise gleaming at his neck, from his wrists.
“He told me to swing by his place.” Maybe he should be direct. They might be teasing him, but he was fairly sure they wouldn’t steer him directly into danger. Again, almost sure.
The rest looked to Joe. “Don’t take your gun,” he said solemnly. “You won’t be able to find his place if you do.”
Luke bent down and whispered something in Joe’s ear. The older brother appeared to consider whatever Luke had said. “He’s not bad. But he’s tricky, hey?” For the second time that night, Dean got a long hard look from a stranger. Then Joe gave the eyebrow equivalent of ‘what the hell’. “Better a white guy takes care of this, bad luck for us. If you’re serious about making the highway safe, get him when he’s hoofing it under the moonlight, not while he’s playin’ pool.” He nodded to his brother. “You give him one, Luke, it’s okay.”
And Luke passed Dean a chunk of silver, big as a fava bean, maybe. It had some letters stamped on it, and was shaped like a small hand. Luke considered Dean levelly. “Silver’s good for protection. Good for getting rid of stuff, too. You look like you know that.”
Dean nodded, realized just then that maybe he’d been supposed to come in here this night, that things beyond his easy reckoning were falling into place. He didn’t like the feeling much.
Mitch nodded. “Won’t do much like that, though. Used to tip our arrows with it when we needed to hunt with silver. You make arrows?”
He didn’t make arrows. But he made other things. So he bobbed his head, thankful for any advice.
“Next time,” Joe said, “You can buy us dinner without cleaning us at the table, hey?”
Dean laughed at that, decided his dad wasn’t coming back here, and called it a night.
--
After last night, he was owed, dammit, and that was all the leverage Dean needed when it came to this.
His father, whey-faced, nursing coffee like it was mother’s milk, not even able to look at the bowl of Cheerios Bobby placed in front of him, didn’t have a fucking leg to stand on, and Dean was going to push it for all it was worth.
So I phoned my brother on his birthday. Fucking sue me.
He kept his tongue, though, because it never paid to speak out of hand to his father, to air thoughts raw and dripping; they were grudge-carriers, both John and Sam. Alike, fuck them both. Lasting damage could be done so easily. Dean silently handed his father two big bottles of water for his backpack as they prepared to go underground, following established rules of engagement.
I ought to be scared of him. But John looked so down this morning, harsh mountain light never forgiving, looked like he’d slept on stones, had painted circles under his eyes, sweated it out alone in the tent. He’s all I got.
Enough that Dean had told him, softly but without argument, that he was going down into the mine with them this morning, still in the same clothes he’d worn yesterday, unshaven, mouth washed out with coffee. Strange, that all he felt was washed-out anger, and not even directed at his father, not really. Angry at everything. The way his back and legs were stiff from the hard camper bed. The gentleness with which Bobby Singer invested refilling a cup of coffee unasked. The fact that the Impala needed a wash, that half the trees of the Sierra Nevada were underground, that people had avariciously taken protection from the bones of the earth to make trinkets.
Leaving the Winchesters to deal with things that walked the deep and dark while they went on with their ordinary lives, oblivious. Fuck them all.
He swallowed the last of the coffee and didn’t look at his dad as he followed Bobby into his truck. They were going to drive up to the area around the Kentuck hoist works today, Bobby had said. He’d tagged no fewer than seven ratholes that needed plotting on his map. The man was thorough, Dean would give him that.
They arrived, and each took a clipboard, flashlight, some food, water. Bobby walked them to where his surface survey had identified the unexplored ratholes. Dean knew that he’d be given the easiest. It was hard to miss, the way Bobby would direct him to the safest jobs. Looking out for him, not pissing off John. Today it irritated Dean, this kindness.
The rathole didn’t go down so much as in. As ratholes went, it was a walk in the park - narrow but tall, its entrance obscured by sagebrush and a lone piñon. The truck was twenty feet below them; the climb up was a short one. Bobby and John’s ratholes were higher still on the mountainside. Bobby asked Dean once again if he wanted a partner, but he didn’t: he didn’t want his father, he didn’t want Bobby. He didn’t want anyone.
In lieu of that, Bobby then asked Dean to check his watch, told him two hours, meet back at the truck. Any weird noises, any smells that aren’t right, you get the hell out of there. It’s useful information, but not if we have to come looking for you to get it.
In he went without one word, one look, at his dad, Dean’s way of showing his anger. One turn and it was dark, so black that if he hadn’t had the flashlight, he’d have been blind. There was a difference between a dark night and the darkness of underground, which was complete and profound. The earth itself was hugging him close and he didn’t mind. Pretty soon it grew warm; sweat trickled between his shoulder blades, prickling.
The rathole narrowed.
Dutifully, he penciled in when the tunnel took a turn, made readings of the temperature, looked for indications that ore had been taken out. He found several lengths of pipe, but he knew that this was normal, was probably used to pump out water at some point. The air was good so far, smelled of rock and water, even a slight breeze, which he also marked down. He wondered how old this tunnel was. A hundred years old? Older? Before the fire, or after?
After, he decided, when he found an empty bottle, recognizing the type from others Bobby had collected from bigger adits. Maybe the thirties. He checked his watch. An hour to go. Getting out would be faster than going in; he wouldn’t have to write every damn thing down. He had time to explore a little further.
Unexpectedly, the tunnel widened, and he had a choice: right or left. The right tunnel was timbered, wider. An older tunnel. The miners in the thirties, small independents trying to eek out a living by scratching the worked-over area, must have broken through to one of the old systems.
Dean unbuttoned his shirt’s epaulette and attached the flashlight to his shoulder, freeing up his hands. Moving his shoulder, he was able to train the flashlight on his clipboard, where he indicated this new intersection. This was the sort of thing that got Bobby all jazzed. The big systems were pretty well mapped, but often only up to the date they were closed; these ratholes weren’t part of the company maps.
He was doing this when the underground breeze stiffened, cool air when everything down here was so goddamn hot. He looked up, flashed the light around, but saw nothing. He uncapped his water, took a long swallow, replaced it and retrieved a bag of corn chips from his pack. He filled his mouth, then placed a few at the convergence.
Waited, feeling like a scientist in a lab.
There: knock. Strong. Just a single tap, but clear and distinct. Down the rathole, not the older mine. The breeze came again, cool against his cheek. From the old mine, probably part of the Kentuck; it looked big enough. One of the fire mines. He wasn’t far down, he knew. He’d been mostly walking in, not down. Might take him twenty minutes to resurface, tops.
Again: tap. It came from the rathole, not the main mine. He knew from the last time that he should follow the taps.
The tommyknockers were telling him to follow the rathole. And it jived with what Bobby wanted him to do: map the rathole. Probably ten more minutes, then he should turn around.
He packed up his water and the bag of chips, leaving the tommyknocker offering. Catch more bees with honey, which was something his father would never learn. He kept the flashlight on his shoulder, not quite as precise as holding it in his hands, but he liked having his hands free.
He was just turning to go up the rathole when he heard it.
His phone had a distinctive ringtone and he was reaching for his pocket before he realized a number of things: he was inside a mountain where no signal could penetrate; the sound was coming from down the timbered recesses of the old mine, not his pocket; and he’d thrown that phone away yesterday, miles from here.
All of that didn’t matter.
Without hesitation, he turned down the main adit of the Kentuck mine, long collapsed at the entrance, sealing it off at the surface, and moved toward the sound. His phone rang five times, then fell silent, only the sound of water, rushing somewhere far down some tunnel. Shit. Dean knew this must be a trap. There’s no way a signal gets down here.
Then it came again, and it was close, down another drift. I should be marking this down. Had time to think that before he registered that he was standing on wood now, not gravel or rock, and then he heard the splinter and his heart dropped, and the wood he was standing on gave way.
He felt the drop in the rush of air, in the way his stomach curdled violently, body remembering another plunge, another fall, and it might have been desperation, or it might have been sheer cussedness, but he thought: I am not doing this again.
He had time to flail spectacularly, grabbing onto whatever his hand encountered, a piece of jagged wood, a bit of pipe. One millisecond, and his whole weight was on his fingertips, the flashlight still strapped to his shoulder, a mad beacon lighting nothing useful. The backpack weighed him down, but he couldn’t shrug out of it. One hand clutched a length of timber; the other a ridge in a pipe that traveled down into the blackness.
How far down Dean had no idea, but it could be hundreds of feet. A shaft, he thought. A fucking shaft, used to transport men and supplies and ore up and down into the mountain. Not a drift, which ran horizontal. A shaft, which went down. His hands were sweaty, dirty, his whole body felt hot and cold in an instant. His left shoulder, so recently healed, twanged complaint at the sudden wrench.
Don’t pop out, don’t pop out, ohpleasepleasedont.
Dean got one elbow up, feet scrabbling to find anything helpful, awful yawning hole beneath him, the sound of his thin gasps horrifyingly loud, heart thudding like a cavalry charge.
The breeze came from the hidden shaft and it wasn’t cool anymore. It was hot. On it, the smell of sulfur. Sweat pouring down his face, down his back, air squeezing his lungs like a wet washcloth, Dean’s left foot found a timber running crosswise, and he was able to take some weight off his arms. Off his back.
Oh, god, it hurts.
The ringing came again. His phone, only one person he could think of who would call, only one call he’d been waiting for but not expecting, and the heat coming from the shaft intensified.
Two elbows up, and slowly, back snapping electrically with released lightning, Dean crawled from the shaft, lay panting on his belly for a few seconds, thankful his flashlight was still working on his shoulder, that he wasn’t alone in the dark. He moved his legs, could move them, tried to get to his knees and elbows. His lower back was on fire.
Far, far below, the ringing continued, going past five, and behind it, laughter.
--
A long shot, but not impossible. The moon was so bright it was almost good as daylight. John sighted the coyote in the crosshairs just as it came over the rise from the next gully, and he pulled the trigger.
The shot was loud across the winter desert; Dean would hear it from the secondary trail he’d followed, would come. John wanted to examine his kill first, though, because he wasn’t sure a shot from a rifle was enough, and he got out a box of salt from his side bag as he trotted over the rough terrain. A simple salt and burn should finish the job, some little Hopi legend causing tourists to stay the hell away from traditional lands.
Easy in and out job, clear case of a nasty supernatural animal becoming hazardous.
And Dean had wanted somewhere warm. Jesus, not exactly warm up here on the plateau, but maybe they’d go to New Mexico next, get a little warmth in their bones. John wasn’t bothering to go quietly over the stony ground; he’d hit his mark. He had enough experience to know what killing something felt like.
He’d done a lot of night maneuvers in ‘Nam, and this brought it back, though never had there been desert like this over there, this dry cold sky, stars like spilled salt across the vast theatrical backdrop.
The coyote looked remarkably like a plain old dog, laying there, eyes glinting in the moonlight. Nothing spectacular, one more dead beast, fur the color of sunburned prairie grass. John stood over the body for a moment, then shook some salt on it.
“Whatcha gonna do now?” a voice asked behind him, and no one snuck up on John Winchester like that. He whirled, bringing up his rifle. A tall man stood there, a grin on his face. “You fixing on eating him?” He bent down a little, touched the coyote’s bloody muzzle. “Little bit of salt, little bit of fire.” He shook his head in wonder. “Man, the shit you guys put in your mouths. Weird.”
“Who are you?” John asked, not letting the rifle bob, not a bit.
The man stood slowly, moonlight catching one side of his furrowed face, creased as a wino’s paper bag, silvering hair pulled back in a loose ponytail. “Poor little guy. He was just trying to warn you.”
It was John’s turn to smile, so he did. He only had plain lead in the gun; it might not take this down, whatever it was. Better catch up with us, Dean. You’re the one with the holy water and silver bullets. “I hear he’s been ‘warning’ tourists up and down this highway.”
The man smiled wider. “Oh, he’s been trying.” He cocked his head to one side, something canine about the gesture. “Does that make him evil? Does that make him worth killing, John?”
Hurry the fuck up, son. It knows my name.
“This guy’s been running innocent families off the road.”
“What? This old thing? Just trying to tell people that they’re heading somewhere they shouldn’t be. Not his fault they keep comin’.” He shook his head sadly. “You people. No respect. There’s lines, hey?”
Coyote, John thought quickly. To the Hopi, Coyote was just evil, but they were farmers. To the Navajo, Coyote was a devious trickster, and they were hunters. Like him. They respected Coyote’s power, acknowledged that he had a role to play. Gotta stall. “So, you’re causing the accidents? Been fifteen deaths in the last twenty years. You should see the crosses and the flowers on the side of the road.”
Coyote, looking like a man tonight, nodded. “Touching, truly it is. But they wander too close to the edge, and it’s dangerous there, isn’t it John? You know that. Easy to go over the edge, like flying. No glory in it, really.” He bent down again, hand reaching out to the dead animal, fingers stretching over the narrow skull. “You should just take it easy.”
With one motion too quick for John’s eyes to follow, Coyote grabbed the skin of the animal John had killed, snatched it right from its inert body, and threw it over John as a fisherman might toss a net into shallow waters. It covered him, blotting out the powder dusting of stars, and John staggered back, his rifle coming down, the velvet darkness seeping into him.
It felt good.
Coyote crossed his arms, looked into the distance. Smiled. “You go enjoy yourself, hey? Lighten up while you still can.”
And then Dean came over the rise, an old shotgun in his hand, worried expression on his white face, bruises from that New Years party fading into a dark yellow barely discernable in the moonlight. Huh, John thought, looking around the empty night. Where’d he go?
Because Coyote was gone, and damn if John could remember why it might be important for Dean to know about it.
“So,” Dean said, looking down to the dead desert dog bleeding at John’s feet. “That’s what the fuss is about? I thought one of the witnesses said it was huge.” He nudged it with the muzzle of his gun. “Still, if the Tribal Police get wind of us here, there’ll be trouble. Let’s get back to town.” He took two steps, looked back quizzically when John didn’t follow. “It’s a drive, and I’m bushed,” he prodded.
They’d come in the truck, the Impala parked at the Winslow Teepee Village, and John turned up the music loud in the cab, hummed along. He wasn’t surprised when Dean fell asleep, head against the window, swaying a little with every bump. It was way past midnight, late.
He left the engine running when they got to the motel, nudged his son with a gentle hand. “I’m gonna loosen my load, Dean. You look beat. I’ll see you in the morning.”
Dean, bleary eyed, was in no shape to argue. “Sure,” he said, confused, sliding out the seat and John tossed him the room key.
Wigwam key. Fuck, that was funny every time.
The tequila was good, and by number five John was feeling no pain, and the bartender was telling jokes and it occurred to John that he should have remembered that it was Dean’s birthday, or had been up until midnight. Damn, not the first time he’d forgotten, but the first time he remembered when he could still do something about it.
I should go back and wake him up. Buy him a beer.
Then a woman named Stella - like the stars, he thought, holding onto the idea of cake for just a moment longer - sat beside him, and one hand rested on his knee and John didn’t think about having a son older than he’d been when he’d been shipped overseas, didn’t think about candles bright as stars or about Mary in the hospital, Dean a sleepy bundle in her arms.
Didn’t think about it, at all.
--
TBC
Note: The wigwam motel is actually in Holbrook, AZ, just down the road a bit from Winslow. Coyote lore mostly ganked from “Coyote in Navajo Religion and Cosmology” by Guy H. Cooper in the Canadian Journal of Native Studies VII, 2 (1987).
I’m not usually a songfic girl. However:
There’s no comprehending
Just how close to the bone and the skin and the eyes
And the lips you can get
And still feel so alone
And still feel related
Like stations in some relay
No regrets, Coyote
Joni Mitchell, Coyote
Read Chapter 7
I’m already halfway through writing the next chapter, so I promise the wait won’t be as long next time. On the other hand, I DO have this wacky-ass comic book to do, right? Also, I'm travelling around over the next few days, so it might take me a while to get back to y'all, please don't hate me for my perverse inability to locate myself next to appropriate technology. Hey, anyone have a key to my house? Please?
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