Witch's Canyon

by Jeffrey J. Mariotte

  Okay, not a cannon exactly, but when he raced around behind the wagon and propped his arm on its top and leveled the .358 at them, its muzzle looked like one.

  "Dean—"

  "I know!"

  That was all they had time for. The Impala slid to a graceful stop about three feet away from the station wagon, side by side with it. Which meant that when they got out, Sam's head would be about level with that big gun.

  "We're not looking for a kid with a gun, right?" he asked. "Old man, right?"

  "Old man, Indian, bear... we're looking for a lot of things," Dean replied. "But this is the first I've heard about a kid."

  "Looks like maybe he's looking for us."

  Dean opened his door and got out, using careful, measured motions. He showed the kid his empty hands. "Easy, pal," he said as he did so. "I think there's some kind of confusion here, but we can straighten it out."

  With the kid's attention focused on Dean, Sam risked getting out on his own side. He raised empty hands toward the kid, too. The kid's gaze snapped between the two of them, the gun's muzzle shifting along with it. "Let's talk about this," Sam said.

  "I just want to know which one of you it is," the kid said. His voice quaked. He was scared, which worried Sam all the more. Scared people weren't exactly known for steady trigger fingers, or for careful consideration of their actions.

  "Which one what is?" Dean snapped. "Dude, you got the gun, least you could do is be clear about what you're doing with it."

  "Don't play dumb," the kid warned. "I saw you all."

  "Saw what?" Sam asked.

  "I saw Heather go to your hotel room, in the middle of the night." He twitched the gun at Sam. "I saw you open the door in your underwear and let her in. Don't tell me you're both doing her."

  "You were following Heather?" Sam asked, bewildered. The station wagon, he realized, must have been the car Dean saw behind them earlier. When the kid knew for sure that Heather was going home, he turned off so he could be in place to lay this trap.

  "She's my girlfriend," the kid said. "I was talking to her on the phone earlier, and she sounded weird. Plus we were supposed to go out tonight, but she canceled on me."

  "She probably canceled because it's not safe to be out tonight," Sam said.

  "I already thought she was cheating on me, but I couldn't figure out with who. Now I know. You guys are all tall and buff and such."

  "You only think you know, kid," Dean said. "But you're wrong, except for the tall and buff part. Put that peashooter down and let's talk. Preferably inside."

  "I know what I saw."

  "You saw Heather come to our room for something totally unrelated to sex," Sam said.

  "Why don't you tell me why, then?"

  "It's a little hard to explain," Dean said.

  "Right."

  "Look, it's freezing out here," Dean said, "so if you're going to shoot us, just go ahead and freaking do it! A hot bullet and a hospital bed would feel good right about now."

  The kid's hands started trembling harder, the gun in them wagging dangerously now. Sam knew Dean didn't really want to get shot, and neither did he. But if they didn't get the kid disarmed soon, something disastrous would happen.

  Just keep yakking at him, Dean, he thought as he began slowly working his way toward the rear of the wagon. It was a long way around the big car, and getting to the kid unnoticed would be almost impossible. But going over or under would surely result in a panicked shot fired. Unless he could be persuaded to put it down, slow and steady was the only way to reach the gun.

  "You!" the kid shouted, swinging the gun around to keep it lined up on Sam's head. "Keep still!"

  "Hit the dirt, Sammy!" Dean called.

  When Dean said something like that, he usually had good reason, and Sam had learned to go along with him. He did so now, hurling himself to the ground, trying to keep the wagon's rear wheel between himself and the kid. As he had suspected, the kid took the sudden move as an assault. He crouched and fired, but without aiming, and his first shot went into the ground. Before he could squeeze off a second, Dean was in motion, clomping onto the Impala's hood and launching himself from there onto the station wagon's. From there he dropped onto the kid like vengeance from above. By the time Sam scrambled to his feet and around the car, Dean was tucking the Magnum into his waistband and the kid was up against his station wagon, disheveled but apparently unharmed.

  "I told you, bud, you've got it wrong," Dean said. "We have nothing to do with Heather. Not that way. You want to know anything more about it, though, you'll have to ask her."

  "Yeah," the kid muttered. "And tell her I was following her."

  "That's something you'll have to work out," Dean said. "Sooner the better, if you ask me. Trust is a pretty important part of a relationship."

  "I know. That's why I don't want her to know that I didn't trust her."

  "Do you?"

  "You've seen her," the kid said. "Do you think she'd be satisfied with a loser like me for long? She's probably met all kinds of guys at college."

  "She probably has," Sam agreed. "And if she's still with you, it's because she wants to be with you. You might want to think about appreciating that instead of questioning it."

  "I guess." He frowned at the road, looking sullen and petulant. But maybe, Sam hoped, having learned at least one lesson—don't pull a gun on two guys unless you intend to use it immediately.

  "Can I have my gun back? It's my dad's."

  "You tried to shoot my brother," Dean said.

  "It is kind of dangerous around here, Dean," Sam pointed out. "Maybe you should let him keep it."

  Dean studied the kid for a few seconds, then drew the gun from his waistband and emptied the bullets out. "Here you go," he said, handing over the empty weapon. "There's one in the chamber, in case you run into trouble on the way home. Like Sammy said, there are real dangers out tonight, so if you're attacked by an old soldier or a bear or an Indian, something like that, you might want to use it. Otherwise, you're best off giving it back to your dad and forgetting you ever took it."

  The kid took the gun, weighed it in his hand for a couple of seconds. "Okay, thanks." He stood there like he thought there should be something else said, then shrugged again and opened the passenger-side door. He slid across the bench seat, leaving the gun beside him on the right, and started the car.

  "Let's get back to the room," Dean said. "This sucks. Why'd I even let you talk me into going in the first place?"

  Sam climbed back into the Impala. "I'm glad you came," he said. He barely got the sentence out when he started laughing.

  "What? Something funny I'm not seeing?"

  "Just thinking about you giving advice on relationships and trust," Sam said.

  "Hey, I've had relationships!"

  "Yeah. The longest lasted, what, a month? And how many of them started with you lying about who you are and what you do?"

  "Case you haven't noticed, Sammy, women don't exactly flock around hunters. And you can't really blame 'em. We're not the most stable individuals around."

  "No, we're not. We're bad bets for long-term things, but good investments on life insurance."

  "There's a selling point I hadn't thought of." Dean started the engine and got the Impala back on the road, headed for the Trail's End. "Hook up with us and see a quick return on your premiums." He laughed. "I like it, Sammy. Think we can fit it on a bumper sticker?"

  TWENTY

  Juliet Monroe woke up with a nagging headache and the sense that the previous night's ordeal must have been some sort of terrible nightmare. Dawn's light filtered in through the living room blinds. She was still on her couch, though she'd slumped over onto her side and lost part of the blanket that had covered her. The house was warm and cozy, and it seemed impossible that life could look as hopeless, that survival could be as unlikely, as it had seemed before she'd gone to sleep.

  She shook off the remaining blanket and forced herself to her feet. Her head throbbed with eve
ry move she made. The house was quiet. She started toward the TV set, thinking that maybe some chattering voices would help fill the silence, but halfway there she decided against it. If the big canine was still around, she wanted to be able to hear it.

  Instead, she went to the window, poked a finger between the miniblinds—which needed dusting, she realized, and the windows could stand some Windex—and parted them just enough to look into the front yard.

  Stu's body, red and mangled, hadn't budged. The snow right around it had melted but then had frozen again during the night. Crimson-splashed ice surrounded it now, holding it in a fierce grip.

  Either it had snowed a little more during the few hours she slept or the wind had smoothed out the snow, but she couldn't see the wolf's tracks anymore. Again, a sense of unreality invaded her mind, like it hadn't actually been a wolf after all. Like Stu had been killed by some other mechanism, a bad fall on the slick ground or an explosive aneurysm.

  As she had the night before, Juliet went to every window in the house, looking out for any sign of the animal. The sun was just cresting the ridges to the east, and its slanted light would have picked out tracks. She saw some that might have been birds and maybe rabbits, but no canines, large or small.

  That task completed, she went into the kitchen and put a pot of water on the stove to boil for tea. She chose a box of Earl Grey and shook some into an infuser, which she lowered into an enameled teapot. She knew she should eat something, but her headache was affecting her stomach, making her nauseous. Maybe a slice of toast. Or two. With just a little butter.

  When the water screeched its boil, Juliet shut off the stove, poured some into the teapot, and set the boiling pot down on a cool burner. While her tea steeped, she went to the front door. She pressed her ear against it, listening.

  There was no sound at all, not even birdsong. With the boiling pot off its burner, it was as if sound had ceased to exist, or she had gone deaf during the night. She knew that wasn't the case, since she'd heard the whistling pot. Just in case, she tapped her fingertips against the wooden door. They made noise. Nothing wrong with my hearing, then. It's just awfully quiet.

  Her restless mind filled in the cliché. Too quiet.

  Placing her hand on the doorknob made her heart pound. She held it there for a long moment, willing the noisy organ to quiet itself. She took three deep breaths, letting the air out slowly. Her heart calmed. She jump-started it again by flicking open the thumb latch. More breaths, more waiting. This was taking too long; her tea would be bitter by the time she got back to it.

  It had to be done, though. If the beast was gone, if there was a way out of here, she had to take it.

  Holding her breath altogether, Juliet opened the door. Just a fraction of an inch, at first. Enough to peer out through the crack. She could see the walkway in front of her house, some snow, a tiny splash of red over where Stu was. She pulled it open more. Nothing attacked her. Nothing moved.

  Juliet stepped outside, pulling the door to but not releasing the outer knob. There was no breeze at all, no flutter of wings or chirping or any of the other morning noises she was accustomed to hearing. Absolute stillness. The air was cold, as on a crisp winter morning. She associated days like it with shopping on Chicago's Miracle Mile, the stores decorated for the holidays, Marshall Fields standing like a warm, welcoming beacon that would happily take her money and make her appreciate it.

  She hadn't decorated for Christmas since Ross died, and hadn't planned to this year, either. The holidays felt empty without him.

  She released the knob, took a few steps away from the door. Now she could see Stu better, and the sight brought with it a wave of nausea.

  What she still didn't see was the wolf.

  Maybe it had gone. She had ascribed nearly supernatural powers to it, but what if it was, after all, just a big canine? It had been hungry, had attacked a few cows, and then had seen Stu as a threat because he came between it and its dinner. It couldn't have magical powers, couldn't read her mind or know her intentions. Last night she had believed it could do all those things and more, but that had been panic talking, not reason. By now it was probably forty miles away and still going.

  Juliet began to formulate a plan. She had to have some food, and her tea. Had to settle her stomach a little. Then she would put on some good snow boots, fresh clothes, long underwear, her down parka. With gloves and a cap, she would be ready for the long walk to the neighbors' place. They kept to themselves and she hardly knew them, but they'd let her use a phone. That was all she needed now. Just a phone call to the sheriff and this whole thing would be behind her.

  She turned back toward the house and her head swam, black dots crowding her vision from the fringes, and her stomach lurched. Thinking she might vomit, she stopped in place. Better to do it in the snow than on her living room floor. She put her hands on her knees and rested for a moment, hunched over, waiting. The feeling passed, and the blackness moved out of her eyes again.

  Straightening, she let her gaze travel up, past the door to the edge of the roof.

  The wolf hunkered there, gazing down at her. A surprisingly pink tongue slipped from its mouth, washed across it. Then the canine's muscles tensed.

  Juliet bolted. She burst back inside, slammed the door behind her, and locked it again. Outside, she barely heard the crunch of the animal's landing in the hard snow.

  With the door secure, she rushed to the bathroom, certain that the vomit would come this time. All the way there, she thought, Stupid, stupid, stupid! You cannot go outside! To go outside is to...

  To go outside is to die.

  TWENTY-ONE

  The deputy's SUV was pulled off to the side of the road and its driver's side door hung open. No lights burned inside or out. Someone said that the vehicle had run out of gas and then its battery died, but it only sat there for a couple of hours, so Sam thought the real explanation had to be more complicated than that.

  They had heard about its discovery on their police band radio, shortly after returning to the motel following the eventful trip to Heather's and back. By the time they made it to the scene, the deputy's body had already been bagged and hauled away. Sam overheard another deputy talking about bugs, but that didn't make any sense; he hadn't seen so much as a housefly since coming to town.

  Yellow tape reading SHERIFF LINE DO NOT CROSS in big black letters had been strung around the SUV and off into the brush around it. Uniformed deputies bustled around behind the tape, taking photographs and measurements. Others stood in grim little knots, talking among themselves in low voices under the gray light of an overcast morning. Nobody seemed to pay any attention to Sam and Dean until Sheriff Beckett detached himself from one of those clusters and stalked toward them. He didn't look like a happy man.

  "Who are you people?" he asked as he drew near them. "And don't give me any crap about the National Geographic, because I only see you at crime scenes, and neither one of you is ever taking notes or pictures. I've just had a man killed who was a deputy and a friend of mine, and I'm not in any mood for foolishness, so either I get a straight answer out of you or we might just have ourselves a constitutional test case on unlawful arrest."

  "We're not here to make any trouble," Sam said.

  "That's not what I asked you."

  Dean dug a leather case from his pocket that Sam hadn't seen him put there. "We're trying to stay low profile," he said, lowering his voice as if inviting Beckett into a conspiracy. He opened the case. Sam saw a flash of a badge and a plastic window showing an ID card. "Homeland Security," Dean said quietly.

  Beckett took the badge case and studied its contents. "Nice job," he said. "Looks like the real deal. It'd convince me if I was feeling persuadable, which I'm not." He eyed Sam with suspicion. "You got one, too? Or maybe you're from the Department of Agriculture."

  "He's not buying it," Sam said to Dean.

  "Doesn't seem to be."

  "I say we tell him the truth."

  "Okay," Dean said. "
We're with DEA," he began. "Deep undercover."

  The sheriff reached for his handcuffs.

  "We're here because of the murder cycle," Sam said quickly. The sheriff stopped, hooked his thumb through his belt. "We investigate things like this. Paranormal events, particularly the violent kind. Folklore, myth, what some people would call monsters. I can't give you verifiable statistics, but we have a very good track record at what we do. By now you've got to admit that there's something going on here that's outside the scope of your expertise."

  "So you two are some kind of ghostbusters?"

  "Except they're not real," Sam said. "We are."

  Sheriff Beckett ticked his eyes back and forth between them. "I don't know which story is more ridiculous."

  "So when you said tell him the truth," Dean said quietly, "you meant the true truth."

  "That's right," Sam said. "He needs our help, and we could use his."

  "We really are here about the murders," Dean said. "Every forty years, like clockwork. Unusual weapons. Even animal attacks. You have a better way to explain it?"

  "Better than what?" Beckett asked. "I haven't heard you explain it yet. You've only described it."

  "Well, truth is, we're still working on that part."

  "I see," Beckett said. "So all your expertise is good for what, exactly?"

  "At least we're not running around pretending it's something you can solve by the book."

  "Son," Beckett said, looking weary, "I haven't been pretending I could solve any of this for about thirty hours now. Maybe a little longer. I'd like to be able to keep ahead of it, prevent some people from dying if I can. But solve it? Hell, I just want to keep the town together until it passes. Forty years from now it'll be some other cop's problem."

  "But we can make it stop forever," Sam said.