When Sam next awoke, it was late afternoon, and the small house seemed to be melting with heat. He rubbed his face groggily, staring up at the ceiling, trying to shake the doped feeling brought on by heat and not enough sleep. The house was quiet around him, and he glanced over at Dean's bed across the room.

His brother slept in that boneless way unique to Dean, heedless of discomfort to his taped ribs and splinted arm. His brow was slightly creased in pain, and Sam pushed away his tiredness to swing out of bed and go to his brother. Touched him lightly on the shoulder, put fingers to Dean's forehead, and when there was no response, Sam padded quietly out to the living room.

The main room was still a shambles from the night before; half-empty duffels spewing their contents across the floor, a litter of medical tape, Sam's mangled notebooks, and gun parts on the table. The broken piece of porch railing had somehow found its way to a kitchen chair, and Sam picked it up, one hand touching the shallow scratches of his chest gingerly. He checked out the window, but the lawn was bare and empty, the street in front of the house soft from the sun. No sign of the chaos from last night.

Sam scrounged up a half-empty bottle of Coke and a Pop-Tart, sitting at the table and eating, thinking about the anger in his father's eyes the night before, the easy way he had been dismissed. The back of his eyes felt hot and heavy, like a headache being ignored, and Sam finished the Coke in one long swig, the flat soda warm and unpleasant on his tongue. He stood, chucked the bottle into a corner of the kitchen, and went back to his room for shoes and jeans.

Dean was still asleep, unmoving, his face pale and drawn. Sam watched him for a moment, the rising of his chest, the beat of his pulse in his neck. He remembered turning his brother over, calling his name, finding the wrist cradled against Dean's chest, the sharp ends of bone visible through torn flesh. The heavy feeling at the back of his eyes pushed, threatened to spill over, and Sam turned on his heel and he left, he beat it, he didn't want to deal with it anymore. He grabbed a notebook from the mess on the table, and slammed the front door behind him.

Walking out of the house into the bright afternoon was like opening an oven and sticking your head inside. The blast of heat and light made Sam pause and squint up into the washed out white bowl of the sky. The sun was more a pressure than anything, something present and there, like gravity or pain. Sam hunched his shoulders a bit against the heat, clutched the worn notebook in his hand and went hunting for the library.

He found it in the center of town, next to an old time tractor that someone had restored and put up on blocks in a weird tribute to the town's agricultural history. Trees withered from the sun's heat sheltered the library, faced with river rock and topped with terra cotta shingles in a strange mixture of Tudor and American West. Sam loved it at first sight, grinning at the strange dichotomy as he entered the building.

In the lobby of the library was a public bulletin board, plastered with the smiles of missing children. The flyers were of every color, with every type of font, with pictures of kids sitting formally, or around a campfire, or with a sibling's arm thrown around their shoulders. The curled paper edges caught every breath of air easily, lifting to show even more flyers underneath, the soft rustle a constant sound. Sam wondered how many layers there were, if you could peel off each layer like some sort of psychotic wallpaper in an insane attempt at interior decorating.

Sam took down the names and information of five of the most recent disappearances carefully in his notebook and then counted the number of flyers he found. He quit at twenty, when his focus on just the facts began to wither under the strain of so many lost watching him. The oldest flyer on the board had a missing date of five years ago. Approximately twenty kids vanishing into nothing over five years. Sam's fingers went to the wire spine of his notebook, began to twist it as he tried to meet the gazes of so many gone.

With an effort, he closed his notebook and turned away, heading into the library proper. To his right was a staircase leading down into the basement, with a small plaque posted on the wall that stated, simply, Museum. Sam paused, peering down into the darkness at the bottom of the stairs. He could barely discern the outline of a door, with a bit of weak yellow light coming from underneath. Behind him came the rustle of paper, kids lost, smiling out from frozen moments of time. Spurred by the sound, Sam descended into the dark.

The door opened easily under his hand, swinging out into a large, rectangular room with a low ceiling, the air soft and cool on his sun-soaked skin. The peculiar musty smell that seemed to originate with all basements was strong, but not particularly unpleasant, and Sam inhaled it deeply. Exhibits tables ringed the room, with framed photos and captions hanging from the walls. Sam grinned in muted delight, loving the odd collection before him. This place was just getting better and better.

The room housed a haphazard collection of exhibits, containing crime scene pictures from the turn of the century, bits of bridle and iron works from a blacksmith that seemed to be the pride of the town, and a large collection of baseball memorabilia from a hometown kid gone pro. Sam didn't recognize the name, but filed away the information to pass on to Dean. Maybe it would be an enticement to the older brother to actually come to the museum.

His heart skipped oddly, remembering the night wind tousling his hair as he walked home from a study group, watching the door to his home swing lazily on its hinges. Inside, finding Dean, blood draining from his nose and one ear, eyes open and glassy, Sam's breath leaving him like he had been punched. And not finding his father.

Sam closed his stinging eyes. And not finding his father. He shook his head, opened his eyes, focusing on the room again. In a corner, almost hidden, the weak light barely catching the glass, was a picture of a group of men standing around a mound of earth. The picture snagged his attention, the stiff postures of the men in it raising his curiosity. He stepped closer, his gaze going to the glass-topped table underneath. On the cloth underneath the glass were a few shards of pottery, a rotted piece of leather, and a dark thigh bone.

Sam recoiled at the sight of the bone, knowing how stupid and dangerous it was to keep human remains. He glanced up at the picture again, recognizing the men's stiffness as fear. Underneath the picture, neatly typed on a square of paper, Sam read April 1934 – Construction on the new road unearths an Indian burial mound. From left to right, Sam Edwards, George Gustafson, Zeke Steele, Thomas Means, and Jim Clark.

A placard under the glass, next to the thigh bone, read Donated from the Zeke Steele Estate.

The recycled air suddenly thinned and became cooler, a smell like sage overriding the mustiness of the basement. Sam jerked his head up, his eyes wide, stepping back from the exhibit and scanning the room. The notebook he was holding dropped to the floor. Abruptly, the sound of a dog in full attack mode echoed in the low room, bouncing from wall to wall. Snarls, choked barks, and growls spun Sam in a circle as he frantically tried to pinpoint the source.

"What are you doing down here?"

The sounds lessened, dwindled into silence. Sam stood in the middle of the room, his breathing harsh from the sudden adrenaline attacking his heart.

A woman stood at the doorway, frowning at Sam. "This door was locked. How did you get in?" Her grey hair was pulled severely back from her face, her eyes small and hard in network of wrinkles. "You're not supposed to be down here without a librarian present."

"I'm sorry," was Sam's automatic reply. He paused, "Did you hear that?"

"Hear what? You really need to come upstairs." She gestured to the stairs, her eyes unrelenting, oblivious to the fading sounds of a dog hysterical with fury.

Bending to pick up his notebook, Sam switched gears, bringing out the charm only he seemed to possess in his family, the kind of charm that won over old ladies, child support workers, and teachers. Dean, after witnessing Sam talk a principal into letting them leave school early, labeled it "geek magic;" a derogatory term that did not hide his admiration.

"I'm really sorry; I didn't realize this was a guided tour. I just moved here with my family, and wanted to study the history of the area before school started." Sam's gaze slid over to the corner, where pitiful artifacts from a grave were displayed for the vulgar eyes of the public. "I'm really interested in Native American stuff, too." He raised puppy dog eyes to the librarian's stern face, and tried a smile both sincere and apologetic.

Somehow, it worked. Despite Sam's heart still jack hammering in his chest, the librarian accepted the smile and the eyes at face value. Her face lightened a bit, and she patted absently at her hair. "Still don't know how that door got unlocked, but…." She firmed her mouth, gave Sam a tight smile, and stepped into the room. "Actually, there is an Indian burial mound just south of town. Let me show you some more artifacts from it."

She led Sam back to the corner, and gestured to the three items on display. "You've obviously seen these." Her tone still somewhat disapproving, but another meek I'm sorry from Sam seemed to melt her anger. "Here." She knelt, grunting, and Sam could almost hear her knees creak. She opened a drawer under the glass top, and set some more items on top of the table.

A small clay jar, barely cracked, its red and black markings still vivid. A plastic baggie filled with beads, some still strung together. And, with a flourish from the librarian, a large plastic container filled with bones. "The thigh bone in the case is human," she said, "but these are canine."

"Canine?" A memory of howling, snarling, growling, unseen dogs encircling the house. "You mean dogs?"

The librarian nodded. "Yes. The whole mound was filled with dog bones. After they excavated everything, they determined that one woman had been buried with ten dogs."

Sam stared at her.

oooOOOooo

It was hours later, and Sam was walking home from the library, the dust kicked up from his worn runners following the swing of his heels. He was worrying a thumbnail, walking on auto-pilot, his thoughts worrying him. Around him, the near deserted town hummed with light, somnolent and drugged from the unremitting heat. Nothing alive stirred, the breeze kicking up ethereal dust devils that danced only for themselves. A faraway dog bark caused Sam to freeze, but the sound only hung in the air like a drop of amber, slowly fading. Sam's thumbnail came to his mouth again, the cuticles already sore-looking, and he turned the last corner before home.

Heat waves from the blacktop rippled the air in front of him, and Sam squinted as he looked homeward. Someone was standing on the lawn in front of the house, where the seared grass met the blacktop, and Sam blinked, not recognizing the blurred figure at first. Then...

Dean. Dean. There was no mistaking the confident set to the shoulders, the slight swagger to the hips. It had been too long since Sam had seen his older brother standing on his own, and his waning patience with Dean's injuries had been turning to outright fear. Seeing his brother now, standing and out in the light, was reward enough for the half-acknowledged fear of loss, and it was easier this time to ignore the familiar heavy feeling that had formed behind his eyes. "Hey, JERK!" Sam yelled at the top of his lungs, the air rebounding with the sound.

He saw Dean's head swing in his direction, caught the flash of white from Dean's smile. "BITCH!" came the response, causing Sam to laugh, and he broke into a pounding run down the road toward his brother.

The heat was not kind to this sudden burst of activity, and Sam came to a stop in front of Dean with his hands on his knees, gulping air, his t-shirt stuck to his back. He heard a soft snort of laughter from Dean, and straightened. "So Dad let you up?" he asked, when he got his breath back.

Dean did not meet his brother's gaze, his green eyes distant as he watched the sun's descent towards the horizon. "He's gone for food." Not really an answer, but deemed safe by Dean because it wasn't really a lie either. He had taken the tape off his nose and off the gash in his cheek, and the black thread in the flesh looked sore and dry.

"You okay?" Sam asked shyly. It was not a question he usually asked his indestructible brother, and the words tasted strange on his tongue.

Dean looked at him indignantly. "Of course. I'm not all girly like you are."He put out a hand and ruffled Sam's shaggy hair. "This looks long enough for a French braid."

"Know how I know you're a girl?" asked Sam, grinning widely. Dean quirked an eyebrow at him. "You know what a French braid is."

Dean made an abortive grab for his brother, winced, and laid a suddenly shaking hand on his side. Sam raised a hand, but dropped it quickly. "Ass." Dean managed to say, shakily, but Sam chose to ignore the pain in Dean's voice and looked up at him, grinning. Dean's grin was easy in reply, and he nodded towards the house. "Get inside. You've been gone for awhile."

Sam's grin faded as they walked across the lawn, feeling his stomach knot. "Is Dad home?"

"No," said Dean, following him slowly. "He went shopping."

Which explained why Dean was out of bed and walking around, pretending he was whole. But the gingerly way he climbed the two steps to the house, and the shaking hand on the door jamb for balance belied his pretense. Sam knew better then to offer any aid, but the shadows on his brother's face made him ask, "Dean? Have you taken any pain pills?" On the kitchen table, he caught sight the small brown bottle, unopened.

He looked at his brother, caught the unspoken plea in the green eyes. Sam ducked his head, knowing he should force the issue, but found himself nodding instead. "Okay," he said, "but just wait 'til Dad gets home." Again Dean's grin, a bit faded this time, but still warm and thankful, as he carefully eased down on the couch, pulling a shoebox full of cassette tapes to him.

Sam used Dean's grin as an excuse to drop the responsible bit, and he sat down at the table, putting his notebook down in front of him. He touched the cover with his fingertips, thinking, hearing the fear in the librarian's voice as she spoke to him, surprised again as the materials he was looking for seemed to drop into his hand.

"Dean."

His brother was sorting through the cassette tapes, occasionally glancing at the cover art. One arm was held tight to his right side. "S'up, Sammy?"

"Do you remember last night? All those dogs?"

Dean looked up from the tapes to the windows, streaming with red light from the setting sun, and saw them briefly as dark, letting in only blackness. The suddenness of sound, the suddenness of the cessation of sound. "Kinda. Why?"

Suddenly excited, eager to share what he had discovered, Sam flipped open the notebook, scanning his notes. "I found the coolest museum today, at the library." He frowned, recalling the musty room. "Actually it was weird. All this baseball shit and horseshoes and old photos of crime scenes. Oh, that reminds me, do you know who Bruce Benedict is?"

Dean didn't look up, letting his brother's chatter just wash over him. "Yeah, played for the Atlanta Braves back in the 80's. So-so player."

"Oh." Sam cocked his head, storing the information. "Well, apparently this is his hometown."

Dean looked up at that. "No way. Huh." He shrugged, returned his attention to the tapes.

"Anyway," Sam gave himself a mental shake. "Down in this weird little museum they actually have a thigh bone from an Indian burial mound on display."

Dean's hands on the cassette tapes stilled, but he did not look up. "Huh," he said again, softly.

"There was a woman buried just south of here, buried with all kinds of things to help her in the next life; clay pots, leather carry alls, necklaces, and..." Sam paused for effect, "The bodies of ten dogs." When there was no response from Dean, Sam looked up. "Dean? You listening?"

Dean raised his head, looked at Sam. His face was suddenly tired. "Yeah, I'm listening."

"So the guys who dug all this stuff up, just farmers and guys like that, they never called anybody about it, you know, archeologists or scientists, they just dug it up and kept it. But one guy, this Zeke Steele dude, he asks around, asks all his Indian buddies, and finds out this creepy legend." Sam paused, scanned his notebook. "The Seneca Indians believed that dogs were as smart as people, only they couldn't talk, and dogs were treated very well by the people. But this one family, the wife didn't want to feed the dogs, so she kept the meat for herself."

"Sam…" Dean's voice was barely a whisper.

But Sam was caught, was in the flow, was enjoying the story, his brown eyes alight with the sheer joy of knowing. "But somehow, the dogs' magic caused her to cut herself when she was cutting up the meat, so she sucks on her finger to stop the bleeding." Sam flicked a glance at Dean, his imagination caught by the vision of the woman sucking on her finger. "And Dean, she liked it. Ewwww."

Dean's reply smile was tired, but there, and Sam grinned at him before bending back to his notebook. "So she cuts off the rest of her fingers, just to suck the blood, and then she's starts just carving pieces of herself off of her own body, I mean, gross."

"Yeah, but Sam…" Dean again, his voice louder, trying to stop Sam.

By this time Sam had the bit in his teeth and was coming down the homestretch. "So then she wonders what it would be like to eat other people's blood, so she kills and eats her own child." A flash of the grotesque bulletin board at the library, the peeling layers of missing children. Sam paused, lifted his head to stare into the middle distance, the red light of the setting sun playing across his face.

Dean, watching him, was mute.

Sam blinked, and turned back to Dean. The joy of knowledge that had first lit his face had subsided into something akin to pain. "The dogs warn the husband before he gets home, and he gathers the warriors of the tribe and they kill the mother. She's buried with ten of the tribe's fiercest dogs to guard her." Silence. The house creaked and settled around them as the air began to cool with the coming of night.

The door opened, and John was there, holding a bag of groceries, his dark eyes going to Sam first, instantly angry. "Sam," he barked, and Sam, who had watched the door open, had seen his father, jumped anyway. His eyes slid to Dean, sitting with a ducked head, then back to his father, feeling somehow caught. "More groceries in the car. Go get them."

"Yes, sir." Sam brushed by his father, the feeling he had been fighting all day suddenly pushing forward, letting itself be known. Something Sam did not normally feel towards his father, that hot and heavy something that had crouched behind his eyes and now taking up residence in the middle of his chest.

He grabbed brown sacks out of the back of the Impala roughly, trying to hold more than his arms could handle. One bag fell to the ground, jarring open a bottle of ketchup and shooting red across the brown lawn. "Fuck!" Sam said, louder than was warranted, and in frustration slammed the other bags to the ground.

"Sam!" John was on the porch, watching him with a furrowed brow. "What the hell's into you?"

The hot and heavy ball that had become Sam's heart tore itself free, forced itself up and into his mouth. "I'm SORRY! I'm SORRY I called the fucking ambulance, okay? Can we move on now!?!" The force of his emotion making him throw his arms out, bend his knees like he was preparing for a battle.

And John was right there, was able to match his anger, his dark eyes narrowed, one hand grabbing Sam's shirt collar. "Sorry isn't good enough! Goddamnit, you don't call for help! We take care of our own!"

Distantly, a fleeting thought of surprise at how angry he was, how he wanted to kill something. "But you weren't THERE, were you! No one was THERE to take care!" Sam fumbled at his father's hand, fisted like a stone in his shirt, trying to pry it away. "How long did Dean just lay there and BLEED?"

The air seemed to reverberate with the shouts, echoing around them, father and son caught in an invisible tornado of emotion. "But you were there, Sam. You were there." John's voice was low, more dangerous than a shout.

And Sam choked on what he wanted to say next, what he couldn't say next, because Dean was standing in the doorway, clutching the doorjamb, eyes glittering. John's grip had relaxed, and Sam was able to tear away from his grasp, stepping backward towards the road. Throwing his arms out again, in a gesture to encompass the entire town. "And what about this, Dad?"

"What about what?" Sam could sense his father's emotion had spent itself, though more than a spark of anger remained in John's face.

"This town? Twenty kids gone missing? The dogs last night?"

And John turned away from him, anger making his movements jerky and stiff. "We can't bother with that now."

"Can't bother with…." Sam looked at him in disbelief. His father ignoring a hunt? The world seemed to shift on its axis.

"That's right, Sam. We can't bother with it. You called the ambulance, remember?" He swung around again to look at Sam, one foot on the steps up to the porch. "Remember the cops? Remember taking Dean out of the hospital AMA? We're still too close to Vicksburg to draw any attention to ourselves." He glanced up at Dean, at the arm his son held tight against broken ribs, a punctured lung. "We're not in any shape to hunt right now." He paused a moment, his mouth open to say more, but he shook his head and finished mounting the steps, moving past Dean and into the house.

The sun had dipped below the horizon, dying rays still lighting the sky. The heat had lessened with the sun's absence, the air softer now, and a few crickets had begun to sing. Sam stood on the dead lawn, his heart thumping, spent from emotion.

"C'mon, Sam." Dean's voice was soft, tired. "Come and eat."

Sam moved across the lawn silently, up the steps to Dean, putting an arm gingerly around his brother's waist in a quick hug. Apologizing for what he had wanted to say, words to hurt his father, words that would have killed Dean. But I didn't want to be there. Dean was quiet in his grasp, allowing the contact. Without a word, the brothers went into the house, Sam settling Dean gently on the couch.

John was standing at the kitchen table, gazing down at the notebook Sam had left open. Sam stilled himself when he saw what John was looking at, watching his father with a mixture of hope and anxiety. John was touching the notebook with the tips of his fingers, and Sam saw the crude drawing he had made of the Indian woman under his father's hand.

With a sign, John closed the notebook.