I apologize for taking so long to post this next chapter. I get sidetracked easily. There will be one more chapter after this, but I don't know when I'll get it finished. I doubt there are too many avid readers that are dying to find out what I'll write next anyway. This is more for my own entertainment. All else aside, I give you Chapter 2, and no, I own nothing.
Several hours later all four hunters were spread out across two tables in the reference section of the Paradox Library, books piled all around them. Sam glanced over at Dean, who'd been staring at the same spot in his current volume for nearly ten minutes, and nudged him. The older brother jumped and snorted.
"I'm awake," Dean muttered.
Sam rolled his eyes. "Find out anything interesting besides the fact that you can sleep with your eyes open?"
"How do you keep your eyes from rolling back in your head?" asked Rain. "I've been trying to figure that out for ages."
"You do look really creepy with just the whites of your eyes showing," Claire added. She passed her book over to Sam, pointing to a specific paragraph. "There's a ranch that looked into buying the land abutting the national forest last year, but the government denied the sale due to the fact that wild horses were living on the property."
"According to law you can't develop land that has wild horses living on it," Sam added. "Guess the ranchers didn't want to give up that easily. They either chase off or kill the horses, and the ranchers can put a claim on the land again."
Rain frowned. "Wait, I've seen this before..."
"Suddenly psychic, are we?" Dean grumbled.
"No, A-Team rerun on TV Land."
"Ooo! I remember that one!" exclaimed Claire. "That's the one where they build the catapult out of the car frame, old pipes, and garage door springs, right?"
"No, that's not the one."
"Aww, but I wanted to build a catapult!"
Sam interrupted. "Why would we even need a catapult?"
"We could aim it at the rancher's car!" Rain said with a glint in her eye.
"Figures you would find the one target in the middle of nowhere that could explode," muttered Claire.
Dean thought for a moment. "I think we're going to have a problem with this job."
"Why?" asked Sam. "We have a good idea as to what's provoking the Night Mare, now we just need the evidence to prove that the ranchers are breaking the law."
"That's not what I mean. I don't know how to handle a job that doesn't involve killing something. And I'm not sure about the pyromaniac and her catapult obsessed sister either."
"Aww, poor thing," Rain cooed as she pet Dean's head.
The older Winchester tried to swat the redhead's hand away. "What are you doing?!"
Rain continued to rub her fingers in his hair. "It's so soft—like a baby duck!"
"You're creeping me out. But that does feel sorta good…"
"What's the ranch owner's name?" asked Sam, trying to ignore Dean and Rain.
Claire stared at the report. "I don't know whether I should roll my eyes or laugh. We need to look up Billy Bob Cahill at Cahill Circle Ranch. It's just outside Paradox city limits."
"Ok, let's go talk to Billy Bob. Who wants to drive?"
Sam rolled his eyes as Claire snickered at Dean nodding off while Rain continued scritching his head. "Dude, you have to try this," the older Winchester muttered as his eyes drifted closed.
"Well, since you guys already drove that means it's our turn," said Claire with a glint in her eye, "and Rain seems too preoccupied to drive…"
"Touch my baby and die!" the redhead growled.
"OW!" Dean yelled. "No nails in my scalp!"
Half an hour later the Mustang pulled up the dirt lane leading to the Cahill Ranch. Dean twitched in the back seat, but whether it was from being cooped up in the back seat of a car that wasn't the Impala or from Claire's butchering every song on the radio Sam wasn't sure. Rain tried to drown her sister out with threats with little success.
"Next time I agree to work with other hunters," Dean muttered, "hit me, please."
Sam grinned. "Consider it done."
Rain pulled the Mustang over behind a small stand of trees out of sight of the main house and cut the engine. Dean sighed in relief and practically leaped from the car.
"Ok," Dean said, pointing at the sisters, "you two go distract Billy Bob while we sneak around back to his office and see what we can find."
"Rain can never look innocent," said Claire. "She has this permanent Cheshire grin that puts everyone on edge."
"Good point. We'll send the two harmless looking ones as distraction while Rain and I break in the back."
"Wait!" Claire threw a box at Dean. "Take the essentials for a B&E."
He read the label on the box. "Rubber gloves?"
"Actually, they're nitrile. They're hypoallergenic."
"Don't you have any confidence in our skills? Billy Bob won't notice anyone was in his office."
"Hey, I've got a degree in forensic science. I'm a little paranoid as to the information CSI has been peddling to the public."
Rain grabbed a pair of gloves out of the box. "Besides, they're pretty purple!"
"And the last thing we need is our fingerprints, especially yours, getting found," added Sam.
"Hey, I'm the one who's legally dead," Dean said. "It'll just screw with the cops if they do dust for prints."
The redhead's eyes lit up. "You have to tell me how you managed that!"
"Figures," muttered Claire. "As soon as I tell you I won't use my education for evil you go run off to strangers for help."
"Fine," Dean grumbled. "If it'll stop your rambling I'll take the gloves."
"Hey, I got a good idea for a distraction," said Rain, "if you need one. It doesn't even require acting on Claire's part."
"Do you remember what happened with your last distraction?" Claire said, glaring at her sister.
"Oh, don't complain. You know you liked all the attention. This one is much better anyway. I got the idea from the library even."
"Really?" asked Sam, intrigued. "What is it?"
"I'm going to kill my sister," growled Claire. She had pulled her hair back into pigtails and stuck hot pink flower decals on her jeans, giving the overall effect that she was about fifteen. "I look like a moron."
"I think you look cute," Sam said as they climbed the steps to the farmhouse.
"Really?"
"No, you look like an idiot."
"You're next on my hit list, buddy."
Sam smiled and rang the doorbell, ending their conversation. A few moments later a woman in a flannel shirt and jeans with silver-frosted brown hair answered the door. "May I help you?"
"Hi, we saw the flyer for free kittens at the library," said Sam. "My little sister here would really like to see them if you have any left."
The woman smiled. "Of course we do, sweetie! Come on, they're out in the barn." Sam and Claire followed her across the yard towards the building with chickens and goats milling around outside it. Inside one of the stalls was a pile of hay with half a dozen kittens leaping around.
"Kitties!" Claire squealed. She jumped into the middle of the stall and scooped up the nearest kitten. "They're so cute!"
The woman laughed. "I see she's going to take a while to decide. So, I'm Beth Cahill. Who might you be?"
"Sam and Claire Harnett," answered Sam. "We just moved into town."
"Like it so far?"
"Oh yeah. Actually, our dad's looking into getting a few animals now that we have the space. Would you happen to have any horses up for sale?"
"That's what we're known for, but you'll want to talk to my husband. He handles all the sales around here."
"Could I talk to him?"
"Sure, as soon as he gets back from fixing the fences on the west side of the ranch."
"Great!" Dean read the text message from Sam. "We're clear for now."
"Though I don't know why that matters," said Rain. "We already broke into the office. I'll take that file cabinet over there."
Dean sat down at the oak desk and started rifling through the drawers. "What exactly are we looking for? I've never had to stop Flicka from getting sent to the glue factory."
"Actually, a lot of wild horses get sent overseas for their meat these days."
"I knew there was something weird about Chicken McNuggets."
"Those are kangaroo, not horse. Either way there should be invoices or other papers showing cargo of some sort going out of the country. A horse ranch tends not to export that far, at least not in large quantities."
"What if Cahill is just telling his ranch hands to shoot the mustangs on sight?"
"Ranches are going the way of the dodo. There's a lot more profit in rounding up mustangs for illegal sale than killing them outright, and far more than he'd get selling the horses off as pets. Mustangs are small so that only kids and Claire can ride them."
Dean found and flipped through Cahill's day planner. "How would Cahill move the mustangs? Horse trailers are a bit conspicuous."
"By train most likely. It's the fastest way to ship large cargo over land." Rain pulled out a file folder and shuffled through its contents. "Here are all the reports of mustang sightings in the area. Stark, Hamilton, Loggins…these are all the names of the 'hikers' who died."
"That just proves the Night Mare is linked to this. I'm betting that Billy Bob decided to cover up the deaths as hiking accidents to throw the authorities off his trail."
"Poor horses," Rain muttered. She returned the folder and pulled out what looked to be a rolled up poster. She spread it out on the desk, revealing a map of the area. "There's a rail road spur that cuts just north of here. I bet that Cahill plans on herding them in that direction."
"And he's shipping them out tomorrow night." He handed the planner to Rain. He tapped at a set of numbers. "Those are probably the coordinates of the pickup."
"That doesn't give us a whole lot of time to call the Bureau of Land Management. And we need to talk to Claire about the legal end of this to make sure we don't get mixed up in the resulting arrests."
"Finally, Sam gets to use his fine college education. He's pre law."
"Funny how the so-called good children end up being the ones that help out their criminal mastermind siblings, driving the getaway car, posting bail, figuring out the little legal loopholes…"
Sam's cell phone buzzed in his pocket. "Sorry," he muttered to Beth as he answered it.
"We got what we need, Sam," Dean's voice answered at the other end. "You and Claire can meet us back at the car."
"Ok, Dad, but Claire hasn't picked out a kitten yet."
"Dad? Don't ever call me that again! Get your asses back to the car."
Sam resisted the urge to grin as he held the phone away from his mouth. "Claire, Dad says we've got to get home now. Leave the kittens."
"No!" wailed Claire, clutching a black ball of fur to her chest. "I was promised a kitten! He can't back out now after missing my birthday."
"Claire, you're making things up." Sam gave the blonde a weird look to get her to stop taking the act so seriously. "We have to get home to dinner. We can come back later when Dad can come look at the horses."
"I'm getting a kitten now!"
"Dude, I don't care if you drag her out kicking and screaming, just get out of there!" Dean growled into the phone.
"I don't believe this," Dean grumbled later in the back seat of the Mustang.
"Hey, you weren't the one who had to pry her fingers off the barn door," retorted Sam. "I don't think I've ever been so embarrassed in my life. How old are you anyway, Claire?"
"Twenty-two, if you must know," the blonde replied from the front seat.
"You're my age and you still act like you're two?"
"Hey, two-year-olds don't have a death grip like mine. And it's not my fault that you tried the hard way first."
Sam leaned forward to talk to Rain. "Don't you have any sway over your sister?"
"Only if I can use my fists on her at the time," the redhead replied. "Besides, I side with her on this one."
Claire turned around in her seat. "How can you say no to this face?" She held up the black kitten she'd wrangled from the Cahill ranch. "Isn't he cute?"
The kitten immediately jumped out of her hands and into Dean's lap. He tried to swat the animal away, but it leaped onto the back shelf and started licking his eyelid.
"Oh yeah, it's just adorable how Snowball's trying to eat my eyes."
Sam snickered as Claire said, "He's just showing his affection, and his name isn't Snowball. I have more imagination than that."
"What are you naming him anyway?" asked her sister.
"I don't know, but something better than Shadow or Blackie. I was thinking Ichabod, as in The Legend of Sleepy Hollow."
"Licky Icky," muttered Dean, "I think that fits." He dumped the kitten in Sam's lap in the hope it would like his brother's eyes better than his.
"Eh, it's ok," Rain said, ignoring the older Winchester. "How about Jinx or Mojo?"
"Ooo, Juju! I want to call him Juju!" Claire exclaimed.
"So when he does something wrong you can yell, 'Bad Juju'?"
"Exactly! Though Mojo would work the same way."
"Can we please forget the hairball for one minute and talk about the real issue at hand?" interrupted Dean. "Remember the Night Mare and the horse slaughter?"
"Yeah, yeah, I'll call the BLM as soon as we get back into town, ok?" said Rain.
Dean leaned towards his brother. "I think we're going slow enough that if we open the doors, tuck and roll, we should hit the ground well enough to walk back to the hotel. What do you say?"
"I'd rather take the ride, thanks," replied Sam. He scratched the kitten behind its ears, causing it to purr loudly.
"Stupid cat. You actually want to listen to this insanity?"
"No, I just like watching you suffer."
"I hate you."
Sam laughed while Dean tried to open the car door.
"You sound like a chipmunk when you laugh!" Claire said as she reached around the seat to take her kitten back.
Dean left the door alone and shot his now sulking brother a shit-eating grin. "Maybe it won't be so bad after all."
Once they got back to the hotel, Rain dropped off the Winchesters while she and Claire went out to buy supplies for the kitten and to call the Bureau of Land Management. Dean flopped on his bed and groaned. "Talk about a draining day. I can understand why mental hospital workers snap."
"I keep wondering how long those sisters will last once we leave them to their own devices," Sam said as he took a chair. "They have no idea what they're doing."
"I think they're more homicidal than suicidal, but they're not our problem once the BLM takes care of Billy Bob. Figures the easiest case supernaturally is the most frustrating."
"Makes you glad that you just have me to deal with?" Sam grinned.
"I see now that it could be worse…much worse. I say we head over to the diner for some food. I'm starving."
"Yeah, let's enjoy the peace and quiet while it lasts."
About an hour later Claire and Rain entered Banjo's Kitchen just as Dean was finishing off the last of his French fries. Thankfully the kitten was nowhere to be seen, but the sisters argued the entire way to the Winchesters' table.
"No, this is where the A-Team parallels end!" Claire said. "Let the authorities deal with it like we planned."
"I told you, we can't wait that long!" insisted Rain.
"What's up?" asked Sam as the sisters slid into the booth.
The redhead sighed. "I called the BLM, but they said they can't get an agent over here for another two or three days. By then the mustangs will be on their way out as T-bone steaks."
"As lamentable as that is, I'd rather not risk capture or injury trying to release the horses into the wild and holding Cahill until the authorities can take him," said Claire. "Besides, how do we know that the Night Mare won't show up tomorrow night and at least maim the last of Cahill and his men?"
"We don't want anymore people killed," interrupted Sam.
"Speak for yourself," said Rain. "If I knew the Night Mare would be there to stop Billy Bob my conscience would be clear. Let's just kill him to be sure."
"I said no more killing people!"
"Yeah, and Cahill is a person, not people."
Claire said, "You need to be really specific about those technical things with Rain. She'll find any loophole imaginable."
"I am the weasel queen!" shouted Rain.
"I'm never taking you out in public again."
"You've been saying that for years, but you have yet to follow through."
Dean slammed down on the table with open hands, snapping all eyes to him. "Alright! Shut up for a minute so I can think!"
After a long pause, Claire murmured, "This would probably be a bad time to steal a fry, wouldn't it?"
Sam slid his plate in front of the blonde before Dean could retaliate. "Couldn't we call the cops with an anonymous tip, head over to the pickup, and make sure that the authorities at least take Cahill into custody? It would give the BLM enough time to get here and investigate the matter properly."
"But would the cops take it seriously is the question. There's no real solid evidence or even enough suspicion worth their time and effort."
"This is Mayberry," said Dean. "This is the kind of town where they'll pull over teenagers for Driving While Young."
"Hey, we grew up in a Mayberry. We'll test this theory of yours by calling in an anonymous tip tonight and see if the cops even consider it. That way we'll still have time to come up with another plan before the horses get shipped."
"This is mind numbing," muttered Claire. "Not to mention I can't feel my fingers anymore."
The four hunters huddled in the woods on the edge of Cahill Circle Ranch, watching the clearing that was serving as the pickup point for any suspicious activity. Once night had settled the temperature dropped drastically, reminding them that it was still on the winter side of spring.
"This was your idea, remember?" hissed Dean, his breath sending fog in the blonde's direction.
"No, it was Sam's. Speaking of which, you gave the right coordinates to the cops, Sam?"
"Positive," he answered. "Maybe they don't know how to interpret those anymore. Still, I told them it was on Cahill's property."
"I'm betting the cops went to his house and tipped him off."
"I'm freezing too," said Rain. "And bored. I say we split up and see if we can find some evidence of corrals or something used to contain the horses. Cahill might even have them penned up somewhere if they're being shipped out tomorrow night. Anything to feel my feet."
"But the cops could be out looking for the horses as well," Sam protested. "They have probable cause. Dean and I can't get caught right now."
"I'm starting to think that Five-Oh decided to ignore your little tips," said Dean. "We're more likely to run into the bear again than local cops out here. Let's go."
Dean and Rain paired up and headed off toward the left of their current position while Sam and Claire went to the right. After walking through the brush for several minutes in silence, Claire asked Sam, "Do you think we should risk flashlights? I'm not too sure of where I'm heading anymore."
"We need to cut more to the left," Sam answered. "We're heading back towards the ranch house."
"Definitely not a good idea. You—hold on, I heard something." Claire cut into a patch of bushes, Sam trailing close behind. The two stumbled out into a moonlit clearing. At the center stood a corral filled with milling horses. A lone figure stood at the rail trying to pet the mustangs.
"Rain!" hissed Claire. "Stop that!"
"You suck the fun out of everything," whined Rain, continuing to reach for a horse.
"Where's Dean?" asked Sam. They all happened to stumble across the mustangs with no one around—this seemed far too easy.
Before the redhead could reply, a rough voice answered, "Don't worry about him. We've taken care of him."
Immediately Claire and Rain pulled out their weapons and scanned the tree line with Sam to find the voice's source. Six or seven forms all with shotguns or rifles aimed at the three emerged from the woods like shadows. A much larger figure tossed what looked to be a scarecrow, but once it fell into the light Sam could see it was Dean. His brother had a smear of something dark that glimmered in the moonlight—blood.
"What did you do to him?" demanded Sam.
"Just showed him that he overstepped his boundaries," replied the voice again. This time the three recognized the speaker as the figure to the left of the one that had dropped Dean.
"Cahill," growled Sam.
The speaker bowed slightly. "You have me at a disadvantage of names, but it doesn't matter. You're the ones who've obviously watched too much Scooby Doo and called the cops on my operation. What you kids didn't think of was that the police know I'm a pillar of the community, and they'd come right to my door to ask if there was any truth in your anonymous tip."
Claire and Rain groaned. "We should've seen that one coming."
"Now, drop your weapons before I give the order to shoot."
Reluctantly the three dropped their guns, and Cahill's men rushed in to take the discarded weapons. After all three were patted down, Cahill's men proceeded to tie their hands behind their backs.
"Lock them up," Cahill barked as the men prodded their guns into Claire, Rain, and Sam's backs to get them moving towards a dirt track into the woods. One of the men hefted Dean under his arms and dragged his unconscious form after the rest.
"You're not going to kill us?" asked Claire.
Cahill laughed. "What am I, stupid? I may have the cops in my pocket, but they won't overlook four obvious murders. However, they'll ignore the claims of four kids on spring break that the Man of the Year is slaughtering wild horses for profit."
Around a corner in the path a large refrigerated truck sat parked, the back doors flung wide to reveal inky blackness. The three were shoved into the back of the truck while Dean was tossed in behind them. The doors slammed shut and the lock clanged in place.
"Well, we're screwed," Claire observed.
"Ya think?" retorted Sam.
To be concluded…
