CHAPTER FOUR

"Wake up, bitch," Dean demanded, giving Sam a light kick on the shin as he thudded the Nevada book down on the small table. "We got work to do."

Sam blinked his eyes hard, as though that could drive the sleep away. He didn't remember passing out at all, just sitting at the keyboard, doing some research, and then taking a small break…which would explain why he had fallen asleep. He stared at the book in front of him through blurry eyes, trying to focus on the illusive title. Nevada? Why was Dean giving him a history book? He reached out and pulled it towards him, cracking the stiff spine open as he heard the dull click of the refrigerator door opening. He rubbed his eye quickly and batted his eyelids, then looked down at the page he had opened. The Civil War in Nevada. What that had to do with stampeding horses, he couldn't say. "What is this?" he asked, his voice still laced through with sleep.

Dean looked over at him from the mini fridge as he popped the top off a pair of Heinekens. "Morning princess!" he said enthusiastically, slipping into the seat across from Sam. "How's thing's up in your ivory tower, Sleeping Beauty?"

Sam ignored him and continued turning the book's light, glossy pages. It looked like a relatively new volume, which he could honestly say they didn't come across too often in their line of work. "Did you find them?" he asked instead, running his finger over a section labelled 'Mines and Miners.' "What's with the textbook?" he added, flipping the cover shut.

"I found Ed in the library, hovering over that…thing," he said, waving vaguely at the book. "He said it was a stampede of horses in the Silver Horse ranch field thingy."

"Yeah, but we knew that," Sam said, looking out at Dean disapprovingly.

"Yeah I'm getting to it wise guy," Dean snapped sarcastically. "Now shut up and listen. Apparently a fog rolled in and brought the ponies with it. They didn't hear them coming or going. One second they were there, the next they were gone. And they were being chased by a whooping cowboy apparently, which sounds like a bad porn."

Sam looked back down at the book. "Sounds like typical ghost stuff," he muttered. "So why the book?"

"I dunno. Whatever it is, the kid didn't want anyone seeing it. So! Your job to figure out what's going on with it."

Sam popped the cover open again. "Okay, I'll look through it later. Anything else or that's it?"

"Oh yeah. He kept saying something about some Annie Wilde chick. No idea who that is. And we should probably go talk to Mrs. R at some point," he noted, remembering how Ed had seemed to justify everything with a breezy 'you know Annie'.

"Who's Mrs. R?" Sam asked blandly as Dean finally offered him the second beer. He took it more than willingly and quaffed it uncharacteristically. He was thirsty. With his free hand he threw open the heavy hard-cover book and turned it around. He felt at the inside of the back cover, looking for anything that might bulge out to reveal…what? A note maybe. A map? A birth certificate? Anything would be nice. Just some sort of random clue. Something was better than nothing, after all.

"Mrs. Regina Dempsie. She's got a kid that goes to school with these guys apparently," Dean remarked, shrugging his heavy leather jacket off of his shoulders and dumping it on the stool by the window. "She runs a B'n'B or something, which owns the field all these kids were nailed at."

"Dude, seriously? The closet's right there," Sam said with bitter annoyance as he gave up on the inside covers. Dean gave him an exasperated look and an angry growl, but picked up the jacket and threw it into the closet. Sam was about to suggest a hanger, but quickly gave up on a lost cause. "Okay, so who's Annie Wilde?" he asked instead, averting his dark eyes from Dean's. If he looked, he knew he wouldn't be able to resist poking at him to hang the jacket up.

Dean opened his mouth, then shut it and sucked in a breath through his teeth. "I dunno. I didn't ask," he said, a hint of disguised regret in his voice.

Sam stared at him with irritation and disbelief. "Why?" he asked simply.

"The kid was getting on my nerves! You know how much these teeny boppers talk Sam? Do you? Most of it doesn't even make sense! It's like there aliens or something with their creepy little squeaky cracky voices and their acne and – you just wanna – ugh!" he said, making a stabbing motion with his hand. "He had a picture of the freaking Jonas Brothers in his binder man. The Jonas Brothers! So not only is he a scary tween, but he's a gay scary tween with bad taste in men! I mean Brad Pitt, yes. Leonardo DiCaprio's kind of a douche, but a sexy douche. The Jonas Brothers?"

"Yeah, okay Dean," Sam said, cutting his rant short. He stuffed his computer into his bag and tucked the heavy Nevada book into the crook of his elbow. Quickly, he swung his bag over his shoulder and started towards the door.

"Woah, where are you going? We got work to do. You got research and…nerd stuff," Dean said.

"Yeah, well, I can't do my nerd stuff with Grey's Anatomy blaring out of the tv, so I'm going to the library and I'm gonna do some real research, okay?" Sam said irritably, pulling the door open and heading out. "Meet me at the diner in an hour."

"It's Doctor Sexy, Doctor Cranky!" Dean called back lamely as Sam shut the door behind him.