"What the hell, Tanner? What did you do to her?" Tanner smiled broadly in return, and Dean's hand twitched towards his gun, but Sam quietly put a restraining hand on his arm, and he took a breath, stuffing his hand in his pocket.

"I'm sure I have no idea what you mean, Sheriff. Calliope and I have just had some time to sit down and really talk over things, and she finally agreed that this is where she belongs. Does she seem unhappy to you? Does she act like she's being kept here against her will? She just came to the conclusion that she belongs here, as the mistress of this house."

"You son of a ..."

"I'll thank you to mind your tone and your language in front of my future wife, Winchester," Tanner said softly, his eyes darkening and his tone filled with menace. His smile widened again at the shock on Dean's face. "Yes, that's right. Come this Saturday, Calliope will be Mrs. Charles Tanner. So your fears for her safety are unfounded now. I will take good care of her, Sheriff, better than you have. At least in my company, she won't be in danger of being shot."

"Speaking of that, Tanner, we need to question your men. We just stopped in to let you know we were going to be on your property while we do that." Sam had sidestepped a little in front of his brother, the fingers of one hand tightening painfully on Dean's forearm, which had been inching back towards his gun. "So we'll get out of your hair for now." He nodded curtly to Tanner, then turned towards Dean. "Let's go," he whispered, a warning glint in his eye, and Dean reluctantly followed after flashing one more homicidal glare Chuck's direction.

"Oh, are they leaving? But I just asked Cook to bring in some coffee," Callie said, disappointment in her voice as she entered the room.

"It's all right, honey. They had some law business to attend to. You were a perfect hostess, as always." She smiled brightly down at him, leaning over to kiss his cheek as he stared at the door swinging shut behind the Winchesters, a supercilious smile on his face.

They had barely cleared the front gate when Dean grabbed Sam's arm and jerked, whirling his brother around as he stepped up to him, chin raised defiantly. "Sam, what the hell!"

Sam shoved at Dean's chest, moving back a step. "Dean, you can't just shoot him, no matter how much you want to. We still don't know exactly what's going on..."

"The hell we don't! This has 'witch' written all over it. That wasn't Callie in there. She'd never..." He broke off and turned his back for a moment, fists clenched in frustration, taking a breath before facing Sam again. "There's no way she'd be acting like that on her own, Sam. There's something witchy going on, and you know it."

"I know, Dean. But for all we know, he might not be acting alone. And we don't know what kind of spell we're up against, or how to counter it. We don't know jack shit. So going off half-cocked isn't gonna help. You're the one who's always saying we go in smart, or we don't go in at all. So just calm down, let's talk to his men and see if we can get any information from them. Okay?" Dean dropped his gaze to the ground, his jaw working, silent for a moment before reluctantly nodding. Sam's voice softened a little as he spoke again. "Look, I know you're worried about her. But he wants to marry her, and he's not gonna hurt her. We just have to focus on figuring out how to fix this."

"Well, then, let's get to work." Dean's no-nonsense stride carried him towards the bunkhouse, and Sam followed, his hazel eyes troubled.

It was mid-afternoon when Dean turned to the ranch foreman, his disposition not improved by the unsuccessful questioning of almost twenty men. "Is that the last?" he growled, and the foreman rubbed the back of his neck, sighing wearily.

"Only one left is Walker. He's been out fixin' fence, but I can ride out after him if you need me to, Sheriff." Truth be told, he just wanted away from the man, who seemed almost on the edge of shooting someone just for the hell of it.

"Yeah, we need you to. We need to question every last man on the place." The man ducked his head in the affirmative, then breathed a sigh of relief as he left the room. Sam looked at Dean as they heard the horse leave the yard in a fast trot, waiting for Dean to meet his gaze. "What?" Dean muttered, taking off his hat and running his fingers roughly through his hair.

"You getting anything out of this?"

Dean sighed, frustrated. "Not a fucking thing. Sounds like Tanner's a good-natured dumbass until somebody pisses him off, and then..."

"Yeah."

Dean was absently toying with his gun when Walker finally walked into the room. The man looked like he was attending his own execution, and Dean narrowed his eyes, holding the pistol up to sight Walker at the end of the barrel, lowering it slowly as the man's face blanched. "You Walker?" he asked, his tone low and menacing.

"I'm Ethan Walker," he responded, unable to hide the quiver in his voice.

"Sit down," Sam ordered, pointing at a chair across from Dean. "We've got some questions for you."

"I don't know nothin'. I just fix the fences."

"Bullshit." Dean rose to his feet as he half-shouted the word, and Walker jumped at the sound. "You used to be joined at the hip with Tanner. Then I get shot at, and suddenly all you do around here is ride fences. What happened, Walker? Tanner get pissed when you accidentally shot Miss Dalton?"

Walker took off his hat, rubbing over his thinning hair nervously. "No, sir. I never shot at nobody. That was Tad Smith, not me. I didn't have nothin' to do with that."

Dean leaned against a nearby wall, his arms folded over his chest. "Uh-huh."

"Sheriff, I'm tellin' the truth! I didn't shoot at you! It was Smith, and Tanner..." Walker's voice was shaking, and he stopped for a moment. "Tanner killed him. I saw it. Cut his throat. Then he made me take him out and bury him. He ain't let me near the house since that night."

Dean lowered his chin to his chest, leveling a stare Walker's direction. "What else have you seen Tanner do?" The man's eyes widened a little, and he began to shake his head.

"No. If I... No. He'll kill me." He jumped, fear in his eyes, as Dean slammed both palms down on the table, glaring down at him.

"And what do you think I'll do if you don't talk?"

"But... but... but you're the law."

Dean shrugged. "Yeah, well, I never was good with rules."

"I think you'd better answer the question." Sam spoke softly, standing right behind Walker, and the terrified man froze, on the edge of an all-out breakdown. "He killed those kids," he whispered. "He killed 'em, and he took their blood, and he does things with it. Puts it in a bowl with some other stuff and says words over it. One time... one time I saw him conjure up a spirit, and another time... I swear he... he..." Walker looked up at Dean, his eyes wide. "Sheriff, I swear to God - there was two of him."

They went over everything they'd learned about Tanner's place that night at the Sheriff's office, making plans to enter the property from the back and cut their way through the fence that surrounded the house. The only men they'd have to deal with there would be the brainless muscle Tanner had posted at the house, and once they were taken care of, they'd have half a chance to get near enough to see what was going on. Dean frowned down at their makeshift map as Sam spoke softly. "Do you think he's duplicating himself? Making a doppelganger to give himself an alibi?"

"One way to keep himself out of trouble, I guess. I hope Walker takes our advice and gets the hell out of there before Tanner finds out he talked. Doesn't sound like he'd take that too well," Dean answered, still focused on the paper in front of him.

"What do we do once we get in, Dean? We don't have a clue how to undo the spells."

Dean sighed, straightening up to stretch his arms over his head. "I don't know, Sammy. Usually we burn the hex bag, and that's it. But he's using blood spells, binding things to himself. The only way to end that might be to kill him."

Sam stared into his brother's eyes for a moment, then finally nodded slowly. "Yeah. You're probably right."

"I know according to history that's gonna fuck up Wyoming politics, but there's nothing we can do about it. We just have to hope it doesn't mess up the future too bad." He looked at Sam, shaking his head. "Time travel, man."

"Yeah." Sam chewed his lip for a moment before speaking again softly. "Dean, you know when this is over... We have to leave. You're gonna have to leave her. Are you ready for that?" He watched as his older brother's jaw worked, ready for the glare that was aimed his way next.

"Doesn't really matter, does it?" Dean looked back down at the table, and Sam took a deep breath, opting to stay silent. "Cas needs to know what's going on. Just in case. Maybe you should take care of that and stop fuckin' mothering me." The quiet tone of his voice belied his words, and Sam put a hand on his shoulder, giving it a rough pat before he headed outside.

The next morning they headed into the Silver Birch for breakfast, neither of them really hungry, but there was a lot of time to kill before dark. Dean went to the kitchen to get their food, letting Griz know that Callie was unhurt, and the old man almost teared up at the news. "Thanks, Sheriff. I was gettin' mighty worried. And Smitty, here... well, he's been drivin' me 'bout crazy." Dean smiled, grabbing their plates and heading back out to the saloon. Smitty followed with two cups of coffee, and they ate in relative silence for most of the meal.

The day seemed to last an eternity. Dean's guns were gleaming, Sam swore to himself that even the bullets had been polished, and the edge of his knife could split a hair. Sam had gone over their hand-drawn map so many times the lines were blurred, trying to fine-tune their plan, sketchy as it was. But it was the best they had, their one shot at taking Tanner down.