Chapter 10 Firsts

There is only one thing more painful than learning from experience, and that is not learning from experience. ~Laurence J. Peter

1991. Why, Arizona.

Even in the early morning, the sun was strong, beating down on the boys as they walked along the dusty road's shoulder, the air still and dry. Ahead of them, the land humped up, curving away as it followed the mostly dry riverbed, the vegetation changing where water ran and pooled. A scraggly line of saplings and twisted trees showed the trail head, leading between them and the rise of the broken rock wall.

Dean ran his hands along the smooth wooden stock of the gun he carried and over the shortened barrels. He'd made it – well, modified it – last year, just before Christmas, and it was the best thing he owned.

"Come on, Sam!" he yelled impatiently, looking back down the trail. Sam appeared a second later from around the bend, carrying his .22 and a satchel of ammunition.

"Where are we going?" He looked around as he came up to his brother.

"Just a bit further on."

They walked away from the river, the trail meandering through a scraggly line of stunted trees and came out into an open clearing, bounded on three sides by more trees, and on the fourth by the sheer rise of a rock wall.

Dean looked at the rock wall with satisfaction; it would be a good place to practice against. Setting up a dozen rocks along a ledge, Dean took the .22 first and knocked them all off, then Sam practiced. Neither boy noticed the figure under the trees, watching them.

"The rocks aren't much good for target shooting with this," Dean said as he broke the shotgun and loaded it. He looked around for something else. Sam hunkered down by the edge of the wall as he saw small heaps of soft ochre rock, picking up a large chunk. He walked to the wall and drew a line experimentally, smiling a little as the crumbling rock left a distinct lighter-coloured outline against the wall. Drawing a rough outline of a man against the face, he looked back over his shoulder and called out, "Dean! What about this?"

Dean looked up, eyes widening as he looked at the target. He grinned. "Awesome!"

He waited for Sam to get behind him. The boom of the gun was lessened by the short length of the barrel, and the older boy's aim kept the shot well within the outline. He reloaded and handed it to Sam, taking turns until the shells he'd brought ran out.

When the last echoes died away, they walked over to the wall, looking at the spread critically.

"Well, you two sure know how to kill rocks."

The light voice from behind startled them both. They spun around, Sam keeping the barrel down against his instinct.

"Yeah, well we're not allowed to practise on annoying people," Dean retorted, eyes narrowed as he took in the details of the girl standing a few feet away. She was as skinny as a rake, dressed in faded jeans and an embroidered cream cotton top, both slightly too big for her, white-blonde hair pulled back in a ponytail. Her skin was tan, making the cornflower-blue eyes seem bigger and brighter.

"You staying at the motel?" she asked, ignoring the comment. Dean, already annoyed that she'd been able to sneak up on them, and riled at the comment about the rocks, stiffened at the question.

"What's it to you?"

"Just asking. You're not from round here, and I'da known if you moved in." She shrugged carelessly. "How come you ain't in school?"

"How come you're not in school?" Sam asked, feeling his brother's belligerence.

"Home sick." She smiled.

"Yeah, you don't look sick to me," Dean sniffed.

"Not that kind of sick." She looked up, toward the sun, shading her eyes and squinting slightly. "What about you?"

"None of your business." He turned and stalked back to their gear.

"Where are you from?" Sam followed his brother more slowly.

"My daddy's got a ranch, over there." She pointed vaguely west. "We run cattle and horses."

"Can we see it?" he asked, thinking it would be more fun than hanging around with his brother, cleaning the guns all day.

She shook her head. "Nope. Not allowed to have visitors that Daddy doesn't know."

"Oh." Sam's shoulders slumped. "You got brothers or sisters?"

"Four sisters." She looked ahead at Dean, who was shoving the loose shells back in the bag. "He your brother?"

"Yeah." Sam followed her glance, lowering his voice a little. "He's just angry 'cos he didn't hear you coming. He doesn't really like surprises."

"Oh." She looked sideways at Sam. "Where your parents at?"

"Our dad is … doing his job, he's a salesman. Our mom died a long time ago."

"Sammy, shut it, she doesn't need to know our life history." Dean turned back to them, scowling at his brother.

"I wasn't telling her everything," Sam said mildly, picking up the satchel and slinging the strap over his shoulder.

"Yeah, well you talk too much." Dean huffed out an impatient exhale, glancing at the girl. "We gotta go."

She chewed the inside of her cheek. "Yeah? I'm sorry for startling you. I didn't mean to. Not much to do when everyone else is at school …"

Dean looked down at the ground, his anger dissolving at the apology and the wistful tone in her voice. "Mmm… okay, but we do have a lot to do -"

"No, we don't," Sam objected, looking back to the girl. "Do you know any good places to explore around here?"

Dean watched her expression change, lightening a little with hope. There wasn't much to do in the tiny town since they weren't going to be here long enough to go to school. The motel was ancient, the tv filled with static and the days could drag on. He knew Sammy was bored but he didn't want to get involved with the locals either.

"There's lots of stuff we can do, with three," Hannah was saying.

"What's your name?" Sam asked. "I'm Sam, this is Dean."

"Hannah," she told him, holding out her hand to Sam. "I'm real pleased to meet you, Sam."

"Sam …" Dean frowned at him. "We've got chores to do before Dad gets back."

"Not that much," Sam said dismissively, turning back to Hannah. "What kind of stuff?"

"Uh … we could track animals, or go to the river?" She thought about it quickly. "There's an old mine, but that's quite a ways away."

"We haven't done any tracking since Bobby's … it would be good practise, Dean," Sam said, turning to look at his brother. Anything related to hunting would be okay with his older brother, he knew. And anything would be more fun than sitting in the room, watching crap television and cleaning the guns.

Dean exhaled, loudly. "Oh, alright. But just for an hour, Sammy. Dad'll be angry if we don't have everything ready when he gets back." He gave his little brother a meaningful look. Sam nodded.

"Sure." He turned back to Hannah. "Where do we start?"

"Down by the river, we can track from where they drink back to where they live?" She looked from one to the other.

"Okay." Dean picked up the guns and nodded. It couldn't hurt to spend a bit of time on something useful. There would be a big difference between following tracks in the soft marsh country around Bobby's and here, in the desert, over sand and rock.

"What's that one?" Sam whispered as they crouched in the shrubs along the river's edge.

"Coyote." Hannah leaned over, brushing the spoor lightly with her fingers. She looked along the line of tracks. "It'll be up in the hills somewhere."

"What's this?" Dean looked down at the strange marks in the sand. Hannah walked over, and crouched next to him.

"Snake. Sidewinder," she said, glancing sideways at him. Sam walked over to them and looked down.

"You mean a rattlesnake?" He looked around at the scrubby grasses surrounding them.

"Yeah. Those ridges are where it pushes against the sand to move forward." She ran her fingertips lightly over the raised ridges. "It'll be long gone now, up into the rocks, looking for a place to keep cool. But they have to drink too."

"At least animals leave tracks," Dean said under his breath. Hannah looked at him, her brows rising.

"Everything leaves tracks, except birds."

He opened his mouth then closed it again, shaking his head. "Sure, yeah, that's what I meant."

Sam snorted and looked away. "What about these?" He looked down to the ground again.

"Rock squirrel." Hannah glanced over. "Do you want to track those?"

"Sure." Dean stood quickly. He didn't like having things to do hanging over his head. The sooner they tracked the squirrel and got on with what Dad had told them to do, the better he'd like it.

"You want to try first, Sam?" Hannah pointed in the direction the squirrel had gone. Sam nodded, and followed the tracks, clear in the soft sand and dirt that made up the river bank. He lost them once they got away from the river, the soil becoming gravelly and strewn with small rocks. He looked at Hannah in frustration.

"How am I supposed to follow it now?"

She grinned at him. "Boy, you're impatient. That's no good for tracking."

Crouching where the last clear toe print was, she looked around at the ground surrounding her. "Look around, look for bent grass, or a rock that's been knocked from elsewhere." She pointed to both. "Most creatures move in a pretty straight line from where they've been to where they're going, so you're really looking for clues, to make sure you're still on the same trail."

She duckwalked a few feet along the line the squirrel's tracks had made from the river, glancing over her shoulder to make sure she hadn't moved too far left or right from the original direction. Studying the ground again, she pointed to the clear impression of a paw, in a patch of sand between two larger rocks. "See?"

Sam nodded, and looked ahead, spotting a patch of flattened grass. He moved to it, and looked ahead again, this time spotting a pile of the animal's scat on another rock. He looked back to Hannah. She nodded encouragingly.

"Where'd you learn how to track like this?" Dean asked her, curiosity overcoming his animosity.

"My daddy was a trapper for a long time, up north, before he got the ranch. He can track a snake across bare rock. He used to teach me, before my mama died. Then he got too busy." She followed Sam's slow progress along the squirrel's trail with her eyes, her explanation fast and matter-of-fact.

Sam reached an open patch of gravel and stood, unable to see any further clues. Hannah and Dean came up behind him, looking across the patch.

"What do you think you should do?" she asked Sam, putting her hands on her hips and looking at him with a faintly challenging air.

Sam looked back the way they'd come, and then forward again. "Look around on the same line for more clues?"

She nodded, and walked across the gravel patch, stopping where it started to show sand and soil again. She looked down and let her eyes travel slowly along the edge. "This squirrel's smart," she said after a moment. "Changed direction on the gravel. We have to spread out, cast around both sides."

Sam looked at Dean, who shrugged. They turned and walked along the edges of the patch, looking for signs where the squirrel had left the gravel.

"Here, I think," Dean said, crouching and reaching out to touch a flattened clump of grass lightly. Hannah and Sam looked over his shoulder.

"Yep, that's it," Hannah said certainly.

Sam looked back to where the rabbit had entered the gravel, and then up to the flattened clump. He moved ahead along that line slowly, finding more clues in rocks that had been overturned, a patch of sand that had been sprayed over some rocks by the backward flick of a hindleg, some longer green grass that had clearly been nibbled on.

"Is this it?" He stopped and looked back at them, pointing ahead to a triangular crevice between two rocks. Hannah climbed up beside him, and smiled.

"Sure is. Good tracking."

Sam glanced back at Dean, grinning. "Told you it would be good practise."

Dean nodded and climbed past them, standing on a rock and looking around. They'd gained maybe two hundred feet, tracking the squirrel and he could see the line of the mostly-dry river bed, and beyond it, the town. He looked down at his shadow, almost directly underneath him now.

"We gotta go, Sam," he said. "It's almost noon."

Sam nodded reluctantly, shrugging at Hannah. "Sorry, but we'd better go."

"Okay." Hannah turned and started to pick her way down the hillside.

Dean and Sam followed her, feeling the heat of the rocks rising up to them as they walked. By the time they'd reached the bottom and were close to the river, they were both sweating with the heat. Where it ran around the edge of the town, the river held water, shallow and flowing, deeper pools shaded by the trees that had sprung up along both banks. Hannah stopped next to an open stretch of bank, under the wide canopy of a willow. She pointed down the trail.

"You can get back to the motel quicker if you just follow that and turn at the bridge," she said.

"What are you going to do?" Dean looked at her curiously.

"I'm boiling, I'm going to have a swim before I go home." She pulled off her top, jeans, boots and socks, and hung them on the branch, leaving a thin singlet and her underpants on as she walked into the shallow water, wading out to the middle and diving into a deeper section.

Sam looked longingly at the water. Hannah's head appeared out in the middle of the river, her pale hair slicked and darkened like a seal's, eyes closed as she tipped her head back and floated.

"Just a quick swim." Sam looked at his brother. "Just to get cool again."

Dean looked at the running water, at the girl swimming, feeling his sweat crawl down his back.

"Okay, but just five minutes, alright? Just to cool off."

Sam nodded, and they dumped their stuff on the ground, pulling off shirts and jeans, boots and socks as fast as they could. Dean hit the water first, his eyes closing in bliss as the cold river water sucked the heat from his body, sluicing the sweat from his skin and hair. Sam dived in beside him, shivering a little at the abrupt change in temperature, but finding that his skin got used to the cold after a few moments.

"Thought you had to go home?" Hannah swam up to them.

"Just cooling off first," Dean said firmly, looking at Sam. Sam nodded readily.

She grinned and ducked under the water, swimming over to the other side.

He watched her head come up again thirty feet away, a little downstream. The flow wasn't very strong, it was a wide and rather shallow river, but it was enough to thoroughly rid them of the heat.

"Come on, Sam," he called to his brother. "We're cool."

He waded out of the flow, turning around in the shallows and waiting for Sam to swim back. Under the shade of the tree, and with the water evaporating slowly from their skin, it was pleasantly cool and when Sam splashed back up to the bank, they were able to get dressed without overheating again.

Hannah came out as well, sitting on a branch that dipped low to put on her socks and boots, her clothes darkening with the water that soaked through from her skin.

"You wanna go for another swim this afternoon?" She looked at them. "By about three, it'll be really hot."

Dean pulled on his boots over the wet socks, wondering how long it would take them to dry out on the walk back.

"Yeah, maybe, if we're done with everything." He glanced at his brother, then back at her. "If we're here, then we're here, if not, you'll know we couldn't make it."

"Sure."

They walked along trail that followed the river, wet socks squelching slightly in their boots.

Sam walked beside Hannah, asking her questions about the town, school, and her ranch. Dean walked behind them, carrying the unloaded .22 and the shotgun, thinking of what they needed to do back at the motel, and wondering if they could finish it in time to come back for another swim later on. He thought they probably could. Their father had said that he would be back tomorrow night, maybe the next day at the latest. He was looking for a cursed object, he'd told Dean, in an old mining camp, up toward Ajo.

"Do you believe in ghosts?" He heard Sam ask, and his attention was back on his brother.

"Sam …"

Sam looked back over his shoulder, frowning at the warning in Dean's voice. "I'm just asking."

"Sure. This town's got lots of ghosts," Hannah told them, slowing to look back at Dean.

"It does?"

"Yeah, the mine – the one I told you about, was a real big one, a long time ago. Apparently a few men got killed there by a landslide one time, and they had to shut it down, but the ghosts still haunt the hills."

Sam looked back at Dean, eyebrows raised. Dean rolled his eyes. Every town had stories like that, didn't mean they were true.

"So have a lot of people seen them?" Sam asked.

"Yeah, last year some people died, they went camping in the hills near the mine, and sheriff found them all torn up the next day," Hannah said, her tone surprisingly pragmatic. "Happened a few years before that as well. No one goes near there at night anymore. It's supposed to be okay in the day time."

Dean frowned. That was starting to sound more like what Dad said about hauntings and vengeful spirits. There was one way to be sure about it, though.

"Hey, Hannah, town got a library, or newspaper?" he asked, lengthening his stride a little to catch them up. She glanced at him as he came up beside her, nodding.

Dean looked at Sam, his face carefully expressionless. "We'll have a look later, alright?"

Hannah stopped and pointed to the left. "That's your bridge. I go this way." She glanced along the gravel road to the right. "See you later."

Dean and Sam watched her walking up the road for a moment, then they turned and crossed the bridge, seeing the motel as they walked over the rise that led down to it.

"You think it's a real haunting?" Sam looked at his brother.

"Only one way to tell for sure." Dean thought about what Dad had said, trying to remember all the details. "First thing is we find out if there's any record of it. Should be in the paper, or in the town records in the library."

"When did Dad say he'd be home?"

"Tomorrow night, maybe the next morning. He wasn't sure," Dean hedged, turning to look at Sam. "You think we should tell him about it?"

"Well, he'd want to know, right?"

Dean nodded. He'd been thinking that if they could find out something, he could probably handle it himself. If Hannah could show him where the mine was. He'd been on three ghost hunts with Dad, he knew the drill. He pushed the thought aside impatiently. He didn't even know what the deal was, and his father had been clear that the first thing was to figure out what you were dealing with.

They made sandwiches for lunch, then took an hour and a half to break down the guns Dad had left with them and clean them all. Dean went through twice as many as Sam in the same time, but he'd been doing it for years, Sam had only just started to learn last year.

He checked the bags, making sure everything was there, and the guns were put away properly. Then he looked up at the clock. Quarter to three. Hannah hadn't been wrong about the heat. The room's air-conditioning unit was ancient and struggling with the slowly increasing temperature. He could feel his shirt sticking to his back.

"Still want to meet Hannah at the river and have another swim?" He looked over at Sam. His brother grinned.

"Alright, we've done everything we were supposed to, we can have some fun." He grinned back, feeling the weight of responsibility lift. He was used to being responsible for the chores and Sam; it wasn't that he hated those jobs or anything, just that once everything he had to do was done, he could do what he liked, instead of worrying about it all the time.

They reached the river ten minutes later and saw Hannah already there, swimming up and down the same stretch. She waved when she saw them and started swimming for the bank.

"Do you know what time it is?" she called out. Sam shrugged.

"About three." Dean put his t-shirt and jeans over the branch. "Why?"

"I have to be at home at four." She swam back out and dived under the water. Sam waded out, following her to the deeper pool beyond the centre of the river and dove under, emerging a few feet further out with his wet hair hanging over his face.

The water was cold and clear, so refreshing after the enervating walk from the motel that he couldn't get enough of it, diving to the gravelly bottom and staying under as long as he could. It was seasonal, Hannah'd told them earlier; by August only the deepest pools would still be there, the rest dry sand and gravel banks. An unseasonally rainy spring had kept much of the country greener than it usually was, and kept the river flowing.

"We're going to the library tomorrow to look up the history on those ghosts," Sam said, looking at Hannah as he trod water in the deep pool. "Do you want to come?"

"Can't, I've got chores tomorrow morning." She floated on her back, kicking slightly. "What do you want to look up?"

"Just who the men were, when it happened, that sort of thing."

"Why?"

"It's interesting," Sam said, biting off his next comment as he realised that he was getting way to close to what his brother termed 'dangerous ground'.

Dean floated downriver from them, eyes closed, letting the water's flow carry him. He wondered how much of what Hannah'd told them earlier was true. If people had died here, there'd be records of it, he told himself, rolling over and swimming slowly back upstream, luxuriating in the contrast between the cold water surrounding him and the hot sunshine on his hair. He could see his brother and the girl, still in the deep pool opposite the big willow.

He didn't make friends that easily, too aware that the slightest slip suggesting anything about their lives could be a mistake that wouldn't be easy to fix. When they had to go to school, he'd learned to make acquaintances … just enough to seem like he was fitting in, not so much that anyone knew where they lived. Sammy was the opposite, his brother was sociable and made friends easily, somehow managing to get close to people without telling them all that much.

Glancing up at the sun's position in the sky, Hannah turned and started swimming for the bank. "I gotta go," she called back to him when she reached the shallows. "I'll be here tomorrow after lunch."

Sam nodded and waved as she ran up the bank and started to get dressed, throwing her clothes on much more quickly than she'd done earlier. She ran up trail and disappeared.

Dean looked around when he reached Sam. "What happened to Hannah?"

"She had to go." Sam looked up at the sun. "Do you think it's near four o'clock yet?"

Dean looked up as well. "Past four, I think. We should get going too. What do you want for dinner?"

Sam rolled over in the water and started back to the bank. "Not much of a choice."

"Pizza it is then." Dean grinned and swam faster to the bank, overtaking his little brother.

The next morning was Saturday, and they walked to the library and waited until it opened.

"Dean," Sam whispered across the table in the dim, hot room, filled with the scent of dry paper and lemon-scented furniture polish. "Look at this."

Dean looked around but there was no else near them. He got up and walked around the long reading table, sitting down next to his brother.

The newspaper was dated 1922. Dean read through the article. As Hannah had said, the Red Lightning mine was closed down after four men were trapped in a landslide inside the tunnels. Although the article did not directly blame the company for the deaths, it seemed to imply that the owner of the mine had just left them there, without even trying to save them.

Dean looked up at Sam. "Definitely ghosts." He frowned at the newspaper suddenly.

"If they couldn't get out, how can anyone get in to burn the remains?"

Sam shrugged. "That's Dad's problem."

Dean glanced at him, then got up. He walked to the librarian's desk, waiting until the middle-aged lady turned to look enquiringly at him. "Excuse me, but I'm interested in the old copper mines in the area, for a school project. Is there any stuff about them here …" He glanced down at the name plate on the desk, "Mrs Colton?"

Mrs Colton looked at him over her glasses, her expression warming slightly at his interest. "We've got all the plans for the mines in the archives, letters of incorporation, the lot. What exactly are you looking for?"

"The plans," he said decisively.

She scribbled a note on a slip of paper and handed it to him. "Go and see Mr Castles – he's over there." She pointed to the rear of the library. "Tell him you want the plans." Her expression firmed a little as she told him, "You have to look at them here, you know, they can't be borrowed."

"Yes, ma'am," he said, already aware that deference got a lot further than snark with most people over a certain age. She seemed to relax a little, smiling at him approvingly, and he walked around her desk to the rear of the library.

Mr Castles had a small office next to the basement stairs. He knocked on the door.

"Come in." The voice inside the office was wavery and high. Dean pushed the door open and peered in. A very old man sat behind the desk facing the door.

"Mr Castles?" He walked over to the desk and handed the old man the note. Mr Castles pushed his glasses back up his nose, and read it slowly. Dean looked at him, thinking he'd never seen anyone so old looking. He barely had any hair covering his head, which was wrinkled and spotted. His eyes were a filmy blue, the colour faded out of them. Every inch of his skin was wrinkled and sagging, as if he were getting smaller but his skin had remained the same size.

"Plans, eh? Which mine?"

"Red Lightning Mine." Dean answered, glad that the name had been included in the article. They hadn't thought to ask Hannah if she knew it.

"Stay here. I'll be right back." He got up slowly from his chair, grasping the polished hickory cane that leaned against the desk, and walked past Dean. The boy watched the old man's slow progress out of the office and sighed. Right back would be a long wait, he thought.

He was right. It took Mr Castles fifteen minutes to get down to the basement, retrieve the plans and return to the office. He was yawning with boredom as he leaned against a filing cabinet when the old man re-entered the office.

"Be careful with that, son. That's the original and it's older than me," Castles said, with a stern look. Nodding, Dean took the rolled plan gently, hurrying out and pulling the door closed behind him.

"Where have you been?" Sam asked, looking up at him in annoyance. His brother was developing a bad habit of leaving him with a lot of the reading when they researched things for their father lately.

"Got the plans." Dean slid off the ribbon holding the plan, and spread it carefully across the table. "Hold the other side, Sammy."

They looked down at the mine, slowly working out which tunnel had collapsed from the details in the article. Dean looked around.

"Stay here. I'm going to get some tracing paper so that we have our own map of this place. I won't be long, okay – don't move and don't let anyone have that plan."

Sam nodded. He put a couple of books at either of the plan, to keep it from rolling up again, and bent over it, his eyes going over every inch.

Dean found the newsagent a few doors down and went in. He bought five sheets of tracing paper, a fine black pen and a fine red pen, and hurried back to the library. Sam was in exactly the same position when he came up to the table, nose almost touching the paper as he studied the tunnels and symbols.

"What's that?" Sam peered at the small circle that was over the tunnel some distance from the collapse. Dean looked at it.

"Says it's a ventilation shaft."

"Why didn't they get out that way?" Sam asked. Dean shook his head.

"I don't know. Maybe it was too small? Maybe it was too high."

"Why didn't the owner make it bigger or lower a rope down for them, then?"

Dean looked at his little brother, half amused at Sammy's problem-solving capabilities, half exasperated by the questions. He wondered how to explain about greed and stupidity.

"I guess the owner thought it wasn't worth the effort," he said eventually. "It doesn't matter. It's a way in, I'll have to go and have a look at it."

"We," Sam corrected him softly. "We'll have to go."

"No, Sammy, this is … I'm just going to take a look, I don't want to put you at risk."

"If you're just going to take a look, why would I be at risk?"

Dean scowled at him. "I can't take a good look around if I'm worried about you, alright?"

"I can look after myself; you don't need to worry about me," Sam argued, a thread of anger seeping into his voice. "You were looking after me by yourself when you were eight."

"Yeah, and I'm still looking after you, so stop arguing with me."

"If you don't let me go with you, I'll tell Dad you left me by myself." Sam looked at him stubbornly.

Dean sighed. "He won't believe you. And he'll kill me if I do take you, Sam."

"No he won't. You can just tell him that you thought I'd be safer with you."

"It doesn't work that way." He looked down at the plan. "Anyway, I might not go out there at all. I might just tell Dad about it, then we'll go together and you'll have to stay in the motel."

"I can help, Dean." Sam switched to plan B smoothly as he heard his brother's impatience, his tone becoming conciliatory. "We could get everything ready for Dad together."

"No, Sammy," Dean said exasperatedly. "No. That's final."

He set the tracing paper over the mine's entrance and started to trace the plans with the black pen. The collapsed tunnel, he did in red, marking the site of the collapse clearly in red as well.

Sam sat beside him, watching silently. He had to figure out a way to convince Dean that he was needed. He was sick of always staying in the room. Just because Dad had taken Dean on a couple of ghost hunts, didn't mean that he was the boss.

"How are you going to get there?" he asked as Dean moved the books and rolled the plan up again, slipping the ribbon over the end of the roll.

"Not sure yet," Dean answered shortly, tucking the plans under his arm.

He took the plans back to Mr Castle's office, leaving it on the desk when nobody answered his knock. Sammy's impatience to be involved in at least some of what they did had been growing in the last few months. Dad still wasn't aware that Sam had read through his journal, both boys pretending that Dean had left something about a hunt out one day, and Sam had picked it up. Their father had started teaching Sammy about cleaning the weapons and practising with them when that'd happened, but had told Dean to keep the more dangerous aspects of their work from his brother. He couldn't lie to either of them very well, but he'd begun to learn to tell the minimum, hoping it would be enough.

It was noon when they left the library, going out as the librarian was closing the building for the day. Detouring to the local bar and grill, Dean picked up burgers and fries for them, and they walked back to the motel quickly, the scent of the food mouth-watering.

"You need back up," Sam said again as he scrunched the food wrappings into a tight ball and put them in the trash can.

"Don't start that again, I'm warning you, Sam." Dean looked over the plans, trying to fix the turns and dead ends in his memory. The real problem was that the plans didn't have the location of the mine, let alone the ventilation shaft, and he had no idea how to get there.

Well, that wasn't entirely true. He knew someone who knew how to get there. He thought if they went to the river, they'd probably find Hannah somewhere around.

"Did Hannah say where her father's ranch was?" He turned and looked at his brother.

"No, not exactly." Sam looked up, figuring out Dean's thoughts easily. "If Hannah's going, then I am too."

Dean rolled his eyes. "Will you just quit that? Hannah's not going. I just need to know where the mine is."

The knock at the door surprised both of them. Sam got up hurriedly and went to the window, lifting the curtain a fraction to look obliquely out. He turned to his brother.

"It's Hannah."

"How'd she know - ?" He stood up and walked to the door, opening it and looking accusingly at the slim girl standing there. "How'd you know where we were?"

Hannah snorted disbelievingly. "Beth Halverson's mother works here and knows which rooms all the guests are in. You two don't exactly blend in." She looked past Dean into the room. "Can I come in?"

"Sure." He stepped back and let her pass, closing the door behind him. "Actually, I was hoping to see you."

Hannah turned around, her eyes widening slightly. "You were?"

Now that she was facing the light, he could see that her left cheek was badly bruised, from the temple to the jaw.

"What happened to you?" he asked, frowning as he looked at her face. Hannah lifted her hand to her cheek, turning away.

"Just … uh … ran into a door, in the dark. Last night." She turned back to him, but kept out of the light, smiling. "Why did you want to see me?"

Dean didn't particularly buy the door story, but he wasn't sure it was his business. "Where's the mine located, exactly?"

"Well, I can't tell you. I'd have to take you there." She stood by the table and looked curiously at the tracings that covered the surface.

Another one, Dean thought in frustration. "I need to go on my own. You could stay here with Sam." And argue with each other, he thought caustically. "Can you … uh, draw a map of how to get there?"

Shaking her head, she answered, "Nope. It's a long way off the new roads. Besides, you gonna walk? It's six miles, that's a lot of walking in this country."

"Yeah, well the car is temporarily unavailable, so walking is the only option."

"Not the only one." She smiled at him again and he noticed that it was only on one side. Must have hit the door hard to hurt that much. "We can ride."

"Ride what?" He didn't think bikes would be much of an improvement over walking in this heat.

"Horses, dummy."

"I can't -" he stopped, because admitting he couldn't do something wasn't something he did, at least not to wise-ass strangers. And anyway, how hard could it be?

"All right. But just to show me where the mine is. Not going inside." Again with the 'we' stuff. He wasn't going to be responsible for anyone but himself.

"Pfft. I've been inside that mine loads of times. I told you, its okay in the day time."

"You see a hole in the ground, above the mine?" Sam joined in on the conversation. He'd thought of a way to get to go along that his brother wouldn't be able to stop.

"A hole?" She frowned, turning to look at him. "What kind of a hole? You mean going all the way down inside?"

"Yeah, a ventilation shaft," Sam clarified, glancing at his brother.

"No, haven't seen anything like that, but usually I don't explore around the mine, just go in through main entrance." Her eyes narrowed suddenly as she thought about what he'd asked. "You're trying to get into the tunnel that collapsed?"

"Just want to see if there's a way in," Dean said quickly, wishing that Sam wasn't here. It was hard enough trying to think around one of them, the two together were impossible. "Not thinking about actually going in."

"Why?" She looked from Dean to Sam. "There's nothing in there – 'cept four dead bodies. Well," she corrected herself, "four skeletons now, I'd guess."

"Yeah, right. Who'd want to go in there? Not us." Dean gave a strained laugh and went to the sink, pouring himself a glass of water. There were times when he wanted to be grown up so badly it shook him. Now was one of those times.

"When do you want to go?"

"As soon as we can." He finished the glass and put it in the sink. "Could we get up there and back this afternoon? Before dark?"

Hannah thought about it. She'd need to get the horses in, but it wouldn't take long to ride up to the mine. She nodded, standing. "Yeah, we could go for a look in that time. I'll have to get the horses. Give me about a half an hour and I'll meet you at the gravel road opposite the bridge?"

"I'll be there." He followed her to the door, watching as she threw a leg over a battered-looking bicycle and pedalled away fast up the road. Closing it when she disappeared from sight, he turned to grab his backpack from under the bed. "Sammy, you're staying here, no arguing, no sulking."

"Okay." Sam sat on his bed, looking down at the floor. "What time will you be back?"

Dean glanced at the clock. It was only half past twelve. One o'clock to meet Hannah. He didn't know how long it would take on horseback to travel six miles, but probably not longer than an hour at most. Looking around the mine would take maybe an hour, maybe two. If they left by four o'clock at the very latest, they would still be back at the bridge well before dark, and he'd be back in the room by five thirty.

"Five thirty, I think, at the latest." He pulled out the gun bags, and transferred his shotgun and two dozen shells into the backpack, along with a four pound bag of salt and the bottle of butane. He found the spare lighter and tossed that in as well, and a long hunting knife. What else did he need? Flashlight. Maps. First aid kit. Matches, in case the lighter didn't work. He couldn't think of anything else. The bag was heavy when he finished fastening the flap and swung it onto his shoulder, but he wouldn't have to worry about that, the horse would.

"If Dad comes back early, just tell him … tell him … tell him I had a date."

"Dean, he's really going to flip out if he thinks you've gone on a hunt alone." Sam looked at him. Dean could see where his brother was going with this.

"Sammy, he wouldn't be half as mad as he would be if you came along and something happened to you. End of story."

Shrugging, Sam conceded the point. "Yeah, okay. I'll see you at five thirty then."

"Right. Keep the door locked, and if you hear anything – and I mean anything – there's a bag of salt in the cupboard - salt the door, the windows, the aircon and the vents and make a circle for yourself and stay in it. Alright?"

"Alright."

Dean nodded and went out the door, closing it firmly behind him. He shifted the pack more comfortably on his shoulders and started walking toward the bridge.

Sam grabbed his day pack and put his father's Beretta into it, along with a box of 9mm ammunition from the gun bag. He added a bag of salt and zipped it up, closed the gun bag and shoved it back under the bed, and grabbed his room key from the table. Slinging the pack over his shoulder, he opened the door and looked around. Dean was out of sight, which meant he'd have to run. He closed the door, checking that it was locked and jogged down the dirt path leading to the bridge.

Hannah was waiting when Dean crossed the bridge. She sat on a leggy sorrel mare, and held the reins of a stocky bay gelding. Both horses had large Western saddles, with breastplates and simple one-ear hackamore bridles. Dean noticed that both saddles also carried long coils of rope, tied firmly to them.

"You know how to ride?" She looked at him as he walked up to the horses. He hesitated, wondering if there was a point to lying about it, then shook his head.

"Don't matter. That's Cisco, he taught me to ride, he's as steady as they come," Hannah told him, looking at the bay.

Kicking her feet free of the stirrups, she swung her leg over and slid off her mare, dropping the reins to the ground. The sorrel mare huffed out a grassy exhale and stayed put.

Hannah walked over to Dean, taking the big stiffened leather stirrup and holding it out for him. He put his left foot into it, and half-jumped, half-pulled himself up, grabbing the horn at the front of the saddle and swinging his leg over the back.

The girl looked critically at the length of the leathers. She'd set them for her height because she was nearly as tall as he was and they looked right. His legs stretched almost straight, the heel of his foot a little lower than the toe. She handed him the split leather reins.

"Comfy?" She looked up at him. He nodded, shifting slightly, finding the deepest part of the saddle. It felt high, he thought, looking at Hannah's bright mare through the gap between the pricked ears of his horse. "You can tie your pack to the side," she told him, holding one of the pair of rawhide ties that hung down below the horn. He slid the pack from his back one-handed and tied it on, watching as Hannah made sure it was sitting flat behind the horse's shoulder.

"Cisco will follow Sunny, so you don't need to worry much about steering and stopping. Just keep your balance," she said, taking a step back and looking over his position on the gelding.

She was turning away when Sam ran across the bridge. "Hey! Wait for me."

Dean twisted in the saddle, his face darkening. "Dammit, Sammy, I told you, you can't come."

"Hannah's going, so I'm going too. You can't stop me, I'll just follow you – horses are easy to track," Sam said, stopping between them and lifting his chin pugnaciously at his brother.

Hannah looked from Sam to Dean, dimples appearing as she repressed a laugh.

Dean scowled at her. "It's not funny."

She shrugged. "It's up to you, but we'll go faster if he's riding."

He knew that. Knew that his little brother had cornered him into either taking him along, or canning the whole business. Dad would be back tonight or in the morning, and he'd have nothing concrete for him if he bailed on this now. He took a deep breath and gave up, looking at Hannah.

"Does he ride with you, or with me?"

Hannah walked back to the bay. "With you, Cisco's used to doubling, Sunny would have a fit." She looked at Sam. "Come here and give me your pack."

Sam walked to the horse, shrugging out of the pack's straps and handing it over a little reluctantly. Hannah put it on the ground beside her and bent her knees al little, making a step with her hands. Sam looked down at them and lifted his foot.

"No, dumb-ass, put your knee here. When I lift, you grab the back of the saddle and swing your leg over." She shook her head slightly at the ignorance of tenderfoots. "You sit behind your brother, there's enough room for both of you on the saddle, right?"

Sam nodded and Hannah lifted him. He caught the back of the saddle, held between the strength of his arms and her support under his knee as he swung his right leg over the rump of the horse, sliding down a bit into his brother's back.

Looking up them appraisingly, Hannah said. "Sam, wriggle forward a bit more, you got to be tucked in close or there's too much weight on the back of the saddle."

Sam wriggled, holding on to Dean's belt loops. "That better?"

"Yeah." She turned away and swung up onto her mare quickly. "We're not going to be whooping around or anything. You'll be all right. If you see a snake, don't tell the horse." Touching her heels to the mare's sides, she started to walk away, up the gravel road that led to the hills. Cisco ambled after his companion, his long back swaying under them with each stride.

After a few moments, Dean felt like he could manage this. There was a rhythm to the movement and he could feel his hips following it, rocking back and forth while his upper body stayed still.

"You all right, Sam?" He turned his head a little. He'd already found that changing the balance of his weight caused the horse to move in the opposite direction, even a head turn was apparently a signal to Cisco to change direction.

Sam looked down at the ground which seemed to be a long, long way away. "Yeah, not like the movies is it?"

Dean grinned, turning back to look at the road that led up into the low hills and the girl riding ahead of them. "Not much."

They climbed into the low rocky hills, the sun beating down fiercely and reflecting back up at them from the ground. After a mile the road petered out, washed out in places and covered with rock falls in others, and Hannah followed a narrow trail, winding through the boulders and outcroppings, stands of stunted trees and over patches of sand or gravel.

According to the paper, Red Lightning had been an exploratory mine, searching the hill for sufficient ore to make it worthwhile to fund an open cut. It didn't say if there were such quantities there, but perhaps not since the owner had ditched the mine soon after the accident.

Where the land levelled out, Hannah pushed her mare into a slow jog, sitting easily in the saddle as the horse's stride changed from four time to two time. Behind her, Cisco started to jog as well, and the boys bounced around for a while, before getting the hang of keeping their weight on the horse, legs hanging down long, and letting their upper bodies absorb the impact. By the third time Cisco shifted into his smooth, slow jog, Dean felt like he was actually riding, not just sitting on top of the horse, his balance feeling completely secure. Behind him, Sam had abandoned the belt loops and had his arms wrapped around his brother's waist, aware as they began to climb the steeper slopes of how easy it would be to fall off over the horse's rump if he didn't hang on.

"That's the entrance," Hannah said, reining in her mare and twisting in the saddle to talk to them. Cisco stopped a couple of feet away, and Dean unzipped his back pack, pulling out the maps he'd traced from the plans. He looked at the entrance and oriented the map in the same direction, looking up over the hillside.

"The shaft must be somewhere on the top," he said. "Can we ride up there?"

Hannah looked at the hillside and nodded. "Yeah, hold on though 'cos they bounce around a bit when they're climbing."

She wheeled Sunny around to the lowest point she could see and pushed her forward, the mare striding out willingly as she approached the slope. There was a faint trail, twisting up the side of the hill, and Sunny followed it unerringly, hindquarters bunching as she thrust forward, moving up the slope in a series of half-leaps. Cisco followed, and Dean gripped the horn of the saddle.

"Hang on Sam," he told his brother, unnecessarily as Sam's grip around his waist tightened with the first lurching jump.

Cisco heaved his front up and then his rear, and the boys were whipped forward and back as he proceeded up the hillside.

"Let's not do that again," Sam said breathlessly, when they reached the top.

Dean had marked the distances out on his map from the plan detail, and he watched the ground carefully as they walked along the top of the ridge, more or less following the line of the tunnel beneath them. He looked up and saw Hannah sliding off Sunny, leading the mare away, and dropping the reins. He turned Cisco, and they stopped next to the sorrel mare.

"Hold on to my arm and swing off," Dean said, turning his head to Sam. Sam nodded, gripping his brother's forearm, and swinging his leg over, dropping to the ground. Dean dismounted, dropping the reins on the ground as he walked over to Hannah. His leg muscles felt stretched out but not too sore, they'd been riding for under an hour.

"You find something?"

She nodded, and picked her way across the stony ground. Dean and Sam followed cautiously, their gazes fixed on the ground in front of them. Hannah stopped, and Dean saw the hole as he got close to her, a square shaft, two feet across, utterly black inside. He leaned over the edge and dropped a small pebble down. The pebble seemed to fall for a long time before he heard the clatter of it hitting the rock at the bottom.

"Sam, go with Hannah and get the ropes." He looked around for something to tie to them to. A short distance away, a tall rocky outcrop protruded. He walked over to it, pushing against it with both hands. It was solid.

Tying one end of the rope firmly to the rock, he dropped the coil in, listening for the sound of it hitting the ground. It didn't, was just hanging straight down. He hauled it back up and tied the end to the second rope, using the double sheet bend his father had taught him. He picked up the second coil and threw it down, relieved when he heard the impact of the end hitting the rock below, and the slackness in the rope hanging down.

"You two stay here. You don't follow me, all right?" He looked at Sam as he tightened the straps of the backpack over his shoulders. "I need you both here if I need to get out in a hurry, all right?"

Sam nodded reluctantly. "What happens if something happens to you down there?"

"Nothing will. I'll be back as soon as I've checked that it's the right tunnel."

He picked up the rope and walked to the edge of the hole, then began to back down slowly, hands tightening on the rope as he transferred his weight from ground to rope. Should have brought gloves, he thought, as he lowered himself down hand over hand, would have made this bit quicker.

Sam and Hannah leaned over the edge slightly, watching him descend.

"Your brother's pretty brave," Hannah said.

Sam sighed. Reckless was the word he would have used. He had a bad feeling about letting Dean go down there by himself.

Dean felt the ground under his feet and looked up. The square light at the top of the shaft looked far away. He thought the shaft was about sixty feet deep. He pulled out the flashlight and turned it on, playing the beam around him.

The shaft must have been sunk at the end of the tunnel, two sides were rock and soil. The tunnel led off in front of him, the ground sloping downwards on a gentle incline. He looked warily at the roof of the tunnel, but it seemed pretty solid. The air was dry, very cool, and held a musty smell. He could feel a slight movement of air past him, from deeper down, drawn out through the shaft. It would give him a way to find the shaft again, he thought hopefully.

He started following the tunnel down.

"How long do we wait for him?" Hannah asked, settling herself on a rock and shading her eyes as she glanced up at the sun's position.

"We'll give him a half-hour," Sam decided, wishing he'd gotten that straight with Dean before he went in. He didn't say what they'd do when the half-hour was up. He wasn't sure about that bit.

He looked over at her. Today she was wearing a long sleeved shirt. The bruise on her face was dark, black fading to blue around the edges.

"That must have been some door," he commented. She glanced up at him, then looked away.

"Yeah, big door."

They looked at each other as the ground trembled slightly. The gust, when it came out of the shaft, was icy cold, and seemed to wrap around them for a moment, their breath turning to fog as it condensed in the cold spot. Sam's eyes widened as he remembered what Dean had told him about hunting ghosts. He sprang toward Hannah, not sure of what he was going to do, but knowing that he had to do something.

Hannah felt herself pushed, by something, something she couldn't see or touch, her shirt suddenly ripped into pieces that fluttered around her, her head cracking into the rocky ground as Sam leapt toward her. From where she was lying, she watched as he was lifted and thrown, dropping down inside the hole. She heard his cry, echoing off the narrow shaft walls, then nothing. The wind died as suddenly as it had risen, and the cold vanished. The rumble of hooves, as Cisco and Sunny galloped down the hillside, reins and stirrups flying, brought her to her knees, her face screwed up in frustration. Neither horse would stop until they got home now, she thought. She turned back to the shaft, dropping to the ground, and crawling forward, until she could lean out over the shaft, lying on her stomach.

"Sam?" her voice bounced off the shaft walls. "Sammy?"

Sam lay at the bottom of the shaft, trying to breathe, trying to get his wind back. He'd felt himself plucked from the ground and thrown, seeing the dark walls of the shaft flash past him. He'd grabbed the rope as he fell, burning his hands but stopping his descent for a moment, he'd fallen a bit further, and again tightened his grip on the rope; the second time the friction burns were too painful for him to hold on for long, but the bottom had only been ten feet below him when he let go the second time.

He lay still for a moment, moving his arms and legs a little, looking for whatever damage had been done. He thought he might have bruised his ribs, it hurt a little to take a deep breath. Other than that, and not having the use of his hands, he was all right.

He looked up the shaft, at the long line of rope still hanging down. There was just no way he could climb that, not now, not with raw palms and fingers. He rolled to his feet and leaned against the wall. He could try and follow his brother, without his pack or flashlight. Or he could wait here until he got back. He thought it might be a better idea to wait.

The cold surrounded him again, and he pulled back against the wall, pressing himself into the rock. A sibilant hiss echoed softly from the tunnel, the temperature falling steadily. He felt fingers suddenly grip his arms, saw his skin depressing slightly as they tightened over it, but he couldn't see them. Couldn't see anything around him. He was yanked off his feet, and dragged along the tunnel floor.

Dean reached a junction. Three tunnels led out of the round space. He looked at the map frowning. Only two of the tunnels were marked on it, and he was positive he hadn't missed the third one when he'd been tracing the map from the plan. He thought that the landslide tunnel was the middle one. It seemed to be in the right direction and it still led downward. The tunnel to his right was on the plan, but dead-ended a few hundred yards in. The one to his left was not on the plan, and it seemed smaller, narrower than the other two.

He looked at it suspiciously for a few moments then headed down the centre tunnel. He had to get on with the job; he could look at the rest afterwards.

Hannah looked down the hole, every sense straining to get some sign of Sam. She pulled off the tatters of her long sleeved shirt, shivering a little with the memory of the cold that had torn it, her bare arms goose-bumping. Throwing it aside, she dragged her gloves from the back pocket of her jeans. They were rancher's gloves, supple, tough leather designed for use with ropes and wire and she pulled them on, looking around for anything else she could use. Sam's daypack lay on the rock on the other side of the hole and she crawled over to it. When she unzipped the top, her eyes widened in shock as she saw the handgun and the bullets. The flashlight was welcome, but the salt was puzzling. She zipped it back up and slipped the straps over her shoulders, settling it onto her back, then went back to the hole, catching hold of the hanging rope and swinging inside, letting herself down slowly, hand over hand.

With the gloves on, she had good control over the speed of her descent, and she landed on the ground quickly, pulling the flashlight out of the pack and shining the beam around. No Sam.

Kneeling by the wall, Hannah looked down at the two parallel grooves that ran from there down the tunnel. There were no other tracks in the tunnel, but she knew what those grooves meant. Sam had been dragged out. She remembered Dean's comment, and frowned. What could drag a boy away, yet leave no tracks?

Following them was easy, and she walked quickly down the tunnel, noting the heavier criss-cross tread of Dean's boots as well. She reached the junction and stopped. Sam's trail went into the left hand tunnel. Dean's tracks went into the centre tunnel. She looked from one to the other, unsure of which to follow. Sam was in danger, she could feel it. Whatever had taken him was not natural. But she had no idea of what she was dealing with, and she thought that both boys did. She glanced again at the left hand tunnel, biting her lip as she saw the drag marks continue into it. Then she started to run for the centre tunnel. If she could find Dean, they would have a better chance of dealing with whatever it was together, she thought.

Dean walked slowly down the tunnel. There were rocks and piles of dirt on the floor here, the outer edges of the weakness that had caused the cave-in, he thought. He rounded a bend in the tunnel and stopped. The flashlight played over white bones, gleaming on the skulls, creating shadows in the curving ribcages. He walked slowly to the skeletons, his breathing fast and shallow. Two of the men had been injured in the collapse. He looked down at the broken femur of one, the cracked skull of another. But the other two were intact. His imagination fleshed them out, replaying the possible scene for him. Infection, fever, pain for man with the broken leg. Perhaps an instant death for the man with the cracked skull. But for the other two, death had come in thirst and starvation, staying with their friends, unable to escape, alone in the darkness.

He shook his head, trying to get rid of the images that came with such ease. He put his pack on the ground and pulled out the salt, using the long hunting knife to cut open the top of the bag. He lifted it, and started to spread the salt over the skeletons. The sudden chill, accompanied by a strong gust of wind, made his heart stutter. He looked around and poured the salt out of the bag faster, watching his breath turn white and condense in front of his mouth.

"Dean!"

The faint cry in the tunnel was Hannah's. What the hell was she doing down here? The thought was part fury, part worry. And following hard on its heels, the next thought sent a shiver down his spine. Where was Sam?

He stepped back from the skeletons and tipped the bag up, turning around as the salt poured to the ground in a smooth circle, enclosing him, enclosing the pack. He picked up the shotgun and crossed out of it, sensing rather seeing the ghost rising up behind him as he swung back around. The apparition was pale, a man, in his late twenties, shaggy dark hair and a full beard, dark eyes staring at him, dark pants held up with braces, over a thick flannel shirt, the sleeves rolled to above the elbow. And a dreadful gaping hole in the left side of his skull.

He raised the shotgun and fired, the boom deafening in the small space, the pellets spreading out and ploughing through the spirit, who vanished instantly. He turned away and headed up the tunnel, flashlight gripped in his left hand, the gun held tightly in his right.

"Hannah!"

He could hear the sound of running footsteps and he lifted the beam of the light higher, her own flashlight beam – Sam's flashlight, he saw – shifting wildly over the walls and floor. There was a cut on her face, just under the right eye, and another bruise on her neck. Her shirt was gone, the thin singlet she wore under it was filthy with dirt. He saw a number of dark bruises on one arm, from her shoulder to her wrist, finger marks standing out against the tanned skin. He stepped back when it seemed she wasn't going to stop, but she slowed at the last second and faced him, her breath rasping in and out of her throat, her eyes wide.

"Dean, something's got Sam."

He felt his heart shrivel up in his chest, fear sending ice through his veins. He nodded abruptly, and turned back down the tunnel.

"Come on, you need to get in the circle."

She followed him down, flinching slightly when her light played over the skeletons, their white bones now sparkling slightly under the coating of salt. When they were both standing in the circle, he looked at her.

"What happened? Quickly."

"We were at the top and the earth trembled a little, like just before an earthquake, but not strong," she told him, shivering slightly with the cold but her voice firm and steady. "This wind came out of the hole and it knocked Sam into it. I climbed down but something had taken him, dragged him, down the tunnels."

"Did you see where?" He leaned close to her, his eyes nearly black with concentration.

"The left hand tunnel, in the junction," she said. "I could see you came down here, I thought I'd better find you first."

"You did the right thing." In the upsplash from the flashlights he could see her shivering, but she was calm, and that said a lot for her. "Can you fire a shotgun?"

"Yeah." Hannah nodded readily, looking down at the gun.

He broke the gun, reloading it and handing it to her. "You see anything in here, just shoot it."

"But –"

"Stay here," Dean repeated, one hand closing over her shoulder to emphasise the point. "Do not get out of the circle. I'm going to finish this. Then we look for Sam."

She nodded, stepping back to the edge of the circle as he crouched and pulled out the bottle of butane and the matches. He stepped out of the circle, and started squirting the lighter fluid over the bones, feeling the temperature drop again.

"Get ready, Hannah, something's coming," he told her, his gaze fixed to the piles of bones as he continued to squirt the fluid over every fragment he could see. He dropped the bottle and lit the match, his lungs aching with each breath as the cold became frigid. Behind him, Hannah turned slowly within the circle, and when the spectre began to form, she drew a bead on it, and pulled the trigger without hesitation.

Dean threw the match onto the soaked and salted skeletons and the fire leapt up. Three apparitions appeared suddenly in the narrow tunnel, rushing toward him. He had his knife in his hand, ready, but they were burned up to nothing before they could reach him. He looked back at the pile, counting skulls, counting bodies as fast as he could. They were all there, but where was the fourth spirit? The flames hadn't yet reached all of its bones, and he ran around the pile, pulling another match from the book, and striking it as the fourth ghost appeared behind him, Hannah's warning cry filling the tunnel. Hands reached into his back. He felt the fingers like blades of ice, piercing him, gripping his heart and lungs and squeezing them and his fingers released the match involuntarily as pain consumed him. It fell onto the bones, catching the fumes of the butane first, then spreading to the liquid and erupting into flame.

The hands were gone. Dean fell to his knees, his heart hurting, his lungs struggling to pull in enough air. He heard the clatter of the gun being dropped distantly, heard the light footsteps behind him, and felt hands pulling him up.

"You all right?" Hannah knelt in front of him, holding him up by the lapels of his coat, her face inches from his, and he nodded, rubbing one hand over his chest as he felt himself thawing.

He looked up, meeting her eyes, and she leaned forward very suddenly, pressing her lips against his. He froze, uncertain of why she was doing what she was doing, or what he was supposed to do, barely registering the lingering softness of her mouth before she let him go and moved back, taking his hand. He staggered to his feet when she rose and pulled him up with her, watching her turn away, pick up the shotgun and the pack. When she handed both to him, he took them, reloading the gun automatically from the shells in his pocket as questions and unexpected emotion briefly stole his concentration from the job at hand.

"Come on." She started to walk fast up the tunnel and he slung the pack over his shoulder, following her, his flashlight's beam bobbing over the floor and walls, his thoughts returning to his brother. And to what his father would say to him if anything had happened to Sammy.

Sam lay at the end of the unmarked tunnel. He could feel a contusion rising on the back of his head, cuts and scrapes along his arms. His ribs still ached. His hands hurt the worst though, the burns and blisters stinging continuously, filled with the dirt from the tunnel floor as he'd tried to stop himself being dragged. He heard a sound in the tunnel in front of him and froze, wriggling up against the wall. Then he saw the lights, bouncing around the walls, and relaxed. Dean. And Hannah, he guessed.

He'd been pretty sure Dean had found the skeletons when the ghosts left him here, three disappearing first, then the fourth. Set to rest, burned up.

"Sammy?" Dean's voice sounded from around the final bend. "Sam!"

"I'm here," his voice came out as a croak, and he coughed, clearing his throat. "Dean, I'm here!"

Dean and Hannah ran around the bend, Dean dropping to his knees next to him.

"You all right? What happened? Any injuries?" He held the flashlight on Sam's chest, looking over him.

"I'm okay. I banged my head. I think my ribs are bruised, kind of hurts when I breathe in. I burned my hands on the rope." He held up his hands and Dean winced as he saw the mess of the palms and fingers.

"Okay, sit up."

Dean let his pack slide off his shoulder, and took out the bottle of water, unscrewing the cap and spilling it over Sam's hands. Sam hissed as the liquid stung fiercely in the sores. He watched as his older brother pulled a couple of bandages from the small kit he'd brought, and some sterilised non-stick gauze dressings, trying to keep his pain locked inside, the way Dean would've.

Dean ripped open the packs and laid the dressings over the palms, then wound the bandages over the top. They'd have to re-do it in the motel, but it would, he hoped, keep them clean enough for now. Sam nodded when he finished. Excluding the air had reduced the stinging a little. Dean felt gently over the back of Sam's head, finding the lump. There was no blood and it didn't seem that it had been hard enough to cause a concussion or any permanent damage. It was another thing they'd have a closer look at when they were back in the motel.

"Let's get out of here." He stood up and reached around Sam, lifting him to his feet. "Next time, when I tell you not to come, don't come, all right?"

"Yeah," Sam agreed quietly. "All right."

They reached the bottom of the ventilation shaft and Dean felt a flood of relief that the rope was still hanging there.

"Horses still there?" He turned to Hannah. She shook her head.

"They took off when the ghosts came out. They'll have gone straight home." She thought about the worry and the anger that would cause, then pushed the thought away. Couldn't be helped. She'd just have to put up with whatever the consequences were.

"Have to do this the hard way then," Dean said with a low sigh. "I'm going to climb out. Hannah, when I'm out, I need you to tie Sam to the rope, and I'll haul him out. Then we'll throw the rope back down and haul you out last. Okay?"

She nodded, stripping off her gloves and handing them to him. "You'll need these."

He pulled them on, the fit a little tight but the leather would give, he thought. Reaching up as high as he could, his hands gripped the rope and he started to climb, hand over hand, his feet gripping the rope between the soles of his boots as he kept shifting his grip higher. It took him a long time to climb out, and the muscles of his arms and shoulders were trembling by the time he got his knee on the edge and rolled out, lying on his back for a moment and sucking in deep breaths.

He looked at the rock edge of the hole. He'd need something for the rope to run over, when he started pulling Sam out, or it would be cut through. The pack on his back was the only thing he could think of that might work. Pulling everything out of it, he laid it over the rock, anchoring it as well as he could with a few rocks around the edges. He pulled experimentally on the rope, and was satisfied as it slid smoothly over the synthetic surface of the pack.

"Let me know when you're ready," he called down. Hannah tied two loops in the end of the rope, a large one that she slid over Sam's shoulder and chest, and a smaller one at the tail, for Sam to put his foot in.

"Okay!" she shouted up toward the bright square of light above them. It was, she realised as she looked up, not nearly as bright as it'd been.

Dean hauled until he had enough slack to loop the rope around himself and then he started to walk away from the hole. Sam might have been smaller and lighter, but he was still a fair weight, and pulling, instead of lifting, was a lot easier and a helluva lot faster.

In the shaft, Sam and Hannah were astonished by how fast Sam rose. Dean stopped when he saw the top of Sam's head, advancing slowly as Sam got his knee over the edge, and freed himself from the loops. They threw the rope back down, and Dean again walked away, faster this time, with Sam there to help Hannah over the edge.

Dean stood unmoving to one side of the hole as Sam and Hannah pulled up the rope, breaking the knot that connected the two pieces and coiling them up. His muscles were shaking from the pounding they'd gotten, and with all three out of the hole, reaction had set in, a combination he was familiar with from past hunts with his father. The fear and worry that he couldn't have let out at the time being released now that they were all safe. Just a six mile walk back to the motel, he thought a bit mockingly. Nothing to it.

The sun set as they started down the trail, and the sky was lit in shades of blue and purple, casting shadows over the slides and hollows, making them stumble even with the flashlights lighting up the path. They got moving as quickly as they could because darkness would come fast, and they needed to be off the hillside before then, if possible. Slipping and staggering through the rocks, Dean felt as if any moment he could lose his balance and go flying, the fatigue in his body was so great, but somehow he managed to keep his balance, keep his footing and keep on going. Sam and Hannah walked a little in front of him, both weaving slightly with weariness. The road up had seemed quick, going back was taking forever.

The trail widened back into the road as the moon rose in the east, washing the landscape in silver and making the shadows such a dense black that even the beams of their flashlights hardly seemed to penetrate them.

"Not far now," Hannah called back to him, slowing and letting Sam go on ahead. Only another mile and they'd be able to stop.

"You okay?" She looked sideways at him, her brow furrowed up in concern. He nodded, turning his head to look at her. In the moonlight, the bruising on her face looked black.

"What happened to you? You didn't get those today," he asked.

She looked away. "Got into trouble for being late home yesterday."

"What?" He slowed, brows drawing down as he connected the bruising on her arm with the bruise on her face. "Your dad did that to you?"

Her lips compressed slightly as she answered, "He gets worried about me."

Dean bit back his immediate response, recognising her reluctance to talk about it any further. He pushed his outrage down, shaking his head.

Their father pushed them. Harder than most kids, he knew from talking to others at the various schools they'd been through in the last few years. Their lives were different from other kids', they had to be ready for the things that lived in the dark and could come out of nowhere. He'd met kids before who'd come to school in long-sleeves and high-necked shirts. Seen that slightly furtive duck of the head when they'd tried to explain that they'd done something wrong. Their dad was hard but he wasn't mean and he didn't let his anger hurt his sons.

He blinked as a vague and almost formless memory came to him, his cheekbone stinging a little with the recollection. He had once, he thought, a long time ago. Never since then.

They crossed the bridge and walked slowly to the motel. Dean saw, but didn't register the black car parked in front of their room. Hannah saw but didn't connect the faded grey pickup parked across two slots nearby to her father.

"HANNAH!"

Her head jerked up as the roar of her father's voice filled the parking lot. She straightened up quickly, stumbling as her feet tried to go faster than her body would allow.

"What the hell have you been doing, girl? That boy touch you?" Her father strode over to her, his hand biting tightly into her bruised upper arm. He turned to look at Dean, lips curling back over his teeth. "What you do to my girl, boy?"

Dean stumbled to a halt, his weariness making it hard to think. He stared at the tall, lean man holding the girl uncomprehendingly. "Nothing, sir."

"Bull-SHIT!" Hannah's father dropped her arm, pushing her backward with enough force to knock her over. He took a threatening step toward Dean, hands balled into fists and his expression twisted up with anger.

"If he said he didn't do anything, then he didn't do anything."

The deep, dark-timbred voice that came from the shadows beside the black car was mild, but held a clear warning. Dean felt his knees sag as he saw his father walk out into the moonlight and cross the lot.

"I was a boy, I know what boys do after dark, mister."

"Don't judge everyone by yourself," John said quietly, looking at the girl, seeing the bruising at the side of her face, the expression of pain as her father swung around and grabbed her again, his hand biting tightly in her flesh as he lifted her to her feet. "Let her go, you're hurting her."

"Don't you tell me my business, asshole!" He turned back to Dean, almost spitting in his anger. "Sonofabitch city kids think they can do anything they like with innocent girls –"

John took a single long stride, and his fist slammed into the man's face like a sledgehammer, dropping him instantly. Hannah stood next to his limp form, shaking as she looked down at him.

John looked at her, his expression drawn. "You all right?"

She nodded, teeth worrying the edge of her lip.

"Have you got somewhere you could stay tonight, with someone? Away from your home?" John pressed, not wanting to leave her here unprotected while her father was tanked, angry and looking for someone to take it out on.

"Can stay with Beth," she said, nodding again, her gaze lifting from her father to the man in front of him. "He just worries about me."

John tucked his chin against his chest and sighed. "Maybe he does, sweetheart, but you go someplace else for tonight, okay? And go talk to the police if he hits you again."

She looked at him, and he saw a rising flush spread from her chest and up her neck, flaming in her cheeks. Most of the town would've known about it, he thought, a little sourly. Just not their business. He thought he'd have time to drop in to talk to the cops briefly on his way back.

Turning to his boys, he looked both over. Dean looked like he was ready to fall down at any moment and Sammy's hands were bandaged. Something had gone on out in the hills and he'd find out about it later, he decided. They were both standing. That was enough for now.

"Get inside, get packed, we're going," he said, his voice harsh, the words an order. Dean nodded and grabbed Sam's arm, leading him inside the room.

"Where's your friend's place?" John asked Hannah in a gentler tone. She pointed down the road.

"A couple of blocks that way," she told him. "He gunna be alright here?"

"He'll live," John said mildly, gesturing to the street. "Come on, I'll walk you."

He took a couple of steps and waited for her. She pulled her gaze away from her father and followed him, walking down the street next to him.

Dean found that his fatigue was gone. Adrenalin pumped through his muscles and he packed up everything at top speed, glancing frequently at Sam to make sure he was doing what he was supposed to be doing, working faster when he saw how much trouble Sammy was having with his hands.

When John opened the door, the bags were packed and closed, the room clean and tidy.

"What the hell did you think you were doing, Dean?"

Dean dropped his gaze to the floor. He was expecting it, he'd screwed up, put two other people in danger. He deserved it.

"You take your brother and a girl out in the middle of the night?"

"It was a ghost hunt, Dad," Sam burst out, looking at Dean's bowed head. "Four ghosts were killing people around here, Dean put 'em to rest."

Dean closed his eyes, wishing his brother would lose the ability to talk – forever.

"You took Sammy and a girl on a hunt, Dean?"

He heard the ragged fury in his father's voice and dropped his head lower. Sam heard it as well, and realised that he'd made a mistake, but his brother would be the one paying for it.

"Answer me!"

"I'm sorry," Dean said, keeping his gaze on the floor. "They weren't supposed to be in the tunnels with me, they were supposed to wait outside."

"Unbelievable. They were supposed to wait outside?" John repeated, staring at him. "Hasn't it gotten into your thick head yet that no hunt goes according to plan, that's why we have to be so godamned careful of everything, that's why we keep the people we care about as far away as possible!"

Sam looked up at his father, a spurt of anger at the injustice of the accusation burning in his chest. "It wasn't Dean's fault, Dad, I made him take me – and Hannah and me –"

"If he were a better hunter, you couldn't make him do anything, Sam," John cut him off sharply. He looked at his youngest son's hands. "What the hell happened to you?"

Sam looked down at the bandages, swallowing as he realised he didn't know if the truth was going to get Dean into worse trouble. "I – uh –"

"He fell down the ventilation shaft and burned his hands, trying to grab the rope," Dean said resignedly. "They need to be cleaned out properly, I just used the saline from the kit."

John looked at him. "Alright, get those bags into the car and bring the big med kit back in here. Sammy, sit down."

Dean picked up the gun bag and heaved it onto his shoulder, grabbing his duffle in the other hand. He walked out of the room slowly, but stoically, ignoring the protests of his arms and legs. John watched him go then turned to his youngest son.

"Alright, what happened? All of it, the truth, Sammy."

"We heard about the ghosts from Hannah, four men trapped in a mine tunnel that collapsed. Dean and I looked it up at the library, and it was true, and the newspapers had the details of a bunch of campers and hikers who've died in the area as well, so Dean wanted to check the mine," Sam said, a little hesitantly. "Hannah and me didn't go in with him, we were at the top of the shaft when the ghosts came out, even though it was day and they weren't supposed to –"

John's mouth curled up. "Who told you ghosts abide by a particular rule book, Sammy?"

Sam dropped his gaze to the floor.

Behind them, the door opened again and Dean carried the big first aid kit to his father, setting it down as John started to unwrap his brother's hands.

"Boil up some water and add some salt, Dean, I'll need to soak these to get all the dirt out," his father said. "Then you can load up the rest of the stuff."

"Yes, sir."

Sam flinched slightly as the gauze came away, most of congealed with blood and clear liquid to the wounds. He hadn't realised how shredded his palms were until his father eased them into the warm, salted water, using swabs to clean them out as gently as possible.

"He found the bodies, and salted and burned the remains, Dad," Sam said quietly when Dean had headed out the door with another load. "Saved me, Hannah too."

John nodded noncommittally as he patted his son's hands dry and filled the cleaned out tears with antibiotic powder.

"What was the story with the girl's father?"

Sam shook his head. "We didn't meet him. We met Hannah yesterday." He looked up at his father. "I don't know why the guy was so angry at Dean."

John didn't respond, wrapping Sam's hands in clean dressing and winding a clean bandage around each. "These are going to hurt for a while, Sammy," he said, tying off the last one. "You tell me when it gets too much, you'll need something to help you sleep through it, okay?"

"Yes, sir."

John looked around as Dean came in again, the boy stopping uncertainly by the door. "Car's loaded."

"Good, Sam, go get in," he said, getting to his feet and gathering up the debris of the bandages Dean had dressed Sam's hands in. "Dean, you stay."

He dropped the dressings and bandages in the trash can next to the kitchenette and turned around, seeing his oldest son's gaze drop immediately.

"Well?" he asked.

"I was only going up there to check it out, because Hannah and Sam … anyway, the ghosts were supposed to be only active at night, not during the day …" Dean's voice trailed away as he belatedly realised that was another thing he should have checked out first. He'd been impatient, wanting to finish the job before Dad had returned, had wanted to have something to tell him to make him proud.

"The ghosts knocked Sam into the shaft and Hannah came down after him. I salted and burned the bones, and they vanished, then we got out," he finished, with a slight shrug. If he'd taken more time to get things right, had made Hannah draw a map instead of coming along, if … if … if. He let out his breath, seeing clearly all the mistakes he'd made.

John listened to the faltering recitation with mixed feelings. He was still angry that Dean had put Sam and the girl, Hannah, into danger – real danger. He hadn't checked everything out properly and had gone in half-cocked, thinking he knew enough when he didn't. Looking at the boy's expression, he had a feeling Dean was getting that for himself now.

On the other hand, he'd done the job, gotten everyone out and protected Sam and Hannah as well as he'd could.

"Look at me," he said to his son and Dean raised his head reluctantly to meet his father's eyes.

"You are never to go hunting on your own again, you hear me?" John's voice held a whiplash of command and Dean nodded quickly.

"You never put Sam in that kind of risk again," John continued, watching his son swallow and nod again, Dean's face paling slightly under the smattering of light freckles as he ducked his head and stared at the floor.

John looked at him for a long moment. "But."

Dean's eyes flicked up to meet his father's when he heard that single word.

"You did a good job of protecting them," John said consideringly. "And you didn't panic. You finished the job."

Dean's expression was torturously transparent, his pulse fluttering at the base of his throat as he stared at his father. John smiled, dropping a hand onto his boy's shoulder.

"You did good. I'm proud of you, Dean," he told him, his hand squeezing the shoulder lightly.

Dean ducked his head, pressing his chin hard against his chest as his throat inexplicably tightened. He couldn't believe it. He couldn't take it in. His father's voice had softened … deepened … was filled with an emotion that he couldn't quite decipher.

Proud of him.

Proud of him!

"Come on," John said, recognising his son's rising emotions by the tint of red that coloured the tips of Dean's ears. "You and Sam look like you're about to keel over. We'll get going, get something to eat in Ajo."

Dean nodded, about-facing and walking to the car, barely able to see where he was going. He heard his father's footsteps behind him, the click of the motel room door closing and he hurried to the passenger side of the car, getting in and pulling the door shut quickly, grateful for the darkness of the interior. A fast glance over his shoulder showed Sam half-sprawled over the back seat, mouth open and eyes closed, his bandaged hands tucked against his chest.

Proud. The thought wouldn't let go and he blinked hard as his father opened the driver's door and slid into the car. He'd made so many mistakes, could easily have lost Sam – or Hannah – could've been killed himself …

But you didn't lose them, a small voice murmured against his thoughts. You didn't die. You did the job and you got them out.

He was tempted to argue with that voice, to deny what he'd done. He snuck a quick look at his father as John started the car and pulled out of the lot. He could be hard, he could be harsh sometimes too. The one thing Dean knew for certain about his father was that he never gave praise or a compliment if it wasn't completely deserved. Never told anyone anything just to make them feel better.

Proud of you.

It meant that it was true. He hugged that knowledge to himself, turning to look out the window as the black car increased its speed as they reached the highway.

Leaning back in the corner between the door and the back of the seat as they pulled out of Ajo an hour later, his stomach full of hot food, Dean stared out of the window in a drowsy state of contentment.

It had been a strange few days. His first solo hunt. His first horseback ride. His first kiss. The first time he'd seen his Dad look at him as if he could see a partner, instead of a little boy. He shook his head slightly.

"What was the story with the girl, Dean?" John looked over at his son. Sam was sleeping, stretched all the way out on the back seat, a blanket tucked around him. Dean shrugged.

"We met the day after you left. She was pretty cool." He hesitated for a moment, then turned to look at his father. "She kissed me."

John hid a smile at the tone in Dean's voice. "Yeah? What did you think?"

Dean thought about the moment. Her lips had been very soft. Aside from the fact he'd been completely taken by surprise, he thought he'd like to try it again. Maybe not in the same circumstances.

"It was nice," he said finally. John laughed softly and Dean turned to look at him, mouth curving into a slightly uncertain smile. It had been nice.