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The Supernatural characters belong to Kripke Enterprises and the CW, not me. No money is being made from this story. It is for entertainment only.
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Dean Winchester, Skin Walker
Chapter 11
Follow the Wind
Oh, the wayward wind is a restless wind
A restless wind that yearns to wander
And he was born the next of kin
The next of kin to the wayward wind
In a lonely shack by a railroad track
He spent his younger days
And I guess the sound of the outward bound
Made me a slave to his wandering ways
Oh, I met him there in a border town
He vowed we'd never part
Though he tried his best to settle down
Now I'm alone with a broken heart
From Chapter 10
Is this the guy you saw?" Eldon extended the picture to Marty.
"Might be," Marty replied. "They're just about the same size. The guy that shot me though was blonder and had a kind of more boney face. I can't say that they might not be the same guy. I 'm not sure."
Eldon considered the lead. "You know anything about this woman? Her name or where she's from?"
Marty shrugged. "I never spent any time on her but one of my guys talked to her for a while. Her name was Elly and they went to school together, strangely enough. He told me she was from Valentine, Nebraska."
Chapter 11
Dean lay on the bank on his belly watching the horses drink. One of the mares threw her head up and extended her neck taking in great gulps of air. He slithered further down the bank hoping she was not scenting him. Wolves were horse predators, running after the herd's weakest members, usually a foal or a sick older animal, until it collapsed from exhaustion. The wolves generally worked in packs, running the prey to death. If the mare caught the scent of a wolf the entire group would disappear. He waited but there was no noise of them breaking away. He could still hear the sound of the lead mare sampling the air.
His attention was distracted by a new sound. Somewhere behind him were two human voices. They were low and muted but carried clearly on the air. He flicked his large, sensitive ears toward the voices. One male, one female; he could make that out but exactly what they were saying was beyond him.
The voices came closer and he could tell the humans were trying very hard to be quiet. Even so the mares apparently heard them. The small group was shifting nervously, shuffling their hooves in the duff under the trees. Dean moved lightly in the direction of the voices, being very careful of where he placed his paws. Circling to the east he cut to that side of the humans. He wanted to come up behind them, not meet them head on.
His decision proved to be a good one. Before he laid eyes on the speakers he found their truck. It was a nice, solid, green-painted pickup towing a horse trailer. He could hear the sounds of a horse inside pawing at the floor. The letters BLM were stenciled both on the truck's door and on the trailer. Bureau of Land Management; these two were most likely some kind of Ranger. He wasn't all that well versed in BLM policy but he knew the agency was ultimately responsible for the wild horse herds of the west.
He picked up the human scent and followed the pair. When he found them they were laying on the bank much the same as he had but about fifty feet further downstream. They were watching the mares and their foals though binoculars.
He stood in the safety of the trees, his grey fur blending nicely into the shadows. The two Rangers slithered back down the bank and headed, he assumed, back to their truck. He followed as lightly as he could, trying to hear what they were discussing. Once back at their vehicle the man entered the horse trailer through the narrow front door while the woman lowered the trailer ramp.
They were unloading a grey mare. The woman stayed out of the way of the occasionally flashed hoof while the man backed the animal out. Once on the ground they simply let the mare go. Dean was pretty confused. Why would they be adding another mare in to the covey? The two BLM Rangers watched the grey mare go and they headed on downstream again. Dean decided to follow the mare.
Just as he turned away he heard something that solved the mystery for him. He distinctly heard the words "Judas Horse".
He had heard this phrase used before. A Judas horse was a trained animal that could convince wild mares to follow it into a corral. They were never stallions. Stallions were idiots. A well trained Judas horse led the wild mares by example. Horses are herd and prey animals, just like gazelles or bison. They were always looking for a leader. A Judas horse simply because it had a direction looked like a leader to the rest of the herd. The Rangers were trying to round up and corral this group of mares and foals. Dean knew there were sanctuary ranches in South Dakota especially in the vicinity of Hot Springs. There the wild horses supposedly were to be held to wait for adoption.
Everyone knew that the ranches could only hold so many horses and in the past many of the captured animals were sold off for meat. Today any hint of horses being sold for slaughter was a sure fire way to get the BLM in the papers and splashed all over the internet. Recently the plan to cull eight or nine hundred of the Yellowstone bison had turned into a major publicity headache for the agency.
But they were running out of room for the horses. There was pressure from special interests to open up the sale of wild horse for slaughter again. Everyone in the west suspected that horses were simply disappearing from the holding corrals,
Dean decided that this little group was going to stay free. He ignored the Rangers and followed the Judas mare. He studied how the animal moved, following close enough to begin to build a picture in his mind of how he could look as a horse. He decided immediately he was going to be a stallion. The mares would follow a stallion without question. If he could get the little group moving in a southwest direction he might be able to get a lot closer to Denver a lot faster than he could as a wolf. He needed the cover. A stallion moving through the Western landscape alone would be an anomaly, sure to attract unwanted attention.
The Judas mare tacked to and fro, heading in the general direction of the little herd. She most likely could hear them and was approaching carefully, looking not to get stomped. If the small group had a lead mare that was at all aggressive it was possible that the Judas mare would be driven away.
He studied her and began to mold his new body based on his observations. First of all his legs got longer and his point of view rose up from behind the brush to above it. His neck extended and his muzzle grew. He felt his hind quarters expand and his body's center of balance moved forward over his withers. This was a body built for speed.
He gathered the additional weight and power he needed from the surrounding landscape. His natural weight was not sufficient to support a full grown stallion. There were rules in the supernatural world also. Rules he needed to obey. Those back legs were the engine of this new body. The power contained there is what would drive him forward. He needed to pull in strength from the earth or he would be only a wisp, practically a ghost, on the face of the world. Any other creature could walk right through a stallion with the inertial weight of a man, a puny 200 pounds at most. He needed the equivalent of 1,500 pounds at least.
He felt his new tail tickle the backs of his long legs. A mane cascaded over his neck and a forelock tumbled into his eyes.
Although he felt every change as it happened if there had been an outside observer the change would have appeared to flow. From a grey wolf, the horse emerged; larger, stronger but still grey as summer fog. His now longer legs ate up the ground and he closed in on the Judas mare. He cocked his tail like a flag, indicating possibly some Arab blood there. The large, floppy mane waved in the mild wind of his passage. He had the small, neat head of the Arab line but his legs spoke of quarter horse blood mixed in. They were sturdy legs; thicker than a thoroughbred and less prone perhaps to catastrophic damage.
As an American wild horse stallion he was close to ideal.
When he reached the small breakaway herd there was no question of who was in charge. The Judas mare even fell into line, ignoring her training. He could hear the whistle of her Rangers, far away, crying out in the woods but she ignored the summons being much more interested in this strong, young stallion. The Rangers weren't going to be getting her back anytime soon.
He circled the herd, establishing dominance. The lead mare was not enthusiastic but did lower her head in submission and allowed him to scent her. He touched each member of the herd and when he turned away to the southwest they followed him.
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Mandy Walker dropped her binoculars. "Where the hell did he come from?" She turned to her partner, Jacob Bonn.
"I don't know Mandy. He's not freeze branded so he's not from any captive herd. I don't see how it's possible." Jacob shrugged. "There has to be a native herd somewhere here that hasn't been spotted, maybe. I'm with you though; I just don't know how that could happen. Look at him. He's young, healthy and strong. This is nobody's cull from a captive herd. He's pure wild."
Mandy dumped her equipment into the truck's extended cab. "Well, we might as well call in and tell Jake Pally we aren't going to be corralling any kind of a herd. He's not going to believe us when we tell him some rouge stallion showed up out of nowhere and made off with not only the wild mares but also his Cindy Pie. I think Jake actually loves that horse."
Jacob shrugged again. He was easier going than either Mandy or Jake. "What Jake wants to believe or not believe isn't my problem. The mares are gone. He can chase them down if he wants. We've done our part and I'd like to get back and take a shower then have dinner. All this crawling around in the woods chaps my ass.
Mandy laughed. Jacob could always make her see another side. Jacob thought she took this whole Ranger thing much too seriously. "I don't know why you ever became a Ranger, Jacob." She shook her head. "You don't even seem to like the outdoors."
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Dean led his little group onward towards the Colorado border. The land was steadily rising but they still kept up a good, even pace. So for he had not lost a single straggler, not even the foals and he realized that fifty miles a day was actually a grazing speed for horses. If pushed they would make many more miles a day.
He knew that Denver was at least three hundred and fifty miles away. He had taken this ride with his father and Sam many times and always remembered the rush of rising up into the mountains higher and higher until it looked like the entire Earth was spread out below them. Now he wondered if he should be depending on childhood memories to lead him on. A stop was definitely in his future. He would need to either ask questions about a route or find himself some maps. That decision was days away however. It would most likely take about a week to reach Denver. Right now he had a bunch of horses to lead.
The sun was beginning to dip behind the mountains and he needed to find somewhere for his little band of dependents to spend the night. He ideally wanted something at his back. The deeper into the mountains they got the higher the likelihood of running into mountain lions, the greatest threat to his herd, became. Grizzlies and grey wolves were also problems but not as much as the lions. He thought about just holding back and letting the lead mare pick the spot. She most definitely knew more than he did.
As the shadows lengthened and the air grew chill his lead mare did eventually pick a spot to stop. It was a shallow valley with exits at both ends. About the only protection wild horses had was their speed. A stallion could be intimidating but he was only one animal. It could be his job to hold off a predator as long as he could. It was the job of the rest of the herd to run like hell.
The herd gathered together and began late night foraging. He had kept them on the move all day. They were simply following their new stallion. He was actively running away. He had kept alert for the sound of trucks or helicopters or even the pounding hooves of a pissed off stallion all day. He was now hoping for food, rest, and perhaps even a little sleep.
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John Winchester pulled up outside a bar on the main street of Valentine, Nebraska. Eldon Light sat in the passenger seat with his elbow out the open window. John glanced up into the rear view mirror and confirmed that the ghost that had been following them down Route 83 out of South Dakota was still with them. Marty wasn't giving up the only lead he had to his money.
Eldon looked back over his shoulder. "That shit just doesn't give up, does ne? I wonder just how much money we're talking about."
John flinched. "Who the hell knows?" Winchester pulled his cell phone out of his jacket pocket. "Look, Light, why don't you go on into the bar? Ask around about this Elly woman. This place isn't much bigger than spit in a thunderstorm. I bet everyone knows everybody else's business here. See what you can find out."
"Why not you, Winchester? And what do you expect me to do about the shit on my shoe?' Eldon jerked his head back at Marty who was just getting off his motorcycle.
John looked back into the mirror. "Hell if I know. Look, I got to make a call. I'll be in as soon as I'm done. Try to ignore our druggie, if you can."
Eldon tossed open the door and slid out. Shaking out his rumpled over shirt he headed to the bar.
John dialed and waited. In a couple of buzzes a woman answered the phone. Her voice was young and laughing. "Hello, who is it? This is Jessie."
John was surprised. "I was trying to reach Sam Winchester," he answered her. "This is his father. Is he there?"
"Oh, Mr. Winchester, hold on a minute, will you?"
John heard her call out "Sam, there's a man on the phone who says he's your father, John Winchester."
From further away John heard Sam's voice for the first time in years. Whatever Sam said was suddenly muffled.
Just as quick as that the girl was back. "You said John Winchester, right?"
"Yes, I'm Sam's father, John Winchester. Tell him to come to the phone. It's important."
Another moment and Sam's voice floated over the line. "Dad, is that you?"
The unspoken questions screamed in John's head. Who was the girl; was Sam alright; what had happened in the intervening years? But in typical Winchester fashion John didn't ask a single question, nothing that would be normal for an estranged father to ask.
Instead John barked out "Sam, have you heard from your brother?"
"Dean?" Sam seemed confused. "No, he hasn't called me. Isn't he with you?"
"No," John growled out. "I haven't seen him for a while. We got separated on a job and I'm looking for him. I think it is very possible that he's headed in your direction."
"I'll have him call if he gets here." Sam was retreating into an icy formality.
"No Sam, you listen to me." John went on. "If he calls or shows up there first you make damned sure that it's really Dean. You got all the usual testing stuff? Test him with everything you got and then you call me. Call me and let me know that he's there. You understand, son?"
"What's going on, Dad?" Sam answered. "Why do you think there's something wrong with Dean? What did you do?"
The words froze in John's mouth. Of course Sam would think it was his fault. Why not? Sam thought everything that had ever gone wrong in their family was John's fault. Why not his brother turning into a monster?
"Look Sam, I'm telling you….I'm giving you an order. If your brother shows up hold him there and call me. I'll be there as fast as I can if I can't cut him off on his way there. I'm telling you that it's possible that what could show up on your doorstep might not really be your brother. Listen to me. He's could be dangerous."
"You know what, Dad," Sam responded. "If Dean shows up here I'll find out what's going on one way or another. I'll make up my own mind about who is telling me the truth. And another thing, you don't give me orders anymore. The last order you gave me was to never dome back. That's the order I'm listening to."
John was not aware that you could actually hear a cell phone being slammed shut.
