Author's Note: We're in the home-stretch now, gang! Two more chapter to go. Special thanks to everyone who has followed the story; it's been fun and I appreciate each and every one of ya. *smish*
After the party was fueled and watered, the witch directed the men in readying for the trip to Indian country. "Native American," Sam kept insisting, to which Olivia and Lom kept looking befuddled and Dean just snorted. Dean griped about Olivia's pushiness but was secretly grateful they had someone who knew the big, gaping prairie better than an East Coast piano player with bad eyes.
It was agreed that Sam and the witch would ride tandem on her big black gelding, mostly because every time Sam tried to approach one of the other horses by himself, it would nicker and shy away, showing the whites of its eyes. The gelding was also long-legged and barrel-chested, and Sam didn't look like a giant atop it.
The journey would take roughly four hours, by Olivia's estimation. This would bring them to the edge of Ute territory before sundown, where Leander Campbell would meet them and escort them in. After that, she had no good guess what would happen. She didn't even know if she and Dean would be allowed to observe the ritual, but she honestly doubted it. Dean had already made up his mind that Sam wasn't getting out of eyeshot again, so the witch's opinion didn't matter one fuck anyway. It wasn't up to debate.
Miles and miles floated by in the dry, wordless quiet of the land, the riders' weary tension broken only by Lom's occasional whistling or a hawk's cry.
Dean's last trip to Sunrise, Wyoming, circa 1861, had been an adventure. Not the idealized West of the movies, but successful enough to be remembered fondly. This? This was not a fond adventure, he decided sourly. This was a God-damned fiasco, is what it was. His ass was too numb to feel and grit had settled into every personal crevice he possessed. Sam looked all wrong in someone else's clothes, eyes pulled into slits and bones too sharp under his skin. The witch's strange, wheat-colored hair kept wafting and getting caught in Sam's uncharacteristic scruff. The witch, herself, gave Dean the creeps and he wouldn't trust her not to double-cross them, if it came down to them or her husband's life. And if Dean was honest with himself, he didn't believe a medicine man could cure lycanthropy.
His hand ghosted over the shotgun strapped to his side, the weapon loaded with life-burning silver. He prayed he'd never have to point it at Sam, but since when did his prayers get answered? Since about never.
Sam sat up taller and for a heartbeat, Dean thought his brother had read his mind. He jerked his hand away from the shotgun and made like he'd been reaching for his canteen all along.
"You hear that?" Sam said, his gaze lasering across the hilly, burnt land.
"What?" Dean pulled his horse up short, then the others followed suit.
"I dunno. Something metallic?"
As soon as the words left Sam's lips, gunfire cracked through the sky and Lom's horse screamed. The animal fell heavily, legs jutting and quirking, Lom caught underneath. Dean rolled off his horse before he could get thrown or targeted, and pulled the shotgun. Fuck wasting silver; it'd put a hole in a human just as effectively.
"There," Sam pointed to a crest but Dean couldn't see jack shit.
The gelding danced; Olivia struggled to hold him in check. "What is it?" she asked, her voice breaking.
"Two men. On that ridge." Sam grabbed her rifle—even as she started to object—and jumped off the horse, landing in a puff of dust. He brought the gun to shoulder with a practiced snap.
Another shot blasted a tuft of dirt beside Dean; Sam returned fire. "Three men." He adjusted his estimate with a sneer.
"Did you hit one?" Dean said, straining to see what Sam was seeing.
"Can't tell."
Olivia had dismounted and was fussing with Lom. He gasped for breath, his horse huffing in pained whistles and trying vainly to rock to its feet. "The creature is pressing the life out of him!" she cried.
"Go, Dean. GO." Sam said. "I'll cover you."
Dean hesitated only a second before he slid to Lom. With the witch's help, they managed to pull him free of the dying horse. There were no visible wounds on the man but that didn't mean there weren't cracked ribs; in fact Dean would've been massively impressed if Lom had avoided internal injuries. But Lom's strained breathing and suddenly clammy skin indicated serious trouble. Ruptured innards or shock, probably both. He heard another volley of shots explode around him, from Sam, from the hiding gunmen.
"Got one," Sam said, without pride.
"Lom. Look at me, man. Talk to me." Dean tore open Lom's shirt; his belly was already showing bruising. Dean felt something unhappy sink in his own gut.
Lom's glasses were cracked and he struggled to find Dean's face. "I-I fear … I may have g-gotten myself in a peck of trouble." Bright blood bubbled at the corner of his mouth.
Olivia looked at Dean, hard. "If we don't get cover, we are nigh done for," she said. "There's a Peacemaker in my pack; leave me the shotgun."
Again with the bossiness, but Dean took it willingly. He crawled to the gelding, keeping low until the horse could provide cover. The shooting had stopped, though Dean wasn't sure why. He dug the revolver from the saddlebag, as directed. It felt fucking glorious to have a proper gun back in-hand. Sam was still watching the near ridges, rifle up. Dean moved to him, almost knocking his shoulder.
"So?" Dean nudged.
"They smell off."
"Off? You're telling me you can smell them?"
Sam grimaced uncomfortably. "When the wind changes direction, yeah. I think they're shifters. Weres."
Of course. Nothing could be easy, could it? Dean raised his voice. "Harper! I know it's you. Don't be a fucking candy-ass; face us like a man. Or, uh, a man with a tail. Or …"
Sam groaned, just on principle. "Smooth."
"Yeah, well."
But Dean figured he was spot on, particularly when a person laughed from one of the scrubby rises. A figure moved, just barely noticeable as a dark speck, then it was gone.
Sam shifted his feet, clearly nervous. "Dean? Who are these guys?"
"Monsters from town. I might've killed one of their butt buddies."
"Might've?"
"All right, absolutely did."
Sam exhaled loudly.
"You two done chit-chatting?" Olivia interrupted. "Where're the shooters?"
The Winchesters both paused, listening.
"I don't hear them anymore," Sam said.
To which Dean added, "Not sure if that's a good thing or a bad thing."
xXx
Turned out, Lom had likely cracked a few ribs and most certainly shattered an arm, but the blood was from a bitten tongue and once they jury-rigged a splint, he was mobile again. Whiskey and some odd tincture Olivia supplied seemed to keep the pain manageable. The horse was lost, however, as were Lom's glasses. He was useless, and he slowed the party considerably, but no matter how valiantly he begged to be left behind, no one else agreed to that plan.
Lom rode with Olivia while Sam and Dean took shifts on foot, though the horse skittered at proximity to Sam. Dean actually welcomed the walking, and Sam seemed tireless. Every so often, Sam would pause and listen, nostrils flaring. It unnerved Dean, these ever-increasing changes in his brother's demeanor. He made a valiant effort to think on it as little as possible.
At one point, they broke to water the horses and Olivia sidled over to Dean, her voice low. "I suspect I don't need to tell you we will not make Ute territory by sundown."
"Nope," he said, scrubbing a hand over his chin. Sam had started to get agitated the past mile, eyes snapping at every sound and Dean would swear they looked lighter, golden, even flashing like Lom's glasses when the light struck at certain angles. It was going to get worse before it got better; this was fact. "But we keep moving."
They both watched Sam pace for a minute, casting a long shadow in the encroaching dusk.
Eventually, she nodded. "There's silver in the Peacemaker. Just so's you know." And that's all she said before walking back to the gelding and mounting up.
xXx
Sam had been drifting farther and farther from the party as the light became scarce and all the colors of twilight bled into the edges of the sky. Lom was sleeping on Olivia's back but the witch was sharp-eyed, anxious. She frequently exchanged glances with Dean and he would grin back, playing at confidence but feeling only dread.
The landscape undulated with black, brush-covered hills that broke into striated red rock. There were so many spots an ambush could happen that when it finally did, Dean was almost thankful.
It wasn't gunfire this time; it was a deep, bubbling growl that the horses—and Sam—heard before the humans.
"Incoming," Sam shouted.
Olivia shook Lom awake and practically pushed him off her horse just before it reared up and whickered frightfully, sweaty flanks trembling. Lom blinked, prone, flinching away from hooves.
A massive shape breached the east knoll, becoming larger yet when it rose from all fours to stand up on two legs, shoulders swelling. A second hulk joined it, eyes like dirty yellow headlights, teeth like the broken grill of a Chevy truck.
"Holy shit," Dean swore, clambering off his own mount, fingers clenched around the Peacemaker.
And then the ground shook with the rumble of the beasts barreling over the bluff. The werewolf in the lead slammed into the gelding and Olivia was flung wide. Dean heard her hit the ground as he squeezed off a shot. In the fracas, he managed to hit the horse. The monster fucking laughed, spittle dripping from its maw.
Dean's next shot, however, did not miss its mark. There was a howl and a hiss and the stink of singeing fur.
A blast lit up the dusk as a shower of silver buckshot pelted the fiend that Dean had hit. Clearly, the witch had kept her hands on the shotgun and was up and moving. The monster thudded to the ground, seizing.
The second werewolf bellowed, its scream echoing across the wasteland. It moved faster than its predecessor did and Dean's heart pounded against his ribs as the creature ripped towards him, closing the distance before Dean could get fifteen feet. A talon caught the brim of his hat and nicked his scalp. He could smell blood in the air now.
"DEAN!"
Sam hollered from the right but the timbre sent Dean's hair on end, even as Dean ducked and bit the dirt, face-first. He felt the wind of an enormous limb whiz over his head. Dean whirled onto his back and cocked the gun's hammer in one long, lucky move. He pulled the trigger without the luxury of aiming, heard a blood-freezing wail. The second werewolf crashed away from him, carried by its own considerable momentum.
Dean swiped blood and sweat from his eyes and caught sight of the moon, a hole of creamy white puncturing the dark.
"Oh … G-God … Dean …" Sam's voice was coarse and clogged and not wholly human.
Panting, nerves thrumming, Dean stumbled to his feet. He half-ran to Sam, cringing every other step because of the acute pain in his left knee—the knee that always acted up when he fell on it. Like he'd just done.
But he stopped dead when he saw Sam.
Sam was weaving on his feet, shuddering. His face glistened, slick with sweat and tilted to the moonrise, the rifle tossed aside. Even from here, Dean could see Sam's shoulders roiling under the shirt, distending, building mass.
Dean heard Olivia cock the shotgun and he raised the Peacemaker to point at her head. Lom was making fearful, inarticulate sounds. And Sam's bones were cracking, sinew and muscle stretching wetly.
"Don't even think about hurting him," Dean told her.
Olivia opened her mouth to speak. The werewolf Dean thought he'd killed, the one he had just plugged with a spiffy silver bullet, gave a heave and shook itself as if simply clearing cobwebs. Maybe he'd only grazed it. Maybe the witch's bullets weren't pure. Maybe he should get his ass in gear because maybe the fucker was fixing to eat his face off.
"Down!" Olivia screamed and Dean dropped, silver scattershot stinging across his back. The werewolf shrieked and launched at Olivia, narrowly avoiding Dean's head. She flung the now-empty shotgun at the monster but it batted the weapon aside like a twig. Dean was attempting to get turned back around, his knee pounding with fresh injury, when a huge shaggy mass careened to intercept the beast.
Another werewolf.
Dean threw a desperate glance to where Sam had been standing and saw a pile of shredded clothes. He knew his mouth was flapped open but he didn't care.
The giants collided unrestrained, all crashing teeth and bared claws that could gouge canyons. The earth shook, their bodies slamming like thunder. The newcomer was markedly larger than the wounded one. It was almost impossible for Dean to equate the feral, slavering thing with his brother but it became clear, in short order, that at least Sam wasn't ill-equipped for the job. He was not what hunters were accustomed to in the 21st century. Hell, he wasn't even particularly close to what Dean had seen in the jail.
Though the other's eyes shone with a furnace-bright frenzy, it couldn't outmaneuver or overpower Sam, who pinned the lesser beast to the ground with a single powerful arm. Sam looked to be grinning, lips pulled tight against sharp teeth. He hesitated, head tilting towards Dean, and then he licked his chops. Sam's eyes were as black as pitch. In a blur, Sam fell upon his prey and ripped and ripped. Blood spilled so fast, the dust was muddied with it. The pinned werewolf yipped and shrieked and gurgled and finally, fell still. The carcass shriveled, fur dropping away like that of week-old roadkill. It was Billy Harper. He was shredded from chin to navel and stained red with his own ichors, ribs pointing to the starry sky. Heart gone.
Dean swallowed back bile. There was a gap of weird near-silence when all he could hear was his pulse in his ears and the slow-motion pounding footfalls of a monster approaching.
The last werewolf stopped in front of Dean, towered over him, breathing heat and the coppery odor of blood. He blocked out the moon and dripped red onto Dean's boots from his parted jaws. His black gaze bore down until Dean had the courage to meet it.
The air shifted. Bone and muscle contracted in a sudden, raw shudder. Sam, the person, groaned and would've stumbled backwards had Dean not grabbed his arm, fingers almost slipping through the mess.
"Son of a bitch," was all Dean could think to say.