Chapter three

Bobby left them the next morning, stretching his joints with a popping sound and grumbling about the goddamn uncomfortable cabin floor.

"As much as I'd love to see how this plays out, I still got a job on. Hiker went missing somewhere out the, 'bout twenty miles east. If I hadn't stopped in with Cletus and heard you was up here I'd be there now."

"Maybe we could help." Sam said.

"No way." Dean got there first, Bobby's mouth already forming a refusal. "I mean, we'll be backup if you need a drive somewhere, but-"

"Right with ya, Dean. Sam, I'll see you. Take it easy."

"See you, Bobby." Dean said, watching Sam's face turn mutinous.

"I'm not stupid, Dean." he bitched, once Bobby had ambled on down the track.

"Really. Try not acting stupid. There's no way in H- Earth I'm going into a hunt with you as backup when you're schizing out every five seconds. You'd be dangerous to me and yourself, not to mention any civilians."

Inwardly Dean winced at the harsh words, waiting half-hopefully for a bitter reply. The old Sam could turn 'get me some coffee' into a knock-down drag-out fight across three states and God help him, Dean needed to fight something right now. Letting Bobby leave alone to hunt Christ-knows-what wasn't easy.

"Okay." Sam hung his head, shading his eyes beneath thick bangs. He needs a haircut Dean thought absently, and then I'm turning into his fucking grandma, he can cut his own hair.

"Sam-"

"I'm going for a walk."

SNSNSNSNSN

Sam kicked his way through the pine needles, feeling the nervous peace of not-carrying-weapons, a rare enough circumstance these past few years that it had its own emotional state. Dean would freak if he knew Sam went unarmed on his solo walks into the woods. It didn't really make sense, there were weapons all over the cabin and that was fine, it didn't worry him. Out on the paths, though, there might be people, brown-eyed girls and little kids eating gummi worms that looked like – things. Dean wasn't around to stop him if he forgot, so perhaps leaving the gun behind under that oh-so-convenient rock wasn't so bad.

There were birds in the trees. Sam watched a shaking branch, trying to catch a glimpse of the flash of dun-coloured wings. If he concentrated really hard and counted the seconds of flight and tried to pick where the bird would land, claws digging into the bark,-

- Hecate held out a hand, long nails sharp around its dripping burden, and smiled sweetly. "If you've done the penance, you might as well enjoy the sin."

Then maybe he wouldn't think of anything at all. Please god, who I have never seen, let me think only of nothing at all.

As he walked back, he was watched by two sets of eyes, one pair at the cabin door and one pair on a bluff almost half a mile off. Dean's held worry. The Wendigo's held madness, and starvation.

The Wendigo ran its claws down through treebark and into the wood, the bright gouges a momentary satisfaction that dulled the fever of its brain. Its mind was a howling parliament of hunger and rage held together by chilly intelligence. That thin streak of reason said the last hiker, flesh tough and steeped in adrenaline, had been a mistake. Forest near the trail was fruitful hunting ground, but the search had grown too fast and too thick to risk those woods. A good hunter knows when to run clear and let the game settle down. Just like the elders taught all those years ago, before the bitter winter and the sweet, blood-soaked spring.

So now, the Wendigo had to go hungry in the quietest reaches of its territory, unless by some glorious chance it found in the deserted woods bounty such as this. Prey.