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A/N: If you want the details on why Dean glows and how Sam turns into a Sphinx you should read "Sons of the Morning". This story picks up as Sam and Dean are driving away from the last chapter of "Walt and Roy get What They Deserve"
Hunter's Moon
Chapter 2
Why We Weep
Second Verse
Down yonder green valley where streamlets meander
When twilight is fading I pensively rove
Or at the bright noon tide in solitude wander
Amid the dark shades of the lonely ash grove
'Twas there while the black bird was cheerfully singing
I first met that dear one the joy of my heart
Around us for gladness the blue bells were ringing
But then little thought I how soon we should part.
The Ash Grove (Welsh Llwyn Onn) traditional Welsh folk song
First Published 1862
English lyrics by John Oxenford
The Impala peeled out of Elroys' parking lot, spitting gravel and dust over the assembled LEOs. Dean glanced in the rearview mirror as Sam looked back over his shoulder.
The SSA from Omaha's FBI Field Office, Ray Ellis, and the members of Quantico's Behavior Analysis Unit stood watching the Winchesters take off. Dean knew that their seeming paralysis would wear off very shortly. These were professionally trained agents watching as their confessed murderers drive off toward Valentine, Nebraska.
Walt's ashes lay in a funeral pyre fenced in with crime scene tape. Roy's headless body had left last night in a body bag. None of the law men standing in the parking lot had any clue what kind of reports they were going to turn in about meeting the Winchesters.
Spenser Reid turned to his Unit Chief, Aaron Hotchner and spread his arms, his thin, long fingered hands turned upward. "What in the world are we going to say about this? I don't even know how to start explaining it."
Hotch just shook his head in sympathy. "No more than I do. This is just outside any of my experience. I do want to see, however, how you describe your conversation with a giant cat."
Derek Morgan stood still and indecisive. That was so out of character for him. He wanted to start a pursuit, capture the bad guys; bring justice to the men slain so brutally outside the bar. His gun was still clasped by both hands but they hung loosely in front of him. He had lowered it when Dean had used Garcia as a shield and had seen no use in raising it again when they released her and drove away.
The only agent moving decisively was the local FBI Agent, Ray Ellis. Well, he was as local as Omaha was; at least he was from Nebraska. He shielded his eyes from the morning sun and watched the Impala flee North up Route 20.
"We should go after them, "he barked out. "They're murderers and we're letting them drive away. "
Hotch came and stood next to Ellis, watching as the car got smaller and smaller.
David Rossi came over to join them. "It would be an interesting exercise. If you do catch them I don't know if you could charge Dean with much more than holding an officer hostage and interfering in an investigation. He certainly didn't rip the heads off the bodies with his bare hands. There were no cut marks on the recovered body. The burned body can be examined to see if there are cut marks on the remaining bones. Unfortunately there do seem to be fang marks on one of them."
"Right," said Ellis. "And we know who has fangs of that size, that cat. Oh, God," Ray hung his head. "I don't even want to think about the circus that would cause."
Reid chimed in with a thought of his own, "Even if you caught the cat, what would you do with him? Put him in the pound? Animal Services would not be pleased. That is, if you could convince Sam to become the cat for you. If you noticed, when they drove away Sam looked like your normal, everyday man. "
Hotch put a hand on Ray Ellis' shoulder. "I think right now the most we can do is reactive their 'Most Wanted' status. They obviously aren't dead."
Everyone headed to their vehicles and left for either Omaha or Valentine. , leaving the parking lot empty of everything except the yellow crime scene tape around Walt's funeral pyre, fluttering in the dry Nebraska wind.
XXXXXXX
Once they saw that the FBI agents weren't actively chasing them but instead simply leaving, the Winchesters relaxed. Dean adjusted the mirror and kept half an eye on the people he was blowing dust over. The Valentine police cars didn't look like they were taking up any kind of a chase.
Sam stretched one arm to the roof and one out the window.
"We got Walt riding with us, bitch? Dean asked.
"Yeah, he's in the trunk curled around his spine trying to work his collar loose." Sam responded and yawned. "Don't suppose we should stop for breakfast anytime soon?"
"Not for quite a while, maybe after about a hundred miles or so. Want to get as far away from our playmates as possible now, "Dean said. "We'll pull over later. There are some of your girly fruit bars in the back seat."
"Real attractive, Dean," Sam responded. He reached over the seat and fished around in the back.
"Shut up and eat 'em or starve for the next couple of counties."
"Where're we going?" Sam asked, unwrapping a Granola bar and watching the completely uninteresting landscape roll by. He was back to watching telephone poles flash by again. It made him a little car sick.
Dean glanced over. "I was kind of thinking of going up to Sioux Falls since we're so close and taking a look at Bobby's yard."
"What? You gonna' poke at that place like a sore tooth, aren't you?"
"Just like to keep an eye on it every now and then," Dean responded.
"You think someone's going to wander off with a burnt out car body?"
"Shut up, Sam. I'm driving and I say we're heading for Sioux Falls."
Sam settled in more comfortably, "I'll relax once we're North of Valentine. I know that we just left pretty much their whole police force back at the bar but you never know. Sheriff Dave might have called someone."
"Look around, Sam. There's no one to call. Valentine and a couple of wide spots in the road are just about all that the Sheriff has to play with. Get settled, Sioux Falls is about 300 miles away."
"Say Dean, since we're headed that way do you think we could maybe alter our normal route and go by Rapid City and up toward Spearfish? If we break off and go south on 85 we could swing by Carbonate," Sam suggested.
The dry Nebraska fields rolled by endlessly, flat and boring. Dean glanced over. "Never heard of it. What's in Carbonate?"
Sam checked the road behind them again. "Not much," he answered. "Carbonate is a former mining town in the Black Hills. Now it's a ghost town."
"Ha", snorted Dean. "Any real ghosts?"
"Don't know for sure", Sam replied. "It's a kind of tourist attraction now, maintained by the State. Lately some of the tourists have been disappearing. No bodies left behind. They just are there one minute and gone the next. Might be something for us, might be people just bailing out of their lives and running away."
"Well, I guess it's possible. We've seen people do that before. Something about wide open Western spaces kind of encourages them to run."
Sam raised his eyebrows at his brother. "So does that mean we can go, oh great, wise and ancient one?"
"One of these days I'm gonna smack that smart out of you."
Sam laughed. "You could if you could reach that high, Shorty."
"Bitch"
Peace reigned in the Impala. Lulled by the engine noise and the hiss of the tires on asphalt, Sam dozed off in the summer's heat.
Dean breathed easier as they passed Valentine's glorious and solitary stop light without pursuit. Then, consulting the map in his head, Dean set off north to Carbonate.
XXXXXXX
As they drove north up Route 83 the landscape began to change. The Nebraska flatlands began to rise and desiccate to a more typically arid Western landscape.
After they crossed the border out of the Nebraska panhandle and into South Dakota, the Black Hills began to rise on the left. The Black Hills are a group of low pine-covered mountains, sacred to the Sioux. Mount Rushmore is located in the Black Hills. In the late 19th century there was a Black Hills gold rush that triggered a number of Indian wars, ending with the Wounded Knee Massacre in 1890.
Dean poked at his sleeping brother. "Hey Sam, your missing all that history stuff you love."
"What?" a sleepy eyed Sam stirred and yawned. ""What'd ya' want?"
"Look, look out the window, historical markers and signs and all that crap and you're sleeping right through it." Dean really wanted Sam to tell him stories about the stuff going by outside the windows. He was bored and Sammy always knew about the landscapes they were driving through.
"OK," Sam looked around. "This is a historical and geologically interesting part of the West."
"I thought we were in the Mid-west," questioned Dean.
"The western side of the Missouri River, which divides South Dakota in half, is considered the beginning of the true West,"' Sam answered.
"There are many abandoned mining towns and closed mines all throughout the Black Hills. At one time there were extensive gold and silver and lead deposits but all the easy ones have been worked out by now. The Southwestern part of South Dakota contains many landmarks such as the Badlands, the Wind Cave National parks, the Crazy Horse Memorial and the historic town of Deadwood."
"So why are we skipping all this interesting stuff and heading up to Clambake?"
"Carbonate, Dean. Carbonate, not Clambake. You do this stuff on purpose to get under my skin, don't you?"
"If you haven't figured that out by now, little brother, you never will."
XXXXXXX
After passing through Rapid City, they followed the signs to Carbonate in the Black Hills National Forest. They pulled into the parking lot maintained by the Forest Service and found a bored looking Ranger sitting on a park bench.
The Ranger rose and came to the driver's side window. "You guys part of the T.V. crew?" he asked.
Always ready to take advantage of a situation Dean replied. "Yes, we're the scene scouts. And you are?"
"Ranger Randy Elsworth, pleased to meet you." He waved at a further section of the parking lot. "We have space reserved for you guys. You want to pull in over there?"
There were a couple of saw horses set up, blocking a large piece of the parking lot off. Hanging from the saw horses were big, hand written signs reading "Reserved for Ghost Quest parking only."
A smile tugged at Sam's mouth. "You know what this is, Dean? We've tripped across filming for that T.V. show 'Ghost Quest'. Have you ever seen it?"
"With the amount of daytime TV we catch, how could I have missed it? " Dean answered. "Did you catch the one where that guy, what's his name? Oh, yeah, Corey Putter, where he's in Las Vegas, on stage with a bunch of showgirls and he's wearing a pink boa? God, I laughed so hard I peed myself."
Sam restrained his laughter by pinching his nose, but it did no good. Dean didn't even know you could snort out your ears, but Sam managed to pull it off.
"Yeah, I saw it. Still don't know what it had to do with hunting ghosts but it sure got your attention." Sam finally cracked and laughed out loud.
They parked the Impala and walked back to where Ranger Randy was waiting for them. Dean kept repeating in his head;" Ranger Randy, Ranger Randy, Ranger Randy". It was beginning to look like a good trip. He hadn't felt this relaxed for a long time.
He smiled big at the Ranger and got a dimpled smile in return. They guy looked like he was hardly out of school; thin, young, dark haired with bright blue eyes he was an attractive youngster. If the Ghost Quest people had any sense they would get this one on camera. He would be as big an attraction as the park
"Thank you, Ranger. I'm sure this is going to be a great episode for the show. We're a little early. Do you know when you expect the rest of the crew?" Dean grabbed the Ranger's hand and shook it at the same time letting a little bit of glow activate. "By the way, I'm Dean and this is my partner, Sam."
"Well, you're not that early. I'm out here waiting for the first film truck to show up; otherwise I'd be in my office," the Ranger replied.
"See Dean," Sam chimed in. "I told you we should have been here yesterday. Now we're going to have to hustle to scope out the scenes before the gang gets here. Ranger, do you have a map of the site we can use?"
Ranger Randy replied, "I got one all set up for you with the ghost hot spots in the park all marked on it. It's on my office desk over there in the Park building."
He waved at a typical park service building at the end of the lot. The standard rectangular building with a concrete porch, handicapped ramp and safety railing, had been dressed up with siding that looked like weathered wood with nail heads bleeding rusty streaks.
"Just poke your heads in. You'll see my desk on the other side of the counter. Just pick the map up yourselves, if you don't mind. I have to stay out here and watch for the truck."
They could tell the Ranger was all excited. He could have waited in his office but this was a big deal to him. Dean looked around the empty lot. "You get a lot of visitors up here, Ranger?"
"Not really. We used to but they cut way back on funding for the parks lately and we stopped advertising the place state wide. We're hoping that this TV show will get the place noticed again. And the money they are paying us will really save our butts. A lot of the park needs just regular maintenance that we had to give up. I love this place and hate what's happening to it."
"Better days are coming, Ranger. Don't lose hope." Sam encouraged. "We need to get to work and get caught up. We'll just get the map and get going. Thanks."
"OK guys. I hope the map helps you hurry up. By the way, just call me Randy. Thanks."
They walked away from the thin young man in his forest green uniform and billed Ranger hat.
Sam looked back and waved. "Nice kid."
"Like you can call anybody 'kid'. I'd say he's your age. We better get moving before the circus arrives." Dean answered.
"You think we're going to be able to maintain this cover?" Sam raised an eyebrow at his brother.
"You know, if you don't stop wiggling your eyebrows at me I'm gonna tape them down."
"I think we can stay on crew." Dean said seriously. "The show tries to tell you that it's just these three guys wandering around but that's crap. They have a whole Travel Channel setup behind them. We'll just blend right in. A lot of these crews have people drop out and new people drop in all the time. They also like to hire locals for things like scene scouting, it can be cheaper. I hope the caterers are good."
XXXXXXX
Using Ranger Randy's map the Winchesters began to search the park for their own kind of 'hot spots'. Dean loved saying 'Ranger Randy' in his head like a mantra. He wasn't going to call him just Randy if he could get away with it. Dean began to feel disturbed by the mantra and the memory of the ranger's bright blue eyes. Maybe he better start watching this "glow" thing for unexpected consequences.
Of the original Carbonate buildings, pretty much only foundations still existed. There were a couple of ramshackle structures, but Dean thought they looked suspiciously as if they had been built out of the same wood siding as the ranger office.
He was carrying the EMF meter around with him. With Sam beside him the meter had lately become somewhat redundant but he liked it. They could wander off in two different directions and Dean could get hits by himself with the meter and he liked the flashing red lights. The whine still gave him a little rush when it went off. Sometimes even he thought he might have just a little too much of the kid left in his personality.
He watched Sam as his brother wandered off site closer to the stand of ponderosa pines at the south end of the ghost town. Glancing at Ranger Randy's map he went to the foundations marked as 'Fannie Hall's and Lottie Belmont's 'establishments'. They were close together on the barely scratched out 'Main Street'. Whorehouses, Dean supposed. The EMF meter gave off some weak flashes.
Sam had disappeared into the trees. He was a big boy; he could take care of himself. Even so Dean still got that old 'Where's Sammy' feeling. Continuing his exploration he looked to the North where the town was backed into the face of the mountain. He could see the opening of what looked like a mine. The tunnel gaped black, like an open wound in the side of the earth.
He set off for the mine. The closer he got, the more the meter flashed. When he finally arrived at the fenced off entrance there was a steady whine from the meter cutting through the still air. Lights danced up and down almost as if measuring a passing wind.
Looking up from the entrancing lights he saw Sam emerge from the trees. He started waving and gesturing and Sam waved back.
Soon the brothers stood together on the nice little board walk the Park Service had put up to keep the tourists' feet out of the dust. There were prominent signs with big red letters screaming "Keep Out" "Danger" and the ever popular "No Admittance".
Dean's meter had continued to happily whine. When Sam got closer the meter went bat-shit crazy. Dean shut it off.
"Nice one, Dean, " Sam congratulated his brother. "They are just swarming here. Something bad happened here; something to do with a fire." Sam turned and looked over the landscape. He pointed at jumbled pile of concrete and metal pilings.
"That's an old smelter." Sam said. "Bad spot for it. All the fumes would just roll downhill right into town under the right conditions, like a temperature inversion. Stupid people probably trying to save a buck, putting it close to the ore source. They may have killed everything in a couple of mile radius with it."
"If any of these ghosts have gone vengeful it could be what happened to the missing tourists. I may have found something else off in the trees." Sam seemed sad.
"I found another damn Indian massacre. There was evidently a tribe living here when the miners started moving in. I found their old campsite. There are definite ghosts there, all women mourning for lost children. They are weeping and don't even understand that they are as dead as their babies."
Sam went on. "I don't know what I can do for them. They are afraid of me, mostly likely because I am not their kind. I must look like the men who killed them and their kids. " His eyes shifted to Dean's. "Maybe you can save them. If we go looking for bones you can light them up. Even that's got to be better than the hell they're in now. They will mourn those kids for a thousand years and be in pain the whole time."
"OK," Dean responded. 'We can look for bones now and come back tonight to light 'em up. "
"We may have to wait for a little bit, " Sam said. "I think I hear trucks coming up the pass. We've got to go be a ghost hunter's best scene scouts ever."
"Don't' forget," Dean pitched in. "We're going to have to get rid of the real scene scouts. I wonder why they're not here already. They should have shown up yesterday."