Chapter 2
In Sunshine and in Shadow

"My guess," John said as he led the way toward the east end of town, "is that they'll ride north and follow the road through Rocksprings and Mountain Home. McLeod doesn't know this area well, and I'd bet the demon doesn't, either. It's about 160 miles to El Dorado by that route."

"Four days' ride, if they keep to forty a day," Sam stated.

"But that road makes a big curve," Dean noted. "Adds close to a day just between Del Rio and Rocksprings compared to the crow's flight."

John nodded. "Precisely. So I'm thinking we head northeast as straight across country as we can, maybe stop in Dixie or Segovia if we have to. That should save us a day, maybe two if we push it."

"Yes, sir," the boys chorused.

"If we go through Segovia, Sam, I'll want to stop for a bit to talk with the Swede, see if he can't find you a gun you can use."

Sam huffed. "Pa, it's no use. I can't use any gun."

"Swede Larsen is the best gunsmith in this part of the state. If anyone can come up with a gun for a man who can't shoot, it'd be the Swede."

Sam huffed again, but Dean said, "Hey. Leave it."

John's store of travel food had gotten low on the way from El Paso, but Caleb had sent a satchel with Dean, so the travelers had cold biscuits and jerky for breakfast as the sun rose. The boys kept their conversation as light as they could, focusing on four years' worth of catching up, but John mostly listened with one ear and kept his attention on the sky, the horizon, and the birds, watching for any sign that Yellow-Eyes was following them.

He had just begun trying to decide what to do about lunch, while the boys were singing an off-key rendition of "The Blue Juniata," when the bullet decided to remind him of its presence. The searing pain whited out his vision, and the only thing that broke it was the jolt he received upon hitting the ground.

He was still trying to catch his breath and get to his knees without needing his now-useless right arm when Dean hauled him upright to a sitting position. "Pa, you all right?"

"I'm... I'm fine, Dean," John gasped. "Just need a minute." He started trying to massage his right hand with his left.

"What happened?"

John glanced up to see that Sam had tied the horses to a nearby bush and was coming back over to him and Dean. He took a couple more deep breaths before he felt he could talk. "When I got shot, the doctor couldn't get the bullet out. It's still in my back. Sometimes it presses against something, and I get a screaming pain and then... nothing. My arm goes numb, and I can't use this hand."

"How long does that last?"

"A while. Few minutes, maybe. Never timed it."

The boys looked at each other, and Sam suggested, "Since we're stopped, we might as well eat here."

John nodded. "But first, Sam... let me see you shoot Dean's gun."

"Pa—"

"Son, I'm not going to understand what Pamela did to you until I see it for myself."

Dean sighed and pulled his pearl-handled Colt revolver out of the holster on his right hip. He flipped open the cylinder to show both John and Sam that it was fully loaded, then closed it and handed it to Sam handle first without touching the cylinder again.

John looked around as Sam stepped a few paces away. "There's an agarita bush out there," he said, pointing it out with his left hand. "See if you can hit that."

Sam nodded and stopped with the gun held comfortably at his side. Then, with Winchester speed, he raised it, cocked it—and aimed it at John's heart before pulling the trigger six times.

The gun didn't fire even once.

Then Sam uncocked the gun and handed it back to Dean, again without touching the cylinder. "You want to show Pa it's not jammed?"

Without hesitation, Dean aimed at the bush and shot six leaves off a protruding branch, to the dismay of the birds nesting in the dense, prickly foliage.

Sam turned to John with one eyebrow raised in challenge. John had no idea what to say.

The Winchesters didn't stop in Dixie or Segovia after all. Though John's temporary physical paralysis had worn off after only a couple of minutes, his mental paralysis on the question of Sam's condition hadn't yet worn off at all. All he knew to do was to get to El Dorado as fast as possible. And in the end, the shortcut got them into town shortly after midnight on their third night of travel.

"Where are we headed, Pa?" Dean asked as the three men rode onto Main Street.

"To see a girl," John said absently, looking for the alley that would lead behind the Roadhouse.

"A girl?!" the boys chorused.

John glared at them. "Don't you think I can know a girl?"

Dean rubbed the back of his neck awkwardly, but Sam laughed.

It was only a few dozen yards further to the right turn, which John took and motioned for the boys to follow. There was barely enough room for all three horses to stand single-file behind the saloon, but John rode far enough down the alley that Sam could get past the corner of the neighboring building before stopping and dismounting. Ellen's lamp was still lit, so John handed his reins to Dean and rapped quietly on her window until she threw a dressing gown over her shoulders and came to investigate.

"John!" she gasped as she opened the window, being careful not to disturb the salt line.

John motioned for her to keep her voice down. "Ellen, keep it quiet. I've got to talk to you."

She nodded. "I'll let you in."

As she shut the window, John turned back to the boys. "You two stay out here and keep watch."

"Yes, sir," they chorused.

The door opened before he could give any further instructions. "John, you sure pick the damnedest times—" Ellen broke off, spotting the boys, and quickly tied her dressing gown closed to hide her unmentionables. "These your two?"

Both boys removed their hats. "Yes, ma'am," said Dean. "I'm Dean; this is Sam."

She nodded. "Boys. You grew up good."

"Wait here," John repeated and walked inside, shutting the door behind him.

And Ellen shocked the hell out of him by throwing her arms around his neck. After a moment's hesitation, he returned the hug. They'd patched things up somewhat while she'd been helping Bobby and Rufus nurse him back to health after he was shot, but he hadn't realized how much she'd thawed toward him.

"So glad you're here, John," she whispered. "I've got so much to tell you."

"And there's a lot I ought to tell you," he replied and broke the embrace. "But first I need some answers. Are there any strangers in town?"

She shook her head. "No. I'd have known if there were."

"Well, this one you'd have noticed. Dark, thin-faced man, with a scar here"—he traced the scar on the left side of his own face—"and a marled eye. Nelse McLeod."

"I've heard of him."

"Should have had four or five riders with him."

"He's not here yet."

"Good. At least we beat them in. What about omens?"

"Bad electrical storm out toward Rocksprings a couple days ago. Why?"

He sighed. "That's what I was afraid of. I think Yellow-Eyes could be riding McLeod."

She nodded slowly. "We can ask Ash to do his tracking spell tomorrow."

"I'd appreciate it. Now, about Bobby."

"You want the full story?"

"Just don't make it too long," he teased.

She chuckled. "Didn't see a lot of him after you left, although he'd come in for a drink once in a while. I gather from Rufus he was thinking of going out to Independence, check on Sam, but he didn't say why. Just a hunch, maybe. Woulda taken him the better part of a week to get there, though."

He swore under his breath. "I wish he had gone."

"Why? What happened?"

"I'll tell you later. What stopped Bobby from going?"

"A girl came to town in October. Megan Masters. Just stepped off the stage, and... well, you know how kind he is."

"Yeah. She probably had big sad eyes and a long sad story."

"And a knack for keeping him away from Rufus and me and staying away from any place with wards."

He swore again. "You'd think after what happened to Karen..."

She nodded. "I know. We think she put some kind of whammy on him, blinded him to reason. She was two-timing him with Dick Roman, too, though they weren't often seen in town together. Still, everyone in town knew Meg was no good, and lots of people tried to tell Bobby so. Rufus came straight out with it, and Bobby knocked him down." She sighed. "Then two months ago, she ran off with a drummer*—and left his corpse about ten miles west of town, throat slashed, blood drained, enough damage to the wagon and enough money missing for it to look like a robbery gone wrong. Bobby's not been sober since. Ash thinks he's still cursed."

"Well, we need to break that curse in a hurry. Is he over at the jail?"

"Yep. He's still sheriff, by some miracle."

"Well, we'll go over—oh, do you have a room for the boys and me?"

She smiled. "Sure. Say, have you eaten recently?"

"No."

"I'll have something for you when you get back." She paused. "I am glad you're here."

He returned the smile. "Don't tell anyone you saw us."

"I won't."

He hugged her again without thinking and left.

"Well, we found one thing out," Sam stated quietly as John mounted his horse again.

John looked at him. "What's that?"

"You know a girl."

John and Dean both chuckled, and they rode across town to the jail, where Rufus was on guard outside with a shotgun and called to them to stop in the middle of the street in a patch of moonlight and identify themselves.

"Poughkeepsie," John called back.

Rufus lowered his shotgun. "Come ahead."

John nodded, and he and the boys continued to the hitching rail to dismount while Rufus came down off the porch.

"Sorry, Leatherneck," Rufus said more quietly. "Didn't recognize these young bucks you got with you."

"My sons," John replied. "Dean, Sam, this is Rufus Turner. Old friend of Bobby's."

The boys murmured greetings and took turns shaking hands with Rufus.

Then Rufus turned back to John. "You said 'Poughkeepsie.' What's the news?"

"Roman's starting some more trouble. Could be more of it than he knows."

"Ain't surprised, after that she-devil took Bobby down."

"I just talked to Ellen."

Rufus pointed to the back of the jail. "He's back there, sleepin'. But be careful how you wake him. Whatever Meg did to him, it gave him one hell of a temper when he's drinkin'."

John nodded. "You got some place to put these horses under cover?"

"Sure."

"And I'd just as soon everybody didn't know we were back in town yet."

"Gotcha. C'mon, boys."

Dean gave Cochise's reins to Rufus, and they and Sam went to care for the horses while John went into the jail and, finding the office empty, continued through the doorway set in the bars that separated the office from the cell block. He found Bobby, half-dressed, passed out on a cot in the back. Lighting a lamp revealed a half-empty bottle of red-eye lying on the floor near Bobby's hand. With a sigh, John picked up the wash bucket from the dry sink and dumped it on Bobby's face, and Bobby flailed and spluttered and swore his way to consciousness. Then he reached for the liquor, but John kicked the bottle away.

Bobby blearily looked up at him. "Wha'th'ell are you doin' here?"

"I'm looking at a tin star with a drunk pinned on it," John growled.

"John Winchester." Bobby laughed drunkenly. "How 'bout that? Good ol' John. Help me up outta here, John," he continued, holding up his left hand.

Warily, John did so—and barely managed to dodge when Bobby took a swing at his head. Bobby followed up with a punch to John's gut, but John's hand landed on a metal basin and brought it down on Bobby's skull with a resounding clang. John then dropped the basin, grabbed the front of Bobby's sodden union suit, and pulled his left fist back for a knockdown blow.

"John!" Rufus called from behind him. "He won't feel it."

John suddenly realized that Bobby's eyes were crossed and vacant. "Well, I owe him one," he stated and let go of Bobby, who collapsed backward onto the cot like a rag doll.

"How is he, Pa?" Dean asked as John walked back into the office area. "Did you talk to him?"

"Couldn't," John replied grimly. "Any of you know a fast way to sober a man up, maybe break this curse?"

Sam frowned thoughtfully. "I know a recipe that might work. It would sober him up, anyway; that's what it's supposed to do. But it might work on the curse, too. It brought Brady back to himself for a couple of days, at least—didn't get rid of the demon, but I think maybe it bound the thing for a little while, and it stayed away from the laudanum for a couple of months after, until it needed to distract me again."

"What's in it?"

"Let's see... hot mustard, cayenne pepper, asafetida, gunpowder, and a few drops each of ipecac and croton oil."**

"Croton oil?!" Rufus echoed. "Well, I'll be a suck-egg mule."

Dean looked disgusted. "Sammy, you know what that mixture would do to a man?"

Sam smiled. "Guaranteed to kill or cure."

For lack of another option, John shrugged his approval. "Rufus, you know where you could get this stuff this time of night?"

"Greener's Store should have it," Rufus answered. "Might have to wake him up."

John nodded. "Go on with him, Sam. Make sure he doesn't forget anything."

"PA!" Dean yelled suddenly, and John ducked away just as Bobby tried to crack a chair over his head but missed and hit the bars above the doorway instead.

John laid Bobby out with a single punch and turned back to Rufus and Sam, who were hesitating at the front door. "Aren't you going?"

"But—" Rufus began.

"He's all right. Just get it before he wakes up again."

Rufus nodded and led Sam outside, and John and Dean carried Bobby into a cell, which had not only a cot with dry bedding but also a door that locked.

Twenty minutes later, Sam and Rufus returned with their purchases, and Sam started mixing the rancid-smelling ingredients in a copper bowl while Rufus opened a window. Once Dean added the gunpowder, Sam poured the sludgy black mixture into a mug.

"I hope you don't blow him up," John quipped.

"Okay, Dean," Sam said, ignoring the remark. "You sit on his legs, and Pa, you pin down his arms."

"Don't worry about us," John stated as the three of them filed into the cell and Rufus came back to watch. "Just get hold of his nose. If he can't breathe, he'll have to swallow."†

"Give 'im an extra one for me," Rufus chimed in.

So Dean pinned Bobby's legs while John pinned his arms. Sam pinched Bobby's nose and waited for him to start breathing through his mouth, then shoved the rim of the mug into his open mouth and poured in the potion. Bobby gulped loudly, but the stuff went down, and Sam finally released his nose and backed away. John and Dean relaxed their hold as well.

And then Bobby started to seize.

"Let's get out of here!" John ordered, and he and the boys hustled out of the cell.

Rufus locked the cell door behind them, but Sam and Dean stayed close until the fit passed without Bobby waking up. Then and only then did they allow John to drag them back to the Roadhouse, where they nearly fell asleep in the eggs and bacon Ellen had waiting for them. So she had Ash take them up to their room while she and John sat up and talked a while, getting caught up with each other's news and not reaching any conclusions about Sam.

That made for a short night for the boys and an even shorter night for John, who had a separate room. But despite the spots where he still ached from tangling with Bobby, John still woke feeling more or less refreshed. He couldn't say the same for Sam, whose first words to Ellen after "Good morning" were, "Do you have any willow bark?"‡

"Sure," Ellen replied, giving him a motherly once-over. "What hurts?"

"Got a headache. It's nothing."

She clearly didn't believe that but went to get him some willow bark extract anyway.

"It is not nothing, little brother," Dean objected once she was out of earshot. "You think I didn't hear you keep wakin' up with nightmares?"

Sam huffed. "Dean."

John frowned. "What sort of nightmares?"

"Bad ones, sounded like," Dean replied before Sam could disclaim anything.

"About?"

"Stupid stuff," Sam said flatly and started to walk away. "Nothing to worry about."

"Like your dreams about Jess?"

Sam froze.

"Did those give you headaches, too?"

Sam turned around, not quite succeeding in hiding his fear and worry. "Pa..."

John held up a hand. "Son. Tell me what you saw."

Sam let out a ragged sigh. "You and Dean ran in here chasing somebody. They made Ash tell you he'd gone out the back way. Roy and Walt were at the back door, trying to convince you to go out that way into an ambush. Dean stopped you, and you made Roy go out the back door instead, and he got shot up. You were about to do the same to Walt when... y-you had an attack, a bad one, and then one of Roman's men knocked Dean out. And McLeod came out and said it was better than he expected, and... and his eyes turned yellow."

John nodded slowly. "Anything else?"

Sam shook his head and sniffled. "No, sir. That's when I woke up."

"All right. Thank you."

Ellen returned just then with the willow bark, and the men let the subject drop. But John didn't miss the worried looks Dean kept shooting Sam over breakfast.

The windows and door of the jail were open when the Winchesters went over after breakfast. John announced their arrival from the porch, and Rufus called for them to come in. Everything seemed quiet, but John caught a faint whiff of vomit under the smell of the coffee Rufus was pouring for himself.

After everyone exchanged greetings, John asked, "How's Bobby?"

"Emptied his stomach about five times," Rufus replied, "but I got some salt an' holy water in him after each one, seemed to do some good. Some black stuff came up the first couple of times; couldn't tell if it was the potion or what. Last time was about 6. Since then, nary a peep. Hasn't even moved in the last two hours. Reckon he'll be all right?"

"Ask Sam. It's his concoction."

"I don't know how all right he'll be," Sam confessed. "But I do know he won't be drinking any alcohol for a while."

"Why not?" Dean asked, holding out a mug for some coffee.

"Well, it does something to a man's stomach so it naturally won't hold any liquor."

Just then Bobby started rattling the cell door feebly. "Hey, Rufus, come open this door," he called.

Rufus shook his head. "Still drunk. Open it y'self," he called back. "It ain't even locked."

The hinges creaked, and Bobby dragged himself to the door of the cell block, coughing and looking very much the worse for wear. He stopped at the door and looked blearily at the four of them. "My friends," he said. "My dear good friends. You dirty, lousy, rotten, sheep-herdin'—"§ Holding his stomach, he lurched toward the desks, slamming the door shut behind him. "What the hell did you do to me? I'm all crawlin' inside."

"Just hang on, Uncle Bobby," Sam said. "It'll fetch you around."

Bobby looked up and peered at him. "Sam?"

Sam nodded once. "Hi."

"When'd you get here?"

"Last night."

Bobby frowned but started opening drawers in the leather-topped desk that he would normally have shared with Rufus. Not finding what he was looking for, he straightened and demanded, "All right, c'mon, Rufus. Where is it?"

"Top drawer of your desk," Rufus replied.

Bobby turned to the roll-top desk behind him, opened the top left drawer, and pulled out a full bottle of red-eye. He twisted off the cap but paused and looked at the other men. "Ain't nobody gonna try and stop me?" he challenged.

"Nobody," John stated.

Bobby nodded. "That's a good thing." He took two long swigs, set the bottle back on the desk—and turned visibly green. "Ooh, you dirty..." he groaned as he doubled over and lurched back to the cell block, where he promptly threw up everything he'd drunk and then some.

Sam and Dean smirked at each other and clinked mugs.

After coffee, clean-up, and conversation, Dean stayed at the jail to let Rufus get some rest, and John and Sam went back to the Roadhouse to let Sam sleep off the last of his headache. John took Bobby's liquor stash with him. Then, with Ellen's permission, Sam took over at the bar after lunch, and John and Ash went in a back room so Ash could do his tracking spell. Ash chanted under his breath in what sounded like Comanche as he mixed ingredients in a silver bowl, then held the bowl under the map that hung on the wall and dropped a match into the potion. But the flame that leapt from the bowl didn't burn the map down to a point or burn a single hole in the paper; it landed on the road from Segovia and burned slowly toward El Dorado.

"He's moving," Ash reported. "Headed thisaway, probably get here sometime after dark."

John swore in Seminole.§§ "Just what I was afraid of. He's in McLeod."

Ash blew out the flame, and seconds later Ellen knocked on the door and poked her head in. "Sam sent me to get you," she said. "He saw riders come into town. I had a look—it's Roman and his men. They're at Roman's saloon, across from the jail."

John swore again and followed Ellen out into the public room. Before he could make up his mind what to do, however, another group of riders came in alongside a buckboard... and though they kicked up a cloud of dust, it couldn't quite obscure Charlie Mills' flame-red hair. The Mills family paused outside the Roadhouse, and John could just make out Mrs. Mills giving orders about who was to shop where.

Ellen sighed. "Jody brings the family into town every Saturday afternoon. This is one Saturday I wish she hadn't."

"All right," John said. "Sam, stay here, help Ellen and keep watch. I'll go get Rufus, have him stay with the Millses."

Sam frowned. "What if Rufus needs help?"

"He was a cavalry bugler during the Mexican War, still keeps in practice. Expect he'll take his bugle with him and blow it if there's trouble."

"All right, but what if you need help?"

"Hell, boy, don't you trust your old man?"

Sam opened his mouth to reply, but Ellen interrupted, "He'll have Dean. That'll be backup enough. Besides, the fact you can't shoot doesn't mean you can't get shot."

Sam's mouth shut in a straight, unhappy line. But John didn't wait for Sam to come up with a retort. He just put on his hat and walked back to the jail.

"Hey, Pa," Dean said quietly, so as not to wake Rufus. "You see those folks who just came to town?"

John nodded. "Wake up, Rufus."

Rufus stirred. "'Time's it?"

"'Bout 2. Dick Roman just brought his outfit into town to meet McLeod."

"And Mrs. Mills?"

"Came to town just after he did."

Rufus swore and sat up. "Reckon I oughta hang around where the Millses are?"

"Wouldn't hurt. I left Sam at the Roadhouse; he'll keep an eye on 'em, too. And we'll keep an eye on our friend across the street."

"All right." Rufus got up and collected his rifle and bugle from the rifle rack. "If I run into trouble and need you, I'll toot m'bugle, and you come runnin'."

Dean smiled fondly as Rufus left, then turned to John. "Well?"

John just nodded. "How's Bobby?"

"Still asleep. Woke him up and gave him some more holy water with salt about lunchtime, and it stayed down."

"Good. Let him sleep, and let me have some coffee."

Dean sighed and nodded. "Yes, sir."

.

* In this period, a "drummer" was a traveling salesman, the kind with a wagon full of patent medicines or other cheap doodads, so called because such salesmen originally beat a drum to attract attention.

** This list of ingredients is from the movie and would not make safe medicine at all! But I kept it both because purgatives and emetics are used in some American Indian purification rituals and because binding evil spirits is said to be one of the properties of asafetida.

† No idea how true this is, but don't try it at home—I'd guess it's actually more of a choking/aspiration hazard! (In fact, generally speaking, giving liquids by mouth to any unconscious person is a major medical no-no.)

‡ Before the invention of aspirin (acetylsalicylic acid), salicylic acid extracted from willow bark was widely used as a pain reliever and fever reducer.

§ In the days before barbed wire fences, shepherds frequently drove their flocks across any open range, regardless of whose it was or whether it was intended for grazing cattle. This tendency would have been less of a problem had the shepherds been more scrupulous about a) treating diseases their sheep were carrying that could infect cattle and b) leaving enough grass behind for the cattle (sheep crop grass closer to the ground than cows' teeth can reach). And when barbed wire was introduced, shepherds were notorious for cutting fences to continue their former practice, which had the added detriment of leaving the fence open for cattle rustlers and horse thieves. Needless to say, cattlemen and shepherds didn't get along terribly well.

§§ Hasty Internet research suggests that during the time John was likely to have been in the service, the main conflict in which the Marines were involved was the Second Seminole War (itself proof for Dean's canon opinion of Florida).