A/N: So, this is a little rough, but a nice longish chapter. Sorry it's been so long. Still dealing with the effects of the injury I received back in October. And it's not over yet (a possible surgery is looming), so if I'm choppy with uploading, I apologize in advance.
Anyway, HAPPY NEW YEAR!
Chapter 6
Somewhere above thunder crashed and rolled fading out to a whistling wind. An icy tendril stole it's way up the back of Dean's neck. He shuddered, and rolling his shoulders back to loosen them, went to the roof opening and pushed up, hard, with as much strength as he could muster.
The trapdoor didn't move much, but it did move, which encouraged Dean to keep trying. He pounded it with his fists, with the flat back of his forearms and grabbed and tore at the loosening branches in turn. It took more time than he'd like to think it would, but he eventually made enough progress to pull the last bits of the door frame down to scatter on the floor with the rest of the debris. There was a flattish heavy stone overhanging one edge of the opening. More efficient than any lock. It was surprising heavy and unwieldy, but he did finally mange to push it back enough that he would have sufficient room to lift himself out. He took hold of opposite sides of the opening and, experimentally, leaned back against them, testing their strength. It seemed to be holding, and besides, what other choice did he have?
It wasn't easy, having to jump and pull himself up with only one good leg, but after a few tries he made it. Struggling, he got both arms and his head and shoulders out of the opening. He held on and tried to fold his right leg up and pull himself out of the hole. Grunting with effort he made it after a few tries and rolled away from the opening to lay on his back panting a little. He could feel blood running freely down the sides of his left thigh. This was getting serious. If he didn't get that bleeding under control...
He fumbled for, then held up his cell. Still no service. Sonuvabitch, he muttered and put it away. Then, frustrated, he pounded his fists at his sides a couple of times and sat up. Bleeding or not, he needed to get some distance between himself and this pit. Before whoever put him there came back.
888
Even hobbling as fast as he could, he wasn't making much progress. The pit had been beneath an overhang as tall as a three story building and the rock face blotted out most of the landscape leaving only one obvious direction to go. Dean's eyes roved up and down the curving cliff face. A half dozen small brick-like structures clung to shallow ledges up and down the cliff face. Their gaping black window holes stared down at him like eyes in the rock. Spider feet ran up his neck and his gaze swept the rocky ground around him. The only structure at ground level was the log covered pit he'd just climbed out of. Something felt familiar about the place, looking up the rock face with the strange little buildings scratched at something deep in his memory. He had the sensation of being small, of feeling small, standing next to his father. Yeah, that was it. Dad had taken them someplace like this when they were kids. Dean inspected the memory, trying to place it somewhere in space and time, but all he could find were Sammy's even smaller hand in his, the gaping window eyes and his dad's silhouette towering over them limned in sunlight. The memory was familiar and tantalizing, but simultaneously unsettling and grim.
Dean glanced up at the dead gray sky adjusting his jacket collar up against his neck. It was just before dusk and the winter sun barely made itself known from behind the clouds. He could garner no direction from the sun and had no idea if he was headed toward the highway or not. The terrain grew rocky and uneven, then dropped into sandy washes by turns, and and navigating through brush and rocky outcroppings was quickly sapping his strength. It was nearly dark and the temperature was dropping fast, with the cutting wind it hovered near freezing. He slid down into another wash and it was deep enough to cut the wind and he huddled against the cut bank for a few minutes chafing his hands together and considering the wisdom of hunkering down there and making a fire. But good fuel was scarce and he wanted to keep moving for more reasons than just keeping warm.
He ventured out into open again and checked his cell, still nothing. He continued trudging in the same direction, trying to keep going in a straight line. He just hoped his straight line wasn't deeper into the desert. Every few minutes he checked his cell, cussing at it under his breathe each time because it never wavered from the betrayal of NO SIGNAL. Underfoot the faint shadows stretched taut and thin and overhead the sky was leaving gun metal gray on its way to charcoal. He was freezing and lost, and hurt and hungry and thirsty and he'd give his left nut for a beer if some genie would deign to appear right-damn-now with a cold one on a tray. He shivered. Strike that, an Irish coffee suddenly sounded better; hold the sugar and cream, heavy on the Irish. He blew into his hands to warm them. The fact was, he wouldn't last much longer if he didn't find some shelter. But he kept slogging on because it wasn't in him to quit.
Full dark hung a hair's breadth above him when he came upon the worn track cutting through the sage and scrub grass. He sighed, looking one way, then the other up the track. Neither direction offered any clues as to its destination. He hoped it was a ranch access road and that one end was the highway and the other was a warm ranch house full of hot coffee and pretty young women. Well, fifty-fifty. So Dean tucked his chin to his chest, hunched his shoulders then turned and started down an arm of the track, hoping he'd picked the right direction. He noticed some fairly defined tire tracks as he went. Perhaps, given the wind, their sharp contours meant the tracks were recent and he felt a little better.
The passing time was deceptively slow, and only clouds breaking to show glimpses of a half full moon inching up from the horizon made any change to the murky dark. Dean hunched his shoulders deeper into his light canvas jacket, it wasn't even cutting the wind anymore. He was shivering and clenching his teeth to keep from chattering uncontrollably when he saw faint light in the distance. Hoping it was the highway he increased his pace as much as he dared against his painful leg. As he got closer he could make out a couple of faintly glowing windows and breathed a sigh of relief.
He drew closer to the cabin when he heard a door open and was suddenly blinded by a flashlight to the face. He heard a shotgun rack a round into the chamber. Dean stopped dead in his tracks and slowly raised his hands above his shoulders, squinting at the bright light.
"What are you doing out here?" a low female voice growled.
It took him a few seconds to unclench his teeth, "L-l-lost. N-need help, hurt my l-leg."
The flashlight beam briefly left his face, running down his body then back to blinding him. "Come into the house."
Haltingly, Dean followed her into the warmth of the snug cabin.
His benefactor closed the door firmly behind them and gave Dean an appraising look, staring hard into his eyes for a moment, taking his measure. "Don't give me any trouble." she whispered, slightly raising the shotgun she held at her side.
"No, ma'am," the words formed on his lips but made no sound, so he shook his head as well, taking in her dark eyes, short black hair and what looked like a dog tag chain along the neck of her t-shirt.
A quavering voice rose and fell, speaking a language he didn't understand.
The young woman turned and replied in the same language, then turned back to Dean, "Grandma says I'm being rude, making you stand at the door. Go to the stove. I'll get you a blanket. Then I'll take a look at your leg." She took a long look at his tattered bloody jeans leg before pointing to a large potbelly stove. Dean gratefully limped over to sit on a low couch near the heat.
A moment later a blanket was settled onto his shoulders and the young woman knelt beside him with a desert camo pack. "Let me get a look at your leg." With gentle hands she untied the bandana and pulled the tattered jean fabric away from the wound. Dean took another look at the gash. It was pretty much as he remembered, except bloodier.
The woman dug in her pack, "Lidocaine." And she stabbed a syringe into his leg near the wound without warning, causing him to jump a bit in surprise. "And even with that, this is probably gonna hurt like fuck." She warned him then ripped open a package and withdrew a large alcohol swab and started cleaning the wound. After a couple of minutes the lidocaine kicked in and he no longer wanted to punch her in the head.
"What's your name?"
"D-dean. W-w-winchester." He was shivering even harder now as his body began to warm up.
"So, Dean, how'd you end up out here in the middle of BFE trespassing on my grandma's sheep ranch with your leg cut up?"
He raised his head, glancing at the old woman sitting across from him, wrapped in blankets though she was close to the fire. She gave him a frankly appraising look. He turned back to the woman putting neat stitches into his now blissfully numbed thigh. "Hiking, g-got l-lost."
Her hands froze and she looked up at him. In an almost whisper she challenged, "don't try to bullshit me. You didn't come out here in work boots with no gear or warm clothing in the middle of October. So, you wanna try that one more time?"
Dean flicked his eyes at the old woman, she was watching everything, an odd look on her face; the woman stitching him up wore a similar one. But, since he lied professionally, he wasn't going to crack at the first hint of challenge. "I t-told you. I was hiking, got lost. L-lost my gear, too."
She nodded, pursing her lips, carefully placing a dressing over the cleaned and stitched wound, "Sure." she gave him a hard look from under her brows. "We'll go with that. For now." And she began running another alcohol swab over the various scratches and shallow cuts up and down his leg. When finished, she grabbed his chin and pushed his face aside, looking at the lump and cut on his head. Yet another swab appeared and she gently cleaned that wound, too.
Dean gave her as innocent a look as he could muster and changed the subject. Fumbling his cell phone out of a pocket he flipped it open: NO SIGNAL. "You gotta phone?"
"No phones," she answered, appraising his head wound. "You'll live." Then she turned to her grandmother who was speaking again. They conversed for a moment, then after a short pause, the old woman gestured at Dean and said something in a commanding tone.
The young woman sighed. "I'm Lizzie Begay. Grandma says I'm being rude again." She repacked her bag, gathering up the refuse in one hand. "You want some coffee? Hungry?"
"Yes. Coffee. Please." the thought of warming his insides too was certainly appealing.
"Hold tight," she quickly disappeared into an adjacent room and he heard a few soft thumps. She returned shortly to place a steaming mug into his hands, then held out a small glass with water in it, reaching into a pocket. "You're gonna want these." and she dropped a couple of capsules and a white tablet into his hand. He eyed them for a moment, then nodded and threw them into his mouth taking the water glass. Looked like antibiotics and Hydrocodone or Oxycodone, which was all right with him; at least he was sure they weren't roofies.
Lizzie had disappeared while he was swallowing the pills. But she was quickly back and retrieved the empty water glass then handed him a plate with a roughly round thick scone-like bread slathered with butter and honey. "I warmed it on the stove, so it might be cold in the middle, and maybe a little tough from being reheated. It's fry bread." she explained, seeing him eyeing it curiously." She put the plate in his hand, turning away. "I need to get Grandma to bed. You sit here. Don't move, don't touch anything. When I come back, we'll talk."
Dean set the plate beside him on the couch then nodded at her, mouth full of coffee. But his hackles were raised. She was suspicious, obviously, but he could tell it wasn't solely about him; it was what he represented, an anomaly. Must be dealing with some kind of trouble and I showed up at the wrong time. Well, with no phone, he'd have to sweet talk her into taking him into town. But he had a feeling that wasn't going to be happening tonight. He worried, wondering what Sam was doing, what he had been doing all day. He flogged himself mentally, hopefully not out in the desert alone getting lost or snatched as well.
By the time Lizzie had gotten Grandma up and started steering her out of the room, he'd drained the mug, but he still held the still warm ceramic cupped in his hands. He was watching the women from under his brows, when Grandma stopped to face him. One withered hand emerged from the shawl wrapped tight around her upper body and she gestured at him again, speaking rapidly. Dean saw Lizzie's eyes go wide, then her expression returned to neutral. She answered the old woman, reaching to take her shoulders and turn her toward the back of the cabin and a nearby doorway. Grandma relented and they entered the room, Lizzie closing the door behind them.
Dean set the empty mug on the floor near his feet and sighed. Picking up the plate he slowly took a cautious bite of the fry bread. It was crispy on the outside and soft and fluffy on the inside and he was so hungry he wolfed it down in a moment, then licked his fingers clean of the sticky honey.
And now that he wasn't focused on survival, he really needed to think his day through. Obviously, Sam was right, not that he'd ever tell him, but he was right. It wasn't hellhounds that grabbed him. He'd be, well, dead, again, and, well … were that the case. So what then? He wished he could remember more from the entry about black dogs from Dad's journal. This wasn't a regular black dog. No, those were harbingers of fate. They showed themselves in warning to the doomed souls they haunted. But they didn't physically interact. At least as far as he remembered the lore. Dad had also listed devil dogs in his entry. So besides the obvious connection to Dad's time as a Marine, what did that mean? Weren't devil dogs from Hell, so, hellhounds? He really wished he could remember the entry better. Well, he clenched his teeth in frustration, he'd have to look at it later.
The other thing bothering him was that fragmented memory of the strange little buildings with eye-like windows on the cliffside. He could see it again in his mind. Not what he'd seen earlier that day, but from that nearly forgotten day years ago. He closed his eyes, trying to bring the memory into sharper focus. He was standing beside Dad, and had reached up for his hand. That's why Dad was looking down at him, but the sun was behind him and he couldn't clearly see his face. It felt weird. He felt like he was old enough to not need to hold Dad's hand, and it came to him, he was trying to stop Dad from doing something. They were looking up at the shadowy cliff from the bright hot desert floor and Dad was telling him to watch Sammy and wait for him there. He felt Sammy on his left again, tugging at his arm, pulling him in the other direction away from Dad and Dean pulled back hard, but Sammy was determined and wouldn't be reined in. But if he didn't stop Dad -
The bedroom door closing called him back from his musings and Dean opened his eyes as Lizzie settled herself across from him in Grandma's chair by the fire. She regarded him steadily for a moment. "So. What message does he have for us this time?"
"First, thank you. If you hadn't..." He shook his head. "And second, I don't know what you're asking. Seriously, I'm lost. I don't know you, or have a message for you, but I need to get a hold of my brother. Can you give me a lift to town?"
"Not tonight," she answered simply, appraising him again. Then her features softened slightly and she relented. "My uncles have the truck. They're supposed to be back tomorrow night. Maybe we can get you out of here then. Or I suppose I could ride over to the Arrowchis place in the morning and see if I can borrow their truck. Probably should do that anyway. You need to get to the clinic. I'm just a Medic, so you're only patched well enough to get you to a doctor. "
It would have to do. Dean nodded, "Lucky I ran into you?"
Lizzie scoffed, "You're not kidding. This is the only ranch for miles and you certainly picked the right day to tear yourself up. I have to head back to the sandbox at the end of the week."
Dean raised an eyebrow, silently encouraging her to fill in the blanks.
She almost grinned, "Yeah, just traded one desert for another, but this is home."
Dean pulled the blanket closer around his shoulders and leaned back into the couch pillows. Lizzie was obviously waiting for his story. He should probably come up with something. "I went hiking. Got my ass lost. I saw something and took off to look and lost my brother. He's the outdoorsy hippie of the family." He gave her a crooked grin. "Then I managed to fall down a wash full of rocks," he indicated his leg. "Went looking for my brother, and our camp, but found you first." It sounded lamer when he said it out loud.
"So, do I need to be looking for your brother, too?"
"Naw, he was a Boy Scout." He tried to sound confident, because, hopefully, Sam made it back to the Impala and was in town figuring out how to find him now. Damn, he wished he could call Sam and let him know he was safe. The thought of Sam lost out in the cold and dark formed a pit in his stomach. No, Sam would be okay. He'd have gone back to the car and gotten back to town. At least that's what Dean was going to tell himself until he saw with his own eyes that Sam was safe.
Lizzie grinned and rolled her eyes at him. "If you're sure."
"I'm sure." He put voice to the lie he was currently forcing upon himself.
"Well, tenderfoot, you better get some sleep. That couch is sorta comfortable, but I'm not responsible if you wake up with a hunchback tomorrow."
She went to the stove, opening the door to put a couple pieces of coal in the chamber, then gave him a half grin and shut off the lights as she left the room.