Supernatural Fresh Meat - By Alice Henderson Page 0,14
hunter, too?” Dean asked Jason.
“Jason’s been in the biz for a long time,” Darla said. “Long as I can remember.”
The hunter looked to be in his late thirties or early forties, but his face was so weather-beaten it was hard to tell. Dean wondered if he’d been raised in the life, too.
“My mom,” Jason said.
“Huh?”
“You were wondering if by ‘long time’ she meant my family had been in the business.”
Dean nodded. “Hard life for a kid.”
“That it was.” He took a sip of his beer. “That it was.” He looked at Dean and Sam, appraising them. “I knew your dad, actually.”
Sam turned his attention away from Darla. “You did?”
“Well, in passing, when he’d come into the roadhouse. I was green as hell back then. A teenager. The stories he’d tell used to scare the hell out of me.” He laughed. “He was an intense son of a bitch.”
Bobby lifted his second shot of whisky. “That he was.” He downed it in one gulp.
Dean felt a small pang of jealousy. So this guy had helped his dad out while, what, Dean was on another case? Had his dad sent him on some research errand while this guy was actually hunting with him in person? Not for the first time, Dean felt a pang of regret for how he’d been raised, the hardened lifestyle he and Sam had been plunged into after the death of their mother. Most kids would be jealous that their dad spent time practicing in batting cages with other kids, and here Dean was jealous that this guy got to kill monsters with his dad and probably risk his own neck.
“What brings you to town?” Jason asked, taking a sip of his beer.
“A case,” Sam answered.
Bobby leaned in. “You know anything about the folks disappearing out by Emigrant Gap?”
Jason shook his head in consternation. “Hell, yes, I do. Tried to burn the sucker three weeks back. Thing cracked three of my ribs, tore some cartilage in my shoulder. I’ve barely begun to recover. But I’m going back.” He gestured at them with the bottle. “That why you’re here?”
Dean nodded. “Yep.”
“That thing’ll have you for dinner. I’ve never hunted one of them before, though I remember my parents telling me about one they killed in Oregon before I was born.”
Dean felt some perverse pride rise up in him. “We killed one out by Blackwater Ridge in Colorado a few years ago.”
Jason raised his eyebrows. “Oh, yeah? How bad you get hurt?”
Jason wasn’t wrong to assume. That thing had done a number on them.
Bobby was all business. “You know where its lair is?”
The hunter stared out the window for a minute, then looked back at them. “I can get you close. I couldn’t find the actual nest, but I knew I was near. It’s an old mine near Sawtooth Ridge. Everything pointed to there.” He looked down, frowning. “It got me before I got a chance to take it out.”
Bobby pulled the topographic map out of his pocket. “Can you mark it on here?”
“I’ll do you one better. I’ll take you. Thing got the better of me once. It ain’t gonna happen again. It needs to go down.” He winced as he shifted his weight on the barstool.
Dean wondered if Jason was damaged goods. Maybe no more so than Bobby, with his bruised ribs. But with Bobby’s tracking skills and this guy’s knowledge of the area, they stood a good chance, even if they were all a little banged up.
“What do you say?” Jason asked him.
Outside, a sudden wind kicked up, bringing a cloud of dust past the saloon windows. Dean saw an honest-to-god tumbleweed go by. Sam looked to Bobby and him. “I think we could use him.”
Bobby took a swig of his beer. “Agreed.”
They slapped a twenty down on the bar and got up.
Jimmy rushed over. “You leavin’ already?” Dean noticed that his front teeth were brown and a few were missing entirely.
“Good meeting you, Jimmy,” Dean told him.
Jimmy gazed at him hopefully, clutching his bar rag with both hands. “Maybe I could ride shotgun?”
Behind him, the bartender waved her hand across her throat in the gesture movie directors use to say “Cut” and shook her head.
“Maybe next time,” Dean said, giving him a light, friendly punch on the arm.
“Aw, hell.” Jimmy turned away, defeated.
That night they ate at the Enraged Cow and Sippery, Dean finishing off a steak lathered in BBQ sauce and topped with crispy onion curls. Bobby ate a salad and Sam a turkey pita.