A Twist of Fate
Part Two (C)
When the scrawny, brown dog approached, Sam was glad of the company. He’d been sitting alone, legs dangling off the veranda, out front of the general store for nearly an hour, while Dean was down at the markets trying to find someone willing to give them a lift to New York City.
‘Well look at you, boy!’ Sam cooed, ‘Ain’t you just a bag o’ bones! You got a name buddy? No? Hmm. Think I’ll call you Bones. Are you hungry Bones?’
Earlier that morning, at the Boarding House, Sam, Dean and Rufus had eaten a huge breakfast and all three of them had squirreled away chunks of bread, cheese, and cold cuts when the house mistress wasn’t looking. Sam now shared some of his ham with the emaciated dog and the dog promptly became his best friend. The two of them played happily out the front of the general store until the store keeper came and chased them off. Sam and Bones wandered a little way away, but not too far because Dean had told Sam to stay put.
By the time Dean returned it was late afternoon. He smiled at Sam, ruffled his hair and told him that there’d been a slight change in plan.
Dean had been talking to merchants all day but not a one of them was headed to New York. Most folks sent their goods to New York on a river boat, back up the Ohio, down the Mississippi to New Orleans, and then out into the Gulf of Mexico, around the Florida peninsula and up the East coast to New York City.
The boys walked a little way out of town and spent the night in a farmer’s hay barn, with Bones the dog stretched between them for warmth. The next morning they were up before day break. They finished the small amount of food left over from the day before, and stole a handful of corn each from the hog trough, before getting back on the road and heading, on foot, towards Monroeville. Bones followed them part of the way and then stopped, whining and looking behind him.
‘Good boy,’ Dean encouraged, ‘Go home.’
‘I don’t think he has a home,’ Sam said softly.
Dean was silent a moment.
‘Well,’ he said finally, ‘It’s better if he doesn’t follow us. We can’t feed him, Sam. We can barely feed ourselves.’
Sam knew his brother was right, but that didn’t stop his bottom lip from trembling. He nodded, though, and approached the dog slowly, dropping to his knees and enveloping the animal in a huge hug.
‘You can’t come with us,’ he told his new friend tearfully. He gave him one final squeeze and then sat back on his haunches.
‘Go on, boy,’ he said, ‘Go home.’
The dog backed away and looked enquiringly at Sam.
‘I’m goin’ with my brother,’ Sam told him, ‘You go on home now.’
The dog turned and ran a short way before turning to look back at Sam.
‘Go on,’ Sam said and Bones turned and ran without stopping.
Sam watched until he was out of sight, staying seated in the dirt until he felt a hand on his shoulder.
‘C’mon,’ Dean said, ‘Let’s get going.’
-X-
The brothers slept that night, hidden under the straw in another farmer’s hay barn, just outside Monroeville. At daybreak they helped themselves to a drink of water from the horses’ trough and Dean kept watch while Sammy pilfered some eggs from the henhouse. They walked for a couple of hours, headed in the direction of Altoona, and then stopped for breakfast. They boys gathered armfuls of wood and kindling and Dean used a box of matches that he’d stolen from the Boarding house, to start a small fire. Soon they had two eggs each frying on a tin plate.
‘Bones could’ve hunted rabbits for us,’ Sammy said wistfully.
Dean snorted. ‘Bones couldn’t even hunt rabbits for himself,’ he said, ‘Or you wouldn’t’ve been calling him Bones.’
The boys had been walking for several hours and Sammy had started to complain that he needed a rest, when the nickering of a horse and the clatter of rickety wheels announced the slow approach of a wagon. The boys scrambled to the side of the track and watched as a covered wagon rolled sedately past. The words ‘Dr Gulliver’s Miraculous Health Elixir’ were painted in fancy red letters on the side of the wagon, and in smaller letters underneath, ‘good for what ails you.’ On the driver’s seat sat a portly man, dressed in tweed, and sporting an impressive walrus moustache.
‘Good morning, lads,’ he said jovially, reining his horse to a stop and doffing his hat to reveal a startling lack of hair, ‘Could you pray direct me to your father’s farm? I fancy I’ve a cure-all here which your mother may be pleased to hear tell of.’
‘Uh yeah,’ Dean replied, ‘It’s in New York. We’re on our way to join him there.’
The man, who Dean presumed was Dr Gulliver, raised an eyebrow.
‘New York, you say? Well. That’s a long walk you have ahead of you and no mistake.’
Dean nodded.
‘You couldn’t give us a lift to Altoona could you?’
Dr Gulliver scratched his chin and eyed Dean’s arm muscles with some trepidation.
‘Well now,’ he began, ‘I’m not sure-’
‘Please?’ Sammy let loose with his most beguiling, beseeching puppy dog eyes, ‘It’s such a long way and I’m so little.’
‘Well I suppose-’ he broke off as Sam climbed up onto the driver’s seat and sat down next to him.
‘Thank you!’ the boy beamed.
Dean quickly followed suit, climbing up onto Dr Gulliver’s other side.
‘Thank you,’ he echoed his younger brother, ‘we won’t be a bother to you, I promise.’
Dr Gulliver, once he felt assured that Dean was not about to rob him in his sleep, proved most amiable company, and the boys travelled with him, not just to Altoona, but to Huntingdon, Harrisburg, Lebanon and Allentown.
On their first night, huddled close to the campfire for warmth, Dr Gulliver downed several shots of hooch ‘to light a fire in his cold belly’, he told the boys sagely, and was most impressed when Dean turned down his offer of a shot.
‘Quite right, son,’ he nodded wisely, ‘it’s the devil’s draught, it is; best to stay away from it.’
After his third shot he became quite chatty, confessing that his name was really Bill Jones, but that the moniker he had been baptized with didn’t have quite the same ring of authority as Dr Gulliver, which he invited the boys to consider his trading name. The boys also discovered, that first night, that Bill was missing the little toe on his left foot and he had a different story every day to explain how that had happened. One day he claimed it had been taken by vicious cannibal Indians, when he’d fought against them in the Indian wars; another day it had been snatched by an alligator, which had leapt from the water into his fishing boat down in New Orleans. The tales were always long and grandiose and the boys loved listening to them.
Dean and Sam pulled their weight by fetching wood and water and helping Bill to bottle his elixir and paste labels onto each newly-filled bottle. Dr Gulliver was cagey and secretive whenever it came time to mix a new batch of his elixir, and he eschewed their help with that particular task. As best as Dean could make out from his spying, the elixir was nothing more complicated than rum, molasses, baking soda and sugar.
Sam soon took to looking after Dobin, the horse, and it wasn’t long before Dean was helping the good doctor with his sales pitches. It helped to have an off-sider who could give testimonial as to the effectiveness of the product and Bill had quickly discovered that not only did Dean have the gift of the gab, but he drew the attention and affections of both the matrons and the maidens, and they were all too willing to buy anything the boy recommended. And if Bill Jones noticed that the boy attracted the same sort of attention from a number of men, if he saw the way they watched hungrily as Dean’s tongue licked across his bottom lip, well, it wasn’t his place to say anything, although he did make sure to keep the boy close whenever he noticed any man loitering with a certain predatory look in his eye.
It was with quite some sorrow that Dr Gulliver and the Winchesters parted company just outside of Allentown. Bill had become quite fond of the boys and had tried to persuade them to come to Rochester with him, but Dean insisted that they had to join their father in New York. Bill Jones knew a tall tale when he heard one (he was something of an expert on the subject) but Dean was adamant, and Bill eventually gave up, with a sigh. He gave Dean some coin for his efforts, profit sharing, he said, along with a couple of bottles of the Elixir. Then he wished them the very best of luck before wheeling Dobin around and heading for Rochester.
Dean used the money to buy canvas and rope, so that he could construct a small lean-to or tent to keep them dry, should it rain over night. Supplies purchased, the Winchesters hitched their duffels on their shoulders and made their way on foot toward New York. It was now mid-August and Dean hoped they would arrive at their destination within three or four days, sooner if they didn’t have to walk the whole way. The journey had been going well, with some notable lowlights, and the ease of the last few weeks had lulled Dean into a false sense of security.
Two days walk out of Allentown the boys ran out of food again and they were trying between them to catch a rabbit, with nothing but their bare hands and a large stick, when a gun shot rang out and felled their prey. Once he’d got over his fright at the loud gun boom, Sammy fell upon the dead rabbit with delight, only to freeze when a bearded man in a ragged Union uniform ran out of the bushes and launched himself at the rabbit.
‘Hey!’ Sam squeaked as the soldier wrested the small, bloody mammal from his grasp. ‘That’s our rabbit!’
‘Ain’t your bullet, ain’t your kill,’ the soldier growled.
‘But we flushed it out,’ Dean subtly inserted himself in between his brother and this new, unknown threat.
The soldier smirked and patted him on the head.
‘Good doggies. Now back off.’
‘But we’re hungry,’ Sam’s eyes were big and imploring.
‘Tough,’ the soldier said. He pushed Sam away viciously, and Sam went flying. He hit the ground with a hard thud and his eyes widened as the wind was knocked out of him.
‘Sammy!’ Dean was at his brother’s side immediately, helping him to sit up and get his breath back. The soldier took advantage of their distraction to turn tail and run, disappearing through the trees as quickly as he’d appeared.
Sam narrowed his eyes and stood up, and before Dean had a chance to realize his intention, his little brother had rushed after the soldier.
‘Sammy! Wait!’
Dean flew after him, winding his way through the trees and keeping his eyes firmly glued on the younger boy’s retreating back. After a few minutes of hard running, Dean burst into a clearing to find a tent, a campfire, a horse, and Sam and the soldier going toe to toe.
‘Sammy,’ he said softly, ‘Leave it.’
‘No!’ Sam spat, ‘he stole our food. He’s a disgrace to his uniform!’
The soldier sneered.
‘What do you know kid? Now back off. This rabbit’s mine and I ain’t sharin’!’
‘Well you should!’ Sam insisted, ‘we shared in the work of catching that rabbit, we should share in the eating of it! That’s how normal folk do it!’
‘Well, I ain’t normal,’ the soldier said flatly.
‘C’mon, Sammy. Leave it.’ Dean took a gentle hold of his brother’s arm and started to tug him away.
Whatever the soldier had been like before the war, it was clear that he now had no compassion. Sam was trying to appeal to the man’s better nature, but it was obvious to Dean, that he didn’t have one. They were wasting their time here, and the sooner they got back to their hunting, the better their chances of eating today.
‘Of course,’ Dean looked up, startled, at the soldier’s sudden words, ‘if it turns out y’all have something I need, then maybe we could come to some arrangement.’
The soldier was staring fixatedly at Dean’s bottom lip, which Dean was currently worrying with his teeth.
‘What do you need?’ Sam asked
The soldier met Dean’s eyes and leered. Just to be certain, Dean ran his tongue around his lips and let his mouth fall open slightly. The soldier grinned triumphantly.
‘Oh yeah,’ he said, ‘I knew it! Pretty mouth like that, no chance I’d be the first. We’re on the same page o’ the hymn book and I’m gonna be singing hallelujah soon enough!’
‘What’s going on?’ Sam demanded, ‘What’s he talkin’ about Dean?’
‘Food first,’ Dean said, and the soldier nodded.
‘Dean?’
Dean sat down on a rock a little way back from the fire and watched as the soldier skinned and chopped the rabbit.
‘Dean?’
‘Forget about it Sammy. It’s all okay. He’s gonna give us some food.’
The soldier had a cast iron pot of boiling water in the fire and he tipped the chopped rabbit, some salt and a couple of handfuls of corn into the mix
‘Why?’ Sam persisted. ‘What are you gonna give him?’
‘Shut up, Sammy. I got this. Just…forget about it.’
‘But-’
‘I said shut up about it!’
Sam subsided in sullen silence and Dean immediately felt like an asshole, but this just wasn’t something he and Sam could talk about. He felt sick with anxiety at what he was going to have to do and he was thankful that he had a couple of bottles of Dr Gulliver’s Elixir in his duffel; at least that should drown out the taste afterwards. He wouldn’t mind a nip or two before hand either, just to steady his nerves, but their duffels were back on the other side of the copse of trees, back where the soldier had shot the rabbit.
They sat quietly until the rabbit stew was ready. The soldier heaped a generous serving onto a plate for himself and ate quickly before slopping another serving onto the plate and handing it off to Dean. The brothers scooped the stew up with their hands and shoveled it into their hungry mouths as fast as they could. Dean let Sammy have the most; the kid was a growing boy and besides, Dean’s appetite was a little reduced, thanks to the anxiety roiling in his gut.
When Dean handed the plate back to the soldier, the man took hold of his wrist.
‘Time to hold up your end of the bargain.’
Dean nodded.
‘Sammy? Could you go and get our duffels? We left them back where we killed the rabbit.’
Sam stared at him.
‘Okay,’ he said finally, ‘but you come with me.’
Dean shook his head.
‘Don’t be a baby. I need you to go get our duffels. I’m gonna…talk…to…this guy…about something. Go on now.’
Sam’s eyes were huge and round and they silently begged Dean not to send him away.
‘Please, Sam. Please?’
Sam got to his feet, very reluctantly, and dawdled to the edge of the copse of trees. He looked back briefly and at Dean’s nod, he began to run.
Dean turned to face the soldier.
‘Come on, then,’ he said. ‘We don’t have long.’
-X-
Eight-year-old Sammy Winchester was not as innocent as his older brother supposed. How could he be, when he’d spent the last couple of years living in a Poorhouse; a crowded establishment teeming with the poorest, least educated, and roughest of people? There were children mixed with adults, men and women, boys and girls, the weak and the sick, village idiots, and those who made others cross themselves; those who heard voices in their heads and were said to be possessed by demons. Sammy didn’t always have Dean at his side and there were things Sam had seen that he’d never discussed with his big brother. He knew, in a round-about way, that men and women (and boys and girls) liked to touch each other’s privates. He knew that sometimes a couple of boys would do the same because he’d seen it in the dormitories, and while he didn’t understand why people seemed to enjoy doing it so much, it didn’t disturb him.
What had disturbed him was the girl who’d cried silently with her fist stuffed in her mouth while one of the wardens had rocked back and forth between her spread legs, his hands firmly gripping her hips. They had been at the very end of a dark corridor; Sam was only there because he’d gotten lost; and the girl’s skirts had prevented Sam from seeing precisely what the man had been doing. But when he’d finally moved away from her his thing had been out, and Sam had watched him tuck himself away before handing the girl a whole loaf of bread. The girl had cried for a good while after the warden had left and had then pulled herself together, a blank look settling on her face, before she had torn into the bread. Sam had only been seven at the time, but he wasn’t stupid. The girl had been giving the warden the only thing she had-her body-in exchange for food. And the blank expression on her face…he’d seen it on Dean’s face too; back on the Amanda-and just now.
Goddamn it! Sam ran faster. The soldier wanted something from Dean, and Sam was smart enough to know that the only thing Dean had to give was himself.
Tree branches whipped at Sam’s arms and legs as he ran, but he didn’t care. He was going to get their stuff and get back to his brother as fast as humanly possible; because Dean was his brother, and Sam loved him, and he hated the way Dean seemed to think that it was okay for him to sacrifice himself for them, as if he were somehow worth less than his little brother. Sam gritted his teeth and ran faster. Whatever Dean was going to let the soldier do to him, Sam was going to stop it. Just see if he didn’t.
When he finally burst back into the soldier’s campsite, the first thing he saw was Dean, on his knees, in front of the soldier. The second thing he saw was the soldier’s lowered trousers and he couldn’t quite contain the strangled moan of horror that slipped from his lips. The soldier’s head came up sharply and Dean whipped around to face his brother, his face flushed with shame. Even from ten feet away, Sam could see the way his brother’s lips glistened with saliva.
‘Sammy,’ Dean’s voice was wrecked and it spurred Sam into action. He lunged for the soldier’s rifle, which was leaning against a log next to his tent, and pointed it straight at him.
‘Get away from my brother!’ he shouted.
The soldier chuckled.
‘Ain’t nothin’ happening here he didn’t agree to.’
‘Get away from him!’ Sam reiterated.
The soldier sighed. ‘You point a gun at someone,’ he said, ‘you better be prepared to shoot ‘em.’
Sam frowned. He had no qualms about shooting the soldier, but he had no idea how to actually make the rifle fire. He was also worried that he might hit his brother. The soldier saw his look of vexation and smirked, before turning his attention back to Dean.
‘Ain’t gonna suck itself,’ he rasped, ‘I’ll deal with the brat when we’re finished. He’s gonna learn that you don’t touch another man’s weapon; don’t point it at him, less you mean it.’ He looked back up at Sam, ‘Boy’s gonna be cuttin’ me a switch.’
He turned his eyes back to the boy kneeling at his feet, just in time to see Dean clench his fists together and slam them upwards. The soldier screamed in pain, his face whitening and his eyes rolling back in his head as Dean punched him hard in the balls. He fell onto his knees and Dean drove the heel of his palm into the man’s nose, knocking him onto his back and leaving him dazed. The soldier had a knife in his boot and Dean relieved him of it, before backing away and joining his brother.
‘Give me the gun, Sammy.’
Sam handed it over without a word.
‘Go through his stuff,’ Dean said, ‘take anything worth having and put it in our duffels.’
Sam complied, finding some food, a small box of copper rimfire cartridges, a box of matches, and a good winter coat that looked like it’d fit Dean.
‘Pack everything into the saddle bags,’ Dean said, ‘and saddle up the horse.’
The soldier had recovered himself a little, and he struggled into a sitting position.
‘Boy,’ he said, ‘if you point a gun at someone-’
Dean worked the shell extraction leaver and then cocked the hammer.
‘Spencer rifle, right?’ he said, ‘as used by the cavalry and mounted infantry regiments. It’s a seven-shot repeat shooter, feeds with a seven-round tube system and is made in both rifle and carbine versions. This is the rifle version. It’s got a sustainable rate-of-fire in excess of 20 rounds per minute and a range of two hundred yards. Move again and I’ll put a hole in your chest. And from this range? We both know I can’t miss.’
‘Can I at least pull up my trousers?’
‘No.’
The soldier’s mouth snapped shut and he sat still, looking at Dean with impotent rage.
From the corner of his eye Dean watched as Sam finished packing the horse and then untethered her and walked her toward him.
‘Dean? Can we go?’
‘Sure Sammy.’
Dean fired the rifle over the head of the soldier and watched in satisfaction as he dove, face down into the dirt, and covered his head with his hands. The rifle now safe, Dean mounted the horse, pulled Sammy up in front of him and dug his heels into the horse’s flank, urging her into a cantor.
‘I’ll see you hung for this!’ the soldier shouted after them, ‘horse theft’s a hanging offense, boy!’
The boys rode hard for an hour and then Dean slowed the horse to a walk.
‘You okay Sammy?’
Sam shrugged.
‘How do you know so much about guns?’ he asked.
‘Dad taught me to shoot when I was eight. And Mr Elkins, Rufus and the other firemen; all they ever did was talk about guns and ammo,’ he paused. ‘And whiskey and women.’
Sam harrumphed. ‘Did you learn as much about whiskey and women as you did about guns and ammo?’
‘I like to think so, Sammy,’ Dean said smugly.
There was a brief silence and then Sam said:
‘Don’t you ever do that again, okay?’
Dean didn’t respond.
‘And don’t pretend you don’t know what I’m talking about,’ Sam added. ‘And don’t pretend you didn’t do it on the Amanda too. I ain’t stupid ya know. You promise me that you’re never gonna do that again.’
Dean chewed on his bottom lip.
‘I’ll do whatever it takes to keep us safe. You gotta understand that. It’s my job to look out for you.’
Sam huffed.
‘But you’re not keeping you safe. You gotta promise me you’ll keep you safe too.’
Dean shook his head.
‘I’ll try,’ he conceded.
Sam figured that was as good as he was going to get and he grimaced. If Dean wouldn’t promise to keep himself safe, then Sam was going to have to adopt a similar philosophy to his brother and look out for the both of them, no matter what it took.
Part Three (A)
When the scrawny, brown dog approached, Sam was glad of the company. He’d been sitting alone, legs dangling off the veranda, out front of the general store for nearly an hour, while Dean was down at the markets trying to find someone willing to give them a lift to New York City.
‘Well look at you, boy!’ Sam cooed, ‘Ain’t you just a bag o’ bones! You got a name buddy? No? Hmm. Think I’ll call you Bones. Are you hungry Bones?’
Earlier that morning, at the Boarding House, Sam, Dean and Rufus had eaten a huge breakfast and all three of them had squirreled away chunks of bread, cheese, and cold cuts when the house mistress wasn’t looking. Sam now shared some of his ham with the emaciated dog and the dog promptly became his best friend. The two of them played happily out the front of the general store until the store keeper came and chased them off. Sam and Bones wandered a little way away, but not too far because Dean had told Sam to stay put.
By the time Dean returned it was late afternoon. He smiled at Sam, ruffled his hair and told him that there’d been a slight change in plan.
Dean had been talking to merchants all day but not a one of them was headed to New York. Most folks sent their goods to New York on a river boat, back up the Ohio, down the Mississippi to New Orleans, and then out into the Gulf of Mexico, around the Florida peninsula and up the East coast to New York City.
The boys walked a little way out of town and spent the night in a farmer’s hay barn, with Bones the dog stretched between them for warmth. The next morning they were up before day break. They finished the small amount of food left over from the day before, and stole a handful of corn each from the hog trough, before getting back on the road and heading, on foot, towards Monroeville. Bones followed them part of the way and then stopped, whining and looking behind him.
‘Good boy,’ Dean encouraged, ‘Go home.’
‘I don’t think he has a home,’ Sam said softly.
Dean was silent a moment.
‘Well,’ he said finally, ‘It’s better if he doesn’t follow us. We can’t feed him, Sam. We can barely feed ourselves.’
Sam knew his brother was right, but that didn’t stop his bottom lip from trembling. He nodded, though, and approached the dog slowly, dropping to his knees and enveloping the animal in a huge hug.
‘You can’t come with us,’ he told his new friend tearfully. He gave him one final squeeze and then sat back on his haunches.
‘Go on, boy,’ he said, ‘Go home.’
The dog backed away and looked enquiringly at Sam.
‘I’m goin’ with my brother,’ Sam told him, ‘You go on home now.’
The dog turned and ran a short way before turning to look back at Sam.
‘Go on,’ Sam said and Bones turned and ran without stopping.
Sam watched until he was out of sight, staying seated in the dirt until he felt a hand on his shoulder.
‘C’mon,’ Dean said, ‘Let’s get going.’
-X-
The brothers slept that night, hidden under the straw in another farmer’s hay barn, just outside Monroeville. At daybreak they helped themselves to a drink of water from the horses’ trough and Dean kept watch while Sammy pilfered some eggs from the henhouse. They walked for a couple of hours, headed in the direction of Altoona, and then stopped for breakfast. They boys gathered armfuls of wood and kindling and Dean used a box of matches that he’d stolen from the Boarding house, to start a small fire. Soon they had two eggs each frying on a tin plate.
‘Bones could’ve hunted rabbits for us,’ Sammy said wistfully.
Dean snorted. ‘Bones couldn’t even hunt rabbits for himself,’ he said, ‘Or you wouldn’t’ve been calling him Bones.’
The boys had been walking for several hours and Sammy had started to complain that he needed a rest, when the nickering of a horse and the clatter of rickety wheels announced the slow approach of a wagon. The boys scrambled to the side of the track and watched as a covered wagon rolled sedately past. The words ‘Dr Gulliver’s Miraculous Health Elixir’ were painted in fancy red letters on the side of the wagon, and in smaller letters underneath, ‘good for what ails you.’ On the driver’s seat sat a portly man, dressed in tweed, and sporting an impressive walrus moustache.
‘Good morning, lads,’ he said jovially, reining his horse to a stop and doffing his hat to reveal a startling lack of hair, ‘Could you pray direct me to your father’s farm? I fancy I’ve a cure-all here which your mother may be pleased to hear tell of.’
‘Uh yeah,’ Dean replied, ‘It’s in New York. We’re on our way to join him there.’
The man, who Dean presumed was Dr Gulliver, raised an eyebrow.
‘New York, you say? Well. That’s a long walk you have ahead of you and no mistake.’
Dean nodded.
‘You couldn’t give us a lift to Altoona could you?’
Dr Gulliver scratched his chin and eyed Dean’s arm muscles with some trepidation.
‘Well now,’ he began, ‘I’m not sure-’
‘Please?’ Sammy let loose with his most beguiling, beseeching puppy dog eyes, ‘It’s such a long way and I’m so little.’
‘Well I suppose-’ he broke off as Sam climbed up onto the driver’s seat and sat down next to him.
‘Thank you!’ the boy beamed.
Dean quickly followed suit, climbing up onto Dr Gulliver’s other side.
‘Thank you,’ he echoed his younger brother, ‘we won’t be a bother to you, I promise.’
Dr Gulliver, once he felt assured that Dean was not about to rob him in his sleep, proved most amiable company, and the boys travelled with him, not just to Altoona, but to Huntingdon, Harrisburg, Lebanon and Allentown.
On their first night, huddled close to the campfire for warmth, Dr Gulliver downed several shots of hooch ‘to light a fire in his cold belly’, he told the boys sagely, and was most impressed when Dean turned down his offer of a shot.
‘Quite right, son,’ he nodded wisely, ‘it’s the devil’s draught, it is; best to stay away from it.’
After his third shot he became quite chatty, confessing that his name was really Bill Jones, but that the moniker he had been baptized with didn’t have quite the same ring of authority as Dr Gulliver, which he invited the boys to consider his trading name. The boys also discovered, that first night, that Bill was missing the little toe on his left foot and he had a different story every day to explain how that had happened. One day he claimed it had been taken by vicious cannibal Indians, when he’d fought against them in the Indian wars; another day it had been snatched by an alligator, which had leapt from the water into his fishing boat down in New Orleans. The tales were always long and grandiose and the boys loved listening to them.
Dean and Sam pulled their weight by fetching wood and water and helping Bill to bottle his elixir and paste labels onto each newly-filled bottle. Dr Gulliver was cagey and secretive whenever it came time to mix a new batch of his elixir, and he eschewed their help with that particular task. As best as Dean could make out from his spying, the elixir was nothing more complicated than rum, molasses, baking soda and sugar.
Sam soon took to looking after Dobin, the horse, and it wasn’t long before Dean was helping the good doctor with his sales pitches. It helped to have an off-sider who could give testimonial as to the effectiveness of the product and Bill had quickly discovered that not only did Dean have the gift of the gab, but he drew the attention and affections of both the matrons and the maidens, and they were all too willing to buy anything the boy recommended. And if Bill Jones noticed that the boy attracted the same sort of attention from a number of men, if he saw the way they watched hungrily as Dean’s tongue licked across his bottom lip, well, it wasn’t his place to say anything, although he did make sure to keep the boy close whenever he noticed any man loitering with a certain predatory look in his eye.
It was with quite some sorrow that Dr Gulliver and the Winchesters parted company just outside of Allentown. Bill had become quite fond of the boys and had tried to persuade them to come to Rochester with him, but Dean insisted that they had to join their father in New York. Bill Jones knew a tall tale when he heard one (he was something of an expert on the subject) but Dean was adamant, and Bill eventually gave up, with a sigh. He gave Dean some coin for his efforts, profit sharing, he said, along with a couple of bottles of the Elixir. Then he wished them the very best of luck before wheeling Dobin around and heading for Rochester.
Dean used the money to buy canvas and rope, so that he could construct a small lean-to or tent to keep them dry, should it rain over night. Supplies purchased, the Winchesters hitched their duffels on their shoulders and made their way on foot toward New York. It was now mid-August and Dean hoped they would arrive at their destination within three or four days, sooner if they didn’t have to walk the whole way. The journey had been going well, with some notable lowlights, and the ease of the last few weeks had lulled Dean into a false sense of security.
Two days walk out of Allentown the boys ran out of food again and they were trying between them to catch a rabbit, with nothing but their bare hands and a large stick, when a gun shot rang out and felled their prey. Once he’d got over his fright at the loud gun boom, Sammy fell upon the dead rabbit with delight, only to freeze when a bearded man in a ragged Union uniform ran out of the bushes and launched himself at the rabbit.
‘Hey!’ Sam squeaked as the soldier wrested the small, bloody mammal from his grasp. ‘That’s our rabbit!’
‘Ain’t your bullet, ain’t your kill,’ the soldier growled.
‘But we flushed it out,’ Dean subtly inserted himself in between his brother and this new, unknown threat.
The soldier smirked and patted him on the head.
‘Good doggies. Now back off.’
‘But we’re hungry,’ Sam’s eyes were big and imploring.
‘Tough,’ the soldier said. He pushed Sam away viciously, and Sam went flying. He hit the ground with a hard thud and his eyes widened as the wind was knocked out of him.
‘Sammy!’ Dean was at his brother’s side immediately, helping him to sit up and get his breath back. The soldier took advantage of their distraction to turn tail and run, disappearing through the trees as quickly as he’d appeared.
Sam narrowed his eyes and stood up, and before Dean had a chance to realize his intention, his little brother had rushed after the soldier.
‘Sammy! Wait!’
Dean flew after him, winding his way through the trees and keeping his eyes firmly glued on the younger boy’s retreating back. After a few minutes of hard running, Dean burst into a clearing to find a tent, a campfire, a horse, and Sam and the soldier going toe to toe.
‘Sammy,’ he said softly, ‘Leave it.’
‘No!’ Sam spat, ‘he stole our food. He’s a disgrace to his uniform!’
The soldier sneered.
‘What do you know kid? Now back off. This rabbit’s mine and I ain’t sharin’!’
‘Well you should!’ Sam insisted, ‘we shared in the work of catching that rabbit, we should share in the eating of it! That’s how normal folk do it!’
‘Well, I ain’t normal,’ the soldier said flatly.
‘C’mon, Sammy. Leave it.’ Dean took a gentle hold of his brother’s arm and started to tug him away.
Whatever the soldier had been like before the war, it was clear that he now had no compassion. Sam was trying to appeal to the man’s better nature, but it was obvious to Dean, that he didn’t have one. They were wasting their time here, and the sooner they got back to their hunting, the better their chances of eating today.
‘Of course,’ Dean looked up, startled, at the soldier’s sudden words, ‘if it turns out y’all have something I need, then maybe we could come to some arrangement.’
The soldier was staring fixatedly at Dean’s bottom lip, which Dean was currently worrying with his teeth.
‘What do you need?’ Sam asked
The soldier met Dean’s eyes and leered. Just to be certain, Dean ran his tongue around his lips and let his mouth fall open slightly. The soldier grinned triumphantly.
‘Oh yeah,’ he said, ‘I knew it! Pretty mouth like that, no chance I’d be the first. We’re on the same page o’ the hymn book and I’m gonna be singing hallelujah soon enough!’
‘What’s going on?’ Sam demanded, ‘What’s he talkin’ about Dean?’
‘Food first,’ Dean said, and the soldier nodded.
‘Dean?’
Dean sat down on a rock a little way back from the fire and watched as the soldier skinned and chopped the rabbit.
‘Dean?’
‘Forget about it Sammy. It’s all okay. He’s gonna give us some food.’
The soldier had a cast iron pot of boiling water in the fire and he tipped the chopped rabbit, some salt and a couple of handfuls of corn into the mix
‘Why?’ Sam persisted. ‘What are you gonna give him?’
‘Shut up, Sammy. I got this. Just…forget about it.’
‘But-’
‘I said shut up about it!’
Sam subsided in sullen silence and Dean immediately felt like an asshole, but this just wasn’t something he and Sam could talk about. He felt sick with anxiety at what he was going to have to do and he was thankful that he had a couple of bottles of Dr Gulliver’s Elixir in his duffel; at least that should drown out the taste afterwards. He wouldn’t mind a nip or two before hand either, just to steady his nerves, but their duffels were back on the other side of the copse of trees, back where the soldier had shot the rabbit.
They sat quietly until the rabbit stew was ready. The soldier heaped a generous serving onto a plate for himself and ate quickly before slopping another serving onto the plate and handing it off to Dean. The brothers scooped the stew up with their hands and shoveled it into their hungry mouths as fast as they could. Dean let Sammy have the most; the kid was a growing boy and besides, Dean’s appetite was a little reduced, thanks to the anxiety roiling in his gut.
When Dean handed the plate back to the soldier, the man took hold of his wrist.
‘Time to hold up your end of the bargain.’
Dean nodded.
‘Sammy? Could you go and get our duffels? We left them back where we killed the rabbit.’
Sam stared at him.
‘Okay,’ he said finally, ‘but you come with me.’
Dean shook his head.
‘Don’t be a baby. I need you to go get our duffels. I’m gonna…talk…to…this guy…about something. Go on now.’
Sam’s eyes were huge and round and they silently begged Dean not to send him away.
‘Please, Sam. Please?’
Sam got to his feet, very reluctantly, and dawdled to the edge of the copse of trees. He looked back briefly and at Dean’s nod, he began to run.
Dean turned to face the soldier.
‘Come on, then,’ he said. ‘We don’t have long.’
-X-
Eight-year-old Sammy Winchester was not as innocent as his older brother supposed. How could he be, when he’d spent the last couple of years living in a Poorhouse; a crowded establishment teeming with the poorest, least educated, and roughest of people? There were children mixed with adults, men and women, boys and girls, the weak and the sick, village idiots, and those who made others cross themselves; those who heard voices in their heads and were said to be possessed by demons. Sammy didn’t always have Dean at his side and there were things Sam had seen that he’d never discussed with his big brother. He knew, in a round-about way, that men and women (and boys and girls) liked to touch each other’s privates. He knew that sometimes a couple of boys would do the same because he’d seen it in the dormitories, and while he didn’t understand why people seemed to enjoy doing it so much, it didn’t disturb him.
What had disturbed him was the girl who’d cried silently with her fist stuffed in her mouth while one of the wardens had rocked back and forth between her spread legs, his hands firmly gripping her hips. They had been at the very end of a dark corridor; Sam was only there because he’d gotten lost; and the girl’s skirts had prevented Sam from seeing precisely what the man had been doing. But when he’d finally moved away from her his thing had been out, and Sam had watched him tuck himself away before handing the girl a whole loaf of bread. The girl had cried for a good while after the warden had left and had then pulled herself together, a blank look settling on her face, before she had torn into the bread. Sam had only been seven at the time, but he wasn’t stupid. The girl had been giving the warden the only thing she had-her body-in exchange for food. And the blank expression on her face…he’d seen it on Dean’s face too; back on the Amanda-and just now.
Goddamn it! Sam ran faster. The soldier wanted something from Dean, and Sam was smart enough to know that the only thing Dean had to give was himself.
Tree branches whipped at Sam’s arms and legs as he ran, but he didn’t care. He was going to get their stuff and get back to his brother as fast as humanly possible; because Dean was his brother, and Sam loved him, and he hated the way Dean seemed to think that it was okay for him to sacrifice himself for them, as if he were somehow worth less than his little brother. Sam gritted his teeth and ran faster. Whatever Dean was going to let the soldier do to him, Sam was going to stop it. Just see if he didn’t.
When he finally burst back into the soldier’s campsite, the first thing he saw was Dean, on his knees, in front of the soldier. The second thing he saw was the soldier’s lowered trousers and he couldn’t quite contain the strangled moan of horror that slipped from his lips. The soldier’s head came up sharply and Dean whipped around to face his brother, his face flushed with shame. Even from ten feet away, Sam could see the way his brother’s lips glistened with saliva.
‘Sammy,’ Dean’s voice was wrecked and it spurred Sam into action. He lunged for the soldier’s rifle, which was leaning against a log next to his tent, and pointed it straight at him.
‘Get away from my brother!’ he shouted.
The soldier chuckled.
‘Ain’t nothin’ happening here he didn’t agree to.’
‘Get away from him!’ Sam reiterated.
The soldier sighed. ‘You point a gun at someone,’ he said, ‘you better be prepared to shoot ‘em.’
Sam frowned. He had no qualms about shooting the soldier, but he had no idea how to actually make the rifle fire. He was also worried that he might hit his brother. The soldier saw his look of vexation and smirked, before turning his attention back to Dean.
‘Ain’t gonna suck itself,’ he rasped, ‘I’ll deal with the brat when we’re finished. He’s gonna learn that you don’t touch another man’s weapon; don’t point it at him, less you mean it.’ He looked back up at Sam, ‘Boy’s gonna be cuttin’ me a switch.’
He turned his eyes back to the boy kneeling at his feet, just in time to see Dean clench his fists together and slam them upwards. The soldier screamed in pain, his face whitening and his eyes rolling back in his head as Dean punched him hard in the balls. He fell onto his knees and Dean drove the heel of his palm into the man’s nose, knocking him onto his back and leaving him dazed. The soldier had a knife in his boot and Dean relieved him of it, before backing away and joining his brother.
‘Give me the gun, Sammy.’
Sam handed it over without a word.
‘Go through his stuff,’ Dean said, ‘take anything worth having and put it in our duffels.’
Sam complied, finding some food, a small box of copper rimfire cartridges, a box of matches, and a good winter coat that looked like it’d fit Dean.
‘Pack everything into the saddle bags,’ Dean said, ‘and saddle up the horse.’
The soldier had recovered himself a little, and he struggled into a sitting position.
‘Boy,’ he said, ‘if you point a gun at someone-’
Dean worked the shell extraction leaver and then cocked the hammer.
‘Spencer rifle, right?’ he said, ‘as used by the cavalry and mounted infantry regiments. It’s a seven-shot repeat shooter, feeds with a seven-round tube system and is made in both rifle and carbine versions. This is the rifle version. It’s got a sustainable rate-of-fire in excess of 20 rounds per minute and a range of two hundred yards. Move again and I’ll put a hole in your chest. And from this range? We both know I can’t miss.’
‘Can I at least pull up my trousers?’
‘No.’
The soldier’s mouth snapped shut and he sat still, looking at Dean with impotent rage.
From the corner of his eye Dean watched as Sam finished packing the horse and then untethered her and walked her toward him.
‘Dean? Can we go?’
‘Sure Sammy.’
Dean fired the rifle over the head of the soldier and watched in satisfaction as he dove, face down into the dirt, and covered his head with his hands. The rifle now safe, Dean mounted the horse, pulled Sammy up in front of him and dug his heels into the horse’s flank, urging her into a cantor.
‘I’ll see you hung for this!’ the soldier shouted after them, ‘horse theft’s a hanging offense, boy!’
The boys rode hard for an hour and then Dean slowed the horse to a walk.
‘You okay Sammy?’
Sam shrugged.
‘How do you know so much about guns?’ he asked.
‘Dad taught me to shoot when I was eight. And Mr Elkins, Rufus and the other firemen; all they ever did was talk about guns and ammo,’ he paused. ‘And whiskey and women.’
Sam harrumphed. ‘Did you learn as much about whiskey and women as you did about guns and ammo?’
‘I like to think so, Sammy,’ Dean said smugly.
There was a brief silence and then Sam said:
‘Don’t you ever do that again, okay?’
Dean didn’t respond.
‘And don’t pretend you don’t know what I’m talking about,’ Sam added. ‘And don’t pretend you didn’t do it on the Amanda too. I ain’t stupid ya know. You promise me that you’re never gonna do that again.’
Dean chewed on his bottom lip.
‘I’ll do whatever it takes to keep us safe. You gotta understand that. It’s my job to look out for you.’
Sam huffed.
‘But you’re not keeping you safe. You gotta promise me you’ll keep you safe too.’
Dean shook his head.
‘I’ll try,’ he conceded.
Sam figured that was as good as he was going to get and he grimaced. If Dean wouldn’t promise to keep himself safe, then Sam was going to have to adopt a similar philosophy to his brother and look out for the both of them, no matter what it took.
Part Three (A)