Chapter Text
“It goes on forever.” Dean has been waxing poetic regarding the state of Montana since they had entered it…two days ago. “I mean, it’s like a whole country. We are driving through an entire country. And it’s populated almost entirely by trees.”
Sam grunts in response and wonders if there’s any way to distract Dean from this subject. Probably not, he decides, listening to the continuing rant. Nothing has so far.
“Montana is bigger than Japan, Sam. Japan. It’s literally bigger than one of the world’s busiest countries.”
“You said the same thing about Wyoming, Dean.” Sam immediately regrets engaging in his older brother’s bitching, but now he’s pretty much trapped in this conversation. “Only you also said that it was ‘hands down the most boring drive ever’. Oh, then we almost hit that deer, and you amended it to a ‘possibly sentient and vindictive godforsaken place’ as well.”
“I stand by that.” Dean shrugs, keeping an eye on the road. “I think I’ve been on enough roadtrips to be an authority on this shit. I’m just saying that Montana is ridiculous. It’s oversized and underpopulated and just…unnecessary.”
“Well, I’m sure people who live here would argue with that.”
Dean rolls his eyes and snorts. “Sure. Of course you’d defend it. You’re like basically the Montana of hunters.”
Sam’s still trying to come up with a good comeback when Dean continues.
“See, this is why other countries hate us.” He gestures to the view as they pass. “America literally found a way to super-size land. How is that even possible?”
“Dean, you don’t have any complaints about a super-sized Big Mac.”
“That’s different. I have my priorities. A Big Mac is food, therefore it has a use. Montana doesn’t.”
“Yellowstone National Park,” Sam offers. “Um…oil…oh, and all the beef we get from the ranches here that make your Big Macs…”
Dean scoffs. “Yeah, well, Wyoming has that stuff too. So again, point proven.”
“How close are we,” Sam asks, trying to change the subject. He’s not sure he can put up with another minute of Dean’s hate-filled rant about Montana, let alone possibly hours or days.
“Dunno. You’re the navigator.”
Sam digs up the map and pad of paper he’d written down the coordinates on earlier that week. They’re tracking down a lead about some sort of animal that was terrorizing a ranch town called Agency. The locals there were calling it the “Shunka Warak’in”, which apparently means “carries off dogs”. Unfortunately, according to the papers, whatever it was had graduated from dogs to people. Thus far, three kids were missing, along with about five reported hunters.
“You need to take the next exit.”
Less than a minute after Sam announces this, Dean jerks the car into the exit and takes the curve at a breakneck speed, slamming his brother’s head into the window as he does. He ignores the glare from the passenger seat and keeps speeding the car along until they enter the town. Or, rather, he assumes they’ve entered the town—there’s a shady-looking motel on one side of the street, a small trailer park next to it, and a large bar across the street, as well as several boarded up old buildings.
Dean puffs out his cheeks and lets out a long, slow breath. “Wow. You sure this place isn’t actually named Podunk? Okay, here’s the plan: I’ll try to pry some information out of the regulars in there,” he nods at the bar. “You get us checked in and see if there’s any place in this God-forsaken town that has wifi.”
After a few moments of petty squabbling, Sam agrees to the plan and starts towards the motel office, kicking the gravel irritably. He opens the door and is immediately blasted with a rush of cool air, flooding out into the still, dry afternoon as Sam slips inside quickly. The office is a dingy, sad-looking affair, with a sitting area to one side and a desk taking up the rest of the room. There’s an old man settled in a worn armchair, snoring loudly in time to the static on the ancient television set.
Sam grimaces at the atmosphere—it’s more run-down than most places—and focuses on the desk. There’s a man there, having some sort of heated conversation with the lady behind the counter. He has a little kid with him, a boy of about eight or so (he’s never been that good at gauging ages, that’s Dean’s thing) fidgeting with the strap of a bag and awkwardly avoiding eye contact with the angry woman. He looks over when Sam enters, apparently the only one to notice. Sam gives him a quick smile, then walks up behind the man and clears his throat. The irate man turns and gives him a nasty look, while the woman seems relieved.
“What do you want,” the man snarls, posturing. He’s a large guy, rough looking and squinty eyes. “Can’t you see we’re busy here?”
“No problem,” Sam shrugs. “I’m just waiting to check in here.”
The guy scoffs, but turns back to the desk. “Look, woman, just give me the goddamn keys! I ain’t paying for a bigger space.”
Looking like she’s barely restraining herself from attacking the belligerent guest, the woman slides to cards across the counter, gritting out “Have a pleasant stay.” The man doesn’t even nod, just grabs one of the bags, shoving the other at the kid, muttering “Move it.” The two exit quickly, and most of the tension in the room leaves with them.
“Can I help you,” the lady says, a much friendlier expression on her face. “I really appreciate you stepping in like that, by the way. I probably would’ve had to take the shotgun out to get him calmed down otherwise.”
Sam laughs incredulously, stepping up to the desk. “You’ve got a shotgun back there? And, um…I need a room please.”
“For how long?”
“Couple of days?” He tries to estimate how long this hunt will take. “Well, more like a week, really.”
She smiles. “Sure thing, hon. You here for a reason? People generally just pass through Agency, not that I’d mind the business, of course.”
“Oh, m’ brother and I are hoping to get in some hunting,” Sam says, pulling out the card to pay. “We heard great things about the elk out here.”
“Well, you picked a great area for it. People have bagged some record-breaking bulls around here. You guys should be careful though—there’s been some nasty animal attacks lately.” Pamela hands back the card and pulls out two keys. She looks genuinely concerned, and Sam can’t help feeling a bit guilty when he presses for more information.
“Really? What happened?”
She sighs. “Well, at first the ranchers were having some trouble—something kept coming around, harassing their stock. A few of the dogs disappeared, some hunters have been reported missing, though that may be more to do with weather than anything. But about a week ago, a kid, Lilly HerManyHorses went missing. Poor thing walked home from school and never made it. A little while later, little Bobby Fisher just…disappeared, right out of his front yard. Then, day before last, three boys decided to go out hunting even though they knew better, and no one’s seen ‘em since. One of them was my nephew.”
“Oh, wow. That’s terrible.” He means it too.
“I know! And the thing is, there’s no way they just got lost or anything—all three of them grew up here, they know these woods. And they had guns, they know how to use them too. Sheriff thinks we’ve got a wolf problem, but wolves don’t snatch babies from their yards or go after healthy, well-armed teenagers.”
Sam really feels a little guilty now. “That’s awful. So, um, if it’s not wolves, what is it?”
Before the woman can answer, a croaky old voice from behind interjects.
“Lilly-ass white boy don’t wanna admit that he’s up against Shunka Warak’in. None of them daiboo gonna give a shit unless they gonna lose money. Soon as the paadiha start dying, then they’ll listen.”
Sam turns to see the old man, now awake, has shifted in his seat so that he can glare daggers at them.
Pamela sighs. “No one believes in those stories, Dogu. And please, stop insulting the sheriff that way. You do realize that he’s on our side, right?”
“Haganivina,” the old man shrugs. “Nobody ever wants to hear the truth.” He squints at Sam. “Why you askin’ bout this stuff? You huntin’ monsters too?”
Grinning, Sam shakes his head. “Not sure what you mean by that, sir. I’m just tryin’ to make sure I know what to expect out there.”
“Eh, kaihinadogwaindingande,” The old man scoffs and turns back to the T.V. “Sure. Heh!” His words turn into incoherent mumbles as Sam turns back to the counter.
“Sorry about him.” Pamela says sheepishly. “My grandfather is a little…touched.”
“I don’t mind.” Sam says cheerfully. “So, what’s a ‘Shunka wara-whatever’?”
“A stupid legend. It’s supposedly this wolf-monster thing that eats livestock and stuff.” She waves a hand dismissively. “Honestly, I’m pretty sure it’s just a coyote that someone saw when they were drunk.”
Sam can tell she’s done talking. “Oh. Well, thanks for the warning, I’ll be sure to tell my brother we need to be careful. Um, you have a good night, okay, Pamela?”
“You too. And if you need anything, just let me know.” She smiles after him as he exits.
After making sure the room is properly warded and secure, Sam heads back to the car to get their bags. He can see Dean already striding back towards the motel, so he leans against the vehicle and waits.
“Did you find anything?” Dean asks as soon as he’s in hearing range. “Because I got shit.”
“Yup.” Sam pushes off the hood of the Impala. “Not much, but I got an old guy who’s convinced that it is the Shunka Warak’in. So that’s a good sign, I guess. Anyway, we still need to find out how to kill the thing, and I doubt he’d be willing to just tell us. Figured I’d wait to see what you had before I dug out the laptop…assuming the wifi here actually works.”
Dean shakes his head and darkly mutters “Montana,” like it’s the reason for all their troubles. He grabs a bag and goes inside, looking around at the motel room with an impressed expression.
“The room is nice.” He sounds genuinely surprised. “Like, beyond ‘crappy, but decent motel’ nice.”
“The office sucks, but everything else is really nice. The lady who runs the place seems to be pretty proud of it. Her granddad’s the one who was talkin’ about this thing.”
“Cool. Gotta love the crazy old dudes.” Dean grins, flopping onto the bed. “Oh, and the food there? It’s not worth the price. Man, I swear that is the worst bar I have ever been to. Doesn’t even have a decent beer selection.”
“Bummer.”
“You could try sounding sympathetic. After all, we gotta eat somewhere.”
Sam rolls his eyes. “Surprisingly, that’s not my biggest priority. Besides, there’s always the canned crap we packed.”
Dean groans in mock disgust and flings an arm over his eyes. “Goody. Wake me up when you’re done doing the nerd work. Imma try and get some decent sleep. It’ll be about the only decent thing to be had out here.”
His older brother then proceeds to demonstrate a remarkable amount of stubbornness and forces himself to sleep. Sam’s actually impressed, but there’s no way in hell that he’ll ever say so. He pulls out the laptop and is pleasantly surprised when the wifi signal is strong and steady. In fact, he almost wakes Dean up to defend Montana on this merit alone, but he’s ninety percent certain that Dean will kill him for that. Besides, then he’ll have to listen to more reasons why Montana sucks, and he’s pretty sure that Dean will never drop it if that happens.
He cracks down to it, and quickly finds that there’s very little about this particular creature to be found online, aside from some shady looking blogs about “cryptoids” and a mockumentary-type movie that some YouTuber made for fun. The more specific wording he uses, the more strange crap he finds. But he sticks with it, because he’s not actually certain that Agency has a library…or if there are any books on this sort of thing; native mythology rarely makes it into books as anything more than brief references.
Eventually, he comes across a few articles from other small towns in the area talking about missing cattle and possible sightings, as well as a page from a website dedicated to preserving native languages, but there’s nothing really conclusive about how to actually kill the damn thing. Sighing, Sam gets up and puts the computer away—they’ll just have to go with their usual fallback: silver bullets and plenty of buckshot.