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spirit of the west

Summary:

Dean grew up on a horse farm and can't imagine any other life. There are drawbacks to working for his father, but they're worth it if it means remaining with his beloved horses. Besides, between his broken arm and his lack of prospects, he hasn't got much else.

Something of an outsider, Dean always feels like there's something he's missing. But this tense summer brings back a figure from his past: years ago, a teenaged Cas worked for a season at the Winchester ranch. His return could change everything.

If you ever wanted a 90s horse girl book, but starring a young Dean Winchester, this is your fic.

Notes:

this is the so-called "horse girl Dean Winchester" fic that has been kicking around my brain too long. to readers who like my spooky case fics and fun monsters, I am so sorry. to the readers who've just arrived, saddle-up. you can, if you so wish, find me at this tumblr.

there is, as always, a playlist: spirit of the west

(See the end of the work for more notes and other works inspired by this one.)

Chapter Text

That’s why I’m giving you warning—there’s something I could not tell
The joys as clear as the morning—The tortures akin to hell.
They never will reach outsiders, who were raised in the town’s confines:
But they’re here for the hard old riders, who can read them between the lines.
— Bruce Kiskaddon, “Between the Lines”

With the sun yet to show itself, Dean checked over Fleetwood in the electric light of the stables. The mare, a good-tempered palomino, wouldn’t lead him to grief over an early morning ride, and she was easily wooed by a scoop of fresh oats.

He worked more slowly than usual in tacking her. Getting the saddle on her back with only one good arm required more cooperation than Fleetwood seemed ready to give, though she put up with the adjustments he made. Her skin quivered over her muscles a few times as he once more smoothed out the saddle blanket underneath, making sure it lay even on her. As she settled he pressed a kiss to the smooth hair of her broad cheek.

He cinched the saddle, attached the bridle, then led her out of her stall and out of the stable. It had been a long time since he’d needed a mounting block, a long time, but he didn’t trust his own balance. Impatience won out over pride. He held the reins in his left hand as usual, his good hand, and gave Fleetwood the go-ahead with an easy press of his legs.

His right arm in its sling followed the natural sway of his body. His upper arm twinged beneath its brace from the effort of saddling, but the riding itself didn’t even seem to be so bad for it, he thought. Now that they were moving, he could stay here for hours.

He needed the fresh air. He needed out of the house. He followed a familiar trail up from the ranch, closing his eyes to better breathe in the morning dew. Fleetwood’s even gait hypnotised him, clearing away the dreck in his head and reminding him of why he didn’t just leave his dad’s ranch. He turned eighteen back in January. High school ended last week. Far from an illustrious close-out.

He didn’t have Sammy’s prospects, out on scholarship at that fancy boarding school near San Francisco. He didn’t have much to show at all. But others got by with less to their name. Anyone else might’ve struck out on their own by now.

Only… John needed Dean. And no one else did. These two facts were sufficient to guide Dean’s actions, for better or worse.

Who was he kidding? It was this, too. The dawn breaking over his ride. Taking stock of the land he loved, marking its changes from season to season, day to day. He rode through a world of open spaces. Miles of rippled countryside without fence posts or powerlines. River, forest, hill, all bright and bursting with natural life. Even the wind had character: would rise to meet him and tug at his clothes and bring the taste of grass and stone and sky down into his lungs.

Dean could’ve kept the outing short, put Fleetwood back in the stable before anyone realised she was gone, but it had been nearly a week. He justified it to himself when he thought of going just a little bit farther, then a little bit farther. To the split rock. To the cottonwood grove. To the next rise.

He’d been up early, but no one at the ranch started late. By now they’d have put together his absence and Fleetwood’s. John would have something to say about how he couldn’t muck out a stable, but could still go for pleasure rides. Acting like some little princeling who lived only for leisure. When Sam’s hay allergy kept him out of farm work, despite having been born into it, John took to calling him ‘Your Highness,’ not kindly. Dean didn’t want to hear what John would call him for this.

With the morning sun full and climbing, he rode Fleetwood all the way back to the stable. He’d remove her tack in the stall, where he wouldn’t have so far to carry it, before taking her to drink and cooling her down.

It wasn’t so hard to dismount one-armed. He met no one in the yard, but as he led the horse through to her stall, Jo turned up from around the open doors at the other end of the stables, carrying a heavy broom.

“There you are,” she said. “Out when you shouldn’t be. Figures.” She was just sixteen, a couple years younger than Dean, although try telling her that. Jo had been working on the ranch for so many years she was practically a sister to Dean, and she gave him enough attitude to make him believe it.

“There you are, skulking around,” Dean said. “Figures.”

“Your dad knows you were out riding,” said Jo. It hit somewhere between accusation and advice. She tipped her head to the side and looked at him from under the silver-grey brim of her cowboy hat.

Dean unclipped his sling so that he could move more freely, if slowly, taking off the bridle to start. He didn’t say anything to Jo’s remark. He didn’t ask for her help, either. Fleetwood was a pretty patient horse, part of the draw this morning, as familiar with these routines as Dean was. He hung up the bridle, then stepped back to look at the saddle.

Jo sighed and stepped forward, elbowing Dean gently in the ribs to make him step back. “I’m doing this for Fleetwood, not for you,” she said, unbuckling the girth so that she could remove the saddle.

Jo wasn’t big and the saddle wasn’t light, but she carried it to the wall rack, the farmwork muscles in her arms cording.

“Thanks, Jo,” said Dean, because Fleetwood couldn’t say it for herself.

“Nice ride at least?” Jo asked.

“Sure,” said Dean. He roughed his fingers through the mare’s mane and stroked along her neck. “Nothing intense. Day’s gonna have some heat in it.”

“Is that any good for your arm?” Jo asked. “Riding, I mean. Is it gonna set back how it heals?”

“I don’t really care,” said Dean.

“You’re going stir crazy, huh?” said Jo.

Dean looked over because she had the make of it. “I can’t stay shut up inside,” he said. “All summer.” The brace could be off in as little as three more weeks. As much as eight.

Jo didn’t look sorry for him, but there was something in the tug of her mouth that said she understood. They’d always been alike in that way.

“You look better,” she said. “Only one eye’s still black. You forgiven Jagger for tossing you?”

“Sure,” said Dean. “Not really his fault.”

Turnip, an affectionate grey cat, hopped down from an upper part of the barn to balance along the beam of Fleetwood’s stall. Dean put a hand out to her, and she placed her head under it immediately, purring. Canny little thing, she stood on her hind legs and put one front paw on Dean’s shoulder so that he had to stay in place, stroking a hand along her arched back.

Jo chewed the inside of her cheek in the wake of Dean’s silence, his brief answers. Finally she sighed.

“Can’t believe I’m saying this, but whatever happened to the Dean that doesn’t shut up? You break your tongue that night too?”

“Maybe if we talked about anything else,” said Dean, though he spoke mainly to Turnip and in a quiet, understated tone of voice, scratching the contented cat between her ears.

Jo folded her arms and cocked one hip to the side, visibly holding back further caustic remarks. She finally turned and took the saddle blanket down from Fleetwood’s back. “If you aren’t busy tonight, maybe you could help me with something,” she said, brushing her hand along the blanket as she folded it, purposefully preoccupied.

“What makes you think I won’t be busy?” Dean asked. The cat butted her head against his chin because he wasn’t petting her enough. She purred more furiously than before.

“This is me you’re talking to,” said Jo. “I know you don’t have plans. Will you help me out or not?”

“With what?” Dean asked.

“Something I gotta do,” said Jo. “Just come down the valley road. I’ll be at the intersection before the old red bridge. Get there before midnight.”

“I take it this isn’t help with your algebra homework,” said Dean.

Jo gave him a glare. But she was determined to be tight-lipped, and Dean’s curiosity was sufficient that she didn’t have to say more. He was bored senseless, with his broken arm. He’d do anything for some excitement.

“Fine,” he said. “If I’m not doing anything else tonight. Then, yeah, maybe I’ll meet you.”

“You need any more help with Fleetwood?” asked Jo.

Dean shook his head. “I got the rest from here.” Feeding her, watering her, brushing her down. Even if every task took him extra time, it was one thing he could do, at least. To use up the day, stay out of the house. If he played his cards right, he could time this day so that he didn’t even see John until suppertime. Over the course of the past week, he’d turned it into an art.




He didn’t like to prove Jo right, but of course he didn’t have anything else on.

The wheels of Dean’s truck crunched over the rough gravel road. He slowed as he reached the intersection, where Jo crouched with an electric hurricane lamp. Turning off the truck’s bright headlights, his eyes took a moment to adjust again to the darkness as he got out. He wore his jean jacket loose over the arm with the brace, the warmth of the day swiftly ebbing away.

“Want to tell me what the hell you called me out for?” he asked.

Jo had a spade in hand, digging a hollow into the gravel at the centre of the crossroads. She answered him only with a little huff, not letting up in her work. He came to a stop in front of her, looking down. “We planting something?” he asked.

“Dreams,” she answered. She looked up, tipping back her head to sweep a blonde strand of hair from her face. It had fallen out of her braid long ago. “Ever hear of a crossroads deal?”

Dean furrowed his brow. “Like with the devil?”

“Maybe,” said Jo. Determining that she’d made a deep enough hole, she tossed the spade aside and sat cross-legged on the ground, pulling a tin from her bag.

Dean kept himself in balance despite his lame arm as he sat down near to her, their knees nearly brushing. “That sounds like something worth inviting in, yeah,” he said.

“You superstitious?” she asked.

“I didn’t know you were,” said Dean. He peered into the tin as she flipped it open. A clip of yellow blossoms, some small animal bones, a smattering of dirt.

“I’m bored,” said Jo. “And I’m… tired of all this. This place. Mom telling me I can’t compete for a living. Can’t trick ride.”

“So you’ll, what, sell your soul to get outta this place?”

“If that’s what it takes,” said Jo. She reached into her bag and pulled out a photograph of Dean and Jo together, smiling, arms looped around one another’s shoulders with the humble midway of a county fair in the background. “You in?”

“You don’t really believe in this stuff,” said Dean.

Jo shrugged her shoulders. “Only one way to know for sure,” she said. “But wouldn’t it be something if it worked? Somebody who could give you anything you asked for, just like that.”

Dean looked at the picture in her hands, not answering. Taking it for a no, she changed her hold to tear the photo in two so that only her picture would go in the tin.

“No,” said Dean, holding out his hand to stop her. “No, put me in.”

If she was calling down evil, he couldn’t let her face that kind of thing all alone.

Jo placed the photograph in the tin and sealed it shut. Dreams, she said, but for a moment Dean could only see a coffin in miniature. Jo lowered it down and used her hands to cover the dirt back over the tin.

The pair of them waited for a moment, breath held, peering through the night for some eerie sign. Wind made the grass and flowering yarrow around the crossroads dip and sway, and stirred at the dirt of the road. After a few minutes of silence, Dean said, “How long do you figure it takes the devil to show up?”

“Maybe he’s a busy man,” said Jo. “Hell’s a long way.” She leaned her elbows on her knees, settling into a more relaxed posture. “I’m okay to wait.”

There was no danger in sitting in the middle of this intersection in the dead of night. It was so quiet, so still, not a soul out but themselves. They had more to fear from a wild animal than from a truck or car at this hour.

They didn’t speak at first, as if expecting an unearthly interruption at any moment. Eventually Dean eased back to lean on his good elbow, legs extended and crossed at the ankle. Between the hurricane lantern and the moonlight, they had plenty to see by, eyes accustomed to the dark. Jo leaned a cheek against her fist.

“I don’t know why you stick around,” she said. “You’re eighteen. Done school. If I was you, I’d be hightailing it out of here. Broken arm or not.”

The pattern of light and shadow cast by the lamp held Dean’s attention. If he stared long enough, he could almost see it dance.

“I don’t have anything to go to,” he said. “Why would I leave? This is where my horses are. My friends: you, Bobby. This is where Sammy comes back to. I can’t go.” His mouth twitched in a frown and he looked down at the turned earth over Jo’s tin. “Besides, that’s not what I want.”

“What do you want?” Jo asked. She shifted up, wrapping her arms loosely around her knees. “What would you ask for, if the devil turned up?”

“I dunno,” said Dean.

“You let me put your picture in the tin,” said Jo. “There must be something you’re after.”

There were many things Dean wanted. To be a better son who wouldn’t annoy and disappoint his father so much. To have been the kind of boyfriend Lisa deserved to have. To make something of himself in such a way that he wouldn’t merit his ambitious brother’s scorn. To take back time and figure out where he got it all wrong. He wanted to lead a life no one could object to or sniff at.

“I want to stay on the ranch till the end of my days,” said Dean.

Jo snorted. “You can’t mean that.”

Dean looked up at her now, eyes dark but pupils catching the light from the lamp. “Why not?”

“You want to stick around here working for your asshole dad for the rest of your life?” said Jo. “One day I’m gonna leave. And one day, Sam won’t come back. And you’ll be stuck here with all the petty losers we spent high school with, best days behind you, drinking all the time just to—”

“So you think I’m gonna end up like my dad, huh?”

Jo bit her tongue and had the grace to look reproachful. “You wouldn’t be like him,” she said. A peace offering, made too late.

“Because that’s not what I want either,” said Dean. He sat up again, mimicking her posture, his good arm wrapped more tightly around his knees. He briefly hid his mouth against his shoulder before speaking again. “I just want a quiet life. With the horses.”

“All on your own?”

Dean shook his head. “No. Not with Dad around. And I know Sam will have big things ahead and might not come back. And I know people might leave me along the way. Keep leaving.” He didn’t sound as indifferent as he’d attempted. He gave another shake of his head. “But not alone. I guess if I could wish for something, from the devil or whoever’s listening, it would be that.”