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The boy spun the rattle drum made from stretched paper and pony beads back and forth, back and forth and jumped on one foot then the other. Tack, tack! Tack, tack! His foot touched down with the second tack! and his long brown hair swung from his temple to the bridge of his brown nose. The drum sides and handle were decorated with squiggly Sharpie marks in a zigzag mountain pattern and curvy “water” lines down the handle. He was nine years old with the still round baby cheeks and clear, cafe au lait skin, but his arms had lost their baby fat and his dark eyes shone like flint with very little illusion that life ain’t always what it’s cracked up to be. He stood on the canyon wall over the dry gully with his drum beating and pretended to summon rain for the desert plants and water for his uncle’s old gray mare tied up behind their aluminum-sided manufactured home.
He wanted to climb down the canyon wall with its red dirt and scraggly bushes peeking out, but he knew Uncle was making dinner and would call him sooner rather than later. Tack, tack! Tack, tack! He danced on the loose dirt and spun tiny dirt devils into the dry desert air with each tap of his foot. He knew nothing about dancing, but he had seen the other boys practicing after school and he loved the Boom, boom of the drums that they stomped and crowed like warriors to. Uncle tried to get him into Dance, but as much as he wanted to dance, he didn’t want to burden his toothless uncle with after school things and pow wows. Uncle joked that he “creaked” when he walked and “rattled” when he slept, but Ethan swore he heard the old man’s legs squeak like a rusty windmill when he tottered up the porch steps from his usual sentry over the deserts of Arizona and canyons of Peach Springs. And at night, the trailer sure rattled with the old man’s snores.
Tack, tack! Tack, tack! Stomp, stomp.
WHHHHOOOO! the canyon answered with the voice of a wailing man. Ethan dropped the drum and froze, “Poughkeepsie, he whispered, stricken. He turned and ran from the whistling canyon leaving a flying stream of desert dirt after him as he ran through the still green and rooted tumbleweeds of the Mojave.
◇
The stretch of desert highway between Kingman and Peach Springs gave the impression of an endless, alien land that Dean Winchester was the only inhabitant of. The clouds rose up behind the red rock pinnacles and canyons like an endless wall of white in a space too large for any scale of humanity. He didn't feel particularly at home in the expanse of sand, sun and blue sky, but he didn't feel alone for some reason. He rolled down the road with the radio on and stray rocks crunched and spat from Baby's wheels. He checked the gas gauge, keenly aware that the gas mileage mattered around these parts.
The case was a weird one, but weird was the daily special for the Winchesters. This one was more weird for the lack of information that Dad gave him before telling him to drop him off in Bullhead City. Dean was ecstatic and overwhelmed with Dad trusting him with the Impala and didn’t ask more than the bare minimum of case questions. Dad was out on his pursuit again. Dean had dropped him off on some damn clue to whatever it was that had Dad scribbling in his journal like a mad man. He gave Dean just enough details about all that to keep the questions at bay and Dean didn't push that line. With Sammy away at Stanford, Dad’s fury had only so many outlets and Dean learned young which ones to avoid. Dad never dug into him like he did Sam, which boggled Dean's mind. He gave up trying to follow the logic of "protecting Sam," but then Dad being pissed at Sam for doing anything. It didn't seem to matter what it was. And with Sammy gone, Dad dove into his journal and this mysterious mission of his that had them zigzagging all over the damn continent following whispers.
Dean curls his lips. He couldn’t figure why the Old Man was so obsessed about all that, but still tight-lipped about it too. Dad told Dean everything, everything–except this. In the silence, Dean tries to order the sequence of Sammy's escape. He knew the boy had wanted to go to college and, like a fool, he had encouraged him to do it. Even though he knew Dad would be pissed and he'd be left to deal with it.
"What else is new?" Dean sniffs with the landscape humming past. Just another day since Mom died. He shakes his head, "If only Sammy knew…" and then feels immediately guilty for the thought. Of course, Sam wouldn't know. Ever. There's no need, Dean thought to himself. Sam is better off in college, no matter how pissed Dad is.
He smiles, proud of the lawyer Sam will become and how Dad had said he never wanted either of them to be hunters. At least, Sammy got out and Dean was OK with that. Life is just that way sometimes, Dad would grieve and tell Dean. Usually long after Sam went to sleep and Dad was five beers down from a six pack. That’s usually when Dad would tell Dean anything, everything–except that, this mission of his. As a kid, Dean would nod seriously as if he understood. When in reality, he was just glad to hear Dad talk about something instead of the silence.
It was the silence that drove him nuts as a kid. Dad being there, but silent, brooding. Sam playing in the back and Dean navigating or more often, cleaning dad’s guns or sharpening the knives. Not an easy task when you're rolling down the highway at sixty-five miles per hour, but Dean figured out how to bend over his knees and swick run the blade along the whetstone away from himself. Occasionally, it made Dad chuckle–when he noticed.
Dean rolls past and through the tiny grid of Hualapai proper with its sparse residential “roads” and scattered homes in the middle of desert brush. The railroad ran along with him and Dean thinks for a moment what that train whistle would sound like in this wide open land. He shakes his head, taken aback by his dreamy wonderings. He refocused on the details of the case–or rather the lack thereof. There were rumors of a ghost and a boy who stumbled upon it. The guardian, an uncle, didn’t seem too worried. The small community of Peach Springs didn’t offer the hunter who was drafted into the case and by proxy Dad much details that would make the case clear or not. The by proxy hunter, Jacob Miller, had wandered into it by just skirting the edge of the Grand Canyon National Park on his way to another case in Flagstaff. When Miller found nothing, word was passed to Dad and then on to Dean.
"Clean up crew, I guess,” Dean muses as he curves around a long right turn and then a left and finally into the rocky southern ripples of the Grand Canyon.
Dean takes the dirt road out to the manufactured home slowly. There’s only so much he can do about rocks and he’ll have to make sure to allow enough time before picking Dad up to wash the car. The red desert dust covers the shiny black hood of the Impala and the high noon sun is converted to a blinding glare across the hood as Dean pulls to a stop outside a rather unremarkable manufactured home still on its chassis with dirt caked plywood around the base. With the grind of the Impala’s wheels a cloud of dust billows around the car and covers the manufactured home with another layer of dust.
The south-facing porch is set up as an outdoor kitchen and much to Dean’s horror, he notices an old man sitting under a shallow eave over the door and window. The cloud of dust covers the man and the cooking apparatus as well. Dean turns the engine off with his mouth agape and hurries out of the car. He slams the door and sends a second wave of dust over the car….and himself….and the man.
“I–am so sorry, man, I swear, I–” he mutters and flushes a sweaty pink in the hot Arizona sun under the heavy layers of flannel and jersey he’s wearing as the old man squints into the dust cloud. Then he smiles, toothlessly, after it passes. He nods his head and makes no attempt to stand and welcome the stranger. Dean welcomes himself onto the porch with an uncertain look on his face. He takes a tentative step onto the porch, up a short two steps and the man continues grinning and nodding.
"Gwe ga myu?” the man asks with a question in his voice and a smile on his face.
"Oh,” Dean fumbles, yet again. “I didn’t. I mean, I’m, uh–” he looks around in foolish hope for a translator. In the moment of silence he realizes there’s a steady thump, thump, thump coming from the inside of the trailer. He points to the sound and the old man nods again.
“Gwe ga myu?” he asks again.
“My dad, uh, sent me…” Dean hems and the thumping stops. Dean feels lost.
“You here about the boy, huh?” the old man slyly asks in English, “No one comes to visit this old man.” He laughs. Dean laughs awkwardly and then notices the bubbling, covered pot of something on a propane stove. The old man checks the lid and the smell of a meat stew wafts out
“The boy’s not talking, but you can try,” he says, absently. With the man’s words the thump, thump, thump resumes. “Ah,” Dean nods and walks all the way onto the porch. He still gestures for the old man’s permission to enter and the old man nods.
The inside of the trailer is musty and dimly lit. The thumping stops as Dean steps under the doorway to the small back room in the east corner of the trailer. He squints into the dark. There’s a knee and a boy’s shoulder reclined on a messy bed. The window is covered by a southwestern print blanket draped over a rod. Dean leans against the open doorway and jerks his head towards the kid.
“Poughkeepsie,” the boy whispers and waits.
“What about it?” Dean laughs. The boy rolls a baseball in his hands and then throws it against the wall at the foot of his bed.
thump, thump, thump
"It means drop everything and run,” the boy says sullenly. Dean nods slowly.
“Does it?” Dean asks.
thump, thump, thump
“Why’d you run?” Dean asks quietly.
"A ghost,” the boy says. Dean silently agrees with the boy. “Why ain’t ya talking to your pop?”
“Ain’t my pop,” the boy answers. Dean smiles, “What’s your name?
"Ethan,” he answers.
"I’m Dean,” Dean offers.
"You still in high school or something?” the boy asks, innocently.
Dean scoffs, “Pfft. No. Graduated with my GED.” The boy laughs. Dean attempts to argue the pre-pubescent disdain. The boy laughs harder, “That’ll probably be me, too,” he says and sits up in bed. Dean sticks his bottom lip out. "Wanna show me where you saw this ghost?" Dean asks him. Ethan shrugs and jumps off his bed. Dean steps aside and Ethan walks past him and out the front door.
The old man watches the two young men walk by and Dean pauses to talk to the old man, but Ethan keeps walking. The old man nods after the boy, "There ain't no ghost." Ethan scowls across the horizon. Dean frowns, "Why do you say that?"
"Ain't no ghost 'round here would bother a kid," the old man states matter-of-factly. His front teeth are tobacco stained and most are missing. He lifts a pipe from his lap that Dean hadn't noticed before. "Ba-gubúya,” the old man harrumphs, “No ghost he'd chase off anyways." The man lights the pipe and puffs the cherry embers against the hot, lazy wind. Dean nods and can see why Miller pawned the "case" onto Dad and then Dad passed it off to him.
"What do I call you?" Dean asks the man as sweat prickles his armpits and upper lip from the Arizona sun high in the sky.
"Uncle works," the man puffs around the stem. Dean raises his eyebrows. “Be back for lunch,” Uncle calls to Ethan. Ethan ignores him and walks away from the manufactured home expecting Dean to follow. Dean smiles upside down, bemused and follows the kid, but darts back to the Impala to grab a sawed off shotgun from the trunks. The old man watches with benign amusement and Ethan stands at the hood of the car until Dean slams the trunk down.
"If we’re hunting ghosts,” Dean smiles, “We need us some protection.” Uncle laughs and stirs the pot on the propane stove. Ethan glares at his uncle and sulks ahead of Dean. Dean jogs to keep up with the grim kid.
Ethan leads him along a footpath behind the trailer. Dean spins around to check their bearings and on the northern side of the trailer spots another eave slanted down with particle board blocking the western sun…and a horse’s speckled rump shifts its feet. It’s tail swishes a fly or two from its skin. The horse whinnies as the two pass. Ethan calls over his shoulder, “Not this time Maggie!” and continues walking. Dean chuckles, “Did she want to come with us?”
"She likes to walk up the canyon,” Ethan mumbles. Dean wants to laugh again, but the boy’s smooth forehead wrinkles with distress. He remembers the “case.”
"So, this ghost–” he starts.
"Yeah, Uncle doesn’t believe me,” Ethan fires back.
“I saw that,” Dean responds.
“He wasn’t there. He doesn’t know,” Ethan argues, “He wasn’t there.” Dean nods respectfully. The two walk in silence as the sun pelts them with its waning path along the sky. Dean is sweating more than he’d like to admit and the boy keeps on trucking. Dean takes his heavy jacket off and tries to fold it over his arm as they pass through a disintegrating barbwire fence. The boy steps over it with authority. Dean second guessing where they might be heading, “This, uh, kinda feels like it should be off limits.”
“No one comes out here, except me,” Ethan states and nods to the heavy jacket on Dean’s arm, “Just leave it on the post.” Dean feels weird about just leaving his clothes, but he doesn’t want to carry it wherever if they happen to stumble into this ghost after all. He tosses it over the post, but looks back worriedly at the prospect of something happening to it.
"It’ll be fine!” Ethan reassures him, grumpily, and Dean shakes his head at the kid’s grit. They traipse through brush and rocks and dry gullies from the last rain. Critters slither and skitter out of their path. The boy doesn’t balk at any of this. Dean spends too much time spinning around at the humbling vastness of the desert and the approached peaks and ripples that only hint at the hugeness on the other side. He’s also sweating like a pig.
"Maybe, uh,” he pants, “Maybe, we shoulda…brought some water or–” he shields his eyes against the sun now at their backs. The kid stops and turns around, “Uh, yeah, guess you’re not used to this–” Dean has no energy for snark and shakes his head, “No, no, I am not. The crappy a/c in the car sounds like a walk in freezer and a slice of heaven right now.” Ethan laughs, “We’re almost there. You’ll cool off in– the canyon.” He hesitates at the word.
"Is that…is that where you saw the ghost?” Dean puffs.
“I didn’t see it,” Ethan admits. Dean tries not to sigh too loudly, but closes his eyes and is beginning to regret taking this “case” on.
Dean has shed his flannel and tied it around his waist. His face is red and dirt smeared from the sun, wind and sweat. The shotgun hangs over his shoulder and he starts to worry about his grip if they actually run into trouble. He wipes each hand on his jeans, smearing dirt on his palms and pants. The boy’s nose is speckled with dots of sweat, too, but he isn’t nearly as winded as the twenty-three year old.
"Are we there yet?” Dean whines. “Almost!” the boy shouts with irritation and Dean groans, rolls his eyes and considers taking his sweat soaked shirt off. The sun has dropped to three fingers above the horizon and Dean can’t believe they’ve walked as far as they have, let alone the kid does this for fun.
The kid finally stops at the lip of a “small” canyon. It’s really a feeder channel from the upper ridges of the Grand Canyon, but to a nine year old boy–or a very tired twenty-three old boy–its chiseled, red, brown, purple rocks along the riverbed is stunning. Ethan stops before Dean and settles on his haunches along the lip that’s already falling into shade from the dramatic sun against the flat desert. Dean huffs and puffs and finally lets loose a long exhalation.
"Geez, kid,” he grumbles and puts his hands on his thighs like a middle-aged man who overestimated his endurance. “You do this every day?”
"Just about,” the kid says solemnly.
“For fun?” Dean asks, incredulous. “Better than going into town,” Ethan says, quietly. Dean buttons his lips and drops down next to the boy. His thighs scream with the exertion and he balances the shotgun across his lap with the barrel aiming away from the boy. He sighs one more time and takes a calmer look around.
"Man, it is gorgeous,” he smiles weakly. And he’s right. No description of “red” seems adequate to the electric blue sky and puffy white clouds that looks like gods surveying the little people of Turtle Island. The blue against the burning red sands that slope down and up on one part of the bed and cut through the terraces of rock with greater detail and beauty than any human architect could dream of gives the whole place an aura of creation. Dean was still absorbing the awe of the place when he notices the boy’s stony look down the riverbed.
WHOOOOO calls the wind with the voice of the man. Ethan tenses up and shifts his feet backwards as if to run.
"Poughkeepsie” he whispers. Dean holds his back and grips the shotgun with his other hand.
“Hey, Buddy, we got this,” he tells him and pats his back. The boy settles his feet, but doesn’t relax. “Let’s check it out,” Dean tells him and starts to look for a way down the side of the canyon. Ethan jumps up and stands at Dean’s elbow. Dean puts an arm around him, “Where, uh?” Ethan pushes him towards what looks like a game trail down the side. The boy’s face is still blanched, but he chuckles nervously, “Not sure if a white boy can make it down this way…” Dean grins and turns to face him, “Ohhhhh,” he remarks sarcastically, “Is that how it's gonna be?” Ethan laughs and regains a bit of color in his brown cheeks. “Then you better show me,” Dean taunts him. Ethan grins and takes the lead. He jumps down the slope like a gazelle discovering water and Dean is sufficiently impressed. He actually does doubt if he’ll be able to follow the boy’s steps.
Ethan lands on the bottom of the dry riverbed and crunches his feet into the loamy pebbles. He’s suddenly cast in full shadow and Dean attempts to follow his foot holds. Ethan yells from below and points the young man from one to another. Dean switches the shotgun to his right hand and checks for any actual danger before repelling down the canyon side without any ropes. The kid waits impatiently at the bottom of the rock wall.
"Nikwauka,” the boy laughs, “Come on, Old Man,” he shouts. Dean scoffs, “Why I oughta–” Dean mutters as he slips an inch and sends dirt cascading below him while clutching the side of the canyon. The boy dodges the sand and laughs.
Dean finally drops to the river bed next to the kid and can immediately feel the temperature has dropped almost ten degrees. The hot sweat on his face, neck, arms and stomach feels cold and stale. He pulls his flannel off his waist and wipes his face and neck.
"Man, all about extremes out here, huh?” he says amiably. Ethan smiles at Dean for another second and then his face falls. He steps behind Dean’s shoulder and Dean swings the shotgun to the other hand. He follows the boy’s gaze.
“You think we’re gonna find that ghost over there?” he points ahead with the barrel of the shotgun. The kid nods and pushes Dean from the back in front of him. Dean smiles a bit and can’t help but feel protective of the kid. The shaggy hair, the serious eyes. He can’t deny there’s a twinge of Sam in the kid and if Dean squints hard enough he can make out a smattering of freckles along the bridge of the boy’s nose.
"Alright, alright,” he mutters, good-naturedly. Ethan isn’t reassured and pushes Dean ahead of him while hiding behind his sweaty back.
They walk along the loamy riverbed. The dry, crusty soil breaks under their footsteps, yet their soft footfalls still echo against the walls.
WHOOOOO! the wind calls again. Ethan turns his back against Dean’s and shudders. Dean stops and waits for the kid to calm down. Ethan peeks out from behind Dean’s shoulder and stands on his tip toes with wide eyes towards the mouth of the channel. He detaches himself from Dean’s back and walks resolutely next to him. Dean resumes their walk with a serious air.
“So, why ‘Uncle?”” he ventures.
“Dad’s dead,” Ethan mumbles. Dean raises his eyebrows a pitch. “Sorry, kid,” he says in a low voice. “Drank himself to the bottom of a bottle,” the boy says, sadly, as their footsteps crunch on the dry alluvial soil. Dean frowns.
"And Mom?” he asks.
The boy visibly brightens, “A nurse for Indian Health Services. She travels from clinic to clinic across southwestern reservations.”
"I’ll be damned,” Dean smiles. “Saving the world, one patient at a time, no doubt.” Ethan blushes and his eyes shine bright with tears.
WHHHOOOOO! the wind howled. Ethan pauses, but doesn’t jump behind Dean’s back.
“Navajo, Apache, Hualapai, Gila River and all the way up to Walker River,” he continues, boldly.
"That’s something else, kid,” Dean says, proudly.
“She’ll be back in Hualapai next month,” Ethan concludes. Dean nods.
“And dad—uh, when?” he asks, tentatively.
"Four years ago,” Ethan answers. He was five, Dean thinks to himself and feels a fierceness for the boy that scares him.
"You can do a lot when you’re five,” he insists, “And more than you think.”
“Uncle doesn’t think so,” the kid says sullenly. Dean shakes his head and their feet crunch into the sand, “Sometimes adults don’t make a lot of sense, but they’re usually trying to protect us…one way or another. Where? Uh, did Dad–”
The boy stares with wide black eyes down to the mouth of the riverbed. He’s shrunk behind Dean and clings to the damp jersey of his soiled white shirt. Dean scoffs, “Ah."
WHOOOOOO! the wind howls.
Dean aims the shotgun towards the howling and Ethan pulls himself fully behind Dean. His small hands pull on the both short sleeves of Dean’s shirt.
"We got this, Kid,” Dean reiterates, bravely, even though he seriously doubts at this point that there’s any ghost. Ethan is shaking and Dean can hear small whimpers behind his back. He cocks the shotgun and holds his finger right over the trigger.
WHOOOOOOOOO! the howl feels close by now and Dean notices the scraggly brush that popped up in the rich, but parched soil. Behind several bushes in an alcove of sorts made of red stone arches and steppes leading up the side. At the base of the arches and under the roots of the brush is garbage and debris long since dusty and partially disintegrated. It had all the markings of a local hangout for drinking by people who maybe didn’t want to be found and Dean could tell from the boy’s shaking grasp on his shirt that the didn’t venture this far up the riverbed.
Dean sniffs and aims at the base of the arches for any ghouls or monsters that might be lurking and finds nothing, but empty bottles and cans.
WHOOOOOO! the wind howls….across the empty mouth of a glass bottle. Dean lowers his gun and nudges the shaking boy with his shoulder.
"I think we found our ghost,” he says, softly, but the boy doesn’t look. He’s crying softly behind Dean’s back and Dean’s looks up with a sad realization. The kid probably found the old man, he thinks morosely.
“You know,” he says, “I’ve been hunting ghosts my whole life–” Ethan sniffs behind Dean’s back. “And if there’s one thing my Uncle Bobby told me, it's that salt shells will still get rid of any ghosts in a bottle.” He waits for the kid to catch his drift. He can feel the boy nod a little behind him, “Oh?” he asks in a small voice.
"Wanna give it a go?” he nudges Ethan again and the boy giggles then sniffs again.
Dean sets the bottle up on a flat river rock closer to the center of the bed. It’s an old whiskey bottle and the label is just pulpy tatters wetted and then dried against the glass. He takes several paces back and casually aims the shotgun at it. He winks one eye at Ethan and frowns.
“Think Uncle would be mad if I let you do it?” Dean asks, mischievously.
Ethan grins widely, “Shoot! I’ve fired a shotgun before! How else do you get bushmeat!” Dean smiles broadly, once again surprised and impressed with the kid. “Uncle isn’t such a sure shot anymore, you know!”
“Ah, look at you,” Dean beams, “Taking care of the old man like a good boy.” Ethan reddens and reaches for the shotgun. Dean holds it firmly as he hands it to the boy. He crouches down to him at eye level.
“The tricky part about hunting ghosts in a bottle is that you have to do it blindfolded–” he starts. Ethan’s eyes go wide and serious. “Why?” he asks, shakily. “Because I don’t got any shades for you,” Dean quips and taps his eyelids, “Safety first!” Ethan laughs and aims the shotgun at the old glass bottle.
“Aight, so, I’ll cover your eyes with my flannel and my arm…and then you shoot. Got it?” Dean clarifies as he twists his flannel into a rope. Ethan looks unsteadily at the bottle now as Dean ties the arms and body of his flannel around the boy’s eyes.
“You good?” he asks. The boy nods with a shaky breath, “We got this,” he repeats.
“Damn right we do,” Dean says, firmly. “You got that aim?” Ethan nods. “Alright, I’m just gonna…” he puts his arm over Ethan’s eyes and ducks his own head behind his arm.
“Annnnd,” he says, “Go!” Ethan pulls the trigger and the shot rings through the canyon, but doesn’t shatter glass. Dean peeks over his arm and Ethan pulls the shirt down. The glass bottle still stands on the rock.
"One more round, Bud, you got this!” Dean says, encouragingly. Ethan smirks and then presses his lips into a hard line. He aims at the bottle and holds his aim hard. “OK,” he tells Dean. Dean nods and pulls the flannel “safety goggles” up–and dips behind the second layer of “safety.” Before Dean can give the order BANG! the shotgun is discharged and this time an ear-splitting shatter follows milliseconds later. Dean shies from the unexpected explosion, but Ethan keeps his arms aimed. Dean stands up and checks the rock. All traces of the bottle have been obliterated leaving a small impact explosion where the rock salt hit the base of the bottle. All around the rock a shower of broken glass fell in a semicircle. The lip of the bottle teeters back and forth three feet from the rock.
"Shot that ghost straight to hell, you did,” Dean says with approval. Ethan stands with the flannel still tied around his head, but his shoulders shake. Dean takes the shotgun from the boy and he lets it fall loosely from his white knuckle grip. Ethan’s shoulders pull together and he sniffles. Dean holds the shotgun in one hand and pulls the flannel off the boy’s eyes. It’s damp with his tears. He looks up at Dean as more tears roll down his face. Dean kneels down and the boy throws his arms around him.
"You got this, Buddy, you do,” Dean says, softly and hugs him tightly. The boy steps back and wipes his face on his arm. Dean hands him his flannel shirt and the boy wipes his eyes and nose then tries to hand it back. Dean wrinkles his nose, “Just hold onto it for now, huh?” Ethan blushes and wipes his nose again. “He, uh, he was just–sitting there, like,” and the kid’s shoulders lurch forward. “I thought he was sleeping. Er, or, passed out. Until,” the boy stares, “A lizard crawled across his chest.” Ethan stops and somehow the tears stop, too. He looks back at Dean and Dean nods grimly. Ethan looks away and flings the shirt over his shoulder.
"We should get back. Uncle’s waiting,” he says and starts walking back down the riverbed. Dean throws his arm around the boy and pulls him close. He was proud of him. Even though he just met him and would probably never see him again. He doesn’t know what to say, but he releases the boy’s narrow shoulders and they walk in silence back to the canyon lip that they clamored down so long ago.
They stop at the lip where Ethan scurried down and they end up staring at their own footprints in the sand. Dean looks up.
"Think this white boy can make it up?” he squints at the flaring sun that has fallen behind the canyon and marvels at what must have been hours since they left Uncle’s trailer. Ethan smiles quietly, “If you made it down. You can make it up.” Neither of them move.
“You know, even if someone is off saving the world one person at a time…it still feels like forever,” he pauses, “And sometimes it feels like they’ll never come back, huh?” Ethan looks up at the red rock wall with its variegated browns, grays, blacks, and dashes of white mineral.
"Maybe I should be a hunter…” the boy starts.
“No,” Dean says without humor. “What do you want to be? What do you want to do?” Ethan laughs, “I want to dance.” And then he swallows hard at the somewhat embarrassing admission to this virtual stranger. Dean smiles benevolently, but without looking at the kid to spare him any further embarrassment.
"Then be a dancer,” he looks at him and nods, “Do it. You can.” Ethan beams and smiles, but looks down. “I don’t know about Uncle–” the boy starts making excuses. Dean knocks his shoulder with his elbow, “Race you up!” He runs towards the red rock with the shotgun over his head and grabs the first handhold he can find.
“Aww! You bastard!” Ethan laughs and pulls Dean back by his shirt. Dean pretends to fight and Ethan scurries in front of him with elbows and kicks to push the young man back. Dean laughs and lets the kid overtake him. Ethan hurries up the cliff and Dean hangs back. The ascent goes easier than the descent after cooling off in the riverbed–and hunting that ghost.
Ethan makes it to the top of the canyon and crows with his arms over his head like a warrior. He spins on his heel and stomp, stomps! his feet in a mimicry of a warrior dance he’s seen other boys do after school. He drops to a squat with an electric face and stomps like an furious buck ready to charge into battle and hollers as Dean pops over the “summit” of the canyon. Dean laughs and claps him on the back.
“That’s a good start, Kiddo. A good start,” he says and they start the long walk back to Uncle’s trailer. Ethan bounces from foot to foot and rattles along about how he watches the dancers after school dance and which dances he remembers the beat to. Dean smiles and listens, but squints into the now setting sun and tries to track the time since they left. His stomach turns in an anxious knot about how the kid was supposed to be back for lunch—hours ago now. He tries to listen, but he doesn’t know how to feel about making the boy late. Ethan doesn’t seem worried and prattles on about dancing.
By the time they make it back to the manufactured home, the sun is nearly setting and the Impala looks like a dirt encrusted fossil. The porch is empty, but the pot of meat stew bubbles and steams over a low flame. Dean has several apologies on his lips as Ethan scrambles up the porch steps yelling for his uncle and his jacket over his arm.
"Uncle! Uncle! Dean let me shoot the shotgun!” the kid yells first and foremost. Dean’s stomach flip flops and he wishes the kid had started off with anything else.
The old man calls from inside with a long “Hooo ho! Did you catch anything?”
“A ghost! Or well we shot a ghost!” the boy hollers as he runs inside the open door stirring a cloud of desert dust into the house.
"That ghost been misbehaving has it?” Uncle asks, happily. “Showed ‘im whose boss, did you?” Dean blows air out of his mouth, relieved that Uncle doesn’t seem angry at their lateness--or the shotgun. “It was a ghost in a bottle!” Ethan continues yelling and is now jumping in the trailer and shaking the whole unit on its britches. “That would help a lot of family if we shot those ghosts like that,” Uncle says, humbly. Inside the house Dean can hear the hiss and spatter of hot oil and the hot smell of burning dough.
"Frybread!” Ethan yells. “Oh ho, Humeka, and the ghost didn’t run from your noise?” Uncke asks. The boy stops jumping and apologizes. “Wash your hands, huh?” Dean hears Uncle say and he makes to take his keys out of his pocket and say goodbye. The boy is already running to the bathroom sink to wash his arms and hands.
"I suppose it's dinner now?” Uncle calls to Dean from the tiny kitchen. Dean shakes his hand and waves his hands in the air, “I am so sorry, sir. We got down there and, I don’t know, time just slipped away. And, man, that walk was so long.” Uncle laughs, heartily, “Eh? Uwii i. Hane gawk. Makuinuame. Nyeekumu. Inyavum’be. The rocks do that, uyu?” Dean can’t see the man clearly in the dimly lit house, but he can see the old man’s silhouette from the stove light. “Yesterday. Tomorrow. Today. You see? Means nothing to the rocks. It is good. They will live longer than us,” he sighs wistfully. The old man plops soft dough into bubbling oil and it hisses and steams around the dim light.
“You’ll be staying for dinner then, right?” he says loudly over the bubbling oil. Dean starts to make excuses, “Just some water, really–” Uncle interrupts the excuses, “The ghost hunter is not afraid of some bush meat is he?” Dean smiles facetiously, “No, sir. I, I have had my share of bush meat and, honestly, that smells amazing. My bush meat never smelled that good--”
"Then stay,” Uncle insists. He flips the frying dough over with a fork and plops another flattened ball into the oil. “I’ll maybe take some to go–”
“You gonna eat?” Ethan blurts out as he walks back into the entryway. “I mean I was gonna–” Dean tries to excuse himself. Ethan stares at him with his eyebrows pitched in worry. Uncle flips one frybread and takes the first out, setting it on some paper towels to absorb the hot oil. “Yeah…of course,” Dean counters and Ethan lights up again. “Cool! You can help me set the table!” Dean tucks his teeth behind his lips and smiles. He hasn’t the faintest idea how to set a table. The boy takes a fold-up poker table from along the wall and starts to drag it out the door. Dean steps aside and is shocked again by how much the unexpected is the expected around here. He helps the kid and they set it up on the porch. Ethan wipes a thin layer of dust off one side of the table and runs back inside. Dean can hear Uncle moving plates and utensils around in the kitchen. Ethan runs back out with a folded up vinyl tablecloth under his arms. He tosses one side to Dean and they pull the tablecloth over the small poker table. From around the porch Dean and Ethan gather three mismatched lawn chairs and slide them under the table.
Uncle walks slowly out with a plate of steaming fry bread. Ethan waits for the old man to pass and runs inside. The smell of hot oil wafting across the small porch makes Dean’s mouth water, but his throat and mouth are still parched from the long afternoon. He swallows his saliva and realizes how thirsty he is.
"Uncle? That, uh, smells amazing. But I am–” Dean begins. Ethan runs back out with two glasses of ice water. He hands one to Dean and sets the other on the table, then runs back in.
“Oh my god! Thank you!” Dean blurts out. Uncle turns and walks back into the house. Ethan runs out with another glass of water and utensils in one hand. He hands forks to Dean and sets a spoon on each “setting” of the small table. Dean sets a fork down for each setting, too. Ethan sets a ladle down in the center of the table next to the fry bread. The fry bread steams in the center and now Dean’s mouth really waters. Ethan goes back inside and comes back quickly with three bowls and a trivet, then sits down. He puts the trivet in the center and folds his hands to wait. Uncle teeters back out, holding the door frame for stability and makes his way to the bubbling pot.
With two hands covered with hot pads, the old man takes the pot off the stove and sets it down on the table. Ethan holds the table steady as the man takes a seat facing the setting sun.
Uncle closes his eyes and bows his head. Ethan follows suit and Dean has seen enough church services to know what to do. He bows his head too and waits. The only man speaks in what must be his native tongue and it flows out of his mouth with sighs and pauses in a stream of words Dean can’t begin to make sense of. He can sense the reverence, but he can’t pull out any single word and none of it sounds like singular words. Just a series of glottis that are as foreign to his ears as the desert and soaring red rocks are.
Dean shifts uncomfortably in his seat after the man’s prayer concludes and didn’t understand a single word. The language sounded like a bunch of g’s and soft h’s with inflections he assumes were vowels and some hard ch’s somewhere in there. It wasn’t like any language he ever heard. The old man and the boy had bowed their heads and folded their hands just like any church he happened to meander through in his short, cynical life. Dean felt strangely out of place, but his stomach objected to any cultural uneasiness with the savory smells that bloomed out of the pot. In another surprise to him, Ethan plucked the lid off the pot and ladled the red and brown stew into Uncle’s bowl. After filling the old man’s bowl, he passes his elder the plate of frybread and the old man takes one and sets it on top of the bowl like a lid. Ethan then ladles stew into Dean’s bowl. Dean starts to protest, but the boy spoons it anyway. Then passes the plate of fry bread to Dean. Dean follows suit and then sits awkwardly waiting for a cue to start eating. The kid finally fills his bowl and helps himself to a fluffy piece of frybread. With the boy’s serving complete, Uncle dips his frybread in the thick stock and starts eating. Dean exhales and figures it was safe to start eating.
“Squirrel and woodrat, mostly,” Uncle says through a mouthful and chews with the back of his nearly toothless mouth. Dean frowns and inhales the aroma of the stew, “Smells good to me!” Ethan laughs and douses a piece of fry bread in the stew.
The stew sat well in Dean’s stomach and the fry bread was burn-your-fingers tasty. He realized he was shoveling the fry bread dipped in stock in his mouth when the kid looked at him and giggled–his own mouth stuffed full. After dinner, he helped Ethan wash dishes in the tiny kitchen. They washed down what surfaces they could with the perpetual sand flurries that sailed across the desert. After dishes, without being told, Ethan gathered a towel and some hotel toiletries.
"Uncle! I’m gonna shower!” Ethan calls from inside…and then walks outside past the old man smoking his pipe in the setting sun. Dean wanders out of the tiny home with a quizzical look as the boy walks down the back steps of the porch to the side of the house. Dean stands next to Uncle and doesn’t know where to start.
“Camp shower in back. There’s enough water in the catchment if you want to wait,” he offers politely, “We can make room in the house if you don’t want to drive back.” Dean looks down at his dirt smeared arms and now gray shirt. He still didn’t take his flannel shirt back and considers it a lost cause now. His jeans are dusted brown and his black boots are now dusty gray, too. And he’s tired. Boy, is he tired.
“Much appreciated, Uncle,” he pats his belly, “The food. The bread…the water.” He shakes his head. “I almost feel like I’m on vacation.” Uncle puffs his pipe and chuckles, “Then you work too hard.” Dean purses his lips and nods, “You’re probably right about that.” He lets out a long, tired sigh and looks at the dirt covered Impala. He’d have to wash it down tonight? Or at the latest tomorrow morning after driving back to the tiny string of roadside motels on the other side of Peach Canyon. Then he notices the setting sun–and stops.
“Wow,” Dean breathes. The sky is neon purple, blue, pink, orange and yellow with just a dash of white light where the sun sinks slowly past the horizon. He looks around in a slow, awe-inspired three hundred and sixty degrees arc and feels transported to that alien landscape again. With more oranges and browns and reds than the tongue can fathom and deeper purples and blues and blacks in the falling shadows than he ever thought possible. He blinks and forgets himself. Forgets his dirty clothes and tired legs. He forgets the ghost in the bottle and the “old man” waiting for him to pick him up in Bullhead City tomorrow.
“I’ll be damned,” he says, not knowing what else to say.
"Inyaha jibagua. Hulaha uuyu. Baya hamusii. Uyu? Umiyaha. Uyu?” the old man says.
"Amen,” Dean answers. Uncle guffaws and Dean smiles with embarrassment first, but it soon falls away to a smile of joy as he watches the astounding show that the sky has put on.
"Tomorrow,” he starts to say. “Nyekumu,” Uncle offers. Dean nods and shrugs. “Tomorrow is tomorrow.”
“And the rocks know no time,” Uncle finishes the thought Dean wasn’t so certain he even had. Dean takes a step away and his legs throb and twinge with the unexpected desert hike. He nearly hobbles to the steps and braces himself against the rail.
"I’d offer to help you down the stairs, but we’d probably both end up at the bottom,” Uncle smiles, kindly. Dean chuckles and looks around the trailer towards the camp shower, then back at Uncle.
“He’s a good kid,” he states the obvious. Uncle nods, “He doesn’t fight. Even though they bring him plenty.”
“He wants to dance,” Dean throws out there even though he knows it’s not really his place. Uncle raises his long white eyebrows and whistles through his toothless gums. “Does he?” Dean nods his head once. Uncle puffs on his pipe and considers this. Dean takes another long look at the psychedelic sky, regretting his need to leave. The illusion of distance in such a large space leaves him feeling like if he drives just far enough, he could meet those astonishing clouds.
“The boy might have to stay in school to do that,” Uncle says, thoughtfully. Dean looks back with confusion. “Most days he’s back before two. Sometimes he stays for lunch,” he says mildly.
"He just leaves?” Dean asks, shocked. Uncle shrugs, “Maybe that’ll keep him in school.” Dean nods yes. “I sure hope so.” Uncle grunts and the camp shower shuts off. Dean looks up to the corner of the trailer. There’s a scuffle of vinyl and fabric. Ethan hurries up the steps with dripping hair, barefeet and a look of strained expectation. Dean smiles.
"I’m gonna take off, kid,” Dean replies to his unspoken question. “Hey,” Dean lowers his line of sight to Ethan’s with some wincing, “You do that dancing, ya hear.” Ethan looks abashed and his eyes dart over to Uncle’s quiet figure lit up in the electric sunset. Dean nods, “Do it alright, Uncle will make it work. And your mom? I bet she’d be thrilled to know you’re doing that.” He stands painfully back up. Ethan stares off into nowhere. Dean claps him on the shoulder and shakes dust off his shirt and arm with the gesture.
“Chithúlaga,” Uncle mutters, “You need to clean up. Thank you for helping us. We should have put him on a pyre like the days before the missionaries,” Uncle says sadly. “Ooo.” Dean tries to figure out what the man meant, but Ethan looks up at the sky, “It does look like fire, doesn’t it, Uncle?” Uncle nods, “Humeka, we will see you dance, yes.”
With a salute Dean trips stiffly down the short steps of the porch and unlocks the Impala. He’s still got a long drive and a car to wash before he can sleep. He hates to leave the boy and his uncle after such a short, intense time, but he savors the three-hundred and sixty degrees view as he backs out of the dirt driveway and back through Peachy Canyon proper.