Rock and Roll

[ineedmymods]

For alemara
From silveraspen / silveraspen

Title: Rock and Roll
Fandom: Supernatural
Rating: PG-13
Author's Notes: Set in season 1, immediately following episode 1.02, "Wendigo." Thanks to varadia for acting as beta! Any errors remaining in grammar or character voice are mine all mine. Thanks also to the mods for running a great challenge! In order to avoid spoilers, please see the end of the story for additional notes.

Once the ambulance pulls away with Hailey and her brothers inside, there's no reason for either of them to stick around Blackwater Ridge or Lost Creek, Colorado, either one. Sam's just restless enough after everything to demand the keys, and after one long look at him, Dean tosses them over. Seconds later, they're on their way.

By unspoken consensus and long habit combined, they follow state highway 50 south and east instead of taking the interstate. Dean holds out all the way to Olathe -- almost a full hour -- before he starts fidgeting in the passenger seat.

"Something wrong?" Sam sounds curious enough, but the smirk on his face says a lot more than his tone of voice.

"Don't you think it's a little, oh, I don't know, quiet?" Dean suggests. He gives a pointed glance to the box of tapes sitting on the floorboard between them.

"Nope." Sam tosses a quick, cheerful grin at him before turning his attention back to the road. "Actually, I think it's kind of peaceful."

"Peaceful--"

"What's the matter, Dean, can't handle a little quiet time every once in a while?"

Dean slouches down in the seat. "You're just doin' this because I wouldn't let you play any of that wussy crap you like, aren't you?"

Sam looks practically beatific. "What was that you told me before? Hm?"

Dean mutters something under his breath, and Sam takes one hand from the wheel to cup behind his ear. "What was that, Dean? A little louder, I couldn't hear you --"

"I said, ‘driver picks the music,' " Dean snaps, and Sam's grin turns smug.

"That's right," he agrees. "Driver picks the music, and shotgun shuts his cakehole."

"Uh-huh, well, see if I ever let you drive again."

"Suck it up, Dean," Sam tells him. "We have to stop for gas eventually. You can try to get the keys back from me then."

"Don't think I won't, either!"

His brother just grins, and steps on the gas.

By the time they roar through Gunnison a little over an hour later, Dean's gone from staring out the window to humming under his breath to drumming loudly on the dashboard, playing along with the most annoying mental soundtrack he can come up with. Sam had started gritting his teeth fifteen miles back; about the time Dean gets halfway through the long version of ‘Inna-Gadda-da-Vida', he loses it and snaps on the radio.

"About time," Dean mutters, and reaches down for AC/DC, only to jerk his hand back as Sam swats at his fingers.

"Don't even think about it," he warns. "We're gonna listen to the radio, not your stupid cassettes."

"What?!" Dean protests. "All it's playin' is static! There's nothing out here but rocks and trees and maybe a tumbleweed or two--you think tumbleweeds need radio stations?"

Sam glares over at him. "If we see one, you can ask it, how about that--"

"Sammy, LOOK OUT!"

Tires squeal as Sam slams down on the brakes, spinning the wheel in a vain attempt to keep them from locking up as he tries desperately to avoid hitting the boulder that's just come crashing down into the road in front of them, followed by a rain of smaller rocks. The Impala shudders hard and fishtails around in a long, sliding curve, finally fetching up on the other side of the road and halfway into the ditch. As the motor cuts out, there's no sound at first but the brothers' rapid breathing and a quiet ticking as the engine cools.

"... rather have had the tumbleweed," Dean manages, finally. "You okay, Sammy?"

Sam nods, obviously shaken, but just as obviously not intending to admit it any time soon. "Yeah. I'm fine. You?"

"I'm fine," Dean agrees, and opens the door. "Question now is, how's my baby?"

He's already got the hood lifted and is going over the engine by the time Sam joins him. "I don't see anything wrong--"

"Don't you?" Sam's voice is oddly strained. "Look over there."

Dean glances over into the trees where he's pointing, and then just stares. The two brothers trade a long look. Dean shuts the Impala's hood, and both of them go around to open the trunk instead.

It's hard to see exactly where the narrow dirt road joins the highway, especially in the wake of the rockslide that had stopped them, but it's easy enough to follow its winding route back through the trees to the edge of the town that's on the other side. Ramshackle wooden buildings line the sides of both the road they've followed in and another that crosses it halfway through the middle of town. A small group of men stands gathered and arguing loudly with each other in the middle of the street outside one of the buildings, in front of a sign proclaiming it to be the ‘TRADING POST.' Others line a wooden railing outside the saloon, watching the spectacle with grim attention -- although a few of these take the time to direct cool, appraising stares at Sam and Dean, instead.

"I don't see any cars," Dean says, under his breath. "No telephone poles or streetlights or wires, either."

"That's not all," Sam answers, just as low. "Look at their clothes, Dean. Look at the stuff they're carrying."

As dirt-covered as the men in the street are, it's still easy to tell that the rough cloth shirts and denim overalls they're wearing don't owe anything to any modern store. A couple have coils of rope slung over their shoulders, while two or three others -- the dustiest-looking -- are carrying pickaxes. Most of the men outside the saloon are dressed much the same--but all of them are cleaner, and bearing guns at their sides instead of mining tools.

"I said, we're not goin' back down there!" one of the miners snarls at a man standing in the middle of the watching line. "You didn't hear the ‘knacker tapping! No company man on earth's gonna force us down that hellhole again, do you hear? We don't care how many new guards you hire to help you!"

As every man present turns to look at the brothers, Dean swears softly and then steps forward and not-coincidentally in front of Sam, hands spread to show that he's not holding a weapon.

"Hold on there," he says, with an easy smile. "Me and my brother ain't hired anything, okay? We, uh, broke down a ways outside town and walked in."

"Then you better keep walking, stranger, ‘cause this town's nowhere you want to be," the miner snaps back, before the shifting of one of the guards draws his attention sharply back to the line as the man in the middle speaks.

"Now is that any way to treat a newcomer to our fair town?" His drawl is clear and coldly sardonic. "You and the men go on back to camp now, Martin, and let me handle this."

As if his words are a signal, the men lining the rail all draw their guns and aim them at the miners. Sam and Dean both tense, bracing themselves to dive for cover, as the man adds, "Unless you want us to finish our business right here and now, that is."

For a tense moment it looks as though Martin's about to call his bluff, but one of the other miners lays a hand on his arm, shaking his head and saying something that neither Sam nor Dean can hear.

Slowly, the miners withdraw, muttering and casting dark looks at the guards as they go. The guard leader nods a signal to his men, who drift after them as an unofficial escort of sorts--all but two, who fall in behind him as he steps down from the plank half-porch, half-sidewalk in front of the saloon and walks toward the brothers.

"I'm Jim Ralston," he says, with an easy smile. "Welcome to Junction City."

Sam stiffens at that, drawing in a quick, sharp breath, and the instant he hears it Dean acts to draw Ralston's attention to himself and away from his brother. "Good to meet you," he says, and tips his head back in a nod.

"Same goes," Ralston replies. None of them believe it, but there's no point in calling the lie for what it is. "I'm afraid I didn't catch your name?"

"It's--"

"--Dean," Sam breaks in. "He's Dean. I'm Sam. Winchester."

Ralston's eyebrows rise almost to his slicked-back hairline. He turns to look speculatively at Sam as the two guards behind him exchange a fast, surprised glance. "Winchester," he repeats, clearly disbelieving. "That being the case, shouldn't you boys be carrying rifles?"

"We're field-testing something new," Sam informs him.

"Are you."

"Sure," Dean puts in, with just enough edge to his tone to be deliberately annoying. "Unless you're callin' my brother a liar, that is."

"There's no need to be insulting, Mr. Winchester," Ralston says, crisply. "Or to go doubting anyone's word. I'm merely pointing out that I'm a man who puts his faith only in what he sees, and frankly I don't see anything--"

"Like this?" In the moment that Ralston and the guards are all focused on Dean, Sam yanks the shotgun from under his jacket and fires both salt shells straight at them. All three men explode into puffs of ghostly smoke -- but cries of alarm rise immediately from the other side of town as the sound of the gunshot echoes from the mountainside.

"Run!" Dean snaps.

Neither of them waste a second before doing just that.

They take shelter behind the trading post, where Dean, his own shotgun now in hand, peers warily around the edge of the building while Sam reloads. "What the hell were you thinkin'?" he hisses.

"That we need to get out of here now? " Sam shoots back. "Dean, Junction City isn't a real place. Not any more. It burned to the ground in 1883."

"Do I even wanna know how you know that?"

"It was in Dad's journal," Sam says. "He had a note on it and a couple of other old mining towns -- St. Elmo, Ludlow, places like that. I saw it when I was looking up the stuff about Blackwater Ridge."

"So you're tellin' me that we've got a whole town full of ghosts?"

Sam nods. Grimly, he adds, "Maybe not just the people, either. As far as anyone knows, the town was destroyed because of a mining fight -- like the one we just saw getting ready to start -- but even after they tried rebuilding it, there were enough problems that it ended up being abandoned. Snowstorms, avalanches, rockslides--"

"Rockslides," Dean breaks in. "Wait a minute. You mean like the one that brought us here?"

Sam nods again.

"Great," Dean mutters. "That's just freakin' great." The sound of angry voices coming down the street warns him, and he jerks back, flattening himself against the wall. "We need to move. Now."

"Hssst!" Both brothers swing around to see one of the miners beckoning urgently to them. "This way!"

They trade a long look, then shrug in unison and move to follow the man who's still a ghost, but at least a friendly one.

The miner leads them around the edge of town and up the hillside a short distance, into a small open space. The entrance to the mine itself gapes wide on the other side of the clearing, a yawning black maw lined by crooked logs. Martin and the other miners are waiting for them.

"You two took a hell of a chance," Martin observes. "Ralston's not a man who likes being crossed."

"Figured that out already from the way the both of you were getting along so well before," Dean snarks. "You mind fillin' us in on what's goin' on here?"

One of the miners barks out a sharply disbelieving laugh before subsiding under Martin's glare.

"Ralston's a company man," he says, shortly. "Doesn't own the mine, but handles things for them that do. His job's to squeeze every bit of profit and to deal with any troublemakers."

"You mean to bury them," their guide mutters, and Martin nods.

"That too."

"You mean he murders them?" Sam blurts, and Martin's mouth twists.

"Doesn't have to. Company doesn't pay for tools or for safety -- shoring timbers and the like, nor for the time it takes to put them in to make the mine anything but a deathtrap. Those of us who live only survive because of the ‘knackers."

"The knackers?" Dean echoes.

"Ridiculous superstition," comes the drawl from behind them, and Ralston steps from the trees with his guards at hand, their guns drawn and trained on Sam and Dean as well as the miners. He gestures for them all to put their hands in the air as he continues, disdainfully,

"Tommyknockers. Mysterious little gnomes who're supposed to warn men of danger by tapping on rocks. Utter rubbish."

Martin looks ready to explode with fury, but there's real fright evident in the way his voice shakes as he bursts out,

"Shut your damned mouth, Ralston, before they hear you! I've told you time and again that--"

"Yes, yes, that doubting or insulting your ‘wee little men' will bring their wrath down on everyone forever, I know," he sneers back, and Sam and Dean trade a swift look of sudden understanding as Ralston continues,

"I've had enough of your nonsense, and I've had enough of you. You'll all be going down into the mine now, gentlemen, every last mother's son of you--including the two of you," he adds, with a murderous look at Dean and Sam. "I'm afraid there's going to be a terrible accident. But don't worry, I'll be sure to send the letter of regret myself--"

A cavernous rumble from deep in the mine shaft cuts him off. The clamor of angry voices from below the earth is mixed with a hammering of stone against stone, growing louder and louder still until the earth itself begins first to tremble and then to quake violently beneath their feet. Men stagger, miners and guards alike, trying desperately to flee.

The rumbling swells into a sudden roar, and Dean grabs Sam by the arm and throws them both desperately to one side as the mine shaft explodes outward in a gout of flame, followed by a shattering geyser of rock and dust.

The immediate quiet afterward is itself almost deafening.

Coughing, Sam rolls to one side and pushes himself upright. "Dean? You okay?"

"Yeah--" He's coughing almost as hard as he staggers to his feet. "I'm good." Dean takes a swift look around, then offers Sam a hand up. "Looks like we're the only ones left," he observes, as Sam gets to his feet.

"What the--"

There's no sign of the explosion except for the ash and dust that coats their clothing; in fact, the only sign of the mine is a sunken-in pit filled with rocks and dirt. Nothing remains to be seen of the ghosts, which isn't a surprise, but when they turn and look toward the town itself, there's nothing left there either but a couple of half-rotted and broken buildings.

"Guess we know now what really happened to Junction City," Dean says, quietly.

"Looks like," Sam says. He gives a wary look to the mine. "Uh, so now that we know the truth, and meaning no insult to anyone at all who might be listening... "

He looks back at Dean. "... what do you say we get out of here?"

"Suits me," Dean agrees. "Let's go."

As the two of them retrace their steps back to the highway, he adds,

"But this time, I'm driving."


***********************
Additional Notes --

* Junction City, Colorado (later renamed Garfield, Colorado), is a real ghost town located off Hwy 50 between Gunnison and Salida. It was established in 1879 and burned to the ground in 1883, then was rebuilt and later abandoned due to being plagued with extreme snowfall and repeated avalanches. As far as I know, the cause of the fire was never discovered.

* There are many legends of the tommyknockers, but all seem to agree that both stories (and possibly the 'knockers' themselves) were brought to America by Cornish miners in the early 1800s. Accounts differ on whether they are small gnomish or dwarflike creatures, perhaps related to pixies or brownies; some believe that they are the ghosts of dead miners. All agree that although they can be mischievous, the knockers are helpful in avoiding mining accidents, warning their chosen colleagues by the tapping of hammers against rock. When treated with disrespect or doubt, they may turn malevolent.

* The manufacture and sale of denim overalls to miners began in the 1870s. The first pair of jeans as known today wasn't sold until the 1920s.

* The history of Colorado mining history is long and storied, and unfortunately often violent as well, including such events as the Ludlow Massacre and the deaths at the Columbine Mine. The Colorado Mining Association was established in 1876, one of several mine owners' associations in the West. Although the events and specific working conditions described in this story are technically fictional, similar historic instances were all too common.