//------------------------------//
// ...and Shotgun Gallop 
// Story: Johnny Spurs and A-hole Cat 
// by Daemon McRae 
//------------------------------//

"A proposition?" Spurs repeated. "Gallop, you should know there ARE some things I don't do for money..."

Asshole snickered appreciatively while Shotgun gave him a look. "Fine, if you don't want to make a few hundred bits, I'm ok with that."

Johnny dropped the bottle he was holding and Cat did a neat slide/fall motion off the bed and onto the floor. Spurs blinked a few times. "Did... did you say a few hundred?"

Gallop gave him a wry smile and turned to leave. "Oh, but I thought you didn't WANT the job. That's ok, I know a few ponies more than happy to take it-"

Johnny and Asshole zipped in front of her, standing between her and the door. "Now, now, Miss Gallop, there's no reason to be hasty," Cat interjected. "I'm sure we can sit down like rational quadrupeds and hash out a deal."

Johnny had that look in his eyes that poor folk get when people talk about giving them money. "What he said."

Fish in a barrel, Gallop thought, turning around and making herself at home on top of the covers. "Well, the job's relatively simple. All we gotta do is find this mine called El Coriado. Heard of it?" She asked casually, stretching out on the bed.

Johnny blinked and traded a sideways glance with his cat, then looked back to Gallop. Walking up to the side of the bed, he asked cautiously, "El Coriado? You mean the lost gold mine?"

"Mmm-hmm," she hummed and nodded.

Cat leaped onto her back. "The one that ponies go looking for and never come back?"

She glanced behind her and winked at Cat. "Yup."

Johnny sat on his hind legs and raised an eyebrow in concern. "You mean the mine that's supposed to be made of everliving, ever-growing gold that never runs out? And tries to kill anyone who enters?"

Gallop waved the last statement off with a careless hoof. "I'm not sayin' we have to go in, just find it. I know a colt who's lookin' to pay quite a bit of money to just know where it is or sumthin'. We just have to get close enough to confirm that it's the real El Coriado and then go home."

"Through miles and miles of desert," Johnny added.

"With Sandcats and bandits and lots of really not good for your health things between here and there? And BACK?" Asshole emphasized.

Gallop glanced between the two. "Awww," she cooed. "Are my two knights in shining armor afraid of a little dirt and sun?"

Spurs scoffed at her. "Shotgun, if I was that easily bothered I wouldn't walk past your house. But there is no way in HELL I'm going to walk dozens or maybe even a couple hundred miles through that desert for a payout that I only get if we find some stupid mythological gold mine and make it back ALIVE."

Shotgun glanced at the cat on her back for his opinion, who proceeded to scratch his chin. "Hmmm, nah. I don't go anywhere without my meal ticket, let alone hundreds of miles into the desert alone with a gun-toting psychomare."

Gallop rolled her eyes and huffed. "Geez, you misfire a gun one too many times and people call you crazy. FINE. If you boys won't help me find the mine then will you at least escort me to Crosshair Junction? There's some old archeologist pony who says he's got a bead on the place, and I'm gettin' paid to make sure he gets there and back alive. S'all I was gonna ask you two t' do."

Asshole Cat closed his eyes and shook his head. "Sorry, ma'am," said Cat. "But once we've made a decision as a team we-" his sentence was cut off as Spurs shoved a hoof in his mouth.

"Now hold on a second," Johnny stood up and gave Gallop a thoughtful nod. "We didn't rightly hear our good friend out. You say we're going to be traveling in a team?"

Gallop raised an eyebrow at Johnny's change of heart. "Yeah. Through miles of desert."

"But all we have to do is protect this old guy," he reasoned. He had a look in his eyes that Shotgun couldn't quite place.

"From bandits and Sandcats and dehydration and pony-eating living gold, yes," she responded, slowly.

"And we leave from Crosshair Junction, you said?" Spurs started a slow, steady grin that was making tracks up to his ears.

Gallop gave him a worried look, then glanced up to Asshole, who both ponies now realized was still sitting quietly with Spurs' hoof in his gob. Johnny pulled the hoof out and stood back up on all fours, as the cat and Gallop both gave him stares. Gallop's, something along the lines of, "Did you smoke something while we were talking and I missed it?" Cat's said quite simply, "You're joking."

"You're joking," Cat groaned. "Crosshair Junction? That's the entire reason you want to go?"

Johnny gave a sideways glance to the wall as he answered with no lack of amusement, "What? I simply think it's worth a visit once in awhile. And the job doesn't sound THAT hard..."

"Johnny, the only way this job could sound more difficult would be if it ended with the words 'And you have to be on fire the entire time," Cat deadpanned.

"Pffft," the green stallion disregarded Cat's dry humor. "We could at least go to Crosshair and hear the guy out. I mean, it's not like we have anything better to do here."

Cat opened his mouth to say something, then closed it, then opened it again. "Uhhh..." was all he got out before he ran out of reasons why they couldn't at least visit the city. It looked like they were in it for the long haul. So he shrugged it off like he did everything else mildly inconvenient, and rummaged through a leather sack in the corner: the hiding place of all his worldly possessions. He slung a dark brown leather vest over himself, hooking a claw in the zipper and zipping it up. He finished off his "ensemble" with a tiny bandana and a cat-sized Stetson. "Well, if we're going to be gone for awhile I'm sure as hell not leaving without the hat."

Gallop hid a smile behind her hoof. "Oh, my gawd. He has a tiny cowboy hat," she snickered.

Johnny glanced from the mare to the feline, then took a few steps back and sat back on his haunches. Shotgun was about to give him a look for it when Asshole asked quietly, "Tiny cowboy hat?"

Gallop tried to put on a serious face. "Yes, yes, it looks very... manly on you," she coughed as she said 'manly' trying to stifle her laughter. "I'm sure you look very intimidating and 'cool'."

Asshole Cat twitched slightly as she spoke. Then, ever so slowly, walked up to the bed, propped himself up on his forepaws so that he was inches from the red mare's face, and hissed, "Soon." He then turned himself around and walked out the door.

Johnny stared after him with a bemused expression before grabbing a set of saddlebags pre-packed with supplies out from under the bed. Trotting to the door and out of the house, he called behind him, "I suggest not eating anything you didn't prepare yourself for the next couple of days."

Shotgun sat, blinking heavily, staring at the door for a few moments after they left. Shaking her head, she trotted after them. "And this is why you try to make friends who AREN'T as batshit as you," she told herself.

On the way to the train station, they came across a small crowd in the middle of the street, staring up at a familiar tan pony on a raised platform. "...and then this coward kicked down a bunch of rocks off a cliff and buried me! And THEN he left me there under the rubble!"

Cat, having hopped on to Spur's back out of laziness, chuckled into the pony's black mane. The pony himself just shook his head and sighed. "Y'know, I think they call it soap boxing because you stand on a soapbox while you're being an asshole," Johnny muttered under his breath. The cat just laughed harder, trying to bury the sound in Johnny's neck.

Gallop, not having heard or seen any of this, turned to wave them along. "Come on, you two! The train leaves soon!" A statement which, apparently, made just enough noise for the crowd (and it's crier) to pay attention.

"Hey, yeah, that's him!" Iron Mines shouted, pointing at Johnny and Asshole. "That's the guy that left me in the pass!" The crowd turned to follow Iron's gesture, and saw who he was pointing at. The reactions were mixed, but all could easily be summed up in the words, "Oh, it's Johnny". The exact inflection of which varied from pony to pony, at which point it was really just up to interpretation.

None of these varieties, however, could be said to be of the excitable and "pleased to see you" persuasion. In fact, the first question that made itself heard above all the muttering that ensued was, "And who paid you to do this one, Johnny?"

Johnny glanced at the crowd, and then at Mines. He snorted in laughter, and answered quite simply, "His marefriend."

The ensuing silence was impressive, even in the desert. "...what?" came the same voice, one Johnny now recognized as the Sheriff. The old colt stepped forward. "His marefriend told you to bury him?"

"Well, I believe her exact word were 'You've GOT to do something about my coltfriend!' and 'I don't want to deal with him another day!'" he explained. Then a thought occurred to him. "And you know what? She STILL didn't pay us!"

The Sheriff glanced from Iron to Johnny, and dropped his head in exasperation. "Look, Johnny. I appreciate what you do here. At least, most of it. But there has to be a limit to what you can and can't do to get a job done. Just because you take work nopony else is willing to do doesn't mean that you can do it however you want."

Johnny gave him a blank look. "Sheriff, you and I both know that Ol' Ironhides here is more pony than I usually care to handle. And he doesn't exactly seem like the type to just sit down and talk things out. So I did what I could. Mind you, there are probably more subtle ways to tell a pony to back off then dropping rocks on his head-"

The sheriff held up a hoof. "Which is exactly what I'm trying to tell you. Look, Spurs, I can't really say you're a loose cannon, cause you just keep to yourself and do whatever it is you do to get by, but I can't have you just barrellin' into a job like that without at least thinking about the afters."

Johnny opened his mouth to retort, but sheriff kept talking. "Look, I know you want out of this town. And there's a few ponies here, I know, who wouldn't argue you leaving. But while you're here you've got to learn to play like the rest of them."

Cat tugged on Johnny's ear, pointing at a now rather impatient Shotgun Gallop. Johnny sighed. "Ok, sheriff, you got a point. Look, I'm taking a job out of town for awhile, might be what I need to move on permanently. You think you can let this slide, while I get out of your mane and let it blow over?"

Sheriff glanced over his shoulder at Gallop, who was tapping her hoof like the mine was already beneath her. He shook his head. "I'll see what I can do, but you might want to be prepared for somethin' or other when you get back."

"Right," Johnny finished, and trotted off.

Behind him, the crowd turned back to Iron Mines. "So what's this about your mare having to hire Johnny Spurs of all ponies to make you go away?" The sheriff questioned with a slight hint of disapproval.

Having not quite made his way out of earshot, Johnny cringed. He really needed to move somewhere they didn't know him.

They made their way across town, and onto the train, where Johnny and Asshole curled up into a booth and onto a table, respectively, laid out on their backs, and draped their hats over their eyes. It wasn't mere seconds till they fell asleep.

Gallop, who had just finished handing the conductor the tickets, gave them both a look. "I swear to Celestia it's just one pony in two bodies," she grumbled, then curling into a ball in the opposite booth. She, too, fell asleep rather quickly.

(-)

Several seats down from where the two newcomers and their cat had taken to sleeping, two mares were happily engaged in conversation. "Thanks so much for coming, I hope it wasn't an inconvenience for you," the unicorn said happily.

Her friend, an earth pony, shrugged in nonchalance and leaned back in her seat. "S'no big deal, sugar. It's been awhile since I've been out this way, and with the harvest over there isn't a great deal to do. Plus I'm not the biggest fan of cold weather, so I thought a trip out west ought to do me some good."

The unicorn raised an eyebrow. "But won't that make the cold that much worse when you get back."

"Look, we are going to Crosshair Junction, and then into the Saddlehara Desert. If I don't miss the cold by the time I get back something's wrong," she grinned as she spoke, and stared past her friend's shoulder into the rest of the car. "Not a whole lot of ponies on this train, huh?"

"I wouldn't think so," the unicorn said, pulling out a long strip of parchment. "The only major events taking place this time of year are either in Canterlot, or the search-and-excavation project I was asked to assist with. I'm glad I could take you with me, though. It sounds like it's going to be a lot of work."

"Ah, I'm good with heavy liftin'. Been workin' hard for weeks, ain't no reason to stop now," the Earth Pony reasoned, flexing a muscle.

"You're the best, Applejack. I hope we really do find what we're looking for."

"So do I, Twilight. So do I."