Young Applejack pulled on her harnesses and, straining at the yokes, she forced the wheelie basket over the ridge and up the path to the top of the hill. From there, she jutted her lower jaw, the lollipop stick shifting from her right side to her left. This was the first aisle of trees, rows and rows of bark towers lining the dirt path.
Thus the Wanderin’ Sheriff, cresting the great dune of the San Palomino Desert, looked upon the baked and dusty tin rooftops of the Ringo. There was never a town like it. Every house hid shadows. Every window glowed with all the eyes leering out. The town brimmed with rustlers and rowdies, outlaws and bandits, thieves and desperados, all watching and waiting.
She tried to remember how the story went. Granny had insisted on getting the details right, in spite of her ancient memory. But Applejack had, in turn, insisted on hearing as many as she could before bedtime. She’d crammed so many details last night that they mingled with each other and flowed freely from one story to the other.
Swinging the straw from one side of her mouth to the other, the Wanderin’ Sheriff wheeled through the town. Behind closed doors, knives slid out of sheaths. Ropes and lassos were tied around shoulders or spun in readiness. Clubs and iron horseshoes scraped on the rickety boards as the criminals kept pace with her slow walk.
“Ah ain’t givin’ y’all no more chances,” yelled Applejack, frowning at the rows of trees and narrowing her eyes until her freckles stretched. “This ‘ere’s where the Wild ends an’ the Law begins. Ah am the Wanderin’ Sheriff, the roughest, toughest, most meanest pony o’ justice that ever lived. Y’all come out, an’ y’all gonna be nice an’ slow, or Ah’m gonna come in an’ make this quick an’ nasty. What’s it gonna be, you snakes in the grass?”
Around her and her wheelie basket, the breeze rustled the leaves of the red delicious trees. Further down the slope of the hill, she could see the white picket fence that kept the south side of the orchard apart from the north. Only a lone bumblebee tumbled ahead of the wind.
Applejack smiled. The Wanderin’ Sheriff never ran away from a fight, and none of the gang had come out. Sweet. They’d destroyed many towns and stolen all the bits from the banks. Only the most cunning and vicious of heroes could hope to defeat even one of them, never mind the whole gang. With the ceremony of a master warrior removing a travelling cloak, she unhitched herself from the wheelie basket.
“All right!” she yelled to the trees, trying to hide her filly squeak. “Y’all asked fer it! Git along, little ponies!” And she sprang.
Applejack leaped, ducked – the Sheriff felt the blade slice through the air over her head – and with a loud “YAH!” kicked the trunk. Shockwaves rippled across the stunned bandit’s belly. Above, the branches wobbled and waved with the force, and twigs and leaves snapped off. Apples rained down and landed – the bandit’s sack of gold arced through the air and landed – smack into the basket.
As soon as the basket had been filled, Applejack bit the ropes lying in the mud, ignoring the muck sliming over her tongue. Yanking the harness and the basket all the way, she placed it under the next tree. A thief broke out of the timber house, trying to flee from justice. Applejack jumped forwards and the Sheriff whacked him, sent him flying all the way to the horizon. His gold rained down on the basket, ready to be wheeled back to the grateful townsfolk of Cooper.
Applejack kicked the third tree and watched the apples rain down on the pile, and to her shock a pink filly landed on top of them with a yelp.
Bandits, gold, and wooden towns shattered like reflections under a splash. The filly was pink and had poofy hair and was pink and grinned like a crescent moon and was pink and holding in both forelimbs a rubber chicken. Also, she was pink. It stood out a bit.
Applejack opened her mouth, and then closed it and stared. Nothing in her upbringing – in either one of her upbringings – had taught her how to respond to ponies falling out of apple trees. She glared suspiciously at the offending tree as though expecting to see more ponies hanging up there.
She tried to pin the face to a name, but no one in Ponyville looked like this filly. She’d never seen a smile so wide. It seemed to cut far beyond the boundaries of the face and swallow up all who gazed upon it.
Applejack took stock. She was a farmer. This was a farm. Only farmers were allowed on the farm, and only grown-up farmers got to work in the fields. Whoever this filly was, she was no farmer. So she ought not to be here.
“YOU, er…” She cast around for tough words to say, but something reached down from her habits and shook its head disapprovingly. Instead, she continued, “You need help there, stranger?”
“Nope!” The simple word left the filly giggling at some joke only she understood, because she added, “Nopity nope nope NOPE! Hey! Watcher doin’? You looked so cool! With all the kicking and the jumping and the ‘YAH YAH YAH!’ You’d make my sister look like a pushover, and she can kick boulders across a whole field!”
Applejack’s freckles burned and she could imagine them glowing a deep red. “Ah, heh, Ah was jus’ apple-buckin’.”
Under the two hooves, the rubber chicken squeaked. “Ooh! Apple-buckin’. That sounds like fun! Although I think it’s more like apple-tree-buckin’ because you’re not really buckin’ the apples, you’re buckin’ the trees, and the trees are raining apples down after you do that, and oh my gosh they’re so red and shiny! Can I eat one? Ooh, ooh, how many points did you win?”
To Applejack, a whirlwind of words battered her about her ears. This filly seemed to be living a few seconds’ jump ahead of her brain, and it was all she could do to grab the last snatch of a sentence and respond, “Points? What points?”
Another squeeze of the chicken followed, and the filly rolled her eyes. “Duh! The points you get for apple-buckin’. Or is it like when you run up a hill as quick as you can to see how fast you can go? Are you buckin’ all these trees!? That’ll take forever. You could be going for a record, champ!”
Applejack wondered if she was talking fast on purpose. Testily, she said, “Wait a minute! Hold on to your reins, darlin’. You can’t just drop down from trees like the Sundancer Kid off a cliff! This is mah farm! An’ who the husky hayseeds are you s’posed to be?” Narrowing her glare, she crouched ready for a leap. “You a trespasser? Granny done warned me about trespassers. Them’s strange ponies, and you sure are as strange as they come.”
The filly dropped the chicken and backed off a couple of steps. Her forelimb was raised to flee. “I’m not a trespasser! I swear! I never passed any tresses in all my life! I-I’m Pinkie Pie. I just got in last night. I’m new!”
Look ‘em in the eyes, her brother had said. You can tell an honest pony by the look in their eyes. Applejack peered into the startling sky blue irises and the gaping black of the pupils, and thought they looked like any other eyes she’d ever seen. They were quivering slightly, though. Maybe this filly wasn’t the rough-and-tumble sort.
Applejack relaxed and adjusted the lollipop in her mouth. “Ah din’t mean to scare you, Miss Pie,” she said, trying to pour oil on her tones. “Ah was jus’… surprised, that’s all. Ponies don’t normally fall out o’ no trees. An’” – she leaned forwards and whispered behind a hoof – “yer can’t be too careful with all them wild west baddies runnin’ around.”
At that moment, the wind picked up. Pinkie’s wide eyes darted across the canopy, trying to follow the invisible pegasus. “Baddies?” she whispered.
“Yup. Granny tells me stories about ‘em, but that was the Spirit of the Sands, and she’s OK if you show ‘er some respect. Whatcher doin’ here, Pinkie?”
As the pink pony took a deep breath, Applejack shooed her off the pile and pulled the wheelie basket up to the next tree, but even as she did so, she knew she’d have to go back for another one. When she kicked the trunk, the apples started rolling off the fruit mountain and bouncing across the flattened soil. Full already! The townsfolk would get all their savings back in one round!
“…and then I fell asleep,” continued the mare, who was hopping in Applejack’s footsteps and almost bounced into her rump. “And when I woke up, I saw you playing your game, and then –”
“Whoa, whoa, whoa!” Applejack spun round and winced; she’d chomped so suddenly that the lolly shattered in her mouth. She spat out the pieces and adjusted the stick to the other side of her mouth. “Game? This ain’t no game.”
Pinkie snorted. “Oh, you silly filly. Of course it’s a game! Look” – she pointed at the next tree – “that one’s the Monstrous Marshal of Mare-ico, who eats bottles and steals vaults by picking them up and walking away! That one” – she pointed at another tree – “is El Bravado, the desperado of Avocado; she steals candy from babies. And shows; she steals shows! And first of all, you gotta beat the worst of the worst, the one they call… the Bronzer! Woooo! You don’t wanna mess with that tough cookie, know what I mean?”
Cheeks crisping with the flame of embarrassment, Applejack spun round and marched away. She tugged so hard on the rope that it scorched her lips. Only a muffled groan of shock could be heard; she’d bitten down hard to keep back the yelp.
Pinkie hopped alongside her, but Applejack pretended to be interested in a passing bumblebee. “Can I join in? I could be your sidekick, the Mean Dean! Or… uh… I could be… uh…”
Applejack spat out the ropes. “This,” she said to the tree, “ain’t no game! This is apple-buckin’. There’s no room for no games; apple-buckin’ ain’t done by no fillies. It was nice to meet yer, Miss Pie, but Ah really, really gotta buckle down. Ah’m sorry. Ah got responsibilities.” A vicious kick at the trunk almost knocked her onto her face with the rebound, but she continued to glare at anything other than Pinkie Pie.
“Oh,” said a small voice behind her. “Oh, uh… OK… See you later, I guess?”
“Goodbye.” Applejack kicked again, and an apple conked her on the head. She snapped to her senses at once and shook herself down.
What was she doing? The Wanderin’ Sheriff would never talk to a pony like that. The Sheriff was a real gentle mare, Big Macintosh had said. She was always neighbourly, except to bad guys. A chill went down her filly spine.
“Uh, wait. I mean… goodbye…” Applejack tried to soften her tone, but when she turned around, the poofy tail was already slinking over the peak of the hill. A pang hit her heart. Granny always said to be neighbourly, and Granny’s word was golden.
But it had to be said. It weren’t no game.
All the same, she muttered, “Nice goin’, AJ. So much for bein’ a hero.”
For the rest of the day, she was not the Wanderin’ Sheriff. She was just Applejack, and her hooves were starting to ache.