• Published 26th Jun 2012
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The Ballad of Big - Broseph_Stalin



On a suicide cattle run across Buck City's desolate plains, Applejack learns a life-changing lesson

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Ruffians and Louts Alike

Chapter Four – Ruffians and Louts Alike


Applejack had seen two hundred of a lot of things in the same place countless times in her life. Two hundred apples stacked in huge bushels, two hundred ponies amassed at a Canterlot event, and even on rare occasions, two hundred gleaming bits piled high on a wooden desk. But never before had she seen two hundred heads of cattle shuffling down a gigantic plain of dead, dry clumps of grass and hard-packed earth under the sparkling mist of a desert morning.

It was a magnificent sight to behold: two hundred Equestrian Bold-Blue steer, milling about across the expanse of the desert valley, minding their own business and more than content to just chew on cud and hay. The dense sea of dark brown and roan-red seemed to both blend magnificently with the dusty ground and clash spectacularly with it.

As Applejack peaked the small hill that oversaw the shallow valley below, she felt her jaw drop in splendid amazement. The sight was certainly one that an individual was privileged with experiencing, and it took her breath away.

As Big Jim and Dodger sauntered past Applejack, a grunting Bo spotted the mare’s look of awed shock as he dragged the covered wagon behind him.

“What?” he chided in a gruff voice, “Ya never seen cattle ‘afore?” Bo laughed heartily as Applejack shot him a sullen glance.

“Of course Ah have. Just, not this many before.” She gestured with a slight wave of her hoof at the sea of rusty red steers. Bo merely chuckled once more, and Applejack was reminded instantly of Big’s idiotic vanity. She silently cursed her luck: two of these jackasses on the trip, no less. If he hadn’t been a unicorn, Applejack would have sworn right then and there that Bo and Big Jim were blood brothers.

“Welp, you’ll be having fun, then,” the sky-blue stallion said behind a wide smile. “Ah hope you can take care of at least fifty cattle at a time. Thas’ how we all’re splittin’ it up.”

Applejack just smirked at the big unicorn’s idle intimidation.

“Easy. Ah used to take sixty at a time to mah farm, back in Ponyville.” Beaming broadly, she decided to revel in some self-assured glory.

Her grin shattered as Bo howled with laughter at Applejack’s blasé boast.

“Oohwhee! An’ jus’ look at you, all high ‘n’ mighty there!” He stopped laughing to catch his breath, hacking painfully. Applejack grimaced at the sound; a cat with a half-pound hairball in its throat sounded better than this pony right now. Dropping her anger, she switched her attitude from right irritated to genuinely concerned for the stallion’s well-being.

“Ya’ll right, sugarcube? That cough sounds mighty bad…” Her emerald eyes scanned over the poor unicorn as he hacked up a lung in front of her.

“Oh yeh, Ah’m *hack* fine. Jus’ *hack* fine,” he grunted. Digging in his satchel, he sighed and whipped out a small, red carton. “Jus’ need a cigarette tah calm mah nerves, ‘sall. Nothin’ doin’.” Laughing heartily once more, he stuck a long, white smoke between his lips and caught the tip alight with a greyish-blue sparkle of magic.

“See ya’ll down there, miss,” Bo laughed, and sauntered off, dragging the wagon with a cloud of acrid-smelling purple smoke floating around his head.

Applejack just stood stock-still, a single eyebrow raised high on her face in a display of stunned and speechless shock at what she had just seen in front of her. She only became aware that her mouth was agape when Midnight gently placed a hoof underneath her chin and clacked her mouth back closed.

“And wassamatter now, darlin’?” she teased, her joke riding out with a graceful little laugh.

“Uh, nothin’, Midnight. Jus’… dumbstruck at the stallions you put up with on a daily basis.” Her puzzled expression crumbled away to a soured grimace.

Midnight gave Applejack a curious glance. As the dark mare’s golden eyes danced from Applejack, to Bo, and back to Applejack, she smiled.

“Now you’re givin’ Bo a hard time there? Tsk, tsk, Applejack,” she scolded, in a mock tone of an upset mother. Midnight broke into a smile again, a long white grin that cracked across her face and stood out brilliantly against her smoky-black coat.

Applejack wasn’t sure what to say to that. Deciding that she had endured enough teasing- lighthearted or otherwise- in the last few days, she let out a deep sigh, and began walking forward to catch up with the rest of the group.

Midnight jumped up in slight surprise, and tried to catch up with the dour pony.

“Hey! Ah’m sorry, darlin’, Ah didn’t mean to poke and prod yah feelings like that. Jus’ having a little fun, Ah promise, Applejack.” As she rounded on the pony, Midnight’s smile turned genuinely concerned. “Ah’m here to help ya. Us ladies’ve got to stick together, ahmirite?”

She dropped her voice low, and it caught that deliciously dark and syrupy sensation once more, “’Specially with all these boys ‘round. Ya’ll can never be too careful, hun. ‘Sides,” she added with another bright smile, her sweet-and-sour-as-molasses tone melting away fast, “Ah’ve never worked with another mare on the posse! It’s always stallions gawkin here, colts askin’ ‘bout nonsense here, 'Hoowhee, just lookit’ that mare there!' It’s really enough to drive a mare crazy, Ah swear!” She chuckled to herself.

Now it was Applejack’s turn to look her posse-mate up and down with a curious eye. As the two mares shuffled down the hill of the valley, Applejack finally decided to ask the question that was burning on her mind.

“Midnight, Ah was just a bit curious ‘bout somethin’, if’n you don’t mind me askin’?”

“Hm? Yes, darlin’?”

“Well, Ah dunno. You seem a might out of place here in this posse. How did ya’ll get started here? What exactly do ya do?”

Midnight smirked. It seemed she had expected Applejack to ask this, had even prepared a speech for exactly this line of questioning.

“Well, if you must know… I am an old lover of Big’s.” Applejack stopped dead in her tracks when she heard this.

“What? A mare like you, with a stallion like him…?” She simply couldn’t believe it. What mare in her right mind would even put up with that thickheaded joke of an egotistical snake of a pony?

Midnight just laughed, deep and hearty. Only a minute amount of honey stuck in the air around where the sound had traveled.

“Believe it or not, he’s quite a stallion. Was,” she corrected. “Was, to me,” she corrected one last time with a quick thought. “Of course we had our good times, and we had our bad times, as any lovers do,” she added, and she stuck her tongue out just a tiny bit as her eyes rolled about in her head at some private memory.

She seemed to snap out of it, though, as she shook her head a tiny bit and laid a smile back on Applejack.

“We’re long done and gone, of course, but Ah stuck around for the money here in the posse. A gal’s gotta have the best, am Ah right, hun?” She winked to Applejack, who just rolled her eyes some.

“Alright, Ah see that. And what do you do in the posse?”

“I’m the tracker, dear. See this cutie mark?” she added, and wiggled her rump towards Applejack. Realizing that her mark was covered halfway by a long, leather satchel, Midnight scooted it aside with a bump of her flank, and smiled as the adjustment revealed a brilliant white four-point star.

“Mah guess is it’s the North Star, since you could blindfold me anytime at night, give me three pints ah cider, spin me about, and Ah could still point the Star out, no matter what season it is!” She beamed at Applejack as the pony’s emerald eyes went wide.

“That is mighty impressive, Midnight. Ah have to say, Ah am fascinated!” Applejack said, a smile growing slowly across her face. Midnight, on the other hoof, just wore a sly smirk as a crimson flush lit up her dark complexion.

“Ah, well thank ya darlin’. Come to think of it, I don’ think anypony’s ever complimented me ‘bout it before.” Her face fell in a grimace, “Then again, Ah don’ think anypony’s ever cared to ask anywho. Life’s tough when you’re in the shadow of somepony like Big.” With that, she glanced over at the stallion in question. Applejack followed her sullen gaze down the slope of the plain.

At that moment, as if he had staged the entire sequence as some sort of insane farce, Big hooped and hollered, tackling a particularly rough and beefy-looking steer to the ground in a fit of hooves and scattering dust.

Eyes wide, Applejack was sure Big Jim would get trampled straight into the dirt, or skewered on the bull’s giant horns. After a few intense seconds of searching through the thick cloud of rust-red dust, it cleared away to reveal the snorting steer squirming madly with a fat knot around his hooves that even Cerberus itself wouldn't be able to escape from. And with that, Big just laughed right in the steer’s face, as if he had bested him in some little game.

“Ya’ll gonna try and get ornery again, now? Huh?” Big shouted at the bull. The animal just grunted and groaned in the knot, eliciting more deep laughter from Big.

“Alright, ya dumb animal. Get out of here.” And with that, he whipped the knot off the bull’s ankles, flipped him up, and smacked him on the rump. With a snort, the beefy animal just trotted back up to join the rest of the lumbering cows that shuffled along the plain.

It only hit Applejack that she had been staring, wide-eyed, when she heard Midnight chuckling beside her.

Yeah. He is that good. I really don’t know how he does it, but Big Jim knows what he’s doing when it comes to cattle.” Leaving it at that, Midnight sauntered down the stretch of dry earth, flicking her tail every few steps or so in a strange, dancing walk.

Shaking her head, Applejack just smashed down every question that came bubbling up in her mind as she followed the posse on the path down the trailway.

>>---- (ɃɃ)---->

After dividing up the cattle evenly (more or less), the posse split up, left to their own devices, and oversaw their own groups of fifty or so cattle. These Bold-Blues were a bit tricky at first, but after a time, Applejack rolled into the little niche and routine of push, prod, shout, and shuffle.

Easy stuff.

So confident was she that Applejack had decided to get a little one-on-one time with the last pony she hadn’t talked to in the posse: that thin little colt. What was his name?

“Dodger?” Applejack asked politely as she moseyed over to the pony. Dodger gave a little start at his name, and lowering his hat with a hoof, answered.

“Aye?” he muttered. Applejack ambled over closer to hear better while giving a particularly ornery cow a glare of death.

“I haven’t heard much of anythin’ from you. Mind telling me a bit about yourself, sugarcube?” Applejack asked, hanging a picture-perfect smile on her face for added emphasis.

Dodger just shrugged a little, and continued on, nose pointed forward as he continued ahead. AJ felt her smile waiver as a glimmer of upset poked at the back of her mind. Not another one in this gall darn posse…

“Whassat, hon? Ah didn’t hear whatcha said there.” Applejack tried again, rechecking the smile on her face. Dodger just stopped in place, ignoring the various cattle that bumped into him lazily as they wandered past him.

“Ah’m nopony special. Don’ worry ‘bout it much, missus,” he said, and tipped his hat curtly to a stunned Applejack. Slipping into some unseen part in the sea of cattle, he disappeared from sight amongst the tall, swaying horns of the Equestrian steer. Once again, and certainly not for the last time, Applejack just stood there with her open mouth catching flies in the dry stillness of the morning plain.

From somewhere to her left, an angry voice called out, and the sea of steers shifted as a massive form pushed and shoved its way through the bovine current.

“Hey! Applejack, les’ get a movon, alright!?” Big yelled. His face was red and he was panting up a storm as he shoved cows from out of his way. “What in Equestria are ya doin’ jus’ standin’ there?” AJ merely glanced over at him, feeling rather foolish to have just stopped in the middle of the crowd. Shutting her mouth fast with a clack of teeth, she shuffled around and picked up the pace with the berating shouts of Big roaring hot breath down her neck.

Things were not going well. Not at all.

>>---- (ɃɃ)---->

If Applejack thought that the hot wind that Big whipped up every time he shouted at her for some inane thing was bad, the desert heat soon grew to the point where that darn stallion’s shouting would have been a blessed ocean breeze on her face.

Amongst the big red cattle and the choking dust, the temperature soon rose to the point that, if she had seen it, she would have sworn that the mercury in the thermometer would have rocketed all the way to the moon in this hellish abomination of a plain.

Spotting a lavender hat bobbing up through the hot, churning sea of cattle, Applejack dipped and shoved her way over to her target.

“Midnight!” AJ called through a panting yawn. Coughing slightly on a cloud of dust, she batted her eyelashes as the thick haze passed across her sight. Stumbling over a cow’s heavy hoof, she jumped into the little clearing and barely missed slamming straight into Midnight.

“Oh. Well, hallo, darlin’,” the pony remarked with a grin as she fixed her hat from the collision. “Fancy seein’ you around here!” Another light smile touched her lips as she guffawed at her little joke. Applejack noticed where a stippling of sweat had invaded the front headband of Midnight’s hat.

“This heat is unbearable. Ah can’t rightly stand it, but it looks like ya’ll’re handling it, no sweat.” Midnight’s eyebrow raised curiously. “Er, pardon the pun,” AJ laughed nervously.

"Well, I guess ya just deal with it fer now," Midnight replied, bumping a cow aside. "Ya drinkin' enough water there, dear?"

"Yes'm," Applejack replied, and Midnight nodded.

"Well then, hun, guess you're gonna just have tah..." The mare trailed off, her nose sticking straight up in the air. Midnight plodded forward, lilting off to the left in the crowd of cattle.

"Midnight?" Applejack called, jumping up in surprise as a cow bumped into her rump. After giving the steer a light buck, she scanned the tall creatures for any sign of Midnight. Nothing gave any hint to where she was. Cocking an ear up in the ear, she thought she heard what sounded like...

"Sandstorm!" came Big's bellowing voice. "Get these doggies rounded up! I don' wanna lose a single head, ya hear!" Big came crashing through the steer, right behind his loud shouting. "Applejack! Get your forty rounded up, and meet us at the head of the pack. And don't," Big Jim hissed shoving his snout right in Applejack's face, "buck it up."

Applejack snorted angrily.

"What in the hay are you talkin' about, Big? Go do yer work, alright? I can pull my own weight here." Big just laughed in her face, and once again, Applejack smashed down her boiling anger before she could smash that stallion straight in the face.

"Whatever, sister," Big Jim guffawed as he slipped in between two trotting cows.

Applejack just stood there, seething in anger and just about boiling in all her gear. Off on the horizon, a whirling, heavy cloud of rust-red malevolence was bearing down on them, and coming in fast.

She really didn't know how much more of this she could take.