The Contract
I looked at the other six employees that had come through with me. Each one of us knew that this wasn’t the typical friendly contact normally set for Equestria. The fact that any of us had been hired meant that someone in some branch of the Equestrian Government believed there was a problem that would be best suited, and handled, by a trained professionals.
I looked at the paper I had been assigned again. Dodge. I had done my homework and learned that Equestria’s Dodge wasn’t that far off from Dodge City of the old West. Apparently they had the same problem, and with the constant attacks they were looking to putting together a police force. What they wanted was someone who could help train this would be police force in more aggressive tactics, and oversee the first few defenses.
I sighed and leaned back against the train seat. All of this because I had been the lucky son of a bitch to walk out an ambush that nearly took seventeen human lives in Afghanistan. Be all you can be, that was the army’s theme, their declaration, and their promise. The problem is if you were good at your job then usually all you could be was a soldier.
I had hoped to start some kind of life after I got discharged, but that ended the moment I came home. Most of the people in my old neighborhood were talking about job opportunities in Equestria. I had heard about the opportunities, but then again I didn’t know what it was I could really hope to do in an alien world. In the end I took a job that wanted the kind of skills that I offered.
It was a job I had worked at for nearly three and half years before getting handed this. This was a three year contract with the stipulation that was I was to train a capable police force in Dodge and I was to ensure that Dodge became a safe haven in that time.
It sounded a little too much like wishful thinking to me. Gryphons, Diamond Dogs, other ponies, and even at times some humans attacked Dodge and small western towns like it all of the time. I could have refused the contract, but I was up for my performance review, and that meant the company could drop me. So dropping the contract wouldn’t be in my best interest.
At least the money was good. Since this was officially an alien contract that meant that it was being treated like a prolonged international contract, and that meant that I was getting at least double pay per year. My normal pay was eighty-thousand a year, and double meant I was making a hundred and sixty thousand. More than enough to enjoy a few perks. The sound of the train coming to a stop caught my attention and I sat up to see the other six employees nod at me. Each of them were heading to similar towns. Places that had no law, and needed to be shown how to bring things to order.
I grabbed my backpack, reached up and grabbed the three suitcases I had brought with me, and stepped off of the train. Once off, a mare with flaming red hair walked up to me. She gave me a slight smile before waving me to follow her. I followed her to a rundown looking jailhouse. A quick study of the place began telling me exactly what the fuck I was getting into.
“We tried to get the place cleaned up for you. Our last sheriff didn’t have time to get unpacked,” she said as she pointed to a few boxes.
“I take it that anyone who is known as a sheriff becomes real popular with certain individuals,” I replied.
She nodded and stopped by a door that she pushed open. I looked in and saw a fair sized one room apartment. It was about what I would have expected to have seen in an old Clint Eastwood western.
“They said that you’re gonna help make a police force here,” she said.
I nodded.
“That’s the plan. What kind of weapons does your militia use?” I asked.
“Lever action rifles mainly. I think that somepony said they’re the Springfield .30-06,” she said.
If they were using the Springfield then it was a pretty solid gun. There was a reason it was so often used in the west. The gun could stand all kinds of punishment, and it was extremely reliable. More than likely the bandits were using a similar gun. Some might have been taken from downed members of the town’s militia.
That was going to end. I sat my suitcases down and then took off my backpack. My clothing was pretty sketchy at the moment. I had brought my Flak Duster and normal bullet proof vest, both I was wearing at the moment. I shrugged off the duster hearing the reassuring sound of it hitting the wooden floor. It was soon joined by the bullet proof vest which made a slightly louder thud. The mare that had led me seemed to watch with interest. I opened the backpack and pulled out a couple pair of jeans, a tee shirt, a folded western style shirt, my black tie, a couple of boxers, and a couple pairs of socks.
It was enough for the first few days, and I could order other clothes I needed later.
“What’s in those?” she asked.
I grinned and opened the first case. I could hear her gasp as she looked at the disassembled M1 Garand. I pulled it out, assembled it, loaded it, and sat it on the bed. I went to the next case and opened it to reveal two pistols I had brought because of their simplicity. The twin Colt M1873 Peacemakers weren’t showy; I didn’t buy the show guns. None of the weapons I used for the company were show guns. Everything was or had been combat weapons.
I pulled them out, laid them on the bed, opened the section under them and pulled out the dual shoulder holster I had made for them. The pistols did have one modification to them. Something I had a trusted gunsmith do for me. These were both double action. I wouldn’t have to worry about cocking the hammer. I loaded both of them and that’s when I heard a throat clear.
“Mister, Most of the folks around here just have one gun,” the mare said.
I turned toward her and took in the way she looked. For a pony she was beautiful, except for her right ear. It was torn, like something had pulled hard enough to rip part of it off.
“What happened?” I asked
I took in the fact that she was a pegasus for the first time, and I took in her reaction. She looked away from me. I knew the look, the action, and rage began to settle inside of me.
“What happened?” I asked more forcefully.
“He was an ear biter. Sometimes the bandits have an ear biter with them. They… do things to the mares they catch,” she whispered.
I knelt down and touched her. She flinched at the action.
“Hey, I’m not going to hurt you. I promise I won’t, but this ear biter is he still alive?” I asked.
She nodded, and she continued to try to look away from me.
“Do you want to learn what I’ve come to teach?” I asked.
She looked up at me like I was asking the hardest question in the world.
“Do you want to learn it?” I asked.
“You mean so I can kill him?” she asked.
“No, so you can defend yourself. That bastard is going to be brought in, tried, and I’m guessing that if I’m the Ipso facto sheriff in this town then I’m most likely going to be the acting judge as well,” I said.
She looked at me. There was a sort of understanding in her eyes. I wasn’t promising her revenge. I was offering her something more, and hopefully she would want to take it. That wasn’t to say that I wasn’t going to deal with these bandits in a way that worked. The moment I had been given this contract I had started brushing up on my history of the old west.
Law Dogs like Wyatt Earp, Wild Bill Hickok, and to some degree John ‘Doc’ Holliday had taken that step that was needed. I had the advantage of being trained for war. Of course I didn’t have the advantage that ‘Doc’ Holliday had. I wasn’t dying of tuberculosis. I read every creditable account of the gunslinger I could, and I realized exactly why he won.
He wasn’t afraid. He wasn’t afraid of dying because he was dying. If you’ve got nothing to lose then you’re going to beat the guy with something he’s afraid of losing. I had to hope that my training would be enough of an advantage that it would overshadow anyone who may have that kind of advantage. I was brought out of my musing by a hoof lightly pushing on my shoulder.
“Mister, what should we call you?” she asked.
I knew that I had the option of giving my real name. Typically the men I worked with referred to each other by handles. I had grew up in a small town in Southern Oklahoma, and I was pretty close to where old cattle drives had taken place from Texas to Oklahoma and vice versa. My handle had been an easy one. Cowboy. I suppose it was better than Comrade, Memphis, Big Ben, or Brooklyn. It almost felt wrong to give up the handle, but if I was going to be here for a few years I needed to plant some roots.
“I’m James Dalton, but almost everyone has called me Cowboy for the last few years. You’re welcome to use either name,” I replied.
“Cowboy? You mean like those old west movies that’s been coming over? John Wayne and the like?” she asked arching an eyebrow.
The idea of the Duke playing Rooster Cogburn danced around in my head for a moment.
“Yeah, kind of like that,” I said.
She laughed a little and shook her head.
“I hope that you won’t try to talk like that,” she said doing a pretty good impersonation of John Wayne’s acting voice.
I smiled and looked around at the apartment once more. I had lived in worse. Hell, I had grown up in worse. My childhood home had been little more than a run down old trailer. I walked outside, following my guide, and noticed the bustling community. There was more ponies than anything, although I noticed another human.
I could see him under a sagging shed, working on an anvil, and I shook my head. The guys that had learned how to work a forge found work outside of Renaissance Fairs, and those old west theme parks. I considered walking over, introducing myself, but my guide had other plans. She directed me toward a few pegasi, two gryphons, and another human. The other human tilted her hat back and looked at me. I could already see the bulge of a budding pregnancy, and for a moment I considered that perhaps she and the blacksmith must have been an item.
“Cowboy, this is our militia. Annita Summers, Blue Skies, Gild Ironclaw, Blueberry Muffin, Blueberry Punch, Buddy, and Steelwing,” she said pointing to each of them.
“My friends just call me Steel,” Steelwing said.
I nodded and then looked over them again.
“We’re going to expand this. The militia isn’t going to be just a few individuals anymore. If we’re going to protect this town, then we’re going to train every able bodied pony, person, and gryphon here to fight,” I said.
“That’s all fine and good, but most of the Earth Ponies here don’t have rifle training. Not to mention that unless it’s a rifle specifically designed for them it’s a bit hard for them to use it,” Annita said.
“That’s a hurdle we’ll overcome when we can. I’ve heard that the Pegasi wings are able to work similar to human hands in some regards right?” I asked.
The mare that guided me nodded. She lifted a rock with a wing and flipped it off in the distance.
“We can do things like that, even work some of the lever action rifles, but aiming is a little more difficult for us,” she said.
“Okay, so we need to order in some scatter guns,” I said.
Annita raised looked at me and shook her head.
“Shotguns?” she asked.
“It removes the aiming problem,” I said.
“Sure, and it means that they have to be closer to the situation,” she angrily said.
It wasn’t the blacksmith she was concerned for. I had expected it to be him, but instead it was one of the pegasi.
I had heard about this. Humans hooking up with some of the locals. There had even been a few back on Earth living together, working normal jobs, well semi normal. There was that one unicorn mare who worked for our company. Apparently she had been a guard over here, and she accepted a position as one of the team leaders for one of the bodyguard teams. I had spoken to her a couple of times before getting assigned over here.
She was an interesting one. She had came over because of a man she had fallen in love with. He had to return home, and she followed him. I knew the guy she was with, and I was there when his number finally came up. His team worked pretty close to the team I worked with most of the time. His team was an extraction team. They were hired to go into hotspots and bring out families that could afford a private army.
My old team had two functions. Our government contacts had us listed as weapons specialists, and we were usually sent in with early troops to help train resistance fighters. Our second function was for the private army bit. We were the first wave. We ensured that most, if not all, of the threat was neutralized before the extraction happened.
That Unicorn’s husband’s team had been rushed to get in before we could completely secure the area. It seemed odd that they were married, or it did until a stray bullet, fired from a fifteen year old kid, that had been lied to, ended his life. She became hard after that. She tried to get into the extraction team, but our bosses wouldn’t let her. I don’t blame them. I had seen that kind of determination before. I knew what she was planning on doing, and I couldn’t let the same thing happen here.
“Okay, who are you wanting to protect exactly?” I asked.
She looked at me. Her eyes narrowing.
“Look, there’s nothing wrong with being involved with someone. Hell, that’s part of life, but I can’t have you being distracted thinking that someone is going to get shot. So who are you wanting to protect?” I asked.
Buddy cleared his throat.
“That’d be me. We’re together,” he said.
“Okay, here’s what’s going to happen. I’m going to put in an order for scatterguns. I’m going to try to make sure that I can get us either pump or lever action. Most likely it’s going to be lever. I’m going to train everyone that can use them to use them. I’m also going to order the pony rifles. I’ve seen them used before, and I know that Earth Ponies can use them with a little training. I want to have this town secure, and the only way that’s going to happen is to have everyone ready to fight,” I said.
The sound of screaming erupted from the far end of town.
“Bandits!” an Earth Pony screamed as it ran past us.
“Fuck! Okay, grab your rifles, get high!” I shouted.
The Pegasus mare followed me unsure of what to do.
“Go to the jail, lock the door, and stay in there!” I shouted at her.
I ran toward the blacksmith and jumped behind his forge. He was huddling behind the forge. I could see the streaks of sweat on him, and I handed him one of my pistols.
“You know how to shoot?” I asked.
“Sure, I mean I worked out in Appleloosa, and we had a bandit problem, but this is insane! It’s been every goddamned day! Every fucking day there’s been someone coming through here roughing shit up!” he screamed.
I looked at him and shook my head.
“Shut up! There’s a group of bandits coming, and we’re going to help make sure those sons of bitches pay for what they’ve done. Then I’m going to start training everyone in this reject-from-a-bad-western-movie town how to handle a fucking weapon. But right now you’re going to shut your mouth, look out there, and try to drop every bastard that comes in your sights!” I shouted.
Then I watched as a collection of gryphons and ponies strolled into the town. There was the general shouting, whooping, and random gunfire. I shook my head. They were amateurs at best. I took aim, and fired. My M1 Garand barked. The next second a gryphon developed a hole in its head and its back legs went to kicking erratically.
I fired my rifle, which ejected the shell and loaded a new one, fired again, and nailed one of the ponies with the group. Suddenly the random fire began to become very focused. I hid behind the forge as bullets peppered it and the anvil. I could hear the pinging of the bullets against the metal, and instantly I wondered just how much ammunition those sons of bitches had.
“Luna’s teats! They’re firing from the rooftops!” one of them shouted.
The gunfire relaxed on me and I took that chance to start taking out members of the group again. What had started as a twenty to twenty-five member raiding party soon dropped to fifteen, then ten, then there was six who threw down arms.
“We give up!” one of the ponies shouted.
I took my now empty pistol back from the blacksmith who still shaking.
“What’s your name?” I asked.
“Dave,” he replied.
“Dave, we’ve got to teach you to conserve ammunition,” I replied before I got up and walked out to the group.
I motioned to those on the roofs to come down, and soon I saw the militia there. Ironclaw had a wounded shoulder, Buddy looked like he’d been grazed slightly, but all in all they seemed fine.
“By the authority granted to me, by the Equestrian Government, you are under arrest. You will be housed in the local Jail until your court date is settled. At that point you will be judged by a court of your peers. Do you have any questions?” I asked.
“Who are you?” a gryphon asked.
“I’m the sheriff, and you fucked up coming here,” I replied.
The next two hours after the bandits had been dealt with was interesting, to say the least. I had no more than secured the six living bandits in the jail before every Earth Pony and Pegasus that wasn’t part of the militia was coming forward and asking what was going to happen to the bandits. At first I thought they meant the bodies, but I soon realized most of them meant the actual still living bandits. I explained they would be given a trial, and then a sentence would be handed down on them. That’s when I started getting the suggestions.
No less than three mares explained that they should be treated in the exact manner they had treated the mares. One of the Pegasi suggested that we banish them, and then there was the red headed mare that had been my guide. She remained quiet the entire time before finally she looked up at me.
“I want to be there,” she said.
I watched her. She looked toward the cells and I followed her gaze. She wasn’t looking at all of them. No, there was a single stallion she was looking at. He was an unicorn with a cracked horn. He looked toward her and I watched as realization settled on his face.
“I’ll make sure you are,” I replied.
I watched her shutter. This mare that had met with me, shown me around, and seemed like she was handling things started showing serious signs of strain.
“Okay, everybody out. Right now, out,” I said.
The group murmured, and I stopped the red headed pegasus. I walked her back to the one bedroom apartment and had her take a seat on the bed.
“It’s okay,” I said.
“He… I want to see him suffer,” she shivered as she said it, “I’m a bad pony because I want him to suffer for what he did. My first time was supposed to be different!” she cried out.
I had seen this before. Hell, there are more than a dozen places on Earth where this kind of thing is common place. I wrapped my arms around her and pulled her into a hug as she cried. I felt her wings engulf me. Her face pressing into my chest, and the entire time I held her. So far I had lead a successful ambush, laid out a long term plan to protect this small town, and now I was holding a mare I barely knew and letting her cry out her pain.
“I swear that no one is going to hurt you anymore,” I said.
She cried and pulled me tighter. I could feel my spine popping from the hug. I held her, unsure of where to go from here. The promise I made was a serious one. I wouldn’t let anything hurt her again. Unlike some of the places I had been before I could actually keep my promise here, or at least I believed that I could. I continued to hold her as her tears dried up, and I held her as she snuggled against me. I held her knowing what it was like to have a piece of yourself stolen. She finally stopped crying and she pulled back. I looked into her eyes and saw the pools of green looking back at me.
I took in every detail of the mare standing there. her yellow coat, green eyes, flaming red hair, and her butt tattoo, or cutie mark. A picture of a bunch of grapes with a single strawberry adorn her ass. She looked at me, and I watched as she swallowed whatever it was she was feeling and stepped forward. The action caught me by surprise. I felt her lips touch my own.
I wasn’t sure if I needed to be freaked out, a little turned on, or honored that she believed that I was a good enough man to kiss. She pulled back and rested her head on my shoulder.
“I understand if you don’t want me,” she said.
“What in the holy hell does she mean if I don’t want her? I barely know her,” I thought.
Then I felt her wings lightly tickling my sides, “But I’d do everything I could to make you happy.”
I looked at her uncertain of what she was talking about. I had barely been here a day and everything had been turned on its head. Besides, I didn’t even know her name.
“What’s your name?” I asked.
“Strawberry, Strawberry Sunrise is my name,” she said.
“Okay Strawberry Sunrise, why do you think that I wouldn’t want you?” I asked.
“Because… because I’ve been with somepony already. I’ve been with somepony, and that means that they’re supposed to become my special somepony, but I didn’t want to be with them,” she sniffled.
“I’m not like that. First, what happened to you is not your fault, and second I don’t know if I would want to be with you until I know you. Let’s start this thing off as friends, and we’ll go from there,” I said.
I looked at all of the other stuff in my apartment. Stuff left over from the other sheriffs that tried to clean up Dodge, and ended up six feet under. One of the things to catch my attention was an old record player. It wasn’t a new turntable, but instead it was an old 1970’s record player. I walked toward it, turned it on to hear the fuzz of speakers without anything playing, and I saw the records beside it. I looked through them before I found a copy of Pink Floyd’s The Wall Live Album. I put the record in, and move the needle to a song that used to help me relax and feel better when I was a kid. For a moment the sound of record moving was all that I heard until the familiar sounds of Comfortably Numb began to fill the apartment.
Strawberry listened to the music and then looked at me.
“This used to help me relax, and I thought that maybe you could use that,” I said.
She walked toward me, leaned up against me, and gave me a smile.
“If you want to get to know me a little more I’m fine with that, but I can tell that you’re a good man. And I want a good man in my life,” she said.
Even with a chunk of one of her ears missing she was still beautiful. I cursed myself slightly. It had been over two months since I had a girlfriend, and every time things had always, always ended up going to hell. Either I was gone too long on my job, or I wasn’t exciting enough in my normal life. It was always some bullshit, but then again most of the girls I had found had been bar bunnies. I hadn’t had a girl with any real sense of values.
Maybe this was what I needed. Maybe starting here, with her, was what I needed after all.
We kissed, again, but it was deeper. There was a need behind her determination. There was something she had to prove, and I figured that the one she had to prove it to was herself.
She gently pushed me to the bed. It squeaked as I landed on it. One of my suitcases fell to the floor, and she brushed the other one off to join it. I felt her lips move from mine to my neck. Somewhere in the back of my mind the fact that she had experienced one of the worst violations and torment that anyone could ever face came up. On some level I understood that if I simply pushed her back it could hurt her spirit, and right now the damaged one was asking the wounded one to heal her.
She stopped. There was a fire in her eyes that I had seen several times in my life. A fire that threatened to overtake and consume everything in its path. The need to connect with another life, to become more than a single being in a sea of life, and to hold on to that connection. Still, even with that look she backed off.
“I… I can’t,” she whimpered.
I looked at her and she fell to her haunches.
“I just can’t,” she looked away completely shamed.
I walked toward her and knelt down in front of her.
“Strawberry it’s fine,” I said.
“You don’t understand, I want to. I really want to. I want a good stallion, er man, in my life. I want someone who goes out of his way to make me feel wanted. I need that, but there’s part of me that doesn’t want to do this, and I hate that part,” she nearly cried.
I pulled her into a hug and felt her tears as they began to wet my shirt. Here was someone that needed my help. She had feelings, desires, needs, hopes, and dreams like any girl I had ever met before. The biggest difference was that I knew she was reaching out to me, and maybe it’s the fact that I’m that special kind of stupid, but I couldn’t help but reach back and try to help. The fact that I was being forced to set up roots for at least three years was another thing. I had a chance to do something I wasn’t sure I ever wanted, or at least I wasn’t sure until I had a call from my folks.
I grew up poor, in a poor community, and my parents worked hard all of their lives, but they had a connection that I had never had. I had a lot of meaningless one night stands, or instant girlfriends as Memphis called them.
“I swear man, you just add beer, or something with alcohol in it and you’ve got yourself an instant girlfriend. A night of pure fun and bliss,” I remembered what he had said.
I just didn’t want that anymore. I didn’t want an instant girlfriend. I didn’t want a disposable relationship that ended when we both sobered up. Maybe knowing that I was going to be sticking around was getting to me, or maybe it was this world itself, but I wanted something more. At the same time I wanted to help her. I needed to help her. God knows I’m not perfect. Hell, I’m about as far away from perfection as someone can get. The fact that my job had me going around the world, playing soldier, and ending lives had ostracized me from damned near everyone except for my family, my friends in the company, and some of my old army buddies. I wasn’t even welcomed in the community church back home.
Here, I was welcomed with what I could certainly consider open arms, and she was already putting herself out there.
“Trust me I don’t mind taking time. I really don’t,” I said.
She leaned back and looked up at me. Her eyes were red from the crying, and I could see how the tears had cut trails in her yellow fur. There was a small smile that crossed her muzzle.
“I’m serious, I don’t mind taking things slow,” I said.
She nodded, and then we broke our hug.