MLP Pulps

by anarchywolf18


Scalp Hunter (Pony)

Years had passed since the end of the Equestrian Civil War. Pony against pony. Friend against friend. Many a life was lost in those dark days. And when the flames of war stopped raging, and had ceased to even be embers, the terror of those days warped the minds of those who had allowed themselves to be consumed by the inferno.

Friendships had all but been forgotten in the hearts of the ponies. Crime skyrocketed. And outlaws of every kind were showing up everywhere, committing crimes that no civilized pony would ever have thought before.

To combat those who would prey on others, Princess Celestia organized a task force to hunt down and kill the worst of the outlaws. The force had been made up of ex-soldiers who were loyal to her. Gunfighters, bounty hunters, and outlaws seeking pardon for their past crimes were recruited as well. The force went by many names by the common folk: Pony killers. Celestia’s executioners. Outlaws with badges. The only name that stuck was perhaps the most gruesome of them all. Scalp hunters.


A glass tilted, trickling out the rotgut whisky within toward the dry, unslaked throat of its holder.

The pale unicorn stallion relished the feeling of the drink in his mouth, sighing slightly as the burning sensation eased into his tongue. After letting it linger, he let it slide down his throat, warming his body from the inside with its sinful flavor.

It was the first drink that he had since he left Dead Rock. To him, the taste was something like cheap tobacco, mixed with something he could not place. For all he could tell, the mysterious flavor may have been similar to the snake venom he had once sucked from a wound.

After savoring the first sip, he quickly downed the drink, feeling more refreshed now than he ever had in days. He looked to his side at the stallion who was slumped over the bar, unmoving and unresponsive. In front of the unmoving stallion, the drink that he had not been able to so much as sip.

The pale stallion nudged his barmate’s hoof away from his drink, making it swing limply to his side, before the unmoving stallion himself fell hard to the floor, streaking a trail of red across the bar as he did.

Taking the glass, the pale stallion examined it, finding only a trace of red on the rim of it. Even if there was blood in the drink, he wouldn’t have cared. Nourishment was what he needed. And he would take it where he found it.

Once he finished the drink, he tossed the glass over his shoulder, hitting the body of a stallion who was sprawled across a table, guns still held in his cold, dead grip.

The saloon looked like a freshly made up graveyard, with all of the corpses ready to be buried, but not an open grave in sight. There was no time to dig them. Only time to die.

“Shame about this place,” the pale stallion said. “Place that serves drinks like this could have made a damn good name for itself.”

He took a bottle and poured it out behind the bar, over the bleeding barman who was lying on his back, clutching his bleeding chest.

“All I wanted to know was the whereabouts of your old pal, Old Dollar. I know you tip him off about the stagecoach and train routes that he robs. Instead, you and your friends sent yourselves on the express coach to hell,” the pale stallion said.

The barman said nothing, wincing from the stinging pain of the alcohol in his wound. He slowly reached for the gun that he kept hidden behind his bar. His fingers wrapped around the handle, and gripped the trigger.

A shot rang out through the bar.

The barman shouted loudly, and gripped the bloody gash where his ear had once been.

“I don’t usually give warning shots. But, that’s the only one you’re gonna get,” the pale stallion said, leaning over the bar.

“You lawdogs are all the same. You talk big, but that’s it. It’s like that old diamond dog saying. All bark and no bite!” the barman shouted.

The pale unicorn paid the barman no mind. He magically took a cigar from a toppled pickle jar near the cash register and bit off one end of it.

“Got a light, barman?” the stallion asked.

“Fuck you!” the barman said.

“That’s a ‘no,’ huh?” the pale unicorn said, chomping the cigar in his teeth and savoring the flavor of dry tobacco mixed with the residual scent of the pickling brine that had once been in the jar. “You called me a lawdog just now. ‘Fraid that ain’t so. I’m more than just a dog. So, you gonna tell me what I wanna hear? Or do I have to kill you and find somepony else who will?”

The barman winced, clutching his wounds. He glared up at the pale stallion, piercing him with his eyes.

“Old Mare Canyon. Southwest of here. That’s where you’re gonna die, dog!” the barman said.

One last shot rang from the saloon as the pale unicorn offered his thanks to the barman. With his destination revealed, the stallion left the saloon through the front, and was met with a gun barrel pointed directly at his face.

The stallion looked past the barrel, toward the enraged visage of an older stallion.

“Howdy, sheriff. Got a light?” the stallion asked.

The sheriff answered with a low growl and a twitch of his eye.

“You massacre half the ponies in my town without so much as battin’ an eye! And you want me to light yer fuckin’ cigar!?” he said.

The pale unicorn shifted the cigar in his mouth and opened his coat. On the breast of his undershirt was pinned a golden badge, shaped like a shield with a relief of a sun in the middle. Piercing the sun was a sword.

The sheriff glanced at the badge, then to the smirking face of the stallion. The gun he held shook in his grip as his teeth clenched. Slowly, he lowered his gun and holstered it.

“Damn scalp hunters! Nothin’ but mass murderers hidin’ behind the empire!”

“You say that like it’s a bad thing,” the pale stallion said, shifting his cigar again. “If you ask a shepherd how they protect their flock from timberwolves, they’ll tell you that they have sheepdogs. Thing is, a sheepdog will only yap and yowl, until the shepherd comes in with his gun to blow that wolf’s brains out. See, sheriff, you’re just a damn sheepdog. I’m the shepherd.”

The two ponies stared at one another, neither averting their gaze. The sheriff’s breath had slowed to a steady chug, like a locomotive fueled by hellfire. Nothing would please him more than to take that badge and flay the pale stallion with the pin that held it to his clothing.

“So, how about that light?” the stallion asked again.

“You just enjoy killin’. And you know it,” the sheriff answered. “I know exactly what you and yer ilk are. A pack of wolves that thinks they been tamed. But, everypony knows a wolf don’t stay tame for long. If you or any of your scalp hunter friends come near my town again, I’ll put you down like the rabid animals you are.

“Deal. ‘Cause if you ever point a gun at me again, I’ll put that pretty little gun of yours so far up your ass, you’ll be coughing lead,” the pale unicorn said. “See you around, sheriff.”

The town watched in mixed horror and curiosity as the pale unicorn walked out of town. With the arrival of one evil, another had been sponged out of their town. But, for how long?


As the sun set on that day over Old Mare Canyon, Old Dollar sat on the edge of his cot, smoking his last cigarette of the day, letting the smoke drift up through the hole in the ceiling of his shack. Every so often, he would reminisce about the name had been given. He was not always Old Dollar. It was when he killed his fifteen older siblings that had made him the oldest of the remaining five that had earned him the name, now that he was the oldest of them all.

He scoffed at the memory, then snuffed out his cigarette before he laid down for the night.

Far in the distance, he could hear the sounds of shouting and gunfire. Same as usual when his men got rowdy. Then, silence.

Old Dollar cracked one eye open. They never settle down so quickly, unless they passed out drunk. But, so soon?

Something fell through the hole in the ceiling, startling Old Dollar to alertness. What he saw terrified him. Staring at him with dead, open eyes was the severed head of one of his men.

The message was clear. Old Dollar picked up his gun and darted to the side of his front door. He listened intently, waiting for whoever was outside to make a move.

There was nothing. Not a sound.

Old Dollar knew that if he stayed in the shack, he was dead for sure. The door creaked as he slowly cracked it open and peered out. Nopony was there. He cocked his gun, ready to take the audacious intruder by surprise.

As quickly as he aimed, he was out into the last streams of daylight, facing the setting sun. Yet there was no sight of his enemy.

The sound of a gun being cocked behind his head made Old Dollar freeze completely.

“Start praying. That’s all you can do at this point,” the pale unicorn said.

Old Dollar said nothing. He began turning his head to look over his shoulder.

“Keep watching that sunset. It’s the last one you’ll ever see,” the pale unicorn said.

Old Dollar did as he was commanded and dropped his gun. Quietly, he began saying his prayer.

“O Silver Mother, who watches us from on high--”

The sound of a gunshot echoed through the canyon, vibrating the stoney walls and making a gentling ringing from the veins of metal.

Old Dollar laid dead on the ground.

The smell of tobacco reached the pale stallion through the gunsmoke. He reached into the dead pony’s pocket and discovered a pack of cigarettes, and a box of matches. He then retrieved the cigar that he had taken from the saloon earlier that day, and lit it with relish.

The gentle burn in his throat was released in a cloud of white smoke, just as the sun drifted below the horizon, covering the land in darkness. The only light left was the harsh glare on the edges of the pale unicorn’s face from the light of his cigar, illuminating his features darkly.

“That’s one outlaw off the list. Wonder who’s next?” he said to himself.