//------------------------------// // Chapter 136 // Story: Unshaken // by The 24th Pegasus //------------------------------// The moonshiners: 9 Votes The three ponies debated for what felt like an eternity, but they finally settled on the one option that didn’t demand an immediate commitment to action. In the end, the three outlaws agreed that there simply was too much they didn’t know about the bank or the harbor, and if they could get more information, any information, from somepony who might be willing to share it, then it was a necessity that they did so as soon as they could. They didn’t have the luxury of taking shots in the dark, nor did they have the time to wait. They needed quick, decisive action if they had any hope of leaving New Oatleans alive. To that end, Tumbleweed and Kestrel resolved to go out and see if they could meet with the moonshiners after lunch, leaving Miss Irons with Snapshot, Roughshod, and Silver to watch over the camp. Kestrel was happy to see Silvie show her face for lunch, though the younger gray pegasus was huddled under a blanket and forced herself to eat against her loss of appetite. She spent most of the time sniffling and shivering, but her concerns were only for Kestrel when she saw the crooked bent of Kestrel’s nose and the wads of cloth she’d stuffed in her nostrils to stymie any leftover bleeding. “What happened to ya, Kessie?!” Silver exclaimed when she saw her, her voice stuffy from her cold. “Somepony attack you in town?” “Well, really, I was the one who started it,” Kestrel grumbled, her own voice somewhat shifted because of her blocked nostrils. “Least I finished it, though. Hopefully we ain’t gonna have nothin’ to worry ‘bout.” She pasued to slurp down some of her stew, then turned the line of questioning around on Silver. “What ‘bout you? You feelin’ any better?” “I’ll be fine,” Silver assured her, or at least attempted to. “Just a little cold. Ain’t nothin’ to be worried about. Do my best to sleep it off, I’ll be right as rain in a day or two.” “Rain’s probably what did you in in the first place,” Kestrel said. “You just make sure you eat somethin’ and stay hydrated and warm. Humid air ‘round here’s ain’t gonna make it easy on you gettin’ any better.” “If the mosquitos stop suckin’ me dry, that’d be a great start.” Silver sighed and huddled her blanket closer against her sides with her wings. “How anypony lives down here’s beyond me. Poor ponies must be miserable year-round and cover in bug bites.” Kestrel could only chuckle at that. “Well, we end up anyplace tropical, we might be dealin’ with them for a little longer.” “Yeah, but we’ll have the beach to cook ‘em off. That’s what I could use right now: a nice long retirement in the Caymares or somethin’.” “We’ll do our best to get our retirement funds built up,” Kestrel said. Then she finished off the rest of her soup and stood up. “Just take it easy. Don’t know when we’ll need you at full strength, but it’s gonna be sooner than we like. Don’t burn yourself out doin’ anythin’ you can’t get somepony else to do for you.” Silver was at least feeling good enough to answer that with a joke. “I’ll tell Rough that you just gave me permission to boss him around all day. Bet he’d like that.” “I bet he would.” Kestrel patted Silver on the shoulder with a wingtip. “Get better, Silvie.” “I’ll try. Stay safe, Kessie.” “I’ll try.” Then she was outside again with her weapons ready when Tumbleweed came to get her. Together, they shouldered their weapons in case things with the moonshiners grew testy, or they encountered any trouble, and Tumbleweed also brought along some of their spending bits from the train robbery back in Rock Ridge. They hadn’t managed to go through everything they set aside from that robber for supplies and the like, and Tumbleweed figured some gold might come in handy in case they needed to cozy up to the shiners to get what they wanted. “How we wanna do this?” Kestrel asked when they set off from camp, making their way along the road to find some dry and high ground to begin to turn north toward the moonshiners’ camp. “Peacefully, if we can.” Tumbleweed said. “We give ‘em a holler when we’re near their little camp so they know we’re comin’. I reckon if they know that we ain’t got any intentions on sneakin’ up on ‘em, they might trust us a bit more. After all, if we was gonna shoot ‘em or try and rob ‘em, we wouldn’t be lettin’ ‘em know we was comin’, right?” “I hope they got as much common sense as you do, Boss,” Kestrel said. “Least we’ll know real quick if they’re gonna kill us instead of waitin’ in suspense.” “Yeah, ain’t that a relief?” They found a point to get off of the road and begin to hike through the bayou, doing their best to avoid large bodies of water and anything that looked like a tree submerged in the murky swamps. After the incident with Silvie, the last thing they needed was an alligator thinking they would make a good meal. Kestrel hadn’t ever encountered an alligator before and didn’t know what they were capable of, but the teeth on the monstrous lizard that had lunged for Silver had convinced her she didn’t want anything to do with them. Occasionally, Kestrel would dart up out of the trees to check their heading and make sure they were still moving toward the moonshiners’ camp, then report on their progress to Tumbleweed. It was difficult to navigate under the canopy of trees, and the moss-covered tree trunks were so large and grew so close together that it was difficult to see very far ahead. And since they hadn’t discovered the wagon trail that the shiners would have to use to move wagons full of their product out of their camp, they didn’t have any means of knowing from the ground if they were going in the right direction. When they were only about ten minutes away from the camp, Tumblweed stopped and turned to Kestrel. “Kessie? I gotta ask you somethin’. Lookin’ for your input.” Kestrel stopped and gave Tumbleweed a puzzled look. “What’s on your mind, Tumbleweed? You know I’ll share mine with you straight.” Tumbleweed sighed and looked away, finding a nearby tree to lean against. “Do you think we’ll make it?” he asked her. “And if we do, how many of us are we gonna lose on the way?” Kestrel wanted to snap back at him and let him know that she had no doubt in her mind—but she knew that was a lie, and she wouldn’t help her old friend out if she didn’t give it to him straight. “I don’t know, Tumbleweed,” she admitted with a sigh, and her wingtips briefly drooped and brushed against the ground. Desperation and the need to act strong for the rest of the Gang had kept her going, but now, alone with Tumbleweed and without the need to put on a show for everypony else, for Silvie, she felt… tired. “That door’s gettin’ mighty close to shuttin’. And it ain’t lettin’ a whole lotta light in no more.” “I know what you mean. I feel the same.” Tumbleweed shook his head and looked off to the side, where some sort of wetlands bird that Kestrel didn’t recognize landed by a pond to hunt fish. “These ponies… they look up to us. They trust us to do what’s right. To keep ‘em safe. And after Hoofston… I ain’t so sure that they should be.” Kestrel frowned. “It was bad luck, Tumbleweed. We made a mistake and it cost us more than we was thinkin’ it would. But it ain’t the end. Not yet.” “Ain’t it?” Tumbleweed gave Kestrel a straight look in the eyes. “We lost Wanderer. We lost that Trixie tramp too, but Wanderer was with us for years and years. He was like a father to me, and I know it weren’t just me. Miss Irons’ hurtin’ somethin’ fierce, and outta all of us, she’s the rock that keeps the Gang together. She’s the one who makes camp feel like home, and right now, we ain’t got a home. Only a shelter.” Kestrel bit her lip as a pained expression crossed her face. She knew what Tumbleweed was trying to say: Wanderer’s death had shaken the Gang to its core, and his easygoing nature and many, many stories had a way of smoothing over bumps and filling in cracks. But now everypony was stressed, and the rocky start they’d gotten off in New Oatleans hadn’t done anything to make it better. And, underneath it all, she knew the worry that Tumbleweed wanted to voice, but couldn’t, or wouldn’t. “You wanna know how much longer we got ‘til we crack,” Kestrel concluded for him. “I know we’re already cracked,” Tumbleweed said. “I wanna know how much longer ‘til we break.” Kestrel rubbed at her eyes with the crest of a wing. “I ain’t sure, Boss,” she told him. “And I bet you ain’t the only one who’s been thinkin’ it. But so long as we’re movin’ forward, then we can keep the rest of ‘em followin’ along with us. We gotta keep our momentum up. Soon as we stop, then the Gang falls apart. So long as we got a plan, even if it ain’t a great one, then we got a chance.” “I can only hope you’re right,” Tumbleweed said. “I’m willin’ to bet that the Pinks are all over this damn city. And after what you told me ‘bout your chance meetin’ in Hoofston with two of ‘em, I bet they’re just waitin’ to sink their hooks into one of us. I know you’d never turn us over, but I don’t know how much longer we can keep the others in line.” “You really think Rough would turn us over?” Kestrel asked, incredulous. “I don’t know what I think no more,” Tumbleweed said with an edge of annoyance in his words, though Kestrel could tell it was aimed squarely at himself. “And no. I don’t think it would happen. After you and me, Rough’s the one I peg for most loyal. He’s a brick-headed jackass, but he hates the Law more than anythin’ else. He’d never turn on us.” Then he sighed. “Snapshot’s the one I’m worried the most about. He’s former army, and he’s cold. Distant. Ain’t nothin’ personal, just the way he is. Keeps his thoughts to himself, don’t like much to interact with anypony else. And I wonder—and it ain’t fair of me to wonder it of him—I wonder what would happen if them Pinks pinned him in a room and laid it all out on the table for him, plain as day to see.” “He wouldn’t,” Kestrel insisted, but she still ended up pursing her lips after she said it. “He’s been with us through thick and thin. He wouldn’t just turn us over and leave.” “He left the army when the war with the griffons ended because they wanted to station him in our winnings,” Tumbleweed said. “He woulda been there with the ponies he served with, and he chose to leave it. Talk with Rough ‘bout the war, and he’ll tell you all ‘bout the comrades he fought with, everything he woulda done and would still do for ‘em if they asked him to this day. Talk with Snap about the war, and you don’t get nothin’. No mention of his comrades, nothin’ ‘bout the ponies he fought with. War’s like crime, Kessie, only difference is the government gives you metals instead of manacles when you kill somepony. You don’t go through that and not feel a shred of loyalty for the ponies you fought with.” Sighing, Tumbleweed stood up straight again and shook his head. “But we don’t need this in the air now. Might not even matter if those moonshiners shoot us dead. Best we go and see if we still gotta worry ‘bout all that after this meetin’, or if we’re gonna be gator food.” He turned back to the north and continued to walk, though Kestrel was a bit slower behind him. Her head was swimming with thoughts. She didn’t know what to think of Tumbleweed’s worries. Was he just being a leader worrying about the ponies who followed him? Or was there some shred of truth to it? She didn’t know, and she didn’t know Snapshot well enough to say one thing or another for sure. She’d gotten him to open up with their shooting contest before Hoofston… but that was one of the few times she’d gotten more than a few sentences out of him in one sitting in the four years he’d been with the Gang. The only thing she could judge him by was his reliability in a fight, and with that, he’d never let her down. But everypony had a breaking point. And the truth of the matter was that Kestrel didn’t know enough about Snapshot to know where he put his. It soured her mood worse than the gray clouds beginning to gather overhead. [NO POLL FOR THIS CHAPTER]