Chapter 8
The steam emitted from the train’s whistle dissipated into the crisp morning air.
Not a single cloud contaminated the sky over Ponyville as Rainbow Dash wrapped up the downpour from the previous night. The Inter-Regional Express stood waiting for its passengers to board on its circuit from Manehattan to Trottingham with a few stops in between, namely Appleoosa, which was an overnight trip from Ponyville with a stop in Canterlot along the way. The train stood alone while the engineer ran an inspection and while the runners who pulled the train stopped for a drink before continuing.
Applejack and Big Macintosh walked down the platform and headed into a compartment to get settled in and wait for the conductor. In the past few weeks until then you would have noticed that each of them put on a bit more muscle due to their strenuous training that left them dead tired every night. They ran countless laps around the course they designed that ran all the way around the farm, through town, and even through the length of the Everfree Forrest and back. Truly, they were experienced runners themselves by now, accomplished athletes as they were. But damn if tired. Nevertheless, they each wore a happy complexion mixed with a look of hope of winning the big race that decided Applebloom’s fate. However, it was best for the siblings not to think of that.
“I can’t wait!” said Applejack with a giddy annunciation. She was quite eager to see Appleoosa again since she heard how much the town had grown since then as well as see her family. “I’m shaking outta my boots! Whaddya’ think it’s gonna be like, Big Mac? D’ya know? Oh! Maybe there’ll be more to see! It was just one street last time we were there. Just imagine! It’s probl’y a city by now!” Big Mac chuckled at her sister’s excitement.
“You’re just about as hyper as your friend Pinkie Pie.” He said through a grin.
“I guess so.” She replied sheepishly. “But we haven’t been back to Appleoosa since we planted Bloomberg. It’s been quite a while.” Big Mac looked out the window facing the mountains that bordered the deserts to the east where Appleoosa stood somewhere like an oasis of pony productivity.
“It sure has.” He said quietly.
A final call to board was sounded by a triple blast of the steam whistle. A moment later the train lurched forward as the runners accelerated into a steady canter out of the station. Tired as Applejack was, she didn’t fall asleep. She couldn’t. She was too busy eyeing the potential competition that would also be competing in The Running of The Cattle. It was likely that a lot of other ponies on this train were going to run. But which ones looked tough to beat? Her eyes darted quickly from side to side, looking at the small crowd of ponies making such a long trip on a weekday. Nopony on the cart seemed to even be the athletic type, much less a competitor, what with a crowd of chapeau wearing mares on their way to Canterlot and top hat wearing business ponies checking on their ventures out east. Certainly not running. Anypony else on the cart was either a pegasus or a unicorn, very few of whom would have business in Appleoosa.
“Uhh… I think I’m gonna go for a walk.” stated Applejack as she got up from her seat and headed toward the next compartment.
Applejack’s nerves started to untangle as she walked between the carts and tried to unobtrusively take a gander at everypony on the train. AJ tried getting close enough to see what one’s physical features were like to see what she and Big Mac were up against. However, it was quite unnerving for most to have someone staring at your body from head to toe as if part of some involuntary medical examination. Most brushed her off as some weirdo while others who caught her sizing them up threw a shitty look her way. She even tried getting close to a mare that had a baby carriage with her. She too, tried to ignore the encroaching mare with a wild look in her eye until finally; she wheeled around and slapped Applejack across the face more out of fright than anger.
“What the hell’s wrong with you?” yelled the mare whose baby started bawling from the commotion.
“I…uhh…sorry.” Stuttered Applejack, flabbergasted.
Red with a hoof mark and shame, she stumbled into the next compartment. A tear escaped her eye as she hit herself for being so stupid and caught up with spying on the folks on the train. But she couldn’t help but feel anxious about where the other athletes were. This couldn’t be the only train to Appleoosa, could it? Perhaps most of the runners were already there?
Her eyes caught a broad set of shoulders and a large torso, whose head was hidden behind a newspaper. AJ sweated as she tried to approach to get a good glance of this burly stallion. Her heart palpitated. The tension of meeting this obviously worthy opponent was nauseating her. Her heart jumped into her throat as a small sound came from the stranger’s direction.
Gathering up her courage, she peered over the paper and almost fainted as the pent up tension was suddenly released. Behind the paper was the face of not a stallion, but an old snoring gelding who fell asleep reading the News. He was obviously a work horse past his prime. Not exactly the type capable of running a race. Regaining her composure, Applejack gave up trying to survey the other passengers, nervously laughing at her own foolishness. However, her mind swam and she felt sick to her stomach. She stepped in between the carts and fell to her knees as she vomited in the vestibule.
Applejack sat there for a minute or two wallowing in her angst until she finally felt rather tired. She got up and walked slowly into the lounge cart and sank into an armchair. Her eyes immediately started to close as she fell asleep to the sound of somepony playing Cloppin’s Valse in B minor on the small piano in the compartment.
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When Applejack woke up again she noticed the sun was lower in the sky due east. Applejack rubbed her brow perplexed until she reasoned that she must have slept until the next morning. She looked out the window and noticed the train moving down the mountain that supported the citadel of Canterlot that now grew smaller as the runners galloped down the southern face. Feeling well rested, and bit sheepish to say the least, AJ quickly made her way to her cart where she hoped to find Big Macintosh. She darted through the compartments, fumbling with the doors avoiding eye contact with any of the ponies whom she had weirded out. Thankfuly, she didn’t spot many of the same ponies who must have gotten off at Canterlot. The train’s passengers now comprised mostly of a mix between earth ponies, unicorns, and pegasae who were probably on their way to Trottingham. Although, Applejack caught sight of a few earth ponies with an Appleoosan look about them. Some colts had hats similar to hers and carried revolvers at their belts. Applejack felt discombobulated as she passed through the sections trying to figure out which one was hers, identifiable by her small saddlebag or her brother. After a few more carts, she stepped out of the vestibule to find Big Mac alone in the compartment reading a newspaper while he chomped down on a red delicious. He glanced in her direction and nodded.
“Hey, sis. Where ya’ been?” Applejack, not wanting to go through her tale of a foolish attempt at espionage decided to make small talk instead.
“I was, uhh, listinin’ to Cloppin a few carts over.” Big Mac raised an eyebrow.
“All afternoon, night, and morning?”
“Well I did get a good night’s sleep.” Big Mac shrugged the matter off and turned back to his paper.
“Didn’t know you were such a fan of the classics.”
The train made its way through the desert as AJ and Big Mac passed the time with small talk. Train rides tended to get dull after a while for Applejack, who looked lazily out the window at the occasional cactus zoom by at 60 mph. Suddenly, a sharp thudding sound came from the roof. The sound of hoof steps made its way to the side of the train where Applejack looked in surprise. A second later, a flash of brown wings made its way past the window where a pegasus with a grey mane looked into the compartment from the outside. As soon as he made eye contact with Applejack, he pulled up and flew toward the roof opening. The pegasus opened the hatch and dropped down. He looked as if he were in a hurry as his head shook back and forth looking for AJ.
“Hey, what gives buddy?” shouted the conductor, indignant at the freeloader.
“Please, sir!” he cried. “It’s an emergency! Is there a Miss Applejack here?” Applejack hesitated and stepped into the aisle.
“What can I do ya’ for, friend?” The pegasus panted and continued.
“We’re about five minutes from Appleoosa. Once we get there, follow me and make haste! Your cousin is in trouble!”
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Earlier that day, Braeburn sat at the bar on the new end of Appleoosa with a little too much money in his pocket and nothing to do. All day he celebrated a successful Applebuck Season by downing a little more cider than what was good for him with his good friend, Jack Cloudrunner. Jack, Appleoosa’s new resident weather Pegasus, had a simple brown coat and a short grey mane. He was quite a timid fellow who never took to drink, mostly because he didn’t care for the taste. He was also quite a lonely fellow, being the only pegasus who lived in Appleoosa. However, he and Braeburn had struck up a friendship in the past month as Braeburn felt sorry for the isolated chap. They sat at the bar as Jack was there to escort Braeburn home. From time to time, Jack made a small suggestion that he not drink so much, only for his words to fall on deaf ears. Braeburn sat, and drank, and drank, and drank despite the fact that his cousins wouldn’t take a drunk welcoming very kindly. Now Braeburn, unfortunately, didn’t hold liquor very well. After each jigger of cider he got more and more rowdy and unpleasant to the other patrons. The bartender, having zero tolerance for this kind of bullshit wasted little time in throwing him and his companion out.
“Well, I hope you’re happy now Braeburn!” said Jack, a tad annoyed. “We’ll probably never be allowed back in.”
“Ahh, calm yershelf, Jack!” Braeburn sputtered as he leaned on his friend’s shoulder. “I guess Ah’f had enough. We’cn g’home nowgh… gotta get rady fer cousin Applejagh, n’ Big Mac.” He stumbled off in no particular direction. Jack rolled his eyes.
“That would be a wise idea.” He muttered, chasing after him.
After a while of winding in between streets Jack looked back and forth and shook his head. They were lost. Appleoosa certainly had grown exponentially since Applejack’s last visit. That, and the fact that Jack was still new to Appleoosa made navigating through the streets disconcerting since he spent most of his time working in the air anyway.
“Damn!” he muttered, giving up. We’ll just have to send a local telegram to your house to see if somepony will come get us.”
Appleoosa, though a remote town, had been a test subject of the relatively new technology of telegrams. For now they could be sent to and from four junctions in the corners of the town as a way of quicker communication. Jack and Braeburn wandered about until they saw a sign advertising the public use of a telegraph inside another bar. They walked inside and headed for the apparatus. Inside the establishment were a group of the fiercest, most scrofulous ponies Jack had ever laid eyes on. They wore leather jackets with spiked studs with sunglasses to hide their angry scowls as they too drank themselves into a frenzy. The seedy bar frightened Jack who urged Braeburn to send the telegram already. Braeburn fumbled with the machine as he picked up the receiver.
“Huh? What?” he had trouble hearing the pony at the other end with the rowdy commotion from the crowd of thugs.
“Sorry operator I can’t hear ya’. Hold on a sec.” He turned around and faced the group.
“SHHHHHHHHHHHHH!” he hissed quite audibly. Everypony looked at him in shock.
“I’M TRYING TO USE THE PHONE!” He hollered drunkenly. Jack looked between him and the now approaching gang and cringed as Braeburn continued his message. Jack tried to approach the glaring thugs.
“Uhh, t-terribly sorry guys, we were just trying to-.” The criminals grabbed him and shoved him away as another one took the receiver and hung it up. Braeburn stared blankly at them.
“Are you stupid or somethin’?” asked one of the miscreants. “This here’s the private club of the Riders of the Dark Side of the Moon!” Braeburn looked up at the crowd of ponies with tattoos filled up with cider and crank eyeing him down. He smiled lamely.
“Oops! Haha! My mistake! Guess I’ll be going nowgh. S’cuse me! S’cuse me!” he said trying to budge past them. Instead, the ponies took him by the lapels as well as Jack and threw them outside, laughing it up in good old Schadenfreude. The pair brushed themselves off as Braeburn eyed a shelf on the railing of the bar’s porch. They were a row of what looked like roller-skates lined up in an orderly fashion, for they looked expensive. These were a type of gasoline powered skate that earth ponies could strap on to their hooves and be propelled to the velocity of a speeding Pegasus. The fearsome things gleamed a deathly black in the afternoon sunshine. They must have belonged to the gang inside who used them to terrorize desert travelers and whatnot where the sheriff had no jurisdiction.
Braeburn walked down the steps until he stumbled into the shelf, knocking it off its supports. The next few seconds seemed like an eternity when all the skates came tumbling down and very possibly breaking. Braeburn, shaken to his senses glanced at Jack, whose eyes were wide with fear.
“Get outta here! Get Applejack! She’s on her way her by train from the west!” Jack took off and speeded over to the train tracks. The gang inside heard the commotion. Seeing what had happened, they yelled in anger and grabbed Braeburn and hauled him back inside where they threw him on a table.
After belaboring him with their hooves for a minute or two, they decided to stop and come to a consensus as to what to do. Braeburn lay there for what felt like forever as the time ticked away slowly. He was bleeding and bruised, but nothing was broken. Yet.
After about fifteen whole minutes of bickering between the gang members, one of them stepped forward and whistled for attention.
“Hey!” he shouted. He made a slicing motion with his arm across his neck. “I say we just kill ‘em!” The thugs shouted in approval.
“YEAH!” Another stepped forward.
“I say we hang him then we kill ’em!”
“YEAH!” Yet another one who wore huge sunglasses leaned in.
“I say we stab him!”
“YEAH!”
“Then we geld him!”
“YEAH!”
“Then we hang him!”
“YEAH!”
“And then we kill him!”
“YEAAAAAH!” A squeaky, high pitched falsetto voice came suspiciously from Braeburn’s direction.
“I say, we let him go!”
“NO!” They laughed as they yanked him away from the table and drew their knives. Suddenly, somepony in the back cried out as they were thrown across the room by a powerful kick in the flank. Everyone including Braeburn turned around to see Applejack, Big Macintosh, the sheriff, and Jack at the door, glaring at them.
“Hold it right there!” shouted Applejack. “You hand over Braeburn this instant!”
“Or what?” the ringleader said as he and his crew advanced on them. The sheriff stood on his hind legs and drew his revolver, a reliable Colt .45. One of many types of firearms and none of which any of the gang members had.
“I wouldn’t do that if I were you.” Warned the sheriff.
The reluctant gang leader threw Braeburn toward them and motioned his thugs to return to their drinking quietly. Braeburn got up and stumbled out the door.
“Thanks sheriff.” Said Jack.
“Anytime.” He replied, holstering his weapon.
“Heh. Thanks cousins... Jack.” said Braeburn as he rubbed the back of his head sheepishly. Normally, Jack as well as Braeburn’s cousins would have been furious at him for getting himself in that kind of trouble. However, seeing that he was bleeding, and yet somehow still smiling, it was impossible to stay mad him for long. “I would’a been dead if it weren’t for y’all and Jack here. He’s the fastest flier this side of the mountain!” Jack blushed.
“Oh, lay off, that ain’t true.” He said modestly.
“What matters is that you’re safe, Braeburn.” said Applejack as she hugged him tight. Braeburn blushed back and made his trademark grin.
“C’mon! I’ll show ya’ round town!”
The sun set over the mountains.