Cracker Jack
Who stood before the miscreant Cracker Jack was somepony he had never thought or hoped to see in his life ever again. He didn’t know how this had come to be, or why his luck seemed to be worst in the world, but here was the strange creature from the bar all those months ago…
What town had it been? Oh, it didn’t matter. Everything was a damned drunken haze at that point, he wasn’t even sure what town he was in now. All he knew was that it was his now. No way that Marshal could have survived such a flurry of lead.
What bothered him though, was that no one had bothered to fire their weapon at this point. They all just stood there, looking at one another as the freak stood in the doorway of the station.
“It figures you’d show up again. You’re going to die this time, whatever you are,” he wanted to sound as sure as he could when saying this, but the memories of their last encounter still wracked at his mind.
They all didn’t bother to notice the unicorn that laid on the ground dead, the product of a single shot from this alien sharpshooter. It was what made them hesitate further, he was quicker than any of them could hope to be due to those fleshy claws of his.
The thing remained silent though, and this began to bother Cracker Jack. He just looked… distant, unconcerned for his life, even though it had been threatened. This cocky son of a bitch needed to be put in his place. Maybe after they had killed him, they'd leave bits and pieces of him hanging from clotheslines above town… Something fitting of this inferior thing.
“You’re going to stay silent even now? Some sort of thing you are,” he laughed awkwardly, looking around at his allies. They were simply looking at him to give them some sort of indication to proceed. He wanted to make this thing squeal before he died, though.
He trotted up to the steps of the station, looking up at this defiant thing. They studied each other, but Cracker Jack seemed to still get nothing from those eyes. “You can cut this pathetic tough stallion act, stranger. You’ll die just like a coward in the end.”
The creature took a step forward, causing everyone around to tense up and aim down the sights of their weapons once more. Was he going to finally speak up?
“So why haven’t you killed me yet?” The stranger questioned casually, gesturing to the group the held their weapons towards him, bullet cases littering the ground from their past firing.
“Excuse me?” Cracker Jack questioned. Was this thing suicidal? “You askin’ to die?”
The creature shook his head, indicating that this definitely not what he was implying. Cracker Jack was having a hard time trying to understand the reasoning behind such a statement then.
“You’re a fucking idiot,” the messy unicorn finally declared, laughing as hard as he could, certain that this thing was about as intelligent as an inbred buffalo.
This was about all he was going to get. Fine, at this point he just wanted to see this piece of shit dead anyways. He turned around and began to head back to the others, ready to give the signal.
“Hey,” the stranger called back to him.
Was he finally going to beg for his pointless life? This was promising. Cracker Jack began to turn around, intent on hearing this things last words so he could-
*bang*
It happened so quick, pain shot up through his foreleg, causing him to fallback, and for everypony around him to open fire once more on the already ruined station. He had been shot in the leg, that fucking thing shot him in the leg.
“End him! Fucking kill him!” Cracker Jack yelled out at the top of his lungs, anger boiling over mixed with sudden fear and adrenaline. He couldn’t stop looking at the wound in his leg, it ran red and began to coat the fur around it. He attempted to brush it off, to get the blood away, he couldn’t stand seeing his own blood. It only served to mat down his fur, crimson growing more and more prominent.
“Where is he?” One of the unicorn lackeys called out.
“I don’t know! Damn it all!” Another one barked. They all continued to fire, however, convinced that he couldn’t have possibly left the front of the building. Nothing alive could dodge bullets.
Cracker Jack was just about to tell them to stop when one of his stallions called out, suddenly ecstatic. “I think we hit him! I saw blood! I heard him too!”
“Well keep firing, ya idiot!” The unicorn by him said, pushing him with a hoof.
And so they did, but it was all leaving a sour taste in his mouth. Ever since he had managed to get away and take over what was once Slackjaw’s gang, he had never seen anypony handle a gun like the way this thing did. He hated and admired him at the same time for this uncanny ability he had. It made him want to kill the thing even more.
That was why he let them keep firing, that’s why he didn’t bother to stop, to think that there was nothing off about this. They were going to run out of bullets eventually, however. That was when he finally spoke up.
“Stop! Stop!” He shouted from his seat on the ground.
They ceased, and one of them finally came over to tend to his wound, wrapping his leg with a small handkerchief. He snatched it and place it over his foreleg, telling the sympathetic unicorn to leave him be.
“Should we go look, boss?” It was quiet for a long moment. “Boss?”
Sometimes he forgot he was the one in charge now. “Yes! Yes, yes, yes, get your flanks in there if you’re so confident you killed him. Somepony help me up…”
“But you just told me to leave you alone…” The one who had given him the handkerchief came bolting back, ever helpful and annoying as ever.
“Well I changed my mind, idiot! Now help me up.”
He grunted as he was pulled up off the ground, and he threw his good foreleg over the back of the unlucky helper. Cracker Jack watched his stallions storm into the station, guns toting and ready to fire on a split second’s notice.
“Oh boy,” one said, “I think we got him over here.”
“Let me up, I want to see this,” Cracker Jack ordered. He was lead by his now living crutch to the inside of the station.
They could hear gargling blood and coughing from what appeared to be the marshal’s desk. It looked as if this stranger’s luck had finally run out. This was going to be a cause for celebration, he just wish he didn’t have to take a bullet for it.
“Well, what are you waiting for?” He asked the others who all stood around the desk. “Aren’t you shitwits going to check it out?”
“Uhh, sure thing,” one finally said, forcing himself to look stern while trotting over to the desk.
Everypony grew intense as he slowly inched around the desk to see the damage they had all caused. His weapon was still drawn, ready to deliver the final blow if need be.
The choking of blood could still be heard and when the stallion finally lowered his gaze to the open cavity of the underlying desk, he jolted away, shocked and disgusted.
“What?” Cracker Jack questioned. “Don’t tell me you can’t handle to the sight of a good fillin’ of lead,” he was going to have to thin this little group out if they were all whimsical like this fellow.
“N-no… it’s not that…” The unicorn was fighting back bile rising up into his mouth.
“Spit it out,” he commanded. Of course, the sick unicorn couldn’t even bother to open his mouth now that he having difficulty controlling his stomach. “Somepony, pull this son of a bitch out so we can see what left this little yellow-belly so shaken.”
And so a group of others went over and dragged the body out, all giving off a similar reaction to the first one to even take a look at the others. Cracker Jack was about to begin yelling at them until he saw exactly what was causing such a reaction.
The dying creature the laid before them, covered in bullet wounds all throughout his body was not the stranger they had hoped to end. It was of the unicorn he had initially come here to collect. They had killed one of their own. Or they soon to have.
The thing was still barely breathing, trying to get oxygen through it’s blood filled airways. It sounded awful and it was making Cracker Jack begin to grit his teeth.
“Do him a favor and put a bullet in his head already, dammit,” he commanded, pushing his helper away and falling back against the wall. “I’m tired of hearing this shit.”
One went over and did the deed, a single shot in between the eyes, ending the suffering of the once imprisoned ally of theirs.
“What do we do now?” One of them asked.
Cracker Jack couldn’t help but grate his teeth. “He’s gone, the clever bastard,” he motioned for everypony to leave the station and take the body with them to bury in the outskirts of town, once they did, he was helped out to stand out before them.
“I want this forsaken shithole scoured out until dawn. After that, I don’t care what you do, just don’t go around killing anypony unless you’re willing to take it to me,” he watched them all as they looked back, awaiting one last command. “Get out of my sight.”
He ordered the pony he was leaning on to take him back into the station. He went over and sat in the desk, grunting from the pain in his forehoof. “Go and find the doctor here. Tell them that it would be in the best interest of their own health if they came here and patched me up.”
The unicorn nodded and rushed out of the station, leaving Cracker Jack to himself. He slammed his good hoof into the desk in anger, the ground below him still covered in blood, he had forgotten what had conspired her just minutes ago.
He had wanted to wait a bit longer before he made his move, but with some of his underlings getting captured and then the stubbornness of the marshall, he was forced to take over Appleloosa ahead of his desired time. He had imagined something more glorious than just them firing on the station. He had wanted something akin to a shootout on high noon or something of the ilk. Oh well, he’d have his chance.
They were going to have to think fast, for the ponies that would be coming in on trains might find something suspicious. He was going to have to stifle the collective mouths of the the town from speaking of their occupation of the town, and what better way than through fear? That was why he had given his stallions free rein of the town after their forceful search of the tricky creature that had eluded their grasp. This town would learn to fear them.
They were likely cowering in their homes right now, and that made him smile. It was time he put his hoof down since Slackjaw bit the dust. He might not have been used to all this commanding stuff just yet, but he would make sure he was never made to look like a fool ever again. He had remembered just how childish he was back then…
The unicorn he had sent off eventually returned with the physician of the town, a red-eyed, stumbly stallion, obviously lacking sleep. He wore nothing but a strap around his chest that adorned all his medical tools of trade. Cracker Jack was just glad he had been told specifically why he was coming out, too often his band of brigands would immediately resort to brutish coercion.
As soon as the physician saw bloody handkerchief around his foreleg that leaned over the desk, his eyes focused and his instincts as a caregiver gave in.
He hurried over to the gang leader who watched him with uncaring eyes.
“Please remove the handkerchief from your front leg please,” he instructed, digging through his chest strap for the tool that would be needed.
Cracker Jack rolled his eyes and did as he was told, pulling the cloth from his wound. It wasn’t bleeding as bad, but the hole hardly looked better, and the gang leader felt his stomach lurch at the sight of it. He turned his head around and sighed.
The physician pulled out a pair of metallic tweezers with a silent hum of satisfaction. “You know, this would be a lot easier if you came back to my-”
“I’ll be staying right here, thank you,” he wasn’t going to move an inch from this station until he knew this town was his now. Already, ponies were following his requests, however. A good sign.
The doctor shrugged and began to speak again. “I assume you want to do this sitting up then? No ether to take your mind off the pain?”
“Why don’t you just keep your yap shut and do what you’ve been told?” Cracker Jack growled. Some ponies have their last sentence be a question the way they talked, he never understood them.
The doctor gave a warning, telling Cracker Jack to stay still as he inched ever closer with the tweezers in mouth. He clenched his teeth as he braced for the intrusion into his flesh.
The pain was more than he ever could have imagined. He strained himself as he felt the metallic pincers enter his wounded foreleg, and he immediately slammed his other hoof into the desk, grunting in pain.
“Boss…?” The one pony that had done nearly everything for him tonight asked, worried for his distressed leader.
Cracker Jack spoke up, fighting back tears and the urge to shudder as the tweezers poked around in search of the bullet pieces within him. “Shut up! J-just go look in the back or something, get out of my sight…”
His tireless helper frowned, but did as he was told, moving into the back where the cells laid. Cracker Jack might have felt bad for treating him like this after all he had done for him, but that couldn’t be helped right now. He was in fucking agony.
“You’re lucky it didn’t hit anything too serious,” the physician commented casually, pulling out what Cracker Jack assumed was a small piece of the bullet within him. He wanted to hope that was it but he felt himself nearly on the verge of throwing up as the doctor went back to probing within him.
The leader couldn’t find the voice to speak with, instead opting to give off some sort of irritated growl, wishing it could all come to an end sooner than later.
“B-boss!” The unicorn he had just sent off came bolting into the front office, shouting out for his attention. “Boss! I think I-”
“Hold that f-fucking thought,” Cracker Jack managed out, his gaze traveling all across the room in some attempt to take his mind off the pain. It wasn’t doing any good at all.
The doctor had no consideration for what he putting him through, but he supposed that was because of who he was. Or maybe he just wished he could have gone under with the ether, that would have been good at this point.
“I’m almost done,” the doctor announced, much to the relief of everyone in the room for many different reasons.
With the last bit out, the doctor took the pieces he had extracted from the arm of the brigand and placed them in some sort of pouch bag that he had produced from one of the pouches on the strap along his vest. He then proceeded to wrap the brigand’s leg several times with a long linen strip, biting off the end when it was satisfactory. He kept his bloody tweezers at a distance as he looked at Cracker Jack expectantly.
“May I go back to my home, sir?” He asked, his eyes even worse than they had been upon his arrival.
The gang leader gave a motion with his hoof to the exit, sending the doctor off. It was about time. He huffed and turned to the helpful yet annoying unicorn that seemed to never leave him alone. “Yeah?”
“Boss, I may know where that thing and the marshal went,” he said this on wobbling legs unsure of himself.
Cracker Jack’s eyes narrowed. “What?” He had completely forgotten about the marshal. “Where?”
“Well, there was a door leading out back. They’re likely far into the desert by now. Maybe they’ll just die out there?” The unicorn suggested hopefully with a fake smile.
If he had been hoping for some form of praise he was sadly mistaken. The gang leader motioned for him to come over. “Help me up, I want to see this.”
For the last time, the lackey helped him up and allowed him to lean upon him as they both went into the back room that contained all the cells. Cracker Jack groaned as he looked at what had led his underling to this conclusion.
It wasn’t even subtle. The door was wide open, leading out to the cold night where he could see a few hills being cut off by the silhouettes of cacti against the glare of the moon. This was both good and bad.
“Alright,” Cracker Jack finally said, turning them around to head back into the front. “This town is ours, but we’d have to be real stupid to not think they’d be coming back at some point.”
“What if they just die out there?” His crutch began to say.
“Can’t trust on nature doing anything for you. We’ll be ready for when they come,” he returned back to his seat, and shooed the helper away for the last time.
They’d be ready for the creature and the marshal. They’d have to be after what they had just done.