It was late one night when I landed in this little saloon in the Shenandoah valley, a real seedy looking joint called the Dew Drop inn.
The barkeep was half asleep and there weren’t no-one else in the room. He asked what I’d have, and I asked him what was cheap. He gave me kind of a sour look and pulled a bottle from under the counter. I took a swig and grimaced, it was cheap all right. He asked me where I was from and I simply responded, “Around,” and asked if there was a room. He led me upstairs to the back corner, again cheap. I collapsed onto the rickety rope and straw bed and fell into an exhausted stupor.
I was aroused by a creaking in the floorboards, not unusual in an old motel, but these were the slow, deliberate steps of somepony not wanting to be heard. I didn’t move a muscle, but I tightened my grip on the buck knife I always have beneath my pillow.
The handle in my door jiggled and I heard the scrape of the lock. Someone entered the room and I felt their presence lean over me. That’s when I bucked their hooves out from under them and had the knife to their throat before they hit the floor. It was the barkeep.
“What in Celestia’s name do ya think you're doing?!” I hollered. I let him go.
“There’s a gentlecolt at the front desk asking for you,” he glowered, rubbing his throat. Something about the way he spat out “gentlecolt” gave me the willies.
I looked out the window but saw nothing, except for the wan light of early morning.
“What’d he look like,” I demanded as the old stallion got to his feet.
“He was a brown unicorn in a long grey coat, now if you’ll excuse me,” with that he left.
Horse-clods, I swore, how’d he find me here? I threw on my hat and picked up my rifle case. The old window was nailed shut. I dropped a few bits on the floor and kicked the window out. With that out of the way I leapt from the sill, only to meet a water barrel in mid air. It split on my head before I could react and i crashed to the ground two stories below.
“Well, well, well. What do we have here?” The brown unicorn gloated from the boardwalk, “if it isn’t Crackshot, the longest shot in the west,” he sidled up to me, “Here’s the thing though, you ain’t in the west no more,” he said his voice sinister. His horn glowed with magic, I didn’t wait to see what would happen. I leapt up and took to the air as fast as I could kicking him up side the head as I took off. I saw the flash of magic and heard him swear, but whatever it was must have missed me.
I took off towards the mountain, my speed fueled by adrenaline and a need to escape. Eventually that wore off and I felt the pain in my left wing joint, likely from the crash. I landed in a twisted, knotted oak tree and drifted into fitful sleep, as Celestia continued to raise the sun over the land.