Chapter Two – A Fool’s Errand
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A prickle of arousal tapped lightly on the door of Applejack’s consciousness. Groggily, and with eyes still shut, she became aware that she was splayed out on her bed, prostrate, and still in her darn itchy wrangling clothes.
She cracked a single eye open to behold the room before her: a sparse setup that had cost her a mere twenty bits, but was obviously worth half that. She was stuck here until she could find a contract and move into a ranch house with some nice family. Applejack smiled faintly at the thought as she pushed herself up, but was startled to find her legs and forearms were incredibly sore. Even more to her stunned surprise, the pillow where she had been laying was stained with a considerable amount of dried blood!
Jumping up, she tried to rush over to get a look, but found herself, in fact, hobbling gingerly over to the cracked mirror that stood propped against the wall on a simple but disgustingly-chipped oak dresser. As she came to look at her reflection, she let out a startled gasp- she looked got-awful!
A thick amount of crusted blood sat now on the edge of her left nostril, and a black eye was puffed up, big, ugly and purple along her left eye. The unnerving purple was ringed by a sickly yellow, which clashed violently with her hard emerald eyes. Checking her body quickly, she deduced that nothing else was amiss or out of place. Her shirt had a rip or two, but otherwise, she was perfectly fine. The only hair that was out of place was her tail, which had been pulled out of its usual ponytail. Applejack fixed this quickly with an extra crimson band.
Now, she had to figure out what in the hay had happened last night that led up to all this. As she walked down the inn’s hall to the bathroom, Applejack wracked her brain thoroughly for any cues as to what might have happened, but only fuzzy darkness could be recalled. When her memory finally came back with absolutely nothing, she admitted sore defeat with a long sigh, and splashed cold water on her face.
Having washed off the blood, she took tender care to her bruised eye, and then finally sauntered back to her room. As she shut the cheap door behind her, Applejack wrestled off her filthy, grimy clothes. Heaping them in a corner of her room, she ignored the internal voice of Granny Smith as she scolded the mare for leaving her dirty garments on the floor.
She shuffled through her plain dresser, picking out her outfit for the day: a blue collared shirt, an earth-brown vest, and finally, a bright red neckerchief, which she tied around her neck in the strange fashion that a nice stallion had shown her when she had first gotten into town. Checking her appearance in the mirror, she deemed herself presentable enough to be wandering around the backwards town. A nagging thought pulled at her though, and she felt something was missing.
Mah hat! she thought with a start. Whipping around, she looked around for her signature brown Stetson, and felt a panic as she couldn’t spot it. After tossing over everything in her room (of which there wasn't much, just a bed, a coatrack, and a dresser), she finally admitted defeat. With her head slunk down low, she ambled out of her room, slamming the door hard as she left.
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Applejack clambered moodily down the gaily-carpeted stairs into the hotel’s lobby. At nearly a half past noon, the big, gaudily-adorned room wasn’t exactly a model in booming business. A single, beige pegasus colt stood behind the bar, polishing mugs with a dirtier rag than she had ever seen before. Making a private notion to never drink anything here, she walked past the green-velvet barstools and up to the billboard next to the door that had various posters pinned to it with little iron nails.
“Ey, dontchu look awful. What happened to you?” the pegasus asked as he placed the dank mug under the bar, and brought up another one that seemed a lot filthier than it ought to have been.
“Dunno, really,” Applejack replied, a bit rougher than she had probably intended to. Looking forward at the board, she skipped over the wanted posters and advertisements, as well as the odd request for a bounty or a fancy new do-dad. All of these were not quite what she had come here for. With a private murmur of triumph, she found a ledger entitled “Cattle Drivers Wanted.”
Her face fell, though, as she spotted the date: Octember twenty-second. Almost six months ago.
“Dontcha’ll change the sheets over here?” Applejack called irately at the pegasus bartender. The latter spat thickly into a glass, and turned to face his verbal assailant.
“If ya don’t like it, then go to the Prissy Mare down the street! I’m sure they have plenty of room for a belly-acher like you,” he remarked gruffly, laying a leering mauve eye upon Applejack’s form. His wings ruffled in irritation.
Applejack merely groaned to herself, and turned back to the ledger. She noticed that only a single name had been filled out on the entire twenty-five column-long list. With a final glance, she caught the name of a single pony, written in what looked to be big, swooping black pen. It read “Big Jim & Posse.”
Taking a little step backwards, Applejack felt her mind kick itself in place with a hard buck as the name brought back a flood of memories. She remembered the saloon, and that big bully pushing his way up to the bar. That was about the extent to which she remembered, though, as the rest was more than a bit hazy.
Deciding to take the barkeep’s advice and check at The Prissy Mare, she ambled out the door. An extreme sense of loss fell over her, though, as she reached habitually for her hat to block the sun from her eyes, and found it was still missing. Trudging up the well-worn street, she watched as various carts of apples, ponies lugging sacks of oats, and the occasional guest coach meandered up and down the long, dusty road.
Like a majority of wild-west cities out here in the Stallione Desert, this one was built in a long stretch of hard-packed road that had been considered less-than-desolate-enough for habitation, and ended abruptly on a giant ochre butte at the end of the meandering street.
After wandering a couple dozen steps, she chanced a glance up into the blaring of the noontime sun, and beheld before her a grand establishment. A cheaply-adorned sign hung out in display, which had the silhouetted image of a bucking white unicorn swathed in a cherry-red scarf that hung down past her hooves. The gilded letters, spelled out in large, archaic print, read “The Prissy Mare.”
Applejack snorted as thoughts of her friend Rarity conjured up in her mind. Shaking her head gently with a slight smile, she pushed up onto the wooden porch and walked up to the big purple door. With a bang and a crash, she fell straight back on her flanks as the door whipped open, and out sauntered a gaggle of chortling ponies.
Glancing up with a grimace of pain, she recognized the one at the head of the pack: a large earth pony stallion who was laughing heavily, shaking his long blonde mane about under the wide brim of his black hat. The stallion stopped short as he spotted a very familiar orange earth pony that was shuffling quickly to her feet before him.
“Fire 'n’ Ice!” he cried, and broke into a giant lopsided grin, the likes of which had a front tooth chipped away. Applejack noticed that he had a large, sore-looking split lip, and both his eyes were ringed with the vestiges of a bruise. “Fancy meetin’ you here, huh?” he chided, clicking his tongue. The three ponies that had been following him closely broke into the same smile as they looked at the tawny mare before them.
Before her, Applejack saw a midnight blue mare whose shock of a bold-white mane spilled about her shoulders under a pale purple hat. Behind her was a giant sky-blue unicorn stallion, who had on the same leering grin that Big did, though it held within it an entirely different fire. Further still behind the three was a slinky-looking earth pony colt, the wide brim of his earth-brown Stetson pulled low over his darting amber eyes. Applejack noticed with another glance that they all looked like they had taken a serious lickin’ recently.
“Whaddaya want, Big?” Applejack said darkly. She wasn’t in the mood for this. Daylight was burning, and so far she hadn’t found a single job here- not to mention the fact that her flanks were starting to ache, thanks to this jerk. Big took another step forward, his gaze alighting on Applejack’s uncovered head.
“Ya’know, I’ve seen a hat jus’ like yours sittin’ around at my place. In fact,” the stallion said with a mocking grimace, “I believe it is your hat, seein’ as how it came off in our little tussle last night.”
Applejack’s emerald eyes went wide as she remembered up to the point where she had stumbled, drunk, across all five ponies. She quickly realized that one of the gang that she had run into wasn’t here with them- the stallion with the well-trimmed moustache.
“Uh…where’s that fifth pony that was with ya?” she asked carefully. Big snorted, dropping his gaze straight to the ground. The sound of his musing cascaded into a full blown laugh as Big continued to stare intently at the ground.
“Oh, you did old Ben Greene quite a well one last night. He’s holed up at our place with two broken legs.” A wild spark caught in the stallion’s amber eye as he looked up to Applejack now. “I think you should come meet him, and then you can get back your hat.”
“Ah don’t think so,” Applejack replied, shaking her head. She placed a hoof back to get respectfully out of their way, but Big merely stepped forward and laid a dense hoof on her shoulder, pinning her down. Applejack’s eyes went wide with fright as he shot his face right up to hers, their noses just inches away from each other.
“Wasn’t an offer,” he said through a tight smile, and picked Applejack up straight off the ground in his foreleg. “Posse, let’s get back to the clubhouse,” he called behind him as Applejack thrashed and flailed vainly in his iron grip. A chorus of ayes followed his hearty call, and the four cowpokes, along with their struggling guest, made their way down the long, dry street to a cabin that was holed up in the side of the giant butte at the end of town.
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“Lemme go!” Applejack shouted as Big placed her deftly in a chair. Inside the cabin, it was mercifully cool, but rather gloomy, save for the cheery little fire that burned away in the corner near a pair of bunk beds. A stallion lay bundled up in the bottom corner bunk, with two splinted legs sticking out of his blanket and right off the edge.
“Aw, quit yer belly-achin’, we ain’t gonna do anything to you,” Big shouted back at Applejack’s defiant form. He walked briskly over to the coatrack by the door, grabbed in his teeth the only hat that hung there, and plopped it on Applejack’s squirming head. “There, see? There’s your hat. Now let’s talk, alright?” The stallion grabbed a chair and sat in it backwards, with his booted legs splayed around the back of the chair.
This had caught Applejack right off guard. She had expected the posse to be wrapping her up and placing her on a set of train tracks, like all the bad guys in the western books she read did. It seemed what she had to learn about the ponies here was going to be an interesting lesson, indeed.
“Talk about what?” she asked brazenly as her piercing emerald eye looked the stallion up and down now. The rest of the posse had disbanded now. The large stallion and the slinky-looking colt were off playing cards on the little round table by the grimy window, and the mare was tending to the moaning stallion in bed. Big took a deep breath and huffed it out loudly.
“Ya see Greene over there?” He indicated with a nudge of his head. Applejack looked back over at the bunk. “He’s in a double splint because of you.”
“Me! That’s impossible. Ain’t no way I could break both a stallion’s legs if’n I was, well, drunk,” Applejack retorted, holding her gaze hard on Big’s face. He continued to maintain the cool look of aloof indifference he had been wearing when he sat down, though.
“Oh, well if you’re sure,” Big replied with a mocking tone of blasé, “I’m certain that that’s also why you managed to kick the spit outta both Bo and Dodger over there, and wind Midnight to the point of her passin’ out. And I guess that Greene’s legs broke themselves, too, and not to mention…” He snorted now, and adjusted his hat to an ever-so-jaunty tilt, “I found myself passed out over a barrel at dawn for no particular reason, neither. Nopony’s ever done that before. And while I will be the first to admit that I am nopony to be taken as a lightweight (Applejack’s eyes rolled at this), a fightin’ spirit such as your own would be a mighty excellent addition to our posse here in Buck City.” At this, he tipped his hat ever-so-gently, and brought it back up with a big, winning grin on his face.
Applejack was stunned. She had full well expected the gang to drag her back here and beat the living hay out of her, or maybe even sell her to some traveling caravan for a measly hoof-full of bits. But now, here she was, in a long little cabin at the outskirts of Buck City, being asked for help by the premier cowpoke this side of Equestria.
“I, uh…” she stuttered, not sure what to say. Did she really want to be associated with these bandits? Her features hardening, she let out a single response, “No, Ah don’t think so.”
Big’s wide grin fell at this.
“Whaddaya sayin’? C’mon, miss, I don’t think you understand here,” he said darkly, an edge of desperation cracking his deep voice, “We’ve gotta be packin' up for a massive cattle drive this evenin’ to set out tomorrow mornin', and you’ve gone and broken one of my posse’s legs. I think you owe us, just a bit,” he growled, a guttural emphasis on his heavy words.
“Nope. Ah will not be associated with the likes of you,” Applejack said, shaking her head disdainfully. “And besides- ya'll are the ones that jumped me behind the hotel! What Ah did was purely in self-defense!” She glowered at the stallion, whose face was wide in angry shock.
“Now you listen here, miss,” Big started with a growl, and stood up, throwing his chair into the table next to him. Both ponies that had been playing cards shouted in outrage as their deck fell in a wild flutter to the ground. The dark mare at the other end of the cabin was walking over now with a determined pace. Big set himself forth on Applejack. Grabbing her bodily by her vest, he lifted her gasping form straight into the air.
“I will not be having my name tarnished because you’ve gone and bucked everything up!” he bellowed right in her face. Spittle smacked itself straight into Applejack's expression of fright.
“Big, sett’r down!” the dark mare named Midnight shouted at the hulking stallion. Big paid her no heed, though, as he continued to shake Applejack’s form like a rag doll. Finally, Midnight ran up and pushed the stallion bodily, shaking him from his crazed stupor.
“Stop it!” she cried in the beefy stallion’s face. Big merely grimaced, locking a death stare a hundred miles past his tortured guest. Finally, he set Applejack right back down in her chair with a plop. She curled up on the seat, shaking violently.
“Sorry, Midi…” the stallion mumbled, and grabbed another chair to sit back down in. This time, he sat properly in the wooden chair, and let out a hot huff of irritated breath as he looked off, brooding. The dark mare looked to Applejack now, a calm smile passing over her lips.
“Ah’m sorry about Big. His ego really does get the best of him. Oh, stop it, Jim, you know it does,” she added sharply when the stallion had spoken up with a loud retort. Confident she had him under control once more, she nodded to herself, and turned back to Applejack.
“Look, hon, Ah know we’ve gotten off to a, er, bad start, but after last night, the way you laid us all out… Well, Ah have to say, Ah— no, all of us, would be thrilled to have you on as part of our gang for this cattle run. ‘Specially since poor old Greene there isn’t in much shape to leave tonight.” She ended her sweet words with an even sweeter smile, the likes of which made Applejack think of the zap apple tarts she used to make back home with Apple Bloom; sweet and delightful, but they held in them quite a bite if you weren’t careful.
“Well, Ah mean, Ah dunno,” Applejack said plainly, as fear trickled out of her and was slowly replaced with curiosity. She recalled the offer that Horace the rancher had placed on this trip last night: two-hundred bits on each head of cattle. And that was some mighty fine money, too. She figured it would be a grand sum to bring back to her family in Ponyville.
She eyed all five ponies now with a careful, methodical glance.
“Can Ah trust ya’ll?” she asked uneasily. Midnight nodded her head, causing her milk-white mane to spill over her dark shoulders in a grand way.
“Absolutely, darlin’! Ah’ll even see to it you get the right treatment from Mister Cooley over here.” With this, she shot a harsh glare at the large stallion. Applejack mused how he flinched slightly under the mare’s glance, and mumbled off-hoof as he glanced out the far window.
“And uh, what about the rest of them? They were there last night to take a lick at me,” she inquired, pointing a still-shaking hoof at the pair of ponies that were picking up their cards from off the ground.
“Oh, don’t worry much about Bo and Dodger. They’ll listen to what Big says, and like I said, Big’s not going to give you any more trouble.” She smiled again. “I’ll take it that’s a yes, then?”
Applejack merely nodded, though her head felt much heavier than it should have at the gesture.
“Ah, excellent. We were afraid we wouldn’t have a fifth pony out there on the planes. You’ve got everything, right? A rope, a pack, camping supplies?” Applejack nodded at each of these things, but silently cursed herself for doing so... She didn’t have any camping supplies. All she had was what she could pack in the duffel that she had lugged on the train: some clothes, her rope, a pair of boots, and her coin purse (which hadn’t started out very big in the first place, either).
More things Ah gotta spend mah bits on, she thought to herself with a private grimace.
“Oh, even more excellent! Okay, hon, we’ve gotta get situated here, then. You go off n’ run to where you’re staying, get packed up. It’s about a six day trek across Jacheo plains, by-th'-by.”
Midnight glanced up and down Applejack with a curious look, her intimidating yellow eyes seeming to pierce her guest’s very being. The dark pony smirked a bit.
“I hope ya got a Bowie knife, too, hon. And I hope to Celestia ya know how to use it.” She chuckled quietly, and broke her gaze from Applejack as she began to walk away. Applejack gulped hard as she caught the vague warning.
“W-what? Why?” she managed through gulps. Midnight merely shot a single golden eye behind her. It caught the glare of the nearby fire.
“The plains are a mighty savage land, hon.” She glanced her guest up and down with a keen eye, “I’m sure you’ll handle yourself well, though. No worries.” She let out a yipping little laugh and continued back to the form of the injured posse member. Applejack’s face was caught in utter confusion, and she rose up out of her chair to leave.
Big came up behind her, and she jumped as he placed a large hoof on her shoulder. That effect had occurred too many times to not react to.
“See you tomorrow mornin’, Fire 'n' Ice. Nice an' early!” Big said with a cruel smile. He called to the two ponies sitting at the card table, and proceeded to walk out the door.
As dazzling sunlight slashed across her face, Applejack couldn’t do a thing but stand dumbstruck as the three male wranglers shut the door behind them. Cool darkness washed over her once more.
What have I gotten mahself into this time? she thought morbidly.