Ñaco didn’t think of his hometown as dusty, but that was largely because he had never been to any other. Sure, his mother liked to keep the house clean, but dust always still managed to get into everything, sooner or later. Everything in the village was the same way, from the town hall, to the small saloon, the miller’s, the blacksmith’s, everything and everyone. Ñaco didn’t mind, though. Dust kept the biting flies away, at least a little. More importantly, it let the earth pony foal blend into the rocks and scrub better, since the white splotches of his pinto coat were almost always covered in brown.
“¡Te encontré!” A call went up from only a few dozen feet away. Ñaco looked up – stupidly, really, since it gave him away – and saw Tamale charging straight for him. He let out a laugh and turned to run. Tamale was taller than Ñaco, but Ñaco was still faster than the similarly pinto colt, or at least he liked to think that he was.
The two foals galloped as fast as their hooves could carry them, through the scrub and brush and rocks that surrounded the southern parts of the town, a frequent play area for the foals of the dusty place, at least when chores were done and the current harvest of maize was in – which it was. The adults were gathered together at Chicha’s saloon, having a serious discussion about something or other. They all seemed worried for some reason, Ñaco didn’t really know what. But the foals were allowed to play, and so they were doing just that – every foal in town, a big game of hide-and-seek tag.
Ñaco almost tripped over where Tortilla, Tamale’s younger sister, was hiding. Tortilla let out a squeal of surprise and laughter and shot off in a different direction. Ñaco would have thought that Tamale would break off and head after his sister, since an older brother rarely missed an opportunity to torment a little sister, but Tamale kept after him instead, like he had the past few times. Some small, budding part of Ñaco didn’t really mind the attention that Tamale had been giving him lately, but most of him simply didn’t want to get caught, and so he kept galloping.
It wasn’t enough this time, though. With a shout, Tamale leaped at Ñaco, tackling the other colt to the ground near where the brush was broken up by one of the only two roads that lead into or out of town. The tackle didn’t last long as Tamale then leaped off of him. “¡Tú la traes!” Tamale exclaimed, turning around and running off even as he shouted his head off. “¡Ñaco la trae!”
Ñaco growled a little at being caught by Tamale, again, but then let out a long sigh, sitting back on his haunches to catch his breath, close his eyes, and start counting. “Uno…dos…tres…”
He heard hoof beats down the road, but kept his eyes closed, not wanting to give Tamale or Tortilla or any of the other foals a chance to think he was a cheater. “…ocho…nueve…¡diez! ¡Listos o no, ahí voy!”
Ñaco opened his eyes…and immediately found himself looking at gray fur. Glancing up, he found himself looking into the eyes of a tall, powerfully-built bull, wearing a black Stetson hat between his pair of long, forward-curved horns and a poncho over his back. He wasn’t alone, either – two other bulls and a cow were with him, as well as a smaller figure in a simple brown, hooded cloak. Glancing down the road, Ñaco could see a whole herd made up of a mix of cattle, ponies, even a few buffalo.
Ñaco looked back to the bull leader. “B…buenos días…” he ventured.
The bull smiled. It was probably supposed to be a pleasant one, but Ñaco decided then and there that he didn’t like it. “Buenos días, potrillo,” he responded, his voice gravelly. “¿Habla Ecuestres?”
The colt blinked a few times. He did speak Equestrian, at least a little…but he didn’t want to let the bull know that for some reason. He shook his head. The bull only shrugged at that, though, not seeming too concerned. He leaned down, so that he was eye level with Ñaco “¿Dónde están tus padres?”
---
Mazorca de Maíz did his best to keep his expression even, to not show any outward sign of worry, as he watched King Longhorn enter the town, accompanied by a trio of cattle that each pulled an empty cart, a cloaked, pony-sized figure – and, worryingly, just about every foal in the village, who had been playing out in the scrub and brush but who had apparently been rounded up by Longhorn’s gang. Out beyond the village, far down the road leading to it, Mazorca could just about see the rest of Longhorn’s group. They called themselves Los Ladrones de Ganado – the Cattle Rustlers. Mazorca wasn’t sure if the name was supposed to be some kind of joke or pun. If it was, Mazorca didn’t find it funny.
Longhorn came to a stop in the middle of the village, the foals still near him. He had the attention of everypony, of course, mares and stallions all standing at their doorsteps or at the entrance to the saloon, all looking on in desperate worry. Most of them had a foal down there. All of them wanted to act – but with their foals so near…
Longhorn glanced down at a the foals, then made a small shooing motion with one hoof, sending them on their way. The foals didn’t need much of an excuse to go running off, galloping to their parents. Mazorca’s own grandfoal Ñaco rushed on by his legs, all but plowing into his parents, Tallo and Seda de Maíz. Mazorca heard them asking if he’d been hurt or threatened, and Ñaco said no. There was that, at least – Longhorn wasn’t the sort to hurt foals, at least not at the moment.
Mazorca turned around, motioning for everypony in the saloon to leave out the back entrance. It didn’t take much to convince them, as they quickly hurried away with their foals, heading back out to their farms. Mazorca, meanwhile, turned around and trotted out, approaching King Longhorn cautiously and openly.
“Buenos días, señor Longhorn,” he said, trying to sound pleasant. He switched to Equestrian, which Longhorn had a better grasp of. “You are early, señor. We were not expecting you for a week, or more.”
Longhorn didn’t look directly at Mazorca at first, instead still looking over the town, and the fact that all eyes were on him and Mazorca. The earth pony wasn’t very tall to begin with, while Longhorn was large even by bull standards. The sight of the village leader before the bull had to be intimidating. Certainly Mazorca was intimidated.
At length, Longhorn looked down to the earth pony. “We were in the area,” he said. “Hola, mi amigo. How long’s it been? Four months?”
Longhorn was mixing in some Caballerian, trying to show that he could be friendly – most likely a good sign. He even spoke the language fairly well, but then in this part of the world every being spoke at least a little Caballerian, and usually a Buffalo language or two as well. “Sí, señor Longhorn,” Mazorca said. “Four months.”
Longhorn nodded again, looking away, scanning the villagers. It was a habit of his, long periods of silence and examination of the surrounding area. Probably he was looking for an ambush, a challenger, somepony who would be stupid enough to attack him. There wasn’t such a pony in the village, though, not with Longhorn’s troupe waiting just outside of town. And that was for the best, since it meant that Longhorn didn’t have a reason to get mad.
“The trail leadin’ here’s a pretty long an’ dusty one,” he said, breaking out of his reverie, though not looking Mazorca’s way.
“Of course, señor,” Mazorca said, stepping aside. “And a thirsty one too, ¿sí? Come into el salón.”
Longhorn glanced over his shoulder, to the three other cattle, and nodded to them, indicating they should wait. They didn’t seem to mind, settling down onto their sides right in the middle of the town square. From packs slung over their backs they drew out canteens, maybe containing water, probably containing something notably stronger, and began to drink. The hooded figure that was with Longhorn, meanwhile, accompanied him.
The saloon belonged to a pony named Chicha, yellow with a white mane with a cutie mark of a jug of juice. She was still behind the bar of the saloon, and probably would be ‘til the end of her days. She fixed Longhorn with a rather pointed stare as he fit inside, a feat made easier thanks to the doorframe being wide enough to accommodate the buffalo that occasionally made their way through town as part of their migratory lifestyle. Longhorn, for his part, didn’t seem to notice or care for Chicha’s look, picking a seat where his back would be to a wall and his eyes could note every door and window in the place.
Mazorca couldn’t stop his surprise from showing, though, when Longhorn’s cloaked companion at last removed her hood, revealing black and white stripes across her coat and mane – a zebra. Surely that was something that Mazorca had never thought to see in his life! He knew that Longhorn’s Cattle Rustlers were an eclectic bunch, but he hadn’t thought them that eclectic. Then again, given the way the zebra pointedly took a seat as far away from Longhorn as possible, and that she didn’t look particularly happy to be here, maybe there was something more complex going on.
Regardless, it was certainly not something Mazorca wanted to get involved in. He stopped by the bar. “Tres güisquis, por favor,” he said, remembering from last time that Longhorn didn’t much care for the chicha maize-based drink that most of the villagers preferred and which was Chicha’s namesake, instead having whisky.
“Dos,” Longhorn corrected before Chicha could begin pouring out three glasses, “an’ a water. Mah friend Zecora here don’t drink.”
Mazorca nodded at that, then carried over the drinks, setting them down, and bringing the bottle with him. He waited for Longhorn to have a swig before taking one of his own. The zebra, meanwhile, had only a small sip of her water.
“Ah can’t tell ya,” Longhorn said at length, “what a pleasure it is to see a village like this.” He looked directly to Mazorca at last, even as he refilled his whisky. “So much restlessness an’ change in the outside world. Folk no longer content with their station in life.” He shook his head. “Everythin’ changin’. Last month, we were in Tía Tarta – a rich town. Big clocktower an’ courthourse an’ town hall. Not like here.” He waved a hoof around the saloon. “Ah imagine this here’s yer town hall, eh, ¿amigo? Anyway. Ya think we’d find gold candlesticks an’ a poor box full to overflowin’.” He shook his head. “Ya know what we found? Brass candlesticks, an’ almost nothin’ in the poor box.”
“Lo siento mucho,” Chicha mumbled under her breath from behind the bar, sarcasm dripping from her voice. Probably she had thought it was too quiet for anyone to hear – but Mazorca heard, and Longhorn did as well. The bull stood up faster than something his size should have been able to move. Mazorca stumbled backwards and away from him, while Chicha held up her own hooves in placation, eyes wide. The zebra Zecora, meanwhile, only took another sip from her water.
Longhorn eyed Chicha and Mazorca a moment. He didn’t sit back down, though he did take another swig of whisky. “We took it anyway, of course,” he said, continuing his story with a notable edge to his voice now. “’Course we took it anyway. What if y’all had to carry my load, huh? To provide food, like a father, for the mouths of mah Cattle Rustlers? Bandages, medicine, shoes, weapons. Y’all know how much money that costs? Huh? ¿Cuánto dinero?”
Mazorca had a pretty exact idea of how much the food cost, at least, but he couldn’t say that. He only shook his head, eyeing Chicha as he did. Thankfully, she also shook her head, though she wasn’t hiding her scowl.
The bull didn’t seem to be too concerned about mere bad looks. Longhorn didn’t sit back down, though he did take another swig of whiskey. “Course ya don’t know,” he said, looking away. “Once there were ponies an’ cattle an’ everythin’ else travelin’ everywhere here, after the war. Gold in the streams an’ fruit in the trees. Now there’s nothin’. Now I gots ta’ hunt with a price on mah head and Rurales on mah hooves.”
Mazorca wondered at that. After the war? Surely Longhorn didn’t mean the Caballero-Equestrian War of twenty years and more past. How long had this bull been a bandit – all his life? Had he known any other life? No wonder he thought nothing of robbing poor farmers of their food, and called it just for the sake of his Cattle Rustlers.
Longhorn took another swig of whiskey, then tucked it into the poncho he wore and started towards the door. Even as he did, he took out a trio of pesos, setting them on the counter, enough both for the bottle of whiskey and the zebra’s water. Probably he thought himself noble for paying for the drink. Zecora also stood, following Longhorn out the door.
Mazorca glared at Chicha for a moment at her antagonizing Longhorn. The mare, at least, had the good sense to look away in chastisement. “Lo siento,” she said softly.
Mazorca shook his head, following Longhorn and Zecora out, wondering what the zebra was even doing here. Longhorn, meanwhile, nodded to the cattle who had followed him into town. They nodded back. Familiar with what Longhorn wanted after he had been extorting them for years, the villagers had already begun loading up the empty carts that the cattle had brought with burlap bags full of maize and jugs of chicha. Longhorn observed all this dispassionately for a moment, then turned to Mazorca. “It ain’t enough,” he noted.
Mazorca blinked at that. “S…señor,” he tried. “We give you what we can…but we must eat too, ¿sí? If we cannot eat, we cannot farm…we give you what you took last time.”
Longhorn shook his head. “Ah know ya gots yer problems. Ah got mine.” He trotted down to the cattle. “Ah’ll get the rest when Ah come back. Gots a job ta do. We was just stoppin’ by. But we’ll be back.” He eyed Mazorca pointedly, then back around at the rest of the village. The blacksmith, the saloon, the mill, the shop, the half-dozen other buildings that made it up. He looked out, at the maize fields nearby, the stream that fed those fields, the scrublands to the south. He glanced up at the sun.
“Ah love this town,” he said, then turned about, heading out of it, cattle following him. “¡Adios, mis amigos! Ah’ll be back soon. Maybe a month.” He glanced over his shoulder. “Maybe less.”
The zebra lingered a moment, glancing to Mazorca, and around the town as well, appraising it. After a moment, however, she followed the bull, pulling her hood back over her head. Mazorca watched her go, and King Longhorn, and three of his Cattle Rustlers…and a huge portion of their last harvest of maize, what Equestrians called corn. Months of planting and tilling, of squeezing enough water out of this dry and dusty land just disappearing, not into their bellies, but into the bellies of thieves and marauders, looters and pillagers, no doubt killers, even, to those who resisted them too much.
And now Longhorn wanted more?
---
“We cannot keep doing this,” Tallo insisted to his father that night, when the moon was high in the sky and the stars glittered. The leaders of the town, such as they were, had gathered together in the saloon, while the foals were watched closely at home by the rest. With Longhorn gone, the whole conversation was in Caballerian, of course. “If Longhorn steals one more harvest, we may as well cut our own throats and be done with it!”
Mazorca glared at his son at even suggesting that, but Tallo was well past the age where a simple glare from his father would intimidate him. Besides, he had a point, and he knew it. “The harvests aren’t going to be good this year,” he continued. “We all know it. If we were just looking out for ourselves, we would make it. But not with Longhorn and his gang stealing from us!”
Tallo was right. The village was entirely earth ponies, eighty in all. That was their strength – it meant that their maize grew faster than it might otherwise have, their natural magic allowing them to pull three or four harvests from the ground each year without depleting the soil of its vital nutrients. But even earth pony magic had its limits. The river was running drier than normal this year, as was the underground aquifer that supplemented it. Longhorn’s group constituted another thirty or so beings, many of them cattle and some of them buffalo, which were much more voracious than ponies when it came to their food needs. And they took enough that they ate hearty meals besides…
“We could leave,” said another pony, Ají Amarillo. “Go to the mountains, back towards Caballeria proper. Or south towards the sea.”
“And leave our homes?” Chicha demanded from behind the bar. “Our farms? This is our land! We plant it, cultivate it, work for it. What do Longhorn and his thieves do to earn our maize? Why do they deserve it?”
“We could hide some food,” suggested one stallion. “Longhorn can’t take what he can’t find. We’ll just tell him it was a bad harvest.”
Mazorca shook his head sadly. “If he finds out, he will become angry. You all remember what he was like when he was angry, the first time he came to town.”
They all did, vividly. “Maybe we shouldn’t do anything,” another mare suggested. “Hope for the best.”
“We must do something!” Chicha insisted, stamping a hoof on her bar. “We cannot continue like this!”
“If you wish to end your plight,” said a new voice, in Equestrian, “then you shall find that you must fight.”
There were more than a dozen ponies in the saloon, and every one of their heads turned to the door at the sound, a deep female voice that none recognized – which, in a village this small, should have been impossible. Mazorca, and probably Chicha, recognized her instantly – it was the zebra, Zecora, the one who had accompanied Longhorn into town. Even though the other villagers didn’t know her name, they did remember that fact about her, and every villager stood.
Zecora took them in for a moment. “You will forgive my use of the Equestrian tongue,” she said, “but my learning of your language has only recently begun.”
Caballerian wasn’t an especially hard language to learn, at least not its basics. Mazorca wondered if her sticking to Equestrian had anything to do with the fact that she had just rhymed both her sentences, the first that he had heard her say.
“Fight?” One of the ponies in the saloon at last asked. “Are you crazy? We’re not fighters!”
“What would we fight him with?” another demanded. “Mares and stallions against cows and bulls?”
“And ain’t you with him anyway?” A third inquired.
Zeocra took their words in stride. “It is unwise to travel the desert alone,” she said, looking to the third pony who had spoken, “and King Longhorn’s nature I had not known. His services I procured ‘til my journey’s end, but now that I know his demeanor I must make amends.” Her eyes narrowed slightly. “In my homeland there are many like him, who make the lives of poor farmers so grim. I will not stand by while he torments this town – King may be his name, but he deserves no such crown.”
She looked to the crowd as a whole. “Longhorn will come again and again, until you starve – what shall you do then? To fight his herd is your only recourse. Your claim to this land you must reinforce.”
“We are not fighters,” Mazorca de Maíz spoke up, eying Zecora. He didn’t trust the zebra, even if everything she was saying was true. “Longhorn and his Cattle Rustlers are. We may have them outnumbered three to one…but they have no foals to protect, and are experienced in these matters. And we have no weapons here. Bare hooves and machetes against his gang? We are farmers. We know how to plant and grow, not to fight.”
“This I cannot deny,” Zecora said gravely. “But you must learn…or you surely will die.”