Jonah Hex in A Fistful of Apples

by Octavia_Melody

The Town

About four miles into their journey, a light rain began to spread, creating a few more puddles. Both the pony and the human were grateful for the rainfall. Hex unbridled Applejack and both of them opened their mouths wide and gulped in the rainwater. Applejack lapped up as many puddles as she could find and Hex filled up his canteen. Once Applejack had satisfied her thirst, she took it upon herself to ask the question that had bothered her since she first laid eyes on Jonah Hex.

“Hey there, sugarcube.” she began, “Ah don’t mean innithin’ by this, but what happened to yer face?”

Hex gave the pony a death glare that made her shudder.

“Cut mahself shavin’.” he said, “What’s yer excuse?”

Applejack scrapped the ground with her hoof and blushed.

Hex and Applejack said nothing the rest of the journey, Applejack because she had no choice, and Hex because he hated how so many people inevitably asked him about his deformity. Much of the time he was of the mood to knock their teeth in. Hex had already avenged himself of the man that had scarred him, but it didn’t mean that the scars weren’t still there, body and mind.

About near the ten mile point, just as Hex saw Applewood ahead, a cavalry group of about twenty Union soldiers on horseback rode up to him. At the head of the cavalry was a black man with a large beard wearing an officer’s uniform.

“Company! Halt!” the lead officer ordered.

The team of horses were reigned in, leaving a cloud of dust behind them.

“Colonel Marcus Freeman, 3rd Infantry Regiment.” the lead officer announced, “State your name, stranger.”

“Jonah Hex.” Hex replied, “What’s it to ya?”

“The town head is deserted.” Col. Freeman explained, “Not a single soul present, living or dead. I assume you came into town to trade?”

“Somethin’ like that.” Hex replied, “So tha whole town walked out on ya?”

“They may be in the mine past the town.” Freeman suggested, “We’re about to scope it out. Is there any chance you would join us, stranger?”

“Tha name’s Hex.” Hex repeated, “An’ ah don’t exactly aim ta help ya scurry round some old mine, boy.”

“What did you call me?” Freeman demanded in a flash of anger.

“Called ya ‘boy’, boy.” Hex continued, “Ah call alotta people boy, an some’ve em er white.”

Upon hearing this, Freeman trotted up to Hex and shoved him off of Applejack. Hex tumbled to the ground and Applejack made a muffled shout of concern.

Hex gave off rasp laughter as he picked himself up and dusted himself off.

“Don’t get yer dandy in a ruff, colonel.” Hex said, “Ah didn’t mean anythin’ by it, it’s just that it weren’t too long ago we found ourselves on opposite sides of tha battlefield, and ya know what they say, old habits die hard.”

“I’ve already seen enough dying for one lifetime, Hex.” Freeman warned, “Mock me again and I’ll strike you with my sabre.”

“You had better rustle on out of here, you half-faced freak.” another soldier commented, making his own horse step forward.

“At ease, Sgt. Jarvis.” Freeman ordered, “I’ll give him one last chance.”

Sgt. Jarvis was a white man with black hair and graying sideburns. He wore an eyepatch over his left eye socket, the same place where Hex’s own eye bulged. Hex had an impulse to stab him for the insult but then figured he deserved it.

Hex climbed back onto Applejack as the soldiers began galloping away. He lightly tapped the orange pony’s side with his spur in an attempt to have her keep up. Applejack still had half a mind to buck him but eventually broke into a gallop of her own. The soldiers stopped and dismounted at Applewood and Hex did the same.

The town was indeed abandoned, but it didn’t seem that long ago. Half-eaten meals dry rotted on the tables and half-empty bottles of liquor were spilled. What caught the eye of everyone present were two dried husks found in jars at the saloon counter of what appeared to be giant spiders. They were slightly bigger than a man’s hand and sort of tannish-white in color. One soldier broke open a jar and held the dead creature in his hand. It had a long tail protruding from where its abdomen should have been.

“Some kind of spider.” the soldier said.

“Ain’t no spider with a tail that I’ve ever heard of.” another soldier commented.

“A scorpion maybe?” yet another one said.

Jonah Hex’s curiosity got the best of him as he grabbed the creature out of the man’s hand and examined it.

“This here ain’t no scorpion.” Hex said as he took a bowie knife from his boot and cut into the creature’s skin.

“Ahh!” Hex screamed, “Consarn it!”

The half-faced freak was forced to drop the dead creature as drops of green liquid fell on his hand and corroded his flesh.

“Whiskey! Whiskey!” Hex demanded and another soldier handed him an open bottle.

Hex poured the whiskey on his hand and he couldn’t tell the burn of the liquor from the burn of the creature’s acid blood. He wrapped his hand in a cloth from the bar and drank until the pain started to dull. He then looked as the “spider” fell through a hole in the floor made by its own blood.

“That ain’t no spider.” a soldier added.

By this time, Applejack had already wandered away from the humans, wondering how she was ever going to return to her own world. She struggled to yank the bridle away from her face with her hooves, succeeding only when she carefully looped it around an old nail jutting out from an outside wall. The bridle snapped in two and she yelped as it stung her face. Applejack rubbed her face in pain and trotted over to a nearby trough. She lapped up as much water as she could stand and decided to give the humans a piece of her mind. She headed back over to the saloon when she heard a familiar voice whisper her name.

“Applejack! Applejack!” the voice said in a whispered shout, “Come over here! Quick!”

Applejack turned to follow the voice and made her way over to the town stable. She trotted into one of the stalls where she could barely make out a yellow pile of fur hiding under the hay.

“Apple Bloom, is that you, sugarcube?” Applejack wondered, scarcely believing her eyes.

“Shh! Don’t let the monsters hear!” Apple Bloom warned as she peeked out from underneath the hay.

Apple Bloom was a small yellow filly with a red mane, who usually wore a large pink ribbon, but in this case it was missing and her fur was matted and dirty. Apple Bloom was also Applejack’s younger sister, and Applejack could scarcely control herself from giving a shout. Apple Bloom put a hoof over her older sister’s mouth and Applejack gently put it down.

“What in tarnation are ya doin’ here, sis?” Applejack whispered.

“How ‘bout I ask you tha same question?” Apple Bloom replied.

“Ah have no idea how ah got here.” Applejack explained, “Tha last thing that I can remember is that ah was at Sweet Apple Acres and then there was this fuzzy white light...”

“Same here, do ya think we’re dead, sis?” Apple Bloom wondered.

“Now don’t go sayin’ an awful thing like that.” Applejack scolded, “If we we’re dead, ya reckon we’d get sent ta some desert full a humans?”

“What if it’s Tartarus?” Apple Bloom suggested.

“Ain’t no kinda Tartarus I’ve ever heard of that has humans.” Applejack said, “Besides, I don’t feel dead, and a figure if we were dead, then we’d know it.”

“Ah guess yer right, sis.” Apple Bloom said, “But ah have seen monsters around, and I don’t mean just humans.”

“Did any a those humans hurt you, Apple Bloom?” Applejack asked, “I’ll buck ‘em into next week, if they did!”

“Some little human fillies started grabbin’ me and one of ‘em took mah ribbon.” Apple Bloom explained, “Ah ran away, but then tha big ones started chasin’ me. Ah hid out in this barn an tha humans stopped chasin’ me cause some of ‘em started goin’ missin’ or somethin’. Pretty soon all of ‘em ran away.”

“Do you know what made ‘em run away?” Applejack wondered.

“Not exactly, I don’t think.” Apple Bloom said, “I kept overhearin’ stories about monsters and ah think ah saw one once. Ah saw a dark blur run by an’ then tha humans kept leavin’ an that’s all ah know.”

“I’m gonna get us outta here. C’mon.” Applejack said.

“Hold it!” a voice from behind the two ponies demanded.

The two sisters turned around to face a soldier aiming a rifle at them.

“I ain’t never seen talkin’ horses before, but I bet y’all got somethin’ to do with why everyone’s gone.” the soldier said, “Maybe I can sell ya ta Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show and make a fortune! Now come quietly so I don’t have ta shoot ya.”

“Run Apple Bloom, run!!” Applejack ordered as she quickly bucked the soldier unconscious and sprinted away.

The two sisters galloped out of town but were soon routed by the cavalry. The soldiers aimed their rifles at the ponies and Col. Freeman stepped off his horse.

“I don’t know exactly what you two are, be you horse, monster, angel, or demon.” Freeman announced, “But I have the strangest feeling that you have something to do with why the town left so you have no choice but to accompany us to the mine. I will give you the chance to explain yourself.”

“Now look here mister.” Applejack said, “We don’t mean to cause trouble and we have no idea how we got here in the first place. Ah don’t really wanna follow y’all anywhere, but ah reckon ah probly oughta look at that mine an’ hope ah find a way back home. But if y’all so much as lay a hoof on mah sister, there’s gonna be trouble.”

“You have my word as an officer that neither of you will be harmed.” Freeman assured, “Do I make myself clear, men?”

The men grumbled among themselves, having had enough unexplainable nonsense for one day.

“Do I make myself clear?!” Freeman repeated.

“Yes, sir!!” the soldiers shouted in unison.

“Company! Move out!!” Freeman ordered.

Applejack and Apple Bloom galloped with the rest of the horses as fast as their hooves could carry them.

Comments

[Jordan179]

At the head of the cavalry was an African-American man with a large beard wearing an officer’s uniform.

I doubt that anyone in late 1860's through 1870's would be thinking "African-American." The likely polite term would be "colored," the more common terms "black" or "Negro," and we all know what the impolite term would have been. "African-American" was coined sometime in the 1960's or 1970's, and did not become popular until the 1980's or 1990's. I'm guessing if you'd said "African-American to someone in ~1870, he would have thought you meant someone born in Africa who now lived in America, and this was no longer the case for most American blacks, as large-scale importation of African slaves had mostly died out after the Slave Trade Act of 1807 and the piracy laws of 1820.

Purely a technicality, but the jarring anachronism of "African-American" jumped out at me and knocked me for a while right off the willing suspension of disbelief. Yes, even compared to the talking orange pony, because I'm used to her, and this is FIMFiction.

[Jordan179]

Xenomorphs, eh? Well, Weird Western Tales (after the earlier examples of Robert E. Howard, H. P. Lovecraft, and Edgar Rice Burroughs) basically spawned the "Weird Western" genre, so why not?