“Hey, Morty! ‘Nother round! This one’s on me!” Braeburn shouted down the bar with a grin. Half of Appleoosa cheered him on as he tossed a bag of bits onto the table to pay for the salted cider that was already making its way around. Anywhere else, he’d have been throwing away a fortune, but Appleoosa had two things that made getting very, very drunk very, very cheap. The first, of course, was its apple orchard, the town’s main source of food and drink. The second was the salt mine in the badlands, the town’s main source of income. No matter how much the town sold off to the rest of Equestria, it was always dirt cheap to get completely hammered, and every payday was a chance to prove it.

Braeburn, for example, was the better part of a gallon of cider into having a really good night. He grinned as his own mug came sliding down the bar, catching it in his pastern and swallowing half the sweet, salty mixture with the first swig. As he lowered the mug, he spotted a pretty filly further down the bar, a bay-coated mare with a deep green mane and a sectioned apple on her flank. With a grin on his face and an unintentional sway in his walk, he hopped down off of his perch at the bar and started over.

“Well howdy miss!” He grinned at her, tipping his hat. “Mind if Ah take a seat here?”

“Don’t reckon it’ll stop y’if’n Ah say no.” She rolled her eyes at the half-drunk colt swaying on his hooves.

“Ma’am, Ah… Ah am ssshocked an’ offended,” Braeburn scowled before breaking into a grin and a laugh. “Ah’m a gentlecolt, ma’am, an’ ah ain’t gonna hassle ya if’n ah ain’t welcome to, Miss…..”

The young mare chuckled, shaking her head slightly.

“Apple Cora. Sit down before you fall down, Braeburn.”

“Apple….” Braeburn drifted off, trying to remember the relation and if he was taking the chance of roosting a mite close to the nest.

“Second cousin, three times removed,” Cora reassured him. “We met at the last Reunion, briefly. Though Ah do seem to recollect y’all were a mite preoccupied with a certain fire engine red stallion at the time, so ah don’t take any offense y’don’t remember me,” she smirked.

Braeburn sobered up quickly at that reminder, reaching up to adjust the collar of his vest nervously as he sat down hard, tucking his tail around his hooves.

“Eheh,” he stammered. “Well, y’see Cora, Ah…. That is….”

“Don’t worry about it,” Cora laughed, taking her own cider and raising it to her lips, draining the beverage in one long draught. “Hay, Ah reckon Ah’d’ve been preoccupied too, if’n the family didn’t all know he ain’t into fillies.”

“Ah wouldn’t say that,” Braeburn mumbled before picking up his mug and draining the rest of it.

“Morty, gimme somethin’ stronger’n this,” he said while the mug was still busy clattering on the rail in front of him.

The burly bartender looked at Braeburn, judging his sudden change in mood. He reached under the bar, pulling out a bottle of 30-year Shetland Park and a cube of sea salt. The potent liquor quickly dissolved the large helping of exotic salt in the shot glass, and Morton slid it on down to the sullen stallion.

“Twenty bits, if y’drink it,” he warned him.

Braeburn bit down on the sides of the shot glass, pouring the scotch down his throat, decades of subtle flavors mixed in with centuries of nature’s chemical wonders utterly lost, boiled down to a single thought.

Okay, maybe I should actually try enjoying this if I’m spending so much money on it.

But by the time that thought had formed in Braeburn’s head, the whiskey was burning its way down his gullet, salt drying his mouth out and practically sticking to his tongue and throat. He coughed as he slammed the shot down.

“Put it on my tab,” he croaked, eyes watering as Cora looked at him with concern in her bright blue eyes.

“Somethin’ wrong, Brae?” She asked him. “If it’s about you’n’Mac bein’ colt-“

“Long story, Cora,” he cut her off, shaking his head. “Rather not talk about it, if’n it’s the same t’you, but don’t you ever let me hear you call Macintosh that. Ever,” he repeated with a cold, bitter edge to his voice. Cora looked like she was about to say something, but the door to the Salt Block slammed open as if a freight train had hit it.

And, as every eye in the bar turned to look at the hulk of an earth pony that had busted in, they realized that one may as well have done just that. Lead Belly, the steel-grey stallion who led the Old ’97 dray team between Appleoosa and Tall Tale was standing there, sides heaving, eyes flashing with raw rage as he looked from one side of the saloon to the other. His striped neckerchief was matted to his body with sweat, plastered against his coat from the exertion of the long run between towns, and then by the race to the Salt Block from where ever he’d built up the head of steam driving him on.

“Braeburn Apple?” He demanded in a low, powerful voice that rumbled like a train rolling down the side of a mountain.

Braeburn might’ve been drunk, but he wasn’t drunk enough to think it was smart to pony up and give his name to the stallion blocking the door. He could see four other powerfully built ponies behind him, probably the rest of the team backing up their leader.

What in tarnation could that lot be so… upset… oh buck me right in th’bits. Braeburn’s stomach twisted as he realized what this was probably… what this had to be about. He tried to be discreet, turning back towards the bar as a small number of other ponies also decided it would be best not to make eye contact with Lead Belly in the mood he was in.

Why the hay is he comin’ after me? He asked silently to Celestia, Luna, Discord, whatever power might be keeping an eye out for ponies with secrets they’d rather not discuss. Lead Belly stomped into the bar, and with the last thunderous hooffall, Braeburn heard the faint ‘click-click’ of Mort’s old shotgun being cocked.

“Unless you colts’re buyin’ a drink, git out of here,” Morton demanded, not raising the weapon into view just yet. “Won’t have any trouble in my saloon!”

“No cause for apprehension, Morty,” one of Lead’s friends, Smokestack, promised as he slipped in around the towering frame of the larger stallion and made his way up to the bar. The soot-maned, tan-coated stallion grinned and tossed some bits onto the bar. He kept speaking in his Applewood accent, swift and smooth like a peeler sliding beneath the skin of an apple as he peppered his speech with twenty-bit words. “We aren’t after tribulations! Libations, please! Cider and salt for the house… all you need to do to earn your mug is state your name.”

“Ain’t gonna be any games like that, either,” Morton growled at the fancy-talking dray. “Y’all can order yer own drinks an’ settle down.”

“Morton, Morton, calm down!” Smokestack sighed indulgently, folding back his white dray’s smock to show the leg loop of a pistol. He smiled warmly when Morton froze, letting the smock fall back into place. “Lead Belly here just wants to have a conversation with Braeburn, a confabulation regarding a minor matter of paternity!”

Braeburn’s eyes shot open wide beneath the brim of his hat at that word. Paternity? Lead thought he’d done what?!?

“Pattin’ ‘er nightie’s what got ‘im in trouble in th’first place, Ah reckon!” Salt Lick laughed, the elderly pony trying to break the tension in the room as he tottered up to the bar.

It didn’t work.

“Shut yer salt hole, Lick,” Mort snapped at the miner. Salt Lick shrugged and hopped up onto a stool.

“What? I ain’t got nothin’ t’worry about! Salt Lick, an’ I’ll take that mug y’offered!”

“Pour the stallion his drink, Morton,” Smokestack grinned coldly, flashing two rows of bright, even, white teeth at the bartender, teeth that had never bent a bit or cut a chaw. Reluctantly, the tall, lean salt-slinger went to do his work, leaving the shotgun beneath the level of the bar.

“Now, anypony else care for a drink?” Lead Belly rumbled, practically daring anypony not to take him up on the offer. Thirty sturdy farmers and miners sat in the saloon, each knowing that to refuse risked being branded as the pony who’d brought this interruption in their revelry down on them all, each knowing that to accept risked being branded as the pony who’d hung one of their own out to dry. Even the mares were still, though silent glances between the regulars promised that as it became clear the test wouldn’t be called off, the lot of them would make it an expensive one.

A long minute ticked by. Salt Lick finished his drink and, apparently realizing that he probably wouldn’t be welcome much longer, wordlessly stumbled his way out of the saloon.

Then a second minute passed. Each felt like an hour to the ponies inside the Salt Block.

Finally, just as Morton was figuring out how he could get back to the shotgun without being too obvious, a voice broke the silence.

“Braeburn Apple.” All eyes turned towards the blonde cowpony who’d spoken up. “There. Ah said it, all of y’all can start breathin’ again. But Lead, if’n your sis told you that Ah done knocked ‘er up, Ah’m tellin’ you it sure as cider ain’t the case!” He turned to look the glaring giant in the eyes, mustering some semblance of courage to do so. Lead took it right out of him with five low, terse words.

“Ah ain’t got no sister.”

Author's Note

As promised, this will be split up into more chapters later on, after judging. I might also flesh out certain bits and pieces (like the bits and pieces!) then.

However, I'm certainly open to suggestions/input/critique in the meantime. All I ask is that, if you want a downvote to be taken seriously, you explain why it's there. Unexplained downvoters shall be relegated to pooper scooper duty at the gates of Tartarus.