Chapter 5: Secrets and Lies

A few hours later, Big Macintosh clopped his hoof against the barn door three times, paused, and then two more. He waited a moment… and then a minute. Then another one. Finally, he heard a gentle tapping against the door, five quick raps with a hoof. Taking the handle in his teeth, he dragged the door open enough to step inside and closed it behind him. Braeburn was sitting in the middle of the room, looking miserable. The bag from earlier in the morning looked like it hadn’t been touched.

“Y’ain’t eaten?” Mac asked softly, putting down the whetstone and walking over to the blonde cowpony, gently nuzzling his shoulder.

“Ain’t hungry,” Braeburn muttered, poking at the bag with a hoof. “How’d you know I was in here?”

“Nopony here wears horseshoes down to the barn,” Mac pointed out. “Brae… Ah know you’re in trouble. But Ah don’t care. Ah still love you, that ain’t changin’.” Braeburn snorted, closing his eyes and lowering his head.

“Sure y’do. Y’always have, ain’t ya? Mac, Ah –“ Macintosh cut him off, leaning over and wrapping his neck around Braeburn’s in a gentle, reassuring hug.

“Ah know y’got in a fight. Ah know it got bad. Ah kin guess how bad from the fact Silverstar came lookin’. Ah know you, Brae. Y’ain’t the sort to hurt a pony who don’t deserve it.”

“Ah hurt you,” Braeburn murmured after a long moment.

“That’s different, Brae,” Mac countered. “Now you tell me what happened. Why’d you get into all this?”

Braeburn shivered, pressing into Big Mac, taking in his strong, powerful scent. He remembered that scent, feeling safe with it. Feeling protected. Feeling like, for once, he wasn’t a monster.

Mac didn’t hate him. Applejack didn’t hate him. Granny didn’t… well, Granny tolerated him, at the very least. That was why he’d come here in the first place.

But they deserved to know, if he was going to stay. He heaved a deep, shuddering sigh, trembling against Mac as he fought his way back into the night before through a haze of exhaustion, alcohol, and adrenaline….

“Yeah… lucky you,” Braeburn muttered, ears flat, crouching down as he backed away from Lead. “Where’s your posse?”

“They’re comin’, don’t you worry ‘bout that. Y’oughta be glad it’s just me, Braeburn.” Lead followed him forward, looking him up and down with new appraisal that didn’t sit well with the cowpony at all.

“The rest of the boys ain’t inclined t’be so gentle.”

Braeburn didn’t like the sound of that, not one bit. He turned to try and run again, hoping he could outpace the huge dray, but Lead wasn’t about to let him do that. He reached out with his teeth, grabbing Braeburn by the tail and swinging him around like a rag doll. The world spun around Braeburn as he was lifted up into the air, his tail feeling like it was about to be ripped out by the root. He lashed out with a hoof instinctively, and felt it connect with Lead Belly’s neck. He was flying through the air unassisted then, at least for the short distance left before he slammed into the wall. He was still trying to catch his breath when Lead wheeled around on him.

Lead snorted, even more enraged now as he closed on Braeburn and bit down, hard, on the cowpony’s rump. Braeburn yelped, kicking out again, his hooves glancing off of Lead’s barrel even as his tail flagged up for a moment on raw instinct. Braeburn brought it down again a moment later, clamped down tight over the parts Lead seemed to be interested in. The larger stallion snarled, wrapping his hooves around Braeburn’s trunk and awkwardly half-mounting him.

“Teach you t’go touchin’ a good filly, y’damn freak!”

“Didn’t… touch… her!” Braeburn snarled back, his hooves kicking out once… twice… then on the third attempt, they found their target, colliding with stiff flesh with a satisfying ‘crunch.’

Lead’s eyes flew wide as he felt the impact, all the air knocked out of his body and thought out of his head as he felt two apple-bucking hardened thighs putting all their force behind a solid kick to his swollen sheath. Incredibly tender, sensitive flesh buckled beneath the impact, blood vessels rupturing inside the skin, filling the rest of the organ with blood like some sort of obscene water balloon. The once-mighty stallion collapsed to the ground, curling into a ball, all thoughts of punishing Braeburn annihilated.

Braeburn just felt the weight falling off of him, and didn’t think twice. He ran as hard as those apple-bucking, stallion-destroying legs could carry him. He reached the train station and, seeing there wasn’t another train for hours, hired a coach to take him to safety. He didn’t think twice about where he was going now, there was only one place he might be able to hide.

Ponyville.

Big Mac’s eyes were squeezed tighter than Granny’s girdle as his treacherous mind forced him to imagine every excruciating detail of Braeburn’s story. His legs were pressed together almost as tightly. His mouth worked one sound over and over again.

“Eeeenopenopenopenopenopenopenope!”

“Sorry, Mac, but that’s what Ah could reach,” Braeburn pointed out ruefully. “Sweet Celestia, bet Ah practically gelded the poor bastard. Ah mean… ah know ‘e had it comin’, but Ah didn’t mean t’hit him there! Think that’ll… Ah dunno… think that’ll help anythin’? Considerin’?”

Mac managed to wrestle his focus back into the present day and the present issue. He rolled over what Braeburn had told him in his head. And then he rolled over what little he knew about the case against his cousin.

Something just didn’t feel right about it.

“Ah don’t know, Brae,” Mac admitted. “Reckon th’fact that he started it oughta count fer somethin’, but… ah don’t know. Especially ‘considerin’.’ Fella in your place bucks somepony… well, y’know? Reckon a jury might not care who started it, they might think it was just plain cussedness on your part.”

“Jealousy, you mean,” Braeburn sighed. “Mac… what’m Ah gonna do?”

“Fer now, you’re gonna stay here, Brae. Y’may not care for it, but yer still mah m- mah special somepony. Consarned potions notwithstandin’,” he muttered to himself.

“Potions?” Braeburn asked, cocking his head.

“Long story, ‘nother time. Ah gotta go think, an’ ah gotta work… try eatin’ somethin’ though, okay Brae? Y’all’re gonna need t’keep up yer strength, in case Silverstar catches on t’where y’are.”

“Ah’ll try, Mac,” Braeburn sighed. “Thanks. Just wish I could pay y’back… the way you deserve,” he added, leaning up to nuzzle Mac’s face.

“Don’t need to, Brae. Just love me back, as you can. Ah’ve gotta go out an’ get t’work though, or AJ’s gonna start askin’ questions.”

“Can’t have that,” Braeburn agreed, smiling faintly and turning to kiss Mac’s cheek. “Let me know when Ah can come up t’the house? Or at least if?”

“Probably gonna be a while,” Mac warned him. “I’ll sneak some dinner down for you later, and blankets. You take care, Brae.”

“I will, Macintosh,” Braeburn promised. “Now git goin’, afore y’git caught out here with me. Again,” he smiled with a wink. Mac chuckled and started out, doing his best to look like he’d just gone in moments before.

Outside, Applejack was just coming up from the west field, cantering up to the barn with the sheen of a good morning’s work on her coat.

“Howdy Mac,” she said, slowing down to a trot and meeting him at the plow. “Looks fit t’pull,” she observed, looking over the job he’d done on the edge. Mac shrugged and picked up a Macingold from a nearby basket in his forehoof. He tested its weight and balance for a moment, then tossed it against the blade of the plow. The apple was sliced neatly along the middle, and Mac gave a satisfied nod.

“Eeyup,” he agreed, moving around to start loading it onto the cart so he could get it to the field.

“Let me help y’with that, brother,” Applejack warned him, pushing the cart around behind the plow and hopping in, tipping the back of it down to the ground. “Ah’ll lift th’handles, you help push it on?”

“Eeyup,” Mac agreed, getting into position. “Careful now,” he added, looking up at his younger sister.

“You be careful, Mac!” She scoffed. “After all, Ah ain’t the one pushin’ the sharp end!” Like most good farming stallions since the dawn of agriculture, Mac just rolled his eyes, ignoring the validity of her point in favor of a mental grumble about sisters. Applejack crouched down under the handles, standing up slowly to life it up with her powerful hips and shoulders.

Mac put his hooves on the other end of the handles, pushing back as AJ slowly walked sideways, helping to move the plow onto the cart.

“So, what’re y’thinkin’ about… the trouble with Braeburn?” Applejack asked him cautiously as they moved.

“Right mess,” Mac answered briefly. “Fella probably… had it comin’ though.” He spat out his hay, focusing entirely on the plow and the conversation. “Gelded the bastard… if it’d been me.”

“Reckon killin’s bad enough!” Applejack countered. Big Mac froze when he heard that, leaning his head over to look at his sister’s face.

“Killed him?”

“Careful, Mac!” Applejack scolded as the plow started to slip a bit towards her brother. “Keep pushin’! An’ what’d you think the Sheriff was out here about? If’n it’d just been a fight, reckon he’d’ve waited a while t’come out, let things blow over a bit!”

Mac tried absorbing the information as he pushed back on the plow, getting it most of the way up onto the cart. Braeburn hadn’t said anything about killing somepony.

“Reckon Brae knows the feller died?” He asked evenly, trying to keep from betraying his own source of information on the subject.

“Well, Ah reckon it’s hard t’be confused on the subject when y’go an’ bust a feller’s head wide open in the – Mac!” Applejack shouted as she felt the plow slide off of her back, starting to drop towards an already-stunned Macintosh Apple. He realized what was happening and moved to get his hooves back in place, but they slid off the wooden hitch of the plow when he didn’t get the grip quite square. Applejack watched in horror, trying to get up and bite down on the hitch to keep her brother from having hundreds of pounds of hardened, sharpened steel fall onto him.

Her teeth closed around the hitch, but she could already tell that she’d break her neck before she stopped it. She bit down harder, willing to do just that, when she saw a blur of orange, brown, and yellow leaping out of the barn, tackling Mac and throwing him out of the way. She lost her grip on the plow, but as it tumbled on its end and plunged into the ground there was nopony in its deadly path. Braeburn let out a yowl as it came down on the end of his tail, driving the hair into the dirt and yanking hard on the flesh and bone it was attached to.

“Mac, Brae, are you two all right?” Applejack demanded, jumping down off the cart to check out the two stallions… or, at least, stallions as she’d thought of them for years. She found Braeburn clinging stubbornly to her brother, who was still shocked and still beneath him.

“Mac?” Braeburn asked, sounding sick. “Please tell me Ah got ya in time, Mac!”

“Braeburn, y’all swear t’me that you di’n’t kick the feller but the way you told me?” Mac asked after a long, tense, worried moment.

“Macintosh Apple,” Braeburn shouted, “quit thinkin’ about that an’ tell me y’all’re okay!”

“Ah reckon he’s okay if he’s thinkin’ about that,” Applejack pointed out. “Cousin, ah know y’all’re in trouble an’ all, but ah ain’t never been so glad t’see you!”

“Lemme think!” Mac roared from beneath Braeburn, shutting them both up. “Brae, answer the question.”

“Yes, I’ll swear it! It’s Celestia’s own truth!” Braeburn protested. “Reckon that kick was all he needed!”

“Applejack, who told you his head was busted open?” Mac turned to look at his confused sister.

“Sheriff Silverstar, who else?” She asked, trying to put pieces together with only a handful of the puzzle to work with. Mac didn’t have much more, and he was almost sure that Silverstar didn’t even have all the rest, but he knew the pieces he had weren’t fitting with the picture the Sheriff was seeing.

“First, we’re gettin’ that plow off Brae’s tail. Ah’d say thanks, cousin, but Ah reckon it ain’t enough fer what you just did. Hopin’ that what Ah’m gonna do next is though.”

“And what’s that?” Braeburn asked, still pinned down by his tail, but not especially concerned now that it wasn’t pulling at him too much more.

“Ah’m findin’ Silverstar an’ gettin’ to the bottom of this. Ah reckon you ain’t killed nopony, an’ Ah aim t’prove it afore you get in trouble for what y’ain’t done!” Mac crawled out from under Braeburn, moving around to the plow and starting to tilt it up enough that Braeburn could get his tail out from under it.

“Ah am sorry y’ended up havin’ t’save me like that,” Mac said quietly when he saw the shorter tail that came out from under it, bits of hair stuck in the ground.

“Eh… reckon Ah should’ve cut it sooner, if Ah’m s’posed t’pass as a stallion,” Braeburn shrugged. “Ah… do hope y’all ain’t gonna tell the Sheriff Ah’m here yet?” He asked, looking at Applejack in particular.

“Ah kin cover for ya, long as he don’t ask me direct-like,” Applejack promised, moving in close to hug him. “Yer family, cous’. Granny’d tan mah hide if ah turned you in. All the same, Mac….”

“Ah’d better git what the Sheriff knows an’ figure out what really happened,” Mac nodded. He took a long look at Braeburn, and then moved in impulsively, giving him a peck on the lips. “Fer luck… you should stay under cover for now, just in case.”

“Yeah… reckon Ah should,” Braeburn nodded. “Go git’em, Mac.” He leaned forward, kissing Mac back just as quickly before he stood up to get back into the barn, wincing as he put weight on one of his legs.

“Applejack, think you can help me in? Reckon Ah twisted somethin’ when Ah made that jump.”

“Lucky y’didn’t git yerself cut in two,” Applejack snorted. “Come on, hero. Lean against me, Ah’ll make sure y’git taken care of.” She stepped up next to Braeburn and led him inside, leaving Mac on his lonesome.

The farmpony looked at the plow, on its side now, waiting for later use. He rolled the disparate facts he’d gotten today over in his head, and he bit himself off another piece of hay.

He had to talk to Silverstar, put all of this together. Maybe then… maybe then he could try and work something out with Braeburn.