The Rival

I write this to share a story with any who would care to read, and I share the story because a sense of justice compels me to do so. It was a cold evening when I trotted into Appleoosa. I was on my way to the city of Manehattan -- a metropolis that I am sure the reader knows well for its reputation as a den of iniquity seasoned with the class of the upper echelons of Equestrian society. The cause for my visit to that city was, rest assured, more closely related to the latter reputation than the former, though it would be a lie to say that it was exclusively so. I digress -- when I walked into Appleoosa, I had been on the road for several days, and -- being unfamiliar with the desert's dangers -- I had failed to pack adequate rations of water. Needless to say, I was quite in need of a drink.

I scoured the streets for signs of life, but most stores were closed, their windows dark and blinds pulled for the night. One, though, cast a veil of light out into the dusty street. It was a beacon in the dark, and the swinging double doors that concealed the entrance were a ubiquitous sign of the building's purpose. The sound of a slightly out-of-tune piano served as the soundtrack to a raucous merriment from within. A stallion from Canterlot rarely -- if ever -- frequents such establishments, but he can recognize a bar when he sees one. In retrospect, I can think back to the first time I saw a bar in Old Canterlot. My mother quickly shooed me on and my father was quick to tell me that the patrons of that establishment were not those with whom I should associate myself. On this evening, though, I had little choice. This was the last town I would go through before I would be on the road another week. I had to stop for the night and restock my supplies, and the bar was the only place still open. Judging by its second story, I gathered they let rooms as a part of their business model.

I took a deep breath and walked sternly to the door. I pushed them in and entered. I felt instantly uncomfortable. Every head in the building turned to look at me. All the music and merriment that I had previously heard from the streets ceased. There were round tables scattered around the floor, peanut shells strewn about, empty bottles, and various other substances I didn't quite recognize. Some of the tables were covered in a green felt, and poker chips were piled high. Smoke hung in the air. Ignoring the silence, I removed my bowler and hung it on the hat rack. I began a long walk to the bar itself, where I pulled up a seat. Slowly, the music returned, along with the sounds of merriment.

A well dressed young stallion walked over to me from behind the bar, cleaning a glass that he held firmly in his magic.

"What'll it be?" He said rather curtly.

"Good evening, sir. I'll have some water, if you please."

"If you want water, you'd best go dunk your head in the well outside. We've got whiskey, we've got rum, we've got beer, and we've got hard cider. I think I might be able to dig out a bottle of that fancy-shmansy Canterlot garbage from somewhere." He began to dig under the counter. "Yeah, here. Peppermint Schnapps. Want any? You can have the whole bottle to yourself for... eh, twenty bits."

"I'm quite all right, thank you. I suppose I shall drink tomorrow." I sighed as I watched the fellow trot off to tend do other customers.

"Hey there, sonny boy." An old, gray stallion sitting next to me called. "You ain't from around here."

"That's right," I quickly stated, "I am not."

"Where 'ya headed?"

"Manehattan. I have a very important date to make."

"A mare then?"

"Destiny." I joked.

The old stallion hummed into his drink with a wistful smile. "I knew somepony like you once. A long time ago. He didn't know where he was going either."

I grew impatient with the stallion. "I told you that I know where I'm going, I'm going to Manehattan!"

"Nah. That's where you're headed, but you have no idea where you're going."

"I am going," I said, picking up my few things, "elsewhere. Good night, sir."

"Sure, you could trot off into the darkness blindly and hope you find your way," he said calmly, ordering another mug of beer, "or you could sit your flank down for a minute and chat with a lonely old stallion." He pushed the mug of beer toward me. "It's on me, sonny. What do you say?"

My mouth grew dryer at the sight of the frosty mug, and with only a moment's further hesitation, I sat back down.

"That's a good boy. The name's Dusty Hooves -- call me Dusty. What about you?" He held out a hoof.

I took his hoof and shook it. "Verdant Plains. Pleased to make your acquaintance."

"Verdant Plains." He chuckled. "City-slicker name if ever I heard one. Good to meet you, son."

We sat in silence for a few minutes, each sipping our drinks, before I finally spoke up. "You said you knew somepony like me once?"

His eyes became misty and it seemed as though he was looking off into the distance, though his mug was mere inches from his face. "Yep. Full of piss and vinegar, thought himself somethin' special. No clue where he was going." He smiled, as though remembering fondly. "He was a fine gentlecolt, and the best friend I ever had."

"Tell me about him."

He smiled again as he turned to me. His eyes shimmered with faint tears. "I thought you'd never ask."

*     *     *

-- Music --

I was a young colt in Tackcson Mareizona, working the copper mine. It was a day like any other, the foreman was screaming at the straw bosses who in turn were screaming at all of the workers while we worked away for next to nothing. I was busy hauling a mine cart full of ore out of the tunnel when one of the other workers walked up next to me and hit me in the shoulder as a playful gesture.

"Hey, Dusty," he said, "the guys are all gonna be gettin' together to fix up some grub after work today. Ol' Quartz saved up an' got himself a couple dozen kegs'a beer!" Quartz Shimmer was the elder of the group. He'd worked at the mine longer than any of us. Some of us reckoned he'd probably been there his whole life.

"Sho' thing, Blackie," I grinned as I struggled to pull the cart, "sounds like a hoot." Coal "Blackie" Train was my oldest friend. I'd known him since I was a foal, and our dads had been friends for ages before then. We liked to say that our families had been friends for as long as they'd existed. We used to tell jokes about a bunch of cave ponies sitting around a fire, two of 'em lookin' a lot like us, 'cept a bit more hairy.

"Great. Now, need a hoof, Dusty?" He smiled as he picked up a bit of the slack for me. We managed to pull that behemoth of a mine car all the way to the surface, where it was quickly emptied and sent flying back down the line to the bottom of the mine. "I tell you, Dusty," he groaned as we trotted back into the mine to follow the cart, "it's like we're Sisyphus and that dang cart is our boulder." Blackie had a way with books, so he said a lot of things I didn't quite understand. I usually just agreed with whatever he had to say. It sounded awful smart, so I figured there had to be some truth to it.

The straw boss down in the mine, Copper Head, was on a tirade, screamin' at some fella -- one of the new guys -- 'bout not swingin' his pick with none of that magic nonsense. Said it was too volatile, which I figured meant it was the kinda thing that the foreman, a pegasus, wished he could do.

"C'mon, Copper, ease off the guy. He's a new one, ain't he?" I called as I walked over to him. "Shucks, he ain't hurtin' nobody. All you had to do was tell him to lay off the magic."

"Watch your tongue Dusty, or you'll be pulling double quota!" Copper hissed at me with all the venom of his namesake before he stomped off to go terrorize some other pony.

"Y' all right, new guy?" I coughed as I turned to face the fella whose job I'd just pulled out of the fryer.

"Yeah," he said, "I'm all right." He had one of them city-slicker accents, so I knew he was an outsider.

"Lemme guess," I chuckled as I tossed him his pick, "you're on your way to Coltifornia or Neighvada or some such, and you're stopped here to get yourself a bit more spendin' money on the way, ain't'cha?" The little fella nodded. "Well, tough luck, son. Ain't many start workin' here that ever get out, but if 'ya stick with me, I'll show 'ya how to do this job and keep yourself alive."

"I can take care of myself, mister..."

"Dusty. Just Dusty, and I'm pretty sure you can't take care of yourself near as good as you think you can."

"Yeah, sure, Dusty. Look, thanks for getting that blowhard off my case, but I'll be all right from here." He grabbed his pick and went back to work. I just watched with a little smirk on my face.

"No," I said, "you don't want to keep digging there. See, that's bearing load right now. Keep digging there and the roof might fall on you."

"Well, that's where the boss told me to dig."

"So put up a beam."

"What about the quota?"

"Useless if you ain't alive to fill it."

The fella groaned and threw his pick down. He trudged over to the pile of beams and motioned for me to help, which I did.

"So," I said, "I didn't catch your name."

"I don't have one."

"Hogwash, e'rybody has a name."

"Well, not me."

As I helped him seat the beam in place, I thought about it. Everybody has a name. Everybody. So, I figured, either he wasn't telling me, or he just didn't know it.

I was about to ask him to explain what he meant when the whistle blew. He threw his pick over his shoulder and walked sternly up the way toward the exit.

"Hey, kid. Ain't'cha gonna help pull the cart up?"

"Can't hear you, heading home. See you tomorrow."

That little... I thought. I decided at that moment that I hated that little spit-fire. It took me two hours to haul that cart up by myself, and the bosses were real happy about being kept over time to make sure my sorry flank wasn't dead. I hauled the cart out and dumped the load, and all five of 'em, right down to the foreman, were on me like pissants on a picnic. Old Copper Head was the most eager.

"Listen here, Dusty, you'd better straighten up and fly right or I'm gonna be feedin' you your teeth, 'n you'll spit 'em out in single file. You hear me?"

The foreman, Iron Shoe, was next in line to rip me one. All of 'em, come to think of it, were madder than a wet hen, and if you've ever seen a wet hen, you know it was a fearsome sight. All in all, though, I came out pretty good. Only took half my day's pay for makin' 'em stay late. Told me I should be grateful I got that much, so I figured I'd best get to gettin', and took off down the road for Quartz Shimmer's.

He lived on the other side of the hill from the mine, right atop it. See, the miners all got the prime real estate in Tackcson. That is to say, the real estate that was primed and ready to fall into some sink hole or another. Truth be told, we didn't mind it so much. Bigshots got the mansions in the town and us working folk got our own little city without having to bother or be bothered by anyone else. Cresting the hill, I could already see the party in full swing. The raucous a bunch of miners give off at the end of a work week is a fearsome thing, and a glorious one. I all but galloped to join 'em, and when I got to the gate, everyone cheered to have another joining in the festivity. Not all of 'em were from my side of the mine. Some of 'em worked on the other hillcrest. Heck, some of 'em I'd never even seen before, but Quartz invited 'em, and we all chucked dirt for a living, so we were all welcome.

I charged in to grab my own mug of beer, which Quartz passed out with a huge grin. We didn't get more than a few bits of spending money to ourselves, so I was naturally pretty curious where he got the money. Told me that he'd won it over in a poker game or some such.

"Yessir," he said, "bet the fella 26 kegs 'f beer I'd beat his cards. He drew up four of a kind -- ACES -- and I threw down a big. Fat. Straight. Flush." He said the last words with as much 'umph' as he could muster through the slurred speech of his 'celebratory inebriation' as the city-folk would say. I smiled wide and gave the stallion a hug before moving on to the center of his yard to watch the band. Out of the corner of my eye, I spied that same spit-fire that cost me half a day's wage. The unspoken rules were clear; I owed this colt an ass-kicking.

I walked over to him and set my beer down on a stump. In true city-slicker fashion, he'd come reading a book. Didn't even have a beer. I leaned over and tilted his chin up to look at me. "Son," I said, "you've made a right mess of what could've been a real productive relationship, an' now I'm gonna have to jerk a knot in your tail."

"What'd I do to --" I interrupted him with a solid hoof to the face, sending the pup reeling to the ground. The band stopped and the miners all gathered around. The little spit got up on his hooves, rubbing his cheek. "You son of a --"

"Can it, son. Time to fish or cut bait!" I lunged again, but this time he was ready. He ducked out of the way and skirted off to the side, landing a blow square in the side of my ribs. I didn't hesitate another second; I grabbed a chair and broke it out on his back, taking him down to his knees. He staggered to his hooves again, and I saw his horn charge up for a blast. My eyes widened and I ducked out of the way. The table behind me splintered into a few hundred bits, and the crowd roared at him. I scowled and lunged again, this time pinning him with his back to the fence. "Kid, I don't know how stallions settle their differences where you come from, but using that magic stuff ain't good form. I ain't here to kill you -- just pound you to a pulp -- but stunts like that are liable to get you a knife to the gut, you got me?"

"You assaulted me!"

"Yeah, 'n you took half a day's pay from me, so we're even." I punched him once more in the jaw and left him laying on his flank up against the fence. "Next time someone helps you out, don't leave 'em hanging out to dry, Spit."

As I walked off to join the crowd again, the music slowly started back up. A few of the others put their hooves on my shoulders or said things like "Good one, Dusty," or "Way to show the kid, Dusts," or some other thing. I didn't care for it, honestly. I meant what I said. The kid and me were even.

It would be fair to say we got off on the wrong hoof, I think.

The next few weeks working along side the little Spit were pretty much boilerplate days. He healed up good enough to work by the time the weekend was over, and everything was back to the day-to-day in no time at all, aside from the fact that the Spit looked at me like I was Nightmare Moon herself.

So, you can probably understand my surprise when one day as we were all headed home, out of nowhere, the Spit walked up to me and said, "Hey, Dusty, can I talk to you?"

"Whaddaya want, Spit?" I mumbled.

"To talk... I need to talk."

"Well, go on then."

"In private?"

I followed, but kept my guard up. 'Talk to you in private' could have easily meant 'beat you to death where there are no witnesses'. Finally, we found some place off the road that he deemed 'private' enough. "So what is it?" I asked.

"Look, we had our differences, but I think you're trustworthy. I've been watching you, Dusty, and you're a stallion of character, of conviction."

"That's a mighty big change of heart to have in so little time."

"Please, I need your help, Dusty."

"What can I possibly help the likes of you with?"

The Spit bit his tongue and looked about nervously. "I found something. A few weeks before I got here. I need someone I can trust, and who knows digging, to help me find it."

"Uh-huh. An' so you want me to come along with you on this mystery dig?"

The Spit nodded. "You'll get half the spoils, I assure you."

"I'm sure." I rolled my eyes. "What've you got, then?"

"It's a map. A treasure map. You ever heard of the Legend of Starlit Night?"

"Yeah. Apparently he was some unicorn in Nightmare Moon's court. Somethin' about him goin' crazy when she got banished off to the moon an' hiding his family's fortune in a safe place for when she returned."

"Well, it's true. I managed to procure the map from the family -- thankfully, they largely disregard the story as hogwash -- and am fully prepared to mount an expedition to retrieve it."

"Uh-huh." I yawned. I didn't buy it. "Well, I'm afraid I'm too busy doin' real work to worry about some fake treasure hunt."

"No, sir. We can dig on our days off, we don't need to miss any of our --"

"Let me stop you right there. I work fifteen hour days in that dang mine digging. I get one and a half days to myself out of every week. I am not about to take that time and put it to some fool's errand out in the Celestia Forsaken desert."

"Dusty, you don't underst--"

"No, Spit, you don't understand. I ain't buyin' it. You can't convince me to walk out into that desert an' dig for fool's gold."

"Who said anything about iron pyrite?"

"Iron... are you stupid or somethin'?"

"Fine. I'll dig on my own, and when I find something, maybe I'll be able to convince you to come along."

"Fat chance, Spit." I scoffed as I whipped around and cantered home.

I had no idea just how wrong I was.