Prologue: Seventeen Years Ago
Prologue
Seventeen years earlier
The fall knocked the air out of her. She’d landed badly, one leg bent under her. On the way down, she’d hit her head and the skin on her shoulders and legs was scraped raw. Stunned, she tried to get to her footing in the darkness of the tight, confined space. She’d lost her saddle bag, her body ached and her left fore-hoof was in terrible pain, something was definitely broken. She managed to get herself upright in the pitch blackness of the hole. Bracing herself on the cold earth around her, she looked up, still dazed. Above her, she could see a pale circle of Luna's starlit sky. She started to open her mouth to call out when she heard him stumble to the edge of the dusty well and fall to his knees. His shadow silhouetted over part of the opening. She stared up at him in confusion. He hadn’t meant to push her. He’d just been angry with her. He wouldn’t hurt her. Not on purpose.
The beam of a lantern suddenly blinded her. “Help me.”
He made a sound, an eerie, low-keening wail like a wounded animal. “You’re alive?” His words pierced her heart like a cold blade. He’d thought the fall would kill her? Hoped it would? The lantern went out.
She heard him stand and knew he was still looking down at her. She could see his shadow etched against the night sky. She felt dizzy and sick, still too stunned by what had happened. His shadow disappeared. She could see the circle of dim light above her again. She listened, knowing he hadn’t left. He wouldn’t leave her. He was just upset, afraid she would tell. If she pleaded with him the way she had the other times, he would forgive her. He’d tried to break it off before, but he’d always come back to her. He loved her.
She stared up until, with relief, she saw again his dark shape against the starlit sky. He’d gone to get a rope or something to get her out. “I’m sorry. Please, just help me. I won’t cause you any more trouble.”
“No, you won’t.” His voice sounded so strange, so foreign. Not the voice of the Stallion she’d fallen so desperately in love with. She heard him grunt and strain as he hoisted his parcel onto the well's lip. In the glint of starlight she saw it wasn’t a rope he was carrying.
Her heart caught in her throat. “No!” The boulder blacked out what little light she had before leaving an echoing thud in the cramped space. She must have blacked out. When she woke, she was curled in an awkward position in the bottom of the dry well. Over the blinding pain in her head, she could hear the sound of his small wagon down the dirt path. He was leaving!
“No!” she cried as she tried to drag herself up again. “Don’t leave me here!” As she looked up to the opening high above her, she felt something wet and sticky run down into her eye. Blood.
The pain in her skull was excruciating. She dropped to her rump on the cold, hard earth.
He’d said he loved her. He’d promised to take care of her. Tonight, she’d even worn the red dress he loved. “Don’t leave! Please!” But she knew he couldn’t hear her. As she listened, the sound of the squeaky wheels grew fainter and fainter, then nothing. She shivered in the damp, cold blackness, her right hoof going to her stomach. He’d come back. He couldn’t just leave her here to die. How could he live with himself if he did? He’d come back.
Chapter One
There's a New Sheriff in Town
As the wagon bounced along the muddy track to the old homestead, Apple Bloom stared out at the wind-scoured Appleloosian landscape, haunted by the premonition she’d had the night before. She had awakened in the darkness to the howl of the unusually warm wind against her bedroom window. A Chinook had blown in. When she’d looked out, she’d seen the bare old aspens vibrating in the wind, limbs etched black against the clear night sky. It felt as if something had awakened her to warn her.
The feeling had been so strong that she’d had trouble getting back to sleep only to wake this morning to Russet banging on the door downstairs. “There’s something you’d better see,” the elderly
ranch manager had said. And now, as Russet pulled her up the bumpy road from the ranch house to the old homestead, she felt a chill at the thought of what waited for her at the top of the hill. Was this what she’d been warned about?
Russet pulled up next to the crumbling foundation. The wind howled across the open
hillside, keeling over the tall yellowed grass and gently rocking the rickety old wagon. The Appleloosa landscape looked the same as ever; as if it had been rung out, all color washed from the hills until everything was a dull brown-gray. The only green was a few lone cacti standing rigid against the wind-rinsed sky.
Little remained of the homestead house Apple Bloom had failed to repair. Just part of the rock foundation and the fireplace, the chimney standing as a great obelisk against the horizon. Past it, in the soft, wet earth, Apple Bloom saw Russet’s tracks where he had walked to the old well earlier this morning. All that marked the well was a circle of rock and a few weathered boards that covered part of the opening.
Russet cocked his head as if he already heard the marshal’s siren coming up the ranch road. Apple Bloom strained her ears but heard nothing over the pounding of her heart. She was glad Russet had always been a pony of few words. She was already on edge without having to talk about what he’d found. The elderly ranch manager was as dried out as a stick of jerky and just as tough, but he knew more about cattle than any pony Apple Bloom had ever known. And he was as loyal as an old dog. Apple Bloom's thoughts flashed to her own pet, Winona, before burying burying them again.
Until recently, Russet and Apple Bloom had run the ranch together. She knew Russet wouldn’t have gotten her up here unless it was serious. As Apple Bloom caught the whine of the approaching
carriage over the wind, the sound growing louder, her dread grew with it. Russet had told her last night that he’d noticed the boards were off the old dry well again. “I think I’ll just fill it in. Safer that way. Give me something to do.”
Like most homesteads, the well was just a hole in the ground, unmarked except for maybe a few old boards thrown over it, and because of that, dangerous to anyone who didn’t know it was there.
“Whatever you think,” she’d told him the night before. She’d been distracted and really hadn’t cared. But she cared now. She just hoped Russet was wrong about what he’d seen in the bottom of the well.
They’d know soon enough, she thought as she turned to watch the marshal’s black and blue wagon come roaring up the road.
“Scrappy’s running faster than usual,” she said frowning. “You must have lit a fire under him when you called him this morning.”
“Scrappy ain't marshal anymore,” Russet said.
“What?” She glanced over at him. He had a strange look on his weathered face.
“Scrappy just up and quit. They had to hire a temporary marshal to fill in for a while.”
“How come I never hear about these things?” But she knew the answer to that. She’d always been too busy on the ranch to keep up with all the gossip. Even now that she worked down in Appleloosa, her ties were still more with the ranching community—what little of it
was left in the canyon since the buffalo town of Big Sky had sprung up at the base of Brittle Wing Mountain. A lot of the Apple family ranchers had sold out or subdivided to take advantage of having a ski and summer resort so close by.
“So who’s the interim marshal?” she asked. “Not Scrappy’s nephew Copperstar? Tell me it’s anyone but him.” she groaned.
Russet didn’t answer as the new marshal brought the carriage painted with a golden star on the side to a stop right next to her side of the wagon. Apple Bloom was puzzled. She'd never seen the gray stallion behind the reigns before, and he certainly wasn't kin to old Sheriff Silverstar.
“Er, howdy officer.” Apple Bloom said extending her hoof in greeting. “You must be the new law around here.”
The bulky gray pony just shook his head leaving Apple Bloom's hoof dangling in the air. “Nope, sorry ma'am. I'm just the driver.” As soon as he spoke the door to the carriage swung open.
All the breath rushed from Apple Bloom as she looked over and saw who emerged.
“Maybe I should have warned you,” Russet said, sounding sheepish.
“That would’ve been nice,” she muttered between gritted teeth as she met Spike's emerald green
gaze. His look gave nothing away. The two of them might have been strangers—instead of former lovers— for all the expression that showed in his handsome face.
Her emotions boiled up like a geyser. First shock and right on its heels came fury. When Spike had left town five years ago, she’d convinced herself she’d never have to lay eyes on that sorry son of a bitch again. And here he was. Damn, just when she thought things couldn’t get any worse.
Chapter 2
Over the course of his career as an enforcer of the law in Manehattan, Spike had stared down criminals who were bigger and stronger. Some had guns, some knives and baseball bats. But none unnerved him like the look in Apple Bloom's whiskey-brown glare. He dragged his gaze away, turning to pick up the polished steel lantern from the seat next to him.
Coward. If just seeing her had this affect on him, he hated to think what talking would do. Her reaction to him was pretty much what he’d expected. He’d known she would be far from happy to see him. But he had hoped she wouldn’t be as furious as she’d been when he’d left town. But given the look in her eyes, he’d say that was one wasted hope. And damn if it was no less painful than it had been five years ago seeing her anger, her hurt.
Not that he blamed her. He hadn’t just left town, he’d flat-out run, tail tucked between his legs. But he was back now. He picked up the lantern and, bracing himself against the wind and Apple Bloom, he opened his door and stepped out.
The sun glinted off the wagon's metal frame so he couldn’t see her face as he walked to the front of the carriage. But he could feel her gaze boring into him like a knife as he snugged his dark brown cowboy hat down to keep it from sailing off in the wind.
When Russet had visited the office this morning, Spike had instructed him not to go near the well again. The ranch foreman’s original tracks to and from the well were the only ones in the soft dirt. It surprised Spike though that Apple Bloom hadn’t gotten out to take a look before he arrived. She obviously hadn’t known the order was from him or she would have defied it sure as the devil.
As he looked out across the ranch, memories of the two of them seemed to blow through on the breeze. He could see them running across that far field of wild grasses back in Ponyville, her long, red mane blowing back, face lit by sunlight, eyes bright, grinning at him as they raced back to the barn.
They’d been so young, so in love. He felt that old ache, desire now coupled with heartbreak and regret. Behind him, he heard somepony take off a harness, then the another stomp down out of the wagon bed. He didn’t have to guess who caused which sound.
Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Russet hang back, waiting by the side of his wagon, out of the way—and out of earshot as well as the line of fire. Russet was no fool.
“Are we goin’ to stand here all day admiring the scenery or are we goin’ to take a look in the damned well?” Apple Bloom asked as she joined Spike.
He let out a bark of nervous laughter and looked over at her, surprised how little she’d changed and glad of it. She was small, especially compared to the dragon's bipedal posture. She couldn’t weigh a hundred and ten pounds soaking wet, but what there was of her was a combination of soft curves and hard-edged stubborn determination. To say he’d never known anypony like her was putting it mildly. Well, except for her sister, Applejack of course.
He wanted to tell Apple Bloom why he’d come back, but the glint in her eye warned him she was no more ready to hear it than she’d been when he’d left.
“Best take a look in that well then,” he said.
“Good idea.” She stood back as he trailed Russet’s tracks to the hole in the ground. A half-dozen boards had once covered the well. Now only a couple remained on the single row of rocks rimming the edge. The other boards appeared to have been knocked off by the wind or fallen into the well.
He opened the lantern's door and with a quick snort lit the wick inside and shone the beam down into the hole. The well wasn’t deep, about fifteen feet, like looking off the roof of a two-story house. Had it been deeper, Russet would never have seen what lay in the bottom.
Spike leaned over the opening, the wind whistling in his ears, the magic fire's beam a pale green as it skimmed the dirt bottom—and the bones. Spike had seen his share of remains over the years. The sun-bleached skeletons of small mammals were strewn all over rural Equestria. But just as Russet had feared, the bones lying at the bottom of the Russet-Apple Ranch's dry well weren’t from any wild animal.
Apple Bloom stood back and stared at the back of Spike’s duster. She wished she didn’t know him so well. The moment he’d looked down, she’d read the answer in his shoulders. Her already upset stomach did a slow roll and she thought for a moment she might be sick. Dear Celestia, what was in the well? Who was in the well?
Spike glanced back at her, his green eyes drilling her to the spot where she stood, all the past burning there like the hot green flame he carried. But instead of heat, she shivered as if a cold wind blew up from the bottom of the well. A cold that could chill in ways they hadn’t yet imagined as Spike straightened and walked back to her.
“Looks like remains of something, all right,” Spike said, giving her that same noncommittal look he had when he’d rode up. The wind whipped her long rosey mane around her face. She took a painful breath and let it go, fighting the wind, fighting a weakness in herself that made her angry and scared.
“They’re pony bones, ain’t they?”
Spike dragged his hat off and raked a hand through his scales, making her cheek tingle remembering the feel of rubbing against that slick dome of his. “Won’t be certain until we get the bones to the lab.”
She looked away, angry at him on so many levels that it made it hard to be civil. “I know there are pony remains down there. Russet said he saw a pony's skull... so stop lying to me.”
Spike’s eyes locked with hers and she saw anger spark in her brownish red eyes. He didn’t like being called a liar. But then, she could call him much worse if she got started.
“We don't know that. Could be a buffalo, a lost deer, hell even a wolf; from this far it's too hard to tell for sure.” Spike paused for a moment and with a sigh continued. “But yes, from what I can see, the skull appears to be equine. Satisfied?” he said.
She turned away from the only one who had ever satisfied her. She tried not to panic. If having Spike back—let alone the interim marshal—wasn’t bad enough, there was a body in the well on her ranch. She tried to assure herself that the bones could have been in the well for years. The well had been dug when she was just a filly, before she even moved here. Who knew how long the bones had been there? But the big question, the same one she knew Spike had to be asking, was why the bones were there.
“I’m going to need to cordon this area off,” he said. “I would imagine with it being calving season, you have some cattle moving through here?”
“No cattle in here to worry about,” Russet said.
Spike frowned and glanced out across the ranch. “I didn’t notice any cattle on the way in, either.”
Apple Bloom felt his gaze shift to her. She shook her head to brush a strand of her hair from her face before looking at him. The words stuck in her throat and she was grateful to Russet when he said, “The cattle were all auctioned this fall to get the ranch ready to sell.”
Spike looked stunned, his gaze never leaving hers. “You wouldn’t sell the ranch.”
She turned her face away from him. He was the one person who knew just what this ranch meant to her and yet she didn’t want him to see that selling it was breaking her heart just as he had. She could feel his gaze on her as if waiting for her to explain.
When she didn’t, he said, “I have to warn you, Apple Bloom, this investigation might hold up a sale.”
She hadn’t thought of that. She hadn’t thought of anything but the bones—and her added bad luck in finding out that Spike was acting marshal.
“Word is going to get out, if it hasn’t already,” he continued. “Once we get the bones up, we’ll know more, but this investigation could take some time.”
“You do whatever you have to do, Spike.” She hadn’t said his name out loud in years. It sounded odd and felt even stranger on her tongue. Amazing that such a small word could hurt so much.
She turned and walked back to Russet’s wagon, surprised her legs held her up. Her mind was reeling. There was a body in a well on her ranch? And Spike was back after all this time of believing him long gone? She wasn’t sure which shocked or terrified her more.
She didn’t hear him behind her until he spoke. “I was sorry to hear about Granny Smith,” he said so close she felt his warm breath on her neck.
Without turning, she gave a nod of her head, the wind burning her eyes, and climbed into the wagon bed, sending a glance to Russet that she was more than ready to leave.
As she started to pull the tailgate shut behind her, Spike dropped one large palm over
the top of the door to keep it from closing. “Apple Bloom…”
She shot him a look she thought he might still remember, the same one a rattler gives right before it strikes.
“I just wanted to say…happy birthday.”
She tried not to show her surprise—or her pleasure—that he’d remembered. That he had, though, made it all the worse. She swallowed and looked up at him, knifed with that old familiar pain, the kind that just never went away no matter how hard you fought it.
“Apple Bloom, listen—”
“I’m engaged.” The lie was out before she could call it back.
Spike’s eyebrows up. “To anypony I know?”
She took guilty pleasure from the pain she heard in his voice, saw in his face. “Silver Tongue.”
“Silver? The lawyer?” Spike didn’t sound surprised, just contemptuous. He must have heard that she’d been dating Silver. “He still saving up for the ring?”
“What?”
“An engagement ring. You’re not wearing one.” He
motioned to her left hoof.
Silently she swore at her own stupidity. She’d wanted to hurt him and at the same time keep him at a safe distance. Unfortunately she hadn’t given a thought to the consequences.
“I just forgot to put it on this morning,” she said.
“Oh, you take it off at night?”
Another mistake. When Spike had given her an engagement ring so many years ago now, she’d sworn she’d never take it off.
“If you must know,” she said, “the diamond got caught in my saddle bag, so I took it off to free it and must have laid it down.” His brows shot up again. Why didn’t she just shut up? “I was in a hurry this morning. Not that it’s any of your business.”
“You’re right,” he agreed. “Must be a big diamond to get snagged on something.” Not like the small chip he’d been able to afford for her, his tone said.
“Look, as far as I’m concerned, you and I have nothing to say to each other.”
“Sorry, didn’t mean to pry into your personal life.” A muscle bunched in his jaw and he took on that all business marshal look again.
“I’d appreciate it if you and Russet wouldn’t mention what you found in the well to anypony. I know it’s going to get out, but I’d like to try to keep a lid on it as long as we can.”
He had to be joking. The marshal’s office dispatcher was the worst gossip in the canyon.
“Anything else?” she asked pointedly as his hand remained on the door. His gaze softened again and she felt her heart do that pitter-patter thing it hadn’t done in so long.
“It’s good seeing you again, Apple Bloom,” he said.
“I wish I could say the same, Spike.”
His lips turned up in a rueful smile as she jerked hard on the tailgate, forcing him to relinquish his hold. If only she could free herself as easily. The tailgate slammed hard. Russet loaded himself into his harness and began trotting away without a word. She knew he’d heard her lie about being engaged, but Russet was too smart to call her on it. As sun beamed down on them, Russet swung the wagon around. Apple Bloom raised a hoof to her brow, flushed with a heat that had nothing to do with the warmth from Celestia's magic. She could see the ranch house down the hillside. Feel the rattle of the tires over the rough road, hear the wind in the air. She promised herself she wouldn’t do it even as she slowly turned around to look back. Spike was still standing where she’d left him, looking after them.
Happy birthday.
