When The Colt Comes Around

"Hold that wagon!" Braeburn was at full gallop chasing after the last wagon in the caravan. He knew he could catch up with it, he just didn't wan to run that much. "Cmon!" His hat started to lift off of his head, he was close enough to reach out to the back of the wooden wagon.

"Boss Jack, get 'im in here." The voice of a filly came from the back of the wagon he was chasing, and before Braeburn could grab onto the any part of the wooden wagon, a monstrous hoof reached from the darkness and grabbed Braeburn by the vest, he was dangling not a foot from the ground, he could feel panic start to set in. "Quit teasin' im, Jack. Ah said to get 'im in here." A deep grunt came from the end of the hoof as he was pulled into the darkened interior of the wagon.

It took Braeburn's eyes a minute to adjust to the darkness of the wagon. When they finally did, Braeburn saw the inside of a typical wagon: Food stores, a box of ammunition or two, and plenty of tools and other frontier supplies. There were also two earth ponies sitting among the supplies. One was a filly: her coat was the same color as the golden waves of grain that coated the plains, her mane was the dark brown one would expect from a new chest of drawers. The other occupant was a lumbering mountain of a stallion that Braeburn guessed was 'Boss Jack.' His coat was stone gray and his head was capped with a white mane. He even looked like a mountain.

"Howdy there, stranger!" The filly chirped. Upon closer inspection, Braeburn saw freckles dotted the filly's face. She sorta reminded him of Applejack

"Howdy, little missy." Braeburn dipped his hat politely. "Ah'm mighty thankful that ya helped me outta mah little predicament back there. The name's Braeburn." The filly smiled back at him.

"Nice ta meet ya, Braeburn. Ah'm Prairie Grass." She put her hoof to her chest proudly. "This is mah brother, Boss Jack." Her hoof went to the mountain beside her. "He cant talk, Ma and Pa say it's on account of a sickness he had when he was young." Boss Jack only grumbled in response. "Ah 'spose he ain't got nothin' to say anyhow."

"Pleasure to meet ya both." Braeburn gave a friendly smile and sat against the wall of the wagon. "So where are y'all headed?" Braeburn had always fancied himself a pony's pony. He could often get along with most characters he met, save for outlaws and government ponies.

"Well Ma and Pa bought some land up in the Macintosh Hills, Pa says there's gold up there that needs minin'. So I reckon that we're headed that'a'way." Braeburn got a little homesick at the word 'Macintosh', It made him miss his cousins even more than he already did.

"Gold? Now how 'bout that. Quite a expensive thing." The filly nodded, the mountain just grumbled again. "Where'd y'all come from? Certainly not Appleloosa." Braeburn knew every face in Appleloosa, and he was sure as salt that he wouldn't forget Boss Jack's.

"Course not. We're from Dodge Junction. Well...Ah am, Pa and Ma are from Manehatten." It was a classic story nowadays, some ponies that had no luck in the city decide to move south in search of opportunity and a new life. "Where're you from, Mister Braeburn?" At least the filly had manners.

"Well ah'm travelin' from Appleloosa, if that's what yer askin'. But ah was born and raised in Ponyville on Sweet Apple Acres." The filly's eyes lit up, Boss Jack looked slightly interested.

"Yer part of the Apple Family?" Braeburn gave a careful nod. "Would ya look at that Boss Jack, we got a regular celebrity ridin' with us." Prairie poked at her brother's side, who just grunted and kept a watchful eye on Braeburn. "Ah reckon ah should get yer autograph." Braeburn let out a hearty laugh.

"Naw, Ah ain't no celebrity. Ah moved away from the farm when ah was old enough. Joined up with the Equestrian Agricultural Society, they sent me out to Appleloosa to work the orchards they set up." Braeburn finally got tired of the rope from his sack chafin' his neck, so he took it off and set it down.

"And yer headin' out to the middle of the desert? Ah didn't think much of anythin' grew out there." The filly stood up and trotted over to Braeburn's sack he had set down, stumbling every time the wagon hit a rock or a pothole.

"Ah don't quite know why they're sendin' me out in the desert, but I do know that it must be fer a good reason."  Braeburn sat up straight against the wood panel behind him, interested in what the filly was doing. Prairie opened the sack with her teeth and stuck her head inside. "Now don't you know better than to go snoopin around in others' belongings?" Braeburns hoof tipped his hat up a little more.

"Well you already done seen all of our belongings, ah figure it's only right iffin ah look through yours." The farm pony's logic was sound, Braeburn knew it.

"Fair enough.." Braeburn watched as Prairie backed out of the bag, holding the picture of the Apple family in between her teeth. Even though he hated when ponies looked through his belongings, and definitely when they touched his family portrait,  he wouldn't yell at Prairie. If not because she was just a filly, than because her brother could most likely punch Braeburn through the wood paneling of the wagon.

"That's a big family..." She was right, Braeburn had never counted the number of ponies in the picture, but he guessed that it was in the 20's or 30's. "And they all work at Sweet Apple Acres..?"

"Naw, The Apple Family lives all over Equestria. Sure Sweet Apple Acres is the most famous orchard of ours, but that's only 'cause it was the first." Braeburn leaned over to look at the picture. It was taken a number of years ago, back when his pa was still alive. Prairie wasn't as interested in the picture as he was, so she set it aside and went back head first into the sack. "Careful, we wouldn't want ya gettin' lost in there."

The next item she came out with made Braeburn laugh, she was wearing one of his vests over her head. "Get this darned thing offa me!" she cried from under the leather stitched vest. Braeburn knocked the vest off of her head and smiled at her. "You got a lot of vests..."

"Well i reckon I could part with a few when I get to Fresh Springs.." High Price had been telling him for months that the vests he wore were tacky and cliche, but he never quite paid any attention to it. Now though, he had to admit that he might need a change of pace. "Ah bet you'd look mighty sharp with one of those on." Braeburn re-situated the vest and put it on Prairie. It was way too big for her, but it was a cute sight nonetheless.

"Now all ah need is yer hat, and i'll look like a regular cowpoke." Boss Jack let out what Braeburn guessed was a laugh.

"Y'all ain't touchin mah hat. Perhaps yer pa can buy ya one but this one is mine."

"Ah was just jokin'..." The earth filly frowned and went back into the sack. "Oh! This looks cool!" She came back out one last time, her hoof was on top of an old compass. "Hey! This compass is broken!" Braeburn smiled, this next one he always loved explaining.

"It ain't broken. it's workin' perfectly fine." The filly tried her best to understand but she just didn't.

"No, a compass is 'sposed to point north always, this one ain't."

"That compass ain't 'sposed to point north. That there's a magic compass. My pa got it from Princess Celestia when he was young...that there compass points to whatever's truly important to you in the world..."The filly studied the compass, it was pointing to Boss Jack behind her. She dismissed it as nonsense and hoofed it over to Braeburn.

"Where does it point for you..?" braeburn looked down at it, the needle pointed to the one part of Equestria that he always wanted. His mind drifted off to thoughts of the small town of Ponyville.