Eq Renaissance Part 25 (Ed)

    Braeburn made it as far as the great western ocean.  There he ran out of room for the chase, and the trail as well.
    It was late when his train rolled into San Prancisco.  It was the largest city in the West, owing to its natural harbor.  By eastern standards it was small, but by Braeburn’s standards it was a metropolis.  He also found it disagreeable in the extreme.
    Once, the city had sprung up almost overnight on rumors of a gold strike.  The wide-eyed dreamers who came for gold were soon replaced by chiselers, swindlers and con-artists, seedy speculators, highway robbers, and lawyers.  It was now home to degenerates of all sorts, stuffing the city full with scum and stinking detritus in its bloodied saloons and brothels and opium dens.  Braeburn even hated the weather.  He had been comfortable in the desert, but was now confronted with the wet, cold sea air that chilled him to the bone, making his joints stiff and sore as if he were already an old man.  He was a lawman in a place where the only law was to look out for one’s self.
    Braeburn found a room in a decaying, worm-eaten hotel not far from the station.  The hotel shared a roof with two competing brothels, and a noisome bar that served anyone with cash.  There were probably things more foul, Braeburn thought, in the wretched building, likely in the cellars.  Things not even fit for the more public brothels above.  Animals.  Little girls.  Trap doors where the drunks could fall through and be clubbed, and wake up the next day on a ship sailing to Shanghai.
    Braeburn tried to sleep on the little lice-ridden mattress in his awful little hotel room.  He couldn’t.  There was a whore moaning through the thin walls to his right.  Another was faking her orgasm through the wall to the left.  Braeburn had hoped that he would manage to drift off when they stopped their moaning.  Then the thought occurred to him that the only reason they had fallen momentarily silent was because they had their mouths full.
    Braeburn squirmed.  It had been weeks since he had last laid with a woman.  It would be so easy.  It would be so simple to just pay a few bits for a whore, do his business inside her, then be done with it.  Then he could rest.  Then he could focus on what he needed to do.
    He thought of Little Strongheart.  There was nothing in the world he loved so much as her.  He thought about a day, long ago now, that they had shared in their little cottage high on the ridge.  He could just about feel the soft skin of her shoulders beneath his palms, her muscles shifting as she worked the mortar and pestle.  Braeburn could almost smell her hair, curly but done up in a rough braid, and feel it brushing lightly across his face.  He could feel the nipples on her breasts now, against his palms and they were growing stiff to his touch.  The cheeks of her ass were now pressing, slapping against his bare hip as he took her.
    Braeburn groaned, then rolled beneath his musty blanket.  He pulled down his trousers and finished himself with his hand.  Rolling back over, he was glad to have at least one problem out of the way, ashamed that he had even considered buying a whore, and eager to turn his thoughts to what really mattered.
    There were still two outlaws to round up.  More, if you considered the entirety of their former gang, but they had all fled in every which direction, and Braeburn was more interested in the ringleaders than the accomplices.  There was Blackfoot.  A notorious rapist and murderer.  An Indian, by all accounts.  They said his tribe was all gone, and he’d been traveling the world ever since, causing mayhem wherever he went, as cold and cruel as his heart.  Then there was the leader of them all, the enigmatic Discord.  Braeburn knew nothing of him, except for the feverish rants of superstitious fools who had gotten in his way and survived.  Those rants were not to be believed, most didn’t even make any sense.  This Discord must be an impressive character, to inspire such fantastical gossip.
    Braeburn knew that they knew he was on their trail.  No doubt they’d be trying to book passage on a ship, or just pirate a ship if they couldn’t do that.  If Braeburn was lucky, if he was right on their trail, he’d be able to find them down at the docks in the morning, still looking for berths.  If he was unlucky, then they were already gone, off somewhere to China or India or some place he had never heard of.  No doubt they would think they got clean away.  Braeburn wasn’t going to stop, though.  He’d keep chasing them clear around the world if he had to.  They were as good as caught, it was just a matter of time.
    That meant time away from Little Strongheart though.  It had been too long already.  No doubt she was already at home again, mad as hell at him for leaving her, but at least she wouldn’t get hurt.  Braeburn thought about Little Strongheart.  He could just about taste the bread that she always baked.  He could hear the Indian song that she used to sing as she chopped wood, the one with the words that he didn’t understand but the melody was oh so lovely.  There was the light in her eye, coming in through the window as they woke up in bed together.  Braeburn fell asleep.  He dreamed of her coppery red skin, and her deep dark eyes.

    The next morning was somehow colder than the previous night.  A thick fog had rolled into the bay and it brought the chill with it.  It also made it hard to see; Braeburn didn’t have more than half a block of visibility.  He didn’t even find the docks until he almost tumbled into the water.
    There were a lot of sailors along the wharf.  Few of them cared for answering questions, even when Braeburn kept Silverstar’s badge beneath this overcoat where they couldn’t see it.  A few that answered honestly said they hadn’t seen his men.  Most grunted and shook their heads.
    The boardwalk was huge, but Braeburn could only search its length for so long.  Towards the end, the sailors became sparse, then disappeared completely.  There weren’t any sailors because there weren’t any ships.  He was beginning to worry he had lost them.
    Then Braeburn came to a dock and stopped, for reasons he didn’t understand.  He tried to peer down the dock, but it disappeared into the fog only a few yards away.  There wasn’t any cause to search down the end of the dock, but Braeburn felt a strange tug of fate, and walked down it anyway.
    The boards creaked ominously under the thumping of his boots.  It sounded odd, the way the fog muffled and reflected the sound.  He wondered if anybody back on the boardwalk would hear him if there were any kind of trouble waiting for him at the end of this dock.  Would they hear a cry for help?  Would they hear a gunshot?
    The fog began to lighten a little while he strode down the dock.  It didn’t lift, just let a little light in so he could see a bit further.  There were shadows at the end.  Crates.  Coils of rope.  Two men.  One seated on some rope at the side of the dock, the other standing at the very end.  Braeburn pulled his coat away from his holster.  He could feel the sheriff’s star, still covered, beneath the breast.  It felt heavy.  These were his men.  He could recognize them now.
    “Blackfoot?” Braeburn shouted out to the man seated.  He grumbled in response, almost an animal growl.  “Alias Blackhoof?  Alias Jim Black?  Alias Jim Buttons?  Alias Father-of-Yellow-Pony?”  The man spat into the water.
    “And Discord?” Braeburn shouted to the other man.  “Aliases unknown?”
    “Oh no!  You’ve finally caught us!” the latter man shrugged.  His voice was far too cheerful to be honest.
    “You’re both under arrest,” Braeburn shouted, still moving towards them.  “Please put your hands up and don’t make any sudden movements.
    Blackfoot made a sudden movement.  Braeburn was almost on top of him, but still the bastard decided to fight rather than give up.  The man threw off the coat he had been using as a blanket, and reached towards his waist.  Braeburn saw a flash of metal.  It could have been a gun, it could have been a knife, both were equally deadly at such close range.
    Braeburn was faster.  He pulled his gun and shot a single round high into the man’s chest.  Blackfoot went backwards over the coiled rope without a word, and pitched into the cold sea.  He didn’t even make a splash, just an unceremonious plop that Braeburn could barely hear over the ringing in his ears..
    “You shot him!” Discord bellowed, incredulously.
    “He was resisting arrest,” Braeburn explained, leveling the gun at Discord.
    “I can’t believe you shot him!” Discord’s face was turning scarlet.  A vein was popping out on his neck.
    “I’ll shoot you too,” Braeburn said calmly, “if you try any funny business.”
    “I HAD PLANS FOR HIM!” Discord raged.
    “You don’t have to tell me what those plans are, mister,” Braeburn cocked back the hammer, “but if you do, you should understand that your words can be used against you in a court of law.  That’s a fair warning.”
    The color seemed to drain from Discord’s face.  The frown relaxed, and the corners of his mouth even turned up a little.  He started to chuckle.  “A court of law?” he asked.  “Law?  Are you serious?  Law?  Do you even know who I am?  I’m Discord.  Don’t you know that by now?  That’s not my name, that’s who I am.  That’s WHAT I am.  Discord itself!”
    The man who was discord ripped off his jacket in one fluid motion and threw it on the ground.  Braeburn had hoped Discord wouldn’t do something like that, but he had been ready.  There was only one way to respond.  Braeburn pulled the trigger while Discord’s arms were still in motion.
    Braeburn pulled the trigger.  There was no loud bang.  Misfire was the first thought to cross his mind.  When he looked down, he saw it wasn’t a misfire.  It wasn’t horror he felt at first, not yet, but a nauseating sense of wonder and curiosity.  At the end of the barrel of his gun, a beautiful red rose had bloomed.  Even as he gaped at it, the petals began falling off, turning black and rotten before they fell through the gaps in the planks.
    He pulled the trigger again.  This time a tiny jet of water streamed out, hitting Discord in the chest and dribbling down the front of his jacket.  Braeburn pulled again.  This time a series of soap bubbles blew out, and drifted into the fog on a breeze.
    “What did you do to my gun?” Braeburn asked, helpless, looking up at Discord.
    The grin on his face was from ear to ear now.  His teeth were yellow and rotted; his breath stank.  “I haven’t done anything to your gun, silly.  How could I?  Go ahead.  Take a look.”
    It was now that the true horror grasped Braeburn.  When he lowered his face to look at his gun, he actually started to raise his gun up to his face to look down the barrel.  He managed to stop himself before he looked directly down it, and shuddered.  He knew, he simply knew it as fact, that if he had pointed that gun at himself, a round would have fired and he’d have blown his own brains out of the back of his own head.
    Somehow this man, this thing called discord, had almost tricked him into killing himself.  “How?” Braeburn asked, as scared as he had ever been.  “You must be... some kind of... wizard.”
    “Oh now, don’t call me a wizard,” Discord stretched his arms out in a bored yawn.  Somehow he seemed taller than before.  “A wizard just doesn’t cut it.  Even your human word ‘demon’ doesn’t cut it.”
    “'Your human'...”
    “It’s the power, you see,” Discord went on.  “It just doesn’t convey the power.  My power.  Even demigods are nothing in comparison.  Why, even your Princess Celestia is no match for me.  Now Luna, I have to admit, commands respect.  Not that she has much power, mind you, but I’ve agreed to stay out of her hair, and she out of mine.
    “No, ‘demigod’ doesn’t cut it, or even for that matter ‘god.’  I’m Discord.  As in the personification of.  And, oh, my dear Braeburn, I’m afraid you’ve ruined my plans.  You owe me.”
    “Owe you?
    “My pound of flesh.  My jot of blood.  You took it from me.  My dearly departed Blackfoot.  He’s no good to me at the body of the bay, of course.  Why, the crabs are already eating him.  So I’ll have to take from you.  The lands and goods are, by the laws of Venice, confiscate, unto the state of Venice.”
    “Pardon?”
    “And you know what?” Discord asked, bending over Braeburn’s face, noses no further apart than an inch.  “He was an Indian too.  His skin... it was just so... coppery red.”
    “No,” Braeburn said, feeling icy cold, and not from the weather.
    Discord straightened back up,  He held his fingers in front of his face, as if he were examining the centuries of dirt under his nails.  “He was our camp cook, you know.  Never made much beyond rice and beans.  But mmm, I can still remember the smell of his baked bread.”
    “No,” Braeburn whispered.
    Discord started to sing a song.  Braeburn didn’t understand the words, but the melody was oh so lovely and he recognized it very well.
    “Nooo,” Braeburn moaned, taking a step backwards, then two, then three.  He turned and ran.  Discord started to laugh as he disappeared into the fog, and the noise echoed around ominously.  Braeburn’s boots pounded heavily on the dock.  The cold, the noise, everything reminded him that he was awake and lucid, despite being in the middle of the worst nightmare he had ever known.  His eyes started to water from the kind of desperate fear only known by a person with a loved one threatened by an inhuman, unstoppable power.  Something in the mist was appearing ahead of him, at the front of the dock where it met the boardwalk.  It was Discord, still laughing.  He had gone from the end of the dock, to the front, without having passed Braeburn as he fled.  Braeburn shot him a glance as he raced by, trying to judge his intent and his cruelty.  The man-thing was certainly taller than he had been on first sight.  Discord was seven feet tall now, if he was an inch.
    “Better run fast, boy,” Discord taunted Braeburn as he rushed past.  “The race is my favorite part.”
    Braeburn couldn’t run any faster.

    There was a train leaving the terminal just as Braeburn was running up.  Braeburn didn’t even enter the building, but ran up to meet it along the tracks as it was pulling away, and he hauled himself on board.  He didn’t even know the final destination of the train, but it was heading east, and that would have to do.
    The conductor, who had seen him from the window, approached him immediately and demanded his ticket.  Braeburn explained he didn’t have one, but would be happy to pay.  He whipped out his wallet and started pulling out bills.  The conductor was befuddled, and said that wasn’t the way it was supposed to work.  Braeburn started to beg, and immediately began stuffing the conductor’s hands with cash, three, four times the price of a first class ticket.  It was an emergency, Braeburn tried to explain, and the man, sensing Braeburn’s panic, acquiesced.
    Braeburn made his way to the front of the train, in a less dangerous but more frightful similarity to a train ride he had taken out west.  He had to climb up and over the tender, then crawled his way down to the engine, where the engineers and fire man were surprised to see him.  He tried to explain to the engineer that they needed to hurry, that they needed to get to Appleoosa faster.  The engineer, angry for the intrusion, said they weren’t going to Appleoosa and anyway it was his train and he wouldn’t be told how to run it.  Braeburn started to beg again.  He showed him the sheriff’s star, he explained it was a life or death situation.  The engineer grumbled for a bit, then ordered the second engineer and the fire man to start shoveling the coal in faster.  He’d raise the steam and take it up to the red line, the engineer agreed, but he wouldn’t push it faster than that and risk an explosion.
    Braeburn waited in the tender.  First he sat in a pile of coal, then as the fire man cleared out enough room, he started to pace back and forth.  The engineer watched, then pushed the engine a little harder.
    They rolled into a little town called Saddelanto a few hours later, almost a full hour ahead of schedule.  Braeburn started to get irate, demanding they set off east at once.  The engineer pointed out that they weren’t scheduled to leave for another hour and a half.  He could make the train run faster, but he couldn’t change the timetables.
    Braeburn set off on foot, heading down the tracks.  He caught sight of Discord as he ran off from the station.  He was simply standing there on the platform, waving to Braeburn, and he hadn’t even been on board the train.  He was well over eight feet tall now, and the most disturbing thing about him was how he was in the middle of the crowd, but nobody seemed to notice the monster standing there.
    The train caught up with Braeburn a couple of hours later, several miles down the track.  The engineer slowed the train down enough so that Braeburn could pull himself on board.  The engineer had given thought to just blowing past him, yet he had strangely felt sorry for the sheriff, and he also figured the damn fool would kill himself trying to grab the train if it was going by at high speed.
    Early the next morning, the train pulled into Palomino Junction, ahead of time, but at its final destination.  It would be heading west again, then down a spur.  Braeburn, panicky, commandeered a handcar and started heading east himself.  By late afternoon he was exhausted.  His jacket and shirt were off, tucked between his feet as he pumped the car mile after countless mile.
    He had to abandon that hand car later in the evening when he nearly collided with a train heading west.  It slammed on its breaks when the engineer saw him, and avoided him by only a dozen yards or so.  The engineers came storming out, furious.  He ignored them, and set off east on foot, going around the train.  Discord was there, on the back railing of the caboose, stooped over so he wouldn’t hit his head, and blowing Braeburn kisses.
    Later, Braeburn had to steal a horse.  He wasn’t happy about it, especially since he had to draw his gun on the man who owned it.  He had thrown what was left of his cash at the man’s feet, but it wasn’t enough cover the cost.  He wished he could have explained to the man.  Discord just wasn’t giving him any choice in the matter.  He had to get home.
    Braeburn rode the horse hard.  Eventually he fell asleep in the saddle.  Long hours later, he woke up to find himself still mounted, and the horse still faithfully, lazily following the railroad east.  Braeburn dug his heels in, and rode the horse hard again.  He rode it until it broke and collapsed.  Then, once again, Braeburn got back up and set off on foot.  Discord was sitting on a boulder within view of the spot where the horse collapsed.  He was idly playing solitaire with a pack of cards.  There was also a pair of horns on the man’s head.  Not devil horns, as Braeburn would have guessed, but a kind of twisted rack of antlers.  How he hadn’t noticed them before, Braeburn couldn’t guess.
When he woke up the next day, having collapsed from exhaustion himself, he set off again.
    He came to the point where he had set off across country.  It was a shorter route than following the twisting railroad on a roundabout route back to Appleoosa.  He was so close now.  Somewhere to his northwest, Sheriff Silverstar was lying in his grave, the true owner of the star on his chest.  Somewhere east-by-northeast was his home and his Little Strongheart.  If he didn’t get there fast enough, Discord would do something horrible to her.
    Braeburn came to a river.  On the other side was a wide, pretty orchard of apples.  Above it rose a dusty brown ridge of rock.  Just barely visible on top was a little square silhouette.  Home.
    Discord, of course, was waiting by the river.  Braeburn barely gave him a glance before plunging into the water.  It had receded since he had last forded it going in the other direction, but it seemed just as icy cold.  On any given day, Braeburn could have swam back and forth with ease several times without even losing his breath.  Now, having come so far so fast, he barely made it across.  He spluttered and he choked, and he had to pull himself up on the opposite bank with his arms.
    When he had been a little kid, Braeburn had been afraid of the monsters in his closet after his mother turned out the lights.  Whenever his imagination ran away from him, he’d pull his blankets up over his head.  Those monsters could have torn a little kid to shreds with their terrible claws, but not while they were being protected by a favorite blanket.  That was a part of the rules, you see.  The monsters that you come up with in your head come included with rules.
    Braeburn didn’t want to look back at the monster on the opposite bank.  Not when he was so close to home.  That was another rule too, wasn’t it?  Don’t look back?  Like in that story of the singer who sings his wife out of Hades, only to lose her again when he looks back at the very end?
    Braeburn got to his feet, and looked back.  The monster was still there, smiling at him.  It actually felt a little comforting to see him standing there, to stare him down.  If he was on that opposite bank, then he wasn’t up in the house hurting Little Strongheart.  Maybe if Braeburn just walked backwards the rest of the way, maybe he could keep himself between Discord and her all the way back.
    “Well?” Braeburn called out.  It was the first time he had heard his own voice in days.  It was wheezing and ragged.  “Aren’t you gonna cross?”
    “Maybe I will,” Discord laughed.  “Maybe I won’t.”
    “You won’t cross?  After coming all this way?”
    “All this way where?” Discord chuckled.  “Back to the beginning?  Back to where it all started?  Oh, I’m pretty sure that you’re more put out than I am.”
    “It was some kind of trick?” Braeburn bent over, hands on his knees.  “I chase you all the way west, and you chase me all the way east again?  Just for a laugh?”
    “Well, I’m certainly very amused,” Discord taunted.
    “I don’t believe you,” Braeburn said.
    “Ah, the beginning of wisdom.  Don’t trust the personification of evil and chaos.  You’d be surprised at how many people don’t learn that lesson.”
    Braeburn remembered another story about monsters from his childhood.  “Maybe you can’t cross running water.”
	“What do I look like to you?” Discord said, less amused than irate that Braeburn was sounding stupid.  “A headless dragonhorse-man?  Please!  Weren’t you paying attention on the dock?  I can do anything.”
    “Well it looks like you can’t cross a river.”
    “Maybe it’s more fun this way.”
    “Maybe you can’t.”
    “Are you seriously trying to taunt me, you insignificant little twerp?” Discord asked, sounding a little more than irate now.  I could snuff out your life with a snap of my fingers, and do things to your wife that you can’t even imagine.”
    “What was that you were saying about Princess Luna?”
    “Wait, what?” Discord asked, for the first time sounding confused.
    “Because this here,” Braeburn pointed to the river, swinging his arm from upstream down.  “It ain’t just a river.  It ain’t just running water.  This here is the proper western border of the kingdom of Equestria.  That’s why I think you’re not following me across.  Maybe the life of a little town sheriff and his wife don’t mean much to you.  But I’ve got a hunch that the kingdom of Equestria registers something more to you.  What was that you were saying about the Princess?  Some kind of agreement about about staying out of her hair?  I think that’s why you won’t cross.”
    “Preposterous!”  Discord sneered.
    Braeburn could tell the man was lying, and not just because he was the king of liars.  “You made a mistake though, I think.  All that mayhem and chaos you caused with that gang of dogs of yours.”
    “That wasn’t in Equestria,” Discord spat.  “It was of no consequence to your precious little princess.”
    “Ah,” smiled Braeburn.  “But Silverstar was a gentleman and officer of Equestria.  And you’re complicit with his murder.  Your own lackey pulled the trigger.”
    “That happened on neutral territory!”
    “You think Princess Luna is going to accept that excuse?”
    Discord, for once, was forced into silence.  The river babbled between them for what seemed like minutes.  “Oh, you’re no fun any more!” Discord finally bellowed.  “You listen to me, human.  I’m not going to cross today.  I’m not going to cross tomorrow.  But I’m going to cross some day, when you least expect it.  Every nightmare is going to come true to you and your little squaw bitch.  That fear is going to be haunting you for the rest of your life, and your little blankie isn’t going to protect you this time.”
    With that, Discord vanished in a flash of blinding white light.  Braeburn collapsed down onto his knees, overcome.  Eventually he strained to stand up again, and painfully made his way east.
    He skirted the ridge, avoiding a trip home.  He continued all the way into Appleoosa, where he boarded a train at the station.  The town was sleepy enough at this hour of the day that nobody even saw him come through or get on.  The conductor of the train saw him; he recognized Braeburn.  Yet he chose not to wake him up, or even ask him for a ticket, from the bench seat where he had collapsed finally to sleep.
    Still asleep, Braeburn rode the train as it pulled out of Appleoosa.  It was heading deep into the heart of the kingdom of Equestria.  He would be going all of the way to the great city of Canterlot, and the tall palace high on the hill.