A Horse Named Smith

Chapter 7

Haymarket, Equestria. Anno Caelestiae 906

Mister Smith awoke to the sound of voices just outside the storage shed. He recognised Primrose Path's musical lilt immediately; the other was a slow, gravelly sound, as if the speaker were very old or very tired. Mister Smith edged over to where Strawberry was still sleeping, though thankfully not snoring, and prepared to clap a hoof over his friend's muzzle if the latter should wake up suddenly and noisily.

He could not help but overhear the conversation.

"...give the lad a chance, Primrose. You can see he's utterly devoted to you. And besides, there is the question of the farm."

"Oh Grandpa, I'm telling you, nothing has changed. If anything, I feel even more uncomfortable around him. And what does this have to do with the farm?"

"I'm getting on in years, in case you haven't noticed. Someone's got to take over one of these days, and it's not going to be Rocky: he's up to his withers in ice-cream, of all things, and he's not going to leave Manehattan now to take up the reins here. Happy's quite happy with your father's farrier shop, and, like Rocky, is not going to divide his attention between that and the farm. I know you have your little repair studio, and you don't have to give that up; if you were to marry Balderdash..."

"Well, I don't see why that's got anything to do with it at all!" Mister Smith could easily imagine Primrose giving a proud toss of her head at this. "Why not just leave the farm to Balderdash and be done with it?"

"Blood's blood, Primrose, you can't get away from that," snapped her grandfather, "and I will not have it said that I cheated my kith and kin out of their rights. Look around you, Primrose. This farm is the result of fifty years of blood and sweat, and it's the best that Equestria has to offer. It's too big to be simply slipped away as a side bequest to an outsider. Balderdash is the only pony I trust to keep it going, but he certainly can't buy it from one of you - not if he's throwing away his money on gifts that you can't seem to appreciate - and I won't have the farm sold away to strangers I know nothing about!"

Mister Smith was surprised. He'd been under the impression that it was Balderdash who owned the farm. But ... of course, the Cobblestone Rock Farm ... "cobblestone" was a sort of street paving, wasn't it? So the old pony outside must be Cobblestone himself, of the Street family, Primrose and Happy's grandfather. Who didn't believe the stories about Mister Smith and Strawberry being secret members of a cult of cannibal ponies. It wasn't much, but it was something.

"And I won't have my whole life dictated to me by a field of rocks!"

There was a tense pause. Cobblestone's reply, when it came, was dripping with reproach and barely loud enough for Mister Smith to hear: "I thought your parents raised you better than that. What a disappointment." There was the sound of scattering gravel, and hooves slowly plodding away. A few moments later, Mister Smith heard the crunch of something hitting the gravel, and soft sobbing. Unable to restrain himself, he nudged the door open and peeked out.

Primrose was sitting against a side of the shed, crying. Mister Smith's heart melted. He edged forward and whispered, "Miss Path?"

Primrose jumped and hurriedly wiped the tears away. "Mr Smith! What ... were you eavesdropping?"

"I couldn't help it. I was inside the shed when you and your grandfather came up, and I didn't want to interrupt."

"What were you doing in the storage shed at this time of the morning? Your shift doesn't begin for another hour!"

"Well..."

And this was the serendipitous moment that Strawberry chose to poke his nose out the door. "Oh, I say! Miss Path!"

Primrose seemed to have completely forgotten her troubles, in the face of this sudden barrage of ponies popping up in unexpected places. She nudged Strawberry aside and marched into the shed, determined to discover what Mister Smith and Strawberry had been up to. And discover it she did: Strawberry had just been in the act of collecting up his toothbrush (a gift from Malachite, since the drugstore wouldn't open its doors to either Mister Smith or Strawberry) and it was sitting out in plain sight in the middle of the shed. Further in the back were two cleared spaces with a bit of burlap sacking laid down and a saddle at the head of each. A battered old saddlebag, which she recognised as having once belonged to Malachite, sat open between the two spaces; another toothbrush poked up from it. Primrose turned and fixed the other two ponies with a wide-eyed look. "Have you two been sleeping here?"

Mister Smith felt his cheeks turn warm, and he pawed the ground embarrasedly. "Yes. It seemed like the only option. Please don't tell anyone."

"Have things in town gotten that bad? I'll give that stablemaster a piece of my mind!"

"No no no, please don't" Mister Smith, already uncomfortably aware of how far Malachite was risking her reputation, had no wish to see Primrose risk hers as well. "It's better this way, believe me. Strawberry and I, we can't stay in this town too much longer, not now that ... well, what with everything that's being said. We need to save up our money to make a fresh start elsewhere. It's much cheaper if we stay here until we leave."

"You can't possibly sleep in here. The floor isn't just hard as a rock, it is a rock!"

"We're used to it."

"Speak for yourself," muttered Strawberry.

"Well, this won't do. This won't do at all." Primrose looked around again and turned her nose up at the Spartan accommodations. "I'll speak to Grandpa and see if he can do anything."

"No! You can't tell him! He mustn't know!"

Primrose gave a little snort of frustration. "Well, fine. If you absolutely must live like vagabonds, you'd be better off sneaking into Grandpa's basement at night. It's got its own entrance, from the garden, and it's cluttered with stuff from when my brothers and I were growing up. There'll be at least a couple of old mattresses and beds, in terrible condition but still a good deal better than this!"

Mister Smith considered the option. He had to admit that, after only two nights, he'd grown very fond of the luxurious softness of mattresses. And pillows! How had he ever managed before without pillows? Strawberry, he knew, felt the same way. "Your grandfather won't ... you don't think he'll notice?"

"If you're quiet and discreet, I don't see why he should. Anyway, he's going to Manehattan today for some sort of a business meeting, and then he'll stay another day to visit with my other brother, Rocky Road. He probably won't be back until the day after tomorrow at the earliest. Meet me outside the farm office at sunset tonight - after Balderdash has gone home."

As Primrose trotted off, Mister Smith reflected that this was one way to take a crying mare's mind off her own troubles.

No-one threw any stones at either of them that day. No-one ever came close enough to do so. They were left so much alone that, after telling them that he'd give them their job assignments for the day "in a few minutes", Balderdash never remembered to tell them what to do until almost noon. And of course that meant the loss of another half-day's pay.

As arranged, Mister Smith and Strawberry returned to the rock farm after dinner - first informing Malachite Dream that they would be a little late that evening - and sat down to wait. The sun was just disappearing over the edge of the Whinnysconsin treeline when Primrose crept up furtively, wearing a dark bonnet and cape. "I don't want anyone to see me, or recognise me if they do," she explained. "And neither do you, I think. Come on."

They followed Primrose to the large, stone house near the southeast corner of the farm. Neither of them had been this close to it before; from a distance, it looked more like a large pile of rocks, but up close one could plainly see the slate shingles and the narrow windows, and the seemingly haphazard stacking of stones began to take on the appearance of pattern. "My great-uncle Crazy Paving built this," whispered Primrose. "He was quite brilliant, but not exactly all there, if you know what I mean. He had this mad idea that one fine day Princess Celestia might accidentally drop the sun, and then anyone without an underground bunker to hide in would get fried to a crisp."

Malachite had explained the Princess's role in raising and lowering the sun over Equestria, the night before. It was another thing that Mister Smith found hard to believe, and even Strawberry, who was less prone to questioning these things, seemed amused by the idea.

In any case, one pony's belief, that the Princess could accidently drop the sun on top of his head, had led to the construction of an underground bunker, accessible from a discreet part of the garden and now used by the family as basement storage. The three of them were able to slip inside easily, without coming within sight of the house. Primrose lit a lantern and placed it on top of an old chest. In the light of the lantern, the clutter of forgotten treasures cast weird shadows over other bric-a-brac; uneven stone walls were only just visible beyond them. "My brother Rocky loved to come in here to rummage around the old stuff. Happy and I preferred to stay away. I don't think I've ever been all the way down the steps, in fact. I do remember that Rocky's bed was moved down here when he moved out. So was our parents' bed, after they died."

"I'm sorry."

"It was a long time ago. Anyway, you're free to stay here as long as you like."

"We'll be as little trouble as we can ... and we'll be gone as soon as we can, once we've saved up enough."

Primrose was silent. The rim of her bonnet hid her face, and Mister Smith was beginning to wonder if he'd made some kind of social error, when she spoke up again. "I suppose you must be saving up quite a bit, living the way you do."

"Not as much as we'd like," said Mister Smith, "something always seems to happen at work, and we end up losing half a day's pay." He quickly outlined what had happened earlier in the day.

"Balderdash docked you - both of you - half a day's pay for that?" Primrose was wide-eyed with shock. "That's not how it works! He ought to pay you exactly what it says in your contract; if he mismanages things so that you spend half the day idling by, that's his problem, not yours!"

"You mean we should have demanded the whole six bits -"

"Six bits!" she exclaimed, and if Cobblestone had been home that night, Mister Smith thought, their secret quarters would be secret no more. "Six bits! Is that what Balderdash has been paying you per day? That's not a day's pay, Mr Smith, that's slave labour! A farmhoof such as yourself should get between nine and twelve bits, that's the standard around these parts, and I know the starting pay here is ten bits a day. Does Balderdash imagine that he's saving Grandpa a few bits like this? That is not how the Streets do business! And wait, he docked you half a day's pay out of that? In other words, he paid you only three bits each for today?"

Mister Smith wasn't sure what to think. It was news to him that he and Strawberry were being grossly underpaid, and it seemed clear that this was Balderdash's doing. But on the other hoof, without Balderdash, they wouldn't be getting any bits at all, and he said so.

"That's not the point!" groused Primrose, stamping her hooves angrily. "Balderdash! Oh, wait 'til I tell Grandpa about this! Do you have your contracts with you?"

Strawberry produced the paperwork, and Primrose read it over in the lantern light. "It seems all in order, at least," she said, grudgingly. "You agreed to six bits a day, according to this, fair and square. Not much you can do about that, I suppose, although I had better not hear anything more about pay being docked for any stupid reasons." She thrust the papers back at Strawberry as though they left a bad taste in her mouth.

It seemed best not to mention the other time this had happened, that incident with the granite chips.

Primrose left in a state of righteous indignation, swearing to shake the farm from top to bottom to give them justice; and while Mister Smith appreciated the sentiment, her intensity was just a little more than he had expected. He had managed to placate her a little, advising caution, once again reminding her that, for all he might be taking advantage of them, Balderdash was still the only reason they weren't starving in the streets. It would not do to make him an enemy, especially not now, when every other pony in Haymarket was against them.

"We'll just have to do something about the rest of Haymarket, then. That much is Happy's doing, and Happy will fix it or else," Primrose said as she stalked off with her head high. She was determined to have another word with her brother. Mister Smith did not expect much to come of it. He trusted Primrose enough to think that she must have already been doing what she could, and another word would probably do little difference.

And now there was the matter of Balderdash. Mister Smith sighed. "I really thought Balderdash was our friend," he said. "I can't believe he's been doing this to us, and I can't think why he would. There must be another explanation. Perhaps times are hard all around, and the usual farmhoof pay is lower these days than Miss Path imagines. Strawberry, what are you doing?"

Strawberry had retreated into the shadowy depths of the basement, and was poking about the things stored there. "Mister Smith, there's all sorts of interesting things back here. You have to come and take a look at some of the things I've found."

"Strawberry, this is no time to go rummaging around in other people's rubbish. We should be on our way to Miss Dream's."

"Oh! Yes, I'm sorry, but when we get back you'll have to take a look at this. There's a manger here, all made out of a thick, heavy metal. It might be bronze, I can't quite see. Remember the story I told you? Our world's version of the Diomedes story? Just like that one!"

Mister Smith froze at the top of the steps, then turned right around and came down - had he thought about it, he would have wondered how he'd managed that. "Really? Let me see." He grabbed the lantern and edged past the towering piles of junk to the back of the basement. Sure enough, half-buried beneath two rolls of old carpet, was a manger. And Strawberry was right, it did look like it might be made of bronze. It was just large enough for an average-sized pony to lie down in.

Mister Smith grinned. He'd never grinned before in his life, and it felt like his face was about to fall off, but it also felt right, and this was clearly the moment for it. "Strawberry," he said, "let us go on to Miss Dream's. I have an idea."

Balderdash made no attempt to cut into their pay the next day, though Mister Smith was excited enough to not care if he did. No-one else came near them until late afternoon, when Malachite, who had been quite willing to help, met up with them. Primrose, she said, was also quite willing, though her various social obligations (another date with Balderdash) meant she would be unable to join them until much later. They were free to discuss their plan as much as they liked.

The Great Whinnysconsin Woods, Equestria. Anno Caelestiae 906.

The last thing Happy Trails remembered was closing up the shop, and then a sack being thrown over his head. There was the strong smell of ether - Primrose used it as a solvent in some of her projects, he dimly remembered, as blackness overtook him.

He awoke to the smell of garlic and onions. He was lying on something hard and cold and metallic; it came up on either side and contained him like a coffin, though thankfully it was open above. He thought he could see a glimmer of light over the edge on one side, and the outline of tree branches could be dimly seen against the night sky above. Otherwise, he was in darkness. He tried to get up, but was unable: sturdy ropes bound his hooves together, and more ropes bound him to ... whatever it was he was lying in.

"Uh ... hello?" he called out, hesitantly.

There was movement off to one side, and a face swam into view. Well, not a face, really: this pony was wearing a hooded cloak, and Happy could see nothing but a green muzzle. "Oh," said the mare - it was a mare, definitely - "you must be a very bad pony indeed, to be spreading nasty stories about other ponies. But be you ever so bad, you know you mustn't draw attention to the Cult, don't you?"

Happy Trails knew exactly where he'd heard a disturbingly similar speech before. As a pair of candles floated up behind the mysterious mare, Happy saw that he was lying in ... a bronze manger? Hadn't Strawberry Pie said something about a bronze manger, in relation to the Cult of Diomedes? It all tied together! "!" he said. "!" And for emphasis: "!"

The mare chuckled. "Oh, we're real, very real indeed. You knew that, didn't you? We don't like too many ponies knowing we're there, though. Don't want them on their guard, see? So it's really not nice of you to go talking about us." She began tossing bits of chopped onion and garlic into the manger, licking her lips noisily as she did so.

"I ... I knew it! Smith and Pie..." They certainly weren't mares, and this one was much smaller than either of them, but -

"Who?"

Happy blinked, taken aback.

"Oooh, them," the mare said, sniffing dismissively. "They're not one of us. Although, who knows, after what you've done, we might be able to get them to join us very easily don't you think?"

"They're not one of you?"

"No." A shower of chopped carrots joined the onion, garlic and pony melange in the manger. "Now, let's see if you really are bad enough to -"

"What in thunderation is going on here?" Grandpa! Back from Manehattan already? Happy shouted out a warning just as the mare gave an uncharacteristically terrified gasp and disappeared from view. The two candles fell to the ground with a clatter, and Happy thought he heard more ponies galloping away from the scene, and the sound of fabric ripping. Grandpa shouted, "Malachite Dream, I know that's you! Who's that with you? Come back here this instant, you little whippersnappers!"

Malachite Dream?

Oh, of course, this was all some sort of prank, wasn't it?

"I say, Cobblestone, is this how things are done out here in the country?" Another pony came into view, a white unicorn with a glossy blue mane and a monocle. The light was coming from his horn.

"Just some youngsters having their fun, Pinstripe. I'll deal with them in the morning."

Cobblestone and Pinstripe looked down into the manger. Happy Trails grinned sheepishly back up at them through the garlic, onions and carrots. "Hello there. Uh, I was wondering if you could give me a hoof ... I seem to be a little tied up here."

The two older ponies exchanged glances. Cobblestone looked back down, his mouth twitching up into a humourless smile. "No," he said.