[Bareback Gulch] The Drifter

[Captain Fidley]

It had been a long journey, and Dusty had been unprepared for the wide and forsaken wilderness that spread before him. With little more than his hard hat, a pickaxe and his trusty spade lashed onto his back, he had braved it anyway.

He was young and foolish, after all, with that particular streak of invincibility that seemed to infect the youth. Years working in the mines of the Blackhorse Hills had inured him to the fear of death. After seeing so many accidents and losing friends, he had just stopped caring about it. He'd accepted a simple truth adopted by many of the mining ponies- that there was a time and a place he would pass, and there was nothing he could do about it.

He hadn't expected to die in the desert, though. A cave-in or gas explosion, sure. Nice and quick. But the baking heat of the daytime and bone-rattling chill of the night, draining him until he simply collapsed? Never. He had cursed himself a thousand times for being too proud to ask for advice or for help, too foalish to take charity when it was offered.

"Celestia help me." he wheezed, sinking to his knees and staring up at the merciless sun. "I swear on the sun and the moon, if I ever get out of here I will never be prideful again." The bedraggled, dust-streaked stallion muttered to nopony in particular, racking his throat for enough spit to finish the oath but finding none of it.

The desert was silent, save for a thin moaning wind coursing through some distant canyon. "Blast and damn." Dusty muttered, "Like that old oath would do a damn thing."

He squinted at the horizon, looking for anything that could be his salvation. There! In the hazy blur of the mirage! Was it a building? No, a town! A whole herd of buildings!

He felt his spirit returning, and enough energy for one last hope. Slowly and painfully he pushed himself back to his feet, and trotted towards the image.

----

The doors of the Rhinestone Quarry slammed wide as an emaciated and dust-streaked stallion staggered through and collapsed in the entryway. The bundle of tools on his back slipped off and skidded across the smooth floor, fetching up against a table. His yellow hard hat likewise skidded into the bar.

"Waaaater." the stallion moaned in a rattling-barely there voice, reaching upward with a forehoof as if supplicating a deity. Then he collapsed, his eyes rolling closed and his tongue hanging out.

[StrawberryBlossom]

Rough'n'Ready didn't often fetch up at Bareback Gulch during his patrols. Oh, there was certainly plenty to be done here, and it was as good a place as any to pause for supplies, but staying long-term (which was, granted, more than three days by his definition) was something he rarely considered. So, while he did drop by the town on occasion, it wasn't so often one saw him at Rhinestone Quarry.

Apparently his decision to stop by today had been a fortunate one.

The aging stallion was as surprised as anypony when the youngling came stumbling in on his last hooves, but Ready wasn't the sort to stand around gaping. A second or so was all he needed to orient before wordlessly taking a pitcher and retrieving water himself - nothing too cold, it might shock the boy - and making his way to the collapsed pony, pouring a few drops on his lolling tongue to see if it would get his attention before setting the vessel down where the stranger could get to it without rising to his hooves.

"Drink all of that. Slowly."

Ready's tone was stern, though not unkind, and he stood by to be sure his directive was followed.