Chapter Text
Peter Nureyev, the nameless bandit under whose gloved thumb the western territory trembled, was one of those gentlemen thieves who liked to collect his own wanted posters like trophies.
He kept one folded in his breast pocket for safekeeping like an undercover sheriff’s star. The last time he had seen the price for his head on a pike, it had been more money than he had ever laid eyes on. Therefore, that particular version of his warrant, paired with the phrase “dead or alive” and half-accurate sketch that was barely half as handsome as he, was one he knew he had to hang onto. Nureyev doubted the authorities wanted the posters to wear his debonair grin, especially when such a practiced smile had gotten him where his speed and accuracy with a six gun could not.
Nureyev, or Ransom, as he was currently known, was the kind of man who never felt more alive than with a great expanse of desert before him and a great expanse of sky above, each whizzing their way alongside him as gunfire clanged and crashed and screamed in his ears.
“Come on, Ruby,” Nureyev murmured in between the black velvety ears of his horse who huffed and reared her head back like a dark spectre from local legend.
He supposed, in a way, he and his steeds had all woven their way into folk heroism of some kind or another. Nureyev remembered moseying his way into a creaky old saloon one evening while a dusty sun sank in the dusty, distant sky and having to leave halfway through his first drink for fear of laughing and giving himself away when the pianist’s thick, scarred fingers began to plunk out the first chords of a ballad written in his name, or lack thereof.
Peter Nureyev, or Peter Ransom, or Duke Rose, or whatever the troubadours had decided to call him this time, was not, as they insisted, a man who slithered out of shadow like a rattlesnake instead of being born. He didn’t ride with the wind at his back, nor had he traded his soul for the fastest horse this side of the Mississippi. He wasn’t a trickster god or a coyote in human skin. He certainly wasn’t a demon sent to claim the heart and mind of any man who dared get too close.
Rather, Peter Nureyev was a strategist.
While his current steed was certainly fast, she was third in a chain of three horses, each a stolen mare bearing the same name, breed, and coloration. Peter Nureyev didn’t need to sell his soul to the devil for a quick escape when he knew well that in a match of wits, the devil himself wouldn’t stand a chance.
In a trick he was particularly proud of, he had numbered his horses’ bridles, just in case any were intercepted. One bore the number one, another two, and the third seven, so any authorities who caught them would be left on a wild goose chase for at least four horses who, in fact, did not exist.
His strategy had yet to fail him. However, when pausing a moment to mount his third and final steed, he certainly had not counted on the sheriff trailing him to steal a horse from a passing rancher and continue the pursuit with the exact same strategy as Nureyev.
Ruby, of course, was certainly not a steed to be trifled with. The sun-stained orange of sand and dirt and clustered brush passed beneath her as if her hooves alone sent the world turning, while the very clouds in the sky seemed to whiz by all the faster to the tune of her racing percussion. With gunfire shrieking in his ears, one shot flying close enough to scrape at the edge of Nureyev’s hat, Ruby seemed to fly even faster.
Peter had not planned on being successfully pursued onto his third steed. Even if he managed to outrun the sheriff and the two members of his posse, each catching up on their newly stolen steeds, he still ran the risk of the abandoned mine in which he hid out being discovered. He was close enough to be followed at this point, and if Ruby was apprehended, close enough for his trick of escape to be unraveled.
He dug his spurless heels a little tighter into Ruby’s side, and clenching onto her with all his might, reached for his gun. Nureyev winced after a few shots rang out, each missing in turn.
The sheriff crowed out a laugh until Nureyev’s next shot blew his hat clear off his head and into a nearby cactus, but with the speed of each of their horses, neither had time to consider it before the gunfight resumed. Nureyev would have cackled or teased the sheriff that the shot was merely a warning, but with his thighs beginning to burn and his eyes narrowing against the blazing light of high noon, all he could do was desperately try to keep his hand steady.
“You’re not getting away with this, thief!” The sheriff called.
“I’d beg to differ,” Nureyev called back. “See, what I’m doing now is often referred to as a getaway. There’s no shame in ignorance, sheriff. You see, we all learn new things every day.”
“Like what?”
“Not to get distracted,” Peter grinned as the mine flew by the edge of his vision.
He brought Ruby to a dead stop just in time for the sheriff and his posse to rush past him, at which point he abandoned his steed with the knowledge she would bolt and fend for herself if he ended up within the mineshaft for longer than a day. Nureyev knew this would be enough of a diversion to give him a moment to escape into the maze of cacti and brush and mounds of rocks that may well have been snake pits while the sheriff tried to stop, get off his horse, and see where Nureyev had gone.
Peter later recognized his fatal mistake in running with his eyes on the ground and his hands tight around the bags of cash he had stolen, rather than a hand on his gun and his eyes on the sheriff. He would take a bite from any of the non-venomous snakes around the mine any day before the bite of a bullet sinking its fangs into his side.
Nureyev knew better than to let himself fall to the ground. The shock of the impact and the searing pain began to scream and throb from the injury, begging his legs to give out. However, he remembered the first-aid supplies in the mine and gritted his teeth, knowing this would be far from the worst of the injuries he had dealt with alone, with only coal dust and flickering lamplight and the echoes of his own screams for company.
It would all be fine once he finished dragging himself to the mine. However, with the footsteps of the sheriff and his deputies growing ever closer, Nureyev knew his first herculean task would be running headfirst into that dark and gaping maw, despite the bloom of blood he could feel eating its way through the dust-streaked black of his waistcoat.
Each footstep seemed to send another bolt through him like a piece of metal driven into the tracks of the train from which he had just stolen a few bags of cash that were feeling less and less important by the second. It didn’t matter if he could keep a grip on his winnings if he couldn’t keep a grip on his life, let alone his freedom. He could only pray when the worn wood of the mine’s entrance swooped over his head like a great, dark bird, that the sheriff would not follow.
Nureyev didn’t stagger far before his legs gave out entirely, though it was so dark from both residual coal dust and the mine’s twisting that he doubted the sheriff could see his lapse in resolve.
“He went in there,” one of the deputies growled.
“Like hell I’m going down into that pit,” the other shivered.
“Shut the hell up,” the sheriff interrupted. “Who’s to say he ain’t gonna crawl out some other hole and get away?”
“I dunno,” the first deputy began. “You shot ‘em pretty good.”
“Not good enough unless I can see the light in his eyes go out. We’re going in, and you’re going first.”
Somewhere, Nureyev heard a match light. With his heart pounding in his chest and the bullet throbbing in his side and the ceiling of the mineshaft growing ever closer to the floor where it had caved in years ago, he tried to crawl further and further away from the approaching footsteps of the sheriff, though he knew well there was only so much space within the mineshaft. Sooner or later, he would have to either shoot his way out or die.
Nureyev was seldom a churchgoing man, but he managed to whisper out a brief prayer before he took a deep breath and began to slither even further into the bowels of the ash-choked tunnel.
He couldn’t see a foot in front of his face, yet somehow, the tunnel seemed to be opening up, just enough to squeeze through if he ignored the shock in his side every time the rock brushed against the hole torn into his waistcoat. However, the steps of the sheriff grew distinctly quieter as he pressed onwards, and distantly, he almost saw a light. He could only hope this wasn’t death waiting for him, for he had not known this passage to exist, especially in such a familiar hideout as this.
Peter Nureyev had never been one to take a blessing for granted, however, so when he gasped at the taste of fresh and clean and dust-free air, he had no choice but to grip the metal walls of whatever awaited on the other end of the tunnel and allow himself to tumble out onto an unfamiliar floor while somewhere, a thousand miles away, he almost thought he could hear the tunnel closing shut behind him.
Nureyev didn’t have the energy to do much more than catch his breath. Wherever he was, he was certainly inside, and certainly on the floor. As much as his resolve to appear composed at all times groaned at such a predicament, he reminded himself firmly that he was allowed a few lapses with a bullet in his side. He couldn’t bring himself to ponder how a mineshaft would lead somewhere indoors, for even with steady, undirtied ground beneath him and clean oxygen sinking into his lungs, his injury still pulsed like a second, agonizing heart sewn into his side.
He barely had the strength to sit up, relying on his arms to drag him towards a slumped, sitting position against the strangest wall he had ever felt. It was cool and smooth, not unlike glass. However, Nureyev had never felt glass so evenly produced, nor so accurately that it might allow a window to curve. He didn’t doubt the sight behind him would betray some clue to his location, but frankly, with his chest still heaving out shuddering breaths and his hat knocked askew, he didn’t have the will to turn his head.
From what he could see, the remainder of the room appeared fairly normal, if not particularly expensive. A few lamps, of which he had read, but never seen in person, lit the room with a friendly glow as they sat amongst a couch and a few scattered chairs. Each faced a stand with some kind of strange mechanism atop it, though Nureyev’s head ached too badly to care enough to ponder it. Somewhere, in the distance, he could feel and hear a mechanical buzz, not unlike being aboard a train, though certainly less jostling.
Wherever Nureyev was, he was moving. As concerning as his surroundings were, he was able to take some sort of relief from that fact. He may have found himself a stranger in a strange place, but that strange place was moving, and it was moving away from the sheriff.
A glance down at his hand told him the money had made it as well and he managed an exhausted smile. When he finally had the energy to pull his gaze away from his winnings, he felt the smile melt like snow on a blazing desert day.
He might not have been conscious enough to recognize exactly what device was being held to his head, but from the grip and the stance and the glare of its user, he knew for certain he was staring down the barrel of a gun.