Chapter Text
Texas, 1869
Sara Lance had been looking for Nyssa al Ghul for over three months now in the Texas flatlands. It was grueling, going from small town to small town, chasing a woman who seemed to be a ghost. Now she was headed to a little spit of humanity in the middle of nowhere to talk to a man named Emmanuel about bringing him on the journey as a guide, of sorts. She'd seen an advertisement in one of the papers - gun for hire. This perked her curiosity, and she'd sent out a telegram. At first, she hadn't really expected a response, but she had received short notice. This Emmanuel fellow seemed to know quite a bit about Nyssa. Sara wasn't sure how, maybe because the bounty on Nyssa's head was pretty high at this point, but she knew that it was a lead she needed to pursue. She was running low on funds, and Nyssa would be the paycheck Sara needed to get back on her feet.
The sun hung high in the desert's sky, beating down on her hat with the steady energy of a campfire that never flickered or faltered. The plain that stretched out ahead of her was spotted with cacti and small shrubs. The only real feature of the landscape was the dirt road she followed. Sara didn't think there was much of a chance that she'd run into Indians out here, but she couldn't afford not to keep a wary eye out. She's heard of other bounty hunters who had been lulled into a false sense of security by the desert's plains, and they didn't end well for the bounty hunter. The local Indian tribes, as sparse as they were, took great joy in showing the newcomers to their land who actually ruled the wastes. She had no doubt, and didn't need them to prove a point to her.
Up ahead a mesa rose from the desert floor. The dirt road ran right by it; the mesa's sizable shadow crossed it, offering some relief from the sun. At first, Sara was happy that there would be a respite from the heat that kept bearing down on her, but then she remembered one of the stories she had heard around the campfire just last week. She'd been at a ranch trying to get information about Nyssa, and ended up staying the night. Sara traded stories with the rest of the Cowboys, and eventually the circle grew quite.
"You know," one of the old-timers said. "There are ways that the Indians can sneak up on you on the plain. They hide in dips in the terrain, and keep their horses quiet until the last moment, when they descend on you with war whoops that make blood run cold."
Everyone had nodded. It seemed like this was something the old-timer brought up a lot, but Sara had never heard it before and was glad to listen.
"Another thing they do," he continued. "Is hide behind mesas and wait for the unsuspecting to ride by."
His words echoed through her head. Her blonde hair would be something the Indians valued greatly, and even more so because of her trade. There was no way she wanted to run into any of the tribes that frequented the plains, so she pulled her horse's reins so that it pulled to the right. She'd take the long way around the place where the shadow crossed the road, venturing out into the desert a little ways where it would be much harder for any interlopers to ride out from behind the mesa and surprise her. She had her rifle with her, along with pistols. The pistols were more for city work- close in stuff. But her rifle, hell, there wasn't any chance that a few bandits were going to get her off her horse and use it as a brace for her rifle. Sara could shoot the pit out of a plum at near three hundred yards, and wasn't much worse further out. She had hoped it wouldn't come to that, though.
As her horse trotted off the path and carefully made it's way across the desert, picking places without rock or other debris which would trip it up, Sara thought about Nyssa. She was proving to be one hell of an outlaw. Wanted for everything from cattle rustling to kidnapping, there wasn't much Nyssa al Ghul hasn't done. The law, of course, was furious. Even more so, Nyssa had no problem evading them. Part of the problem, Sara knew, was that the Marshals just didn't have the manpower to go after petty criminals, even criminals who had quite the history of flaunting society and it's rules. Now that Nyssa had headed out to the plains, there was no way that lawmen were going to go looking for her- it was a needle in a haystack. If authorities really wanted to catch Nyssa they'd need to send out troops, Calvary most likely. But even then, Nyssa hadn't had a problem evading them in the past. Some said she'd done so using her womanly charms against the sergeant who had captured her, while others said that she could slip out of handcuffs like some kind of magician.
Sara wasn't really sure what to believe, but she knew that Nyssa was her next meal ticket. The bounty on her head was high; in fact, if Sara was her, she'd get the hell out of Texas and head to Mexico. But that would be dangerous. There was a whole separate group of gangs down there, and different Indian tribes. None of them looked too kindly on gringos, not even a little bit. For most people down south, white people were the people who showed up and expected everyone to embrace them with open arms, even though white people tended to take more than they ever gave back.
Sara looked to her left and saw the place where the mesa's shadow crossed the road. She couldn't see if anyone was on the other side of the plateau yet, but her horse was acting funny, as if it wanted to shy away and run. That meant it was smelling Indian horses, or maybe bandits. It didn't matter who or what they were if they meant harm. As she kept her eye on the mesa nothing came charging out to her, but just when she was about to look away she saw something glint- a rifle barrel catching the sun. Blood thundered in her ears and temples as she spurred her horse forward. She didn't want to have to dismount and try picking people off because she had no idea how many there were, or if they had any crack-shots with them. If they did, the last thing she wanted to do was stop moving.
"FASTER! Move, move, move!" She urged her horse on with her voice as well as her spurs, feeling sorry for having to make it work so hard in the desert, but also knowing that they were both in mortal danger. After about a minute of hard riding, Sara slowed to a trot and looked back behind her. What she saw made her blood run cold. It wasn't Indians. And it wasn't bandits. The bright red handkerchief masks that identified them as The Rooster Gang. A band of hoodlums on horseback notorious for their wanton destruction of towns, ranches, and hanging people in the desert. If they caught up to her, that would be it. They'd rob her, then hang her with a red handkerchief in her mouth as a warning to the rest of the people who traveled the plains.
"Faster! Go faster!"
The wind seemed to wrench the words from her mouth so she wondered if her horse even heard her. Sara was scared, something she didn't like to admit to anyone, much less herself. Being scared made her feel weak, she knew she wasn't. She was a strong woman both physically and mentally. She had her own mind, and her own will and way of doing things. To make herself feel better, she held both reins with her left hand and fired behind her wildly with her right, using a small caliber pistol she kept tucked in her gun belt. She wasn't really trying to hit any of the bandits, just to slow them down a bit. They may be the craziest, meanest, gangs around but they would slow down a little when they heard the shots.
Just when Sara put her pistol back in it's place, the small town she was headed for appeared in front of her. Chancing a glance over her shoulder, she saw they had indeed slowed down. But it wasn't time to celebrate just yet, as rounds from a rifle snapped past her. One of them must have a long-gun, and from how close he was getting to her, knew how to use it. Luckily, the sun was setting right behind the town, so the sharpshooter was having a hard time getting a bead on her. Before she knew it, she was in the town, just as dusk took hold of the sky.