Chapter Text
To this very day, if you visit Arizona – especially if you make your way out to the old Goldfield Ghost Town in Mesa, you may still hear rumblings about the outlaw Ilya Rozanov, who disappeared from the town jail the night before his hanging, sentenced to death for the murder and robbery of the Goldfield Town Doctor.
In that same breath, you might also hear rumblings about the cowboy Shane Hollander who also disappeared that night.
Some might tell you a gruesome story of murder – how Hollander was killed, his body thrown off a cliff or worse - when Rozanov’s posse broke him out of the jail.
Others will tell a story of mystery, how Rozanov escaped on his own, taking Hollander hostage and riding off into the desert, never to be seen again.
Others still will spin a tale of crime, claiming Hollander and Rozanov were in on it together the entire time, fleeing town with their spoils.
And then there are those rare few who will sit you down over a pint and tell you the story of a dangerous outlaw and the young cowboy who loved him.
Maybe there’s a little bit of truth in all of it, maybe most of it is lost to time and even those who were there that fateful night in 1883 don’t have all of the details, so here, properly for the first time let me tell you the legend of Shane Hollander…and his outlaw, Ilya Rozanov.
Goldfield, Arizona
The Raiders were bad news – everyone in Goldfield knew that.
Maybe they didn’t dare come into the town, but the second you stepped outside the limits of Goldfield and the Mammoth Gold Mine, you were in their territory. Once you were in their territory, all you could do was hope they left you alone.
No one quite knew where they came from. One day, Goldfield was a quiet, well-respected, relatively safe all things considered, mining town. The next day, the surrounding area was being terrorized by a posse of outlaws known only as The Raiders, their faces covered with thick, dust-covered cloth, their names more or less unknown, save for rumblings heard around the town.
They were a rough bunch, rowdy, and unafraid of violence. Sure, if you put your hands up, turned your pockets, and spilled your goods without complaint, no blood had to be shed, but the second you put up a fight, well, all bets were off. The Raiders would get what they wanted, whether you gave it readily or not.
For all of their sharp edges and lawless nature, however, they weren’t stupid.
The Hollander Ranch lay just a couple of miles outside of Goldfield, outside of the protections the Sheriff and the town offered, but since David and Yuna Hollander had come down from Montreal for the parcel of land, everyone, The Raiders included, had known to stay away.
Everyone within a reasonable area knew that, until 1872, Yuna Hollander had been the fastest and most accurate shot in Mesa. By the time her son, Shane, was 14, however, he had taken both titles from her, only solidifying the warnings - do not mess with Hollander Ranch. It wouldn’t end well for you.
The Hollanders tended their land and their livestock with care, but with his skills as a sharpshooter, roper, and rider, Shane had options. The Sheriff came sniffing around every once in a while, a shiny deputy’s badge in his hand, just waiting for Shane Hollander to accept his offer.
He never did.
Once or twice, the banks would come around, offering him a chance to work with them, or at the very least, to ride with the wagons, provide security from bandits and the like.
He stayed on the ranch.
The young women of Goldfield flocked to Shane every time he went into town, falling all over themselves, some at the urging of their parents, to be in Shane’s line of sight should he decide he was ready to take a wife.
He remained a bachelor.
It was easier, most learned in time, for him to remain at home, single, rather than leave a wife and children for months at a time to drive cattle, and that, it seemed, was Shane’s passion. His work was his focus, it always had been, and while many were left disappointed by his choices, by the time he was 23, most knew not to question them.
On the rare occasions he could be spotted at the Goldfield Saloon, he opted for sarsaparilla rather than ales, wine or whiskey, and while he had finished a fair few fights in his day, he had never once been known to start them.
Shane Hollander didn’t pay for women, he didn’t gamble, he didn’t duel. He was polite to everyone until they gave him a reason not to be, and everyone in town liked him well enough to avoid that, even if they didn’t understand him, but being understood had never seemed important to Shane.
What was important was tending the homestead - the land, the cattle, the horses, and making sure the family ranch remained a pillar of quality, consistency, and comfort for himself and his parents.
Shane’s life was his family and his work, and he had expected it to remain so.
He had no plans to take a wife or produce children. He would stay on the ranch, drive the cattle to sale when they were ready, and drive the new herds home after purchase, but there were always unknowns - the greatest of which, perhaps, came to Shane on a regular September night, shortly after his 24th birthday, in 1881.