Miss Morgan

Twenty-Five

May 1896

"What the fuck, buddy!" Sean Macguire drops a crate of liquor bottles to the floor with a crash and points his revolver at Ivy.

She has to cover her mouth not to laugh.

"Ivy Morgan, you fuckin' shite, is that you? You wanna get yourself killed or somethin' huh? I nearly shot ya!" He holsters his weapon and pulls her into a hug. "I don't like gettin' surprised... shit. Where the fuck you been?"

She gives him a look.

"Oh, nah don't tell me, you're still not talkin' after all dis time..."

She shakes her head.

"What the hell. I take it ya never found John Marston then?"

Ivy shakes her head again and her eyes drop to the floor. She's had no choice but to give up on her search for John. She had only just started when she got arrested and once she got out she was forced to work for Mrs. LeClerk. It's been almost a year since John left and she's never gotten any word of him. Now she knows he also never came back to the gang. She just has to accept that he's gone for good and move on with her life.

"I see." Sean cracks open a bottle of whiskey and hands it to her before taking one for himself. "I heard about ya gettin' arrested. Dat's some shite eh? Looks like you're... survivin' though. I got separated from the gang a few months ago, it's a Fuckin' disaster. I went away for a couple o' days on a killin' of a bastard I owed a killin' to. I'll find the gang again. I've lost them before, but I always find me way back."

Ivy takes a long swig of whiskey, a brand she hasn't tasted since she left the Van Der Linde gang nearly a year ago. She savors the burn in her mouth.

"So what ya been doin' all this time?" Sean plops down in a chair and stares at her.

She pulls the flask from her hip, filled with Marcel's Agarita Sunrise Moonshine and hands it to him. He eyes her and she nods telling him to take a sip.

He does and raises his eyebrows. "God damn, Ivy Morgan, that's good shite. What is it, yer makin' moonshine now eh?"

Ivy shakes her head and rubs her fingers together, making a money gesture.

"Sellin' then."

She nods.

"That's real impressive... who you workin' with?"

She smiles and pulls him to his feet. She wants to get him back to camp so Jenny can meet him. She'll probably hate him because he's such a flirt, but he can tell Jenny so much about her that she doesn't know yet.

"Where we goin' then?" He finally obliges and follows Ivy outside.

She sees his buckskin standardbred, Ennis hitched up outside. She gives him a pat and smiles at Sean.

He looks at her Kentucky saddler and realization hits. "Oh! You're wonderin' if we got yer crazy bastard of a horse back at camp, aren't ya?"

She nods.

"Yeah, Mac went into Blackwater when ya got arrested and got him back for ya. He's fine. No one can ride that fucker, so Hosea's been takin' care of him for ya."

Relief floods through her. Sparrow's okay. She can't wait till she can get back to camp to see him. She just needs to make more money. That first batch of moonshine sold for nearly the amount of money she invested into this business. She just needs to sell a few more batches to make enough money to feel good about returning to Dutch. She's been gone a long time. She can't show up empty handed.

Sean and Ivy mount up and he follows her back to the camp, blabbering his usual nonsense the entire way back. It doesn't matter much that she doesn't speak, Sean Macguire talks enough for the both of them.