Miss Morgan

Forty-Five

June 1899
-Ivy-

"Calm down, Ivy." Dutch snarls at me.

"You didn't even try to look for him, Dutch. He's my brother."

"I know... I know. But you running back in there in a frenzy ain't the right move. You'll just get yourself killed." Dutch puts a hand on my arm.

"I ain't just gonna sit around here waiting for him to come back." I argue.

"At least give it till morning." He counters. "Maybe he just got caught up and will make it back here later."

I glare at him, mulling it over.

"First thing in the morning, if he doesn't make it back you can go look for him." He repeats. "I'll show you where to go on the map."

"I'll go with you." Charles walks up behind me. "Tomorrow morning at first light. We won't be able to find much in the dark anyway."

"Fine." I sigh. "I swear if something happened to him..." a bad feeling aches in the pit of my stomach.

"It's Arthur, Ivy. Your brother is tough as nails." Dutch squeezes my arm. "He'll be fine." He walks back into camp and resumes his arguing with Molly as I follow Charles to the campfire.

I grab a bottle of whiskey from the crate to try calm my nerves. I pace back and forth next to the fire where Charles, Lenny, John, Sean, Karen and Uncle all sit and watch me.

"Would you sit down before you dig yourself a trench?" Uncle teases.

"Shut up old man." I glare at him. I plop down on a bedroll next to Sean and pluck the cigarette from his fingers.

"Would you just buy your own cigarettes?" Sean chuckles.

"How can everyone be so calm about this? Whose idiot idea was it to try and meet with Colm?" I snap.

"Pretty sure it was Pearson's idea." Lenny answers.

"Well that explains it." I take a long inhale from the cigarette and hand it back to Sean. "Why am I the only one concerned about Arthur right now? Is this really how we all act when one of ours is in trouble? I know things have been a bit... tense since Blackwater, but why aren't we doin' more? This is just sad."

"Ivy..." John mutters softly. "He'll be alright. It's Arthur."

"I'm tellin' you guys, I got a bad feeling about this. If anything happens to him I swear to god..."

"I know..." John nods. "Just... try to stay calm. Go try to get some sleep so you can look for him with a clear head." He suggests.

"I can't sleep, not like this." I shake my head.

I sit quietly by the fire long after everyone else has gone to bed, except Charles and John who both insist on staying up with me even against my protesting that they should go to bed and leave me to sit and be grumpy.

I go through an entire pack of cigarettes sitting here by the fire, anxiously scanning the tree line hoping Arthur will come riding down the path and everything will be fine, but hours tick by and he never comes. I check John's pocket watch every ten minutes, panicking more and more as the night drags on.

At some point I manage to doze off and get one solid hour of sleep and when I wake up, Charles still sits by me to tell me Arthur still hasn't come back.

When the sky finally starts to lighten a bit with the rising sun, I pack up my saddle bag and get ready to head out because I can't sit here any longer.

Charles saddles up Taima and John saddles up Old Boy, thankfully no one tries to argue with me to stay. I'm grateful for their help, but I'd be going with or without them right now.