Miss Morgan

Fifty-Nine

August 1899
-Ivy-

"Any problems coming in?" Sadie asks as we walk into the saloon. I take a shaky breath, still just barely holding it together.

"Nah." Arthur answers.

"Guess they know now we ain't in the city." Sadie shrugs.

"Who? Mr. Milton's friends?" Arthur asks. I'm glad he's talking because if I open my mouth right now I might fall apart all over again.

"Yeah, they've had patrols out ever since you boys disappeared." Sadie nods. "Well, at least you're alive."

"For now, yeah." Arthur mutters and I rub my face angrily with my gloved hands, fighting to keep it together. Goddamn him.

Sadie hesitates a moment, probably judging my reaction before she continues. "What happened in..."

"Guarma?" Arthur asks.

"Yeah."

"Nothing nice."

"What happened to Dutch?" Sadie asks quietly. "'Cause he seems..."

"I don't know." Arthur cuts her off. "Seems as... what began happening in Blackwater, began happening years ago, maybe. A slow decline, I guess."

I turn and walk toward the door. I don't want to keep sitting around here. Thankfully, they follow me.

"What do you mean?" Sadie asks, following me out the door and around the corner to the horses.

"I ain't quite sure." Arthur answers. We mount up and ride down the road. "So... what's your plan here?"

"Well, I figure before we do anything, we need to make sure John's even still at this prison." Sadie explains.

"And how do we do that?"

"We need to get up high enough to get a proper look at the place."

"What?" Arthur laughs. "It's on an island, ain't it? Unless you're plannin' on learnin' how to fly..."

"That's exactly what we're gonna do." Sadie smiles. "I've found us a hot air balloon."

My eyes dart to Sadie, did I hear that right? She winks at me.

"You ain't serious?" Arthur asks.

"Now the pilot, or whatever you call him, he thinks we're just in it for the lessons, a bit of a tour." Sadie laughs. "He's quite the character. I think you'll like him."

"You know, I'm impressed." Arthur smiles. "You've really stepped things up, ain't you?"

"Hey, we didn't know if you was even comin' back." Sadie shrugs. "Whole thing hit folks real hard. You can see it... Karen's gone fallen fully into the bottle..."

I feel a bit guilty for that. I know she was struggling before the bank robbery, but she feels so bad that she wasn't there for me and I've made no effort to talk to her since. But I've been busy trying to play gang leader for the last three weeks too.

"Strauss is a bag of nerves," Sadie continues. "Swanson, well, Swanson's actually gone and cleaned up his act. So I guess it ain't all gone to shit."

"I'm just happy you boys were able to find us." I add, realizing I haven't said a word this entire ride.

"Javier said he got the letter I left at the post office." Sadie smiles proudly.

"That was a good idea." Arthur nods.

"Until the Pinkertons showed up..." Sadie groans. "Oh, by the way, I've been hunting O'Driscoll boys. Killed two of the sons of bitches at a campsite last week."