1889

A riderless horse meets Sunday in the canyon, reins dragging through the dirt.  This is when she knows she’s about to see some dead cowboys.

There are a lot of them, mostly scattered among the rocks above the pass.  Vaqueros in their best clothes.  The horses wear the brands of Arango’s enemies.

Frank’s body lies draped over a bloody saddle near a narrow river.  Yanina sits in the dirt by his side.  She looks up when Sunday dismounts.  Her mouth starts moving and it doesn’t stop.  Scattered among the obscenities and the insults are some bits of information that Sunday needs, so she lets the whore rant.

It was an ambush.  It was Frank’s idea.  Frank fucked up.  Arango is injured.  He rode North.

Sunday considers Arango’s stubborn pride.   He won’t be coming back to Los Rios.   At least not alive.

Yanina spits on the dead man’s bloody face.  In a flash, a plan forms in Sunday’s head.  She knows where it comes from.  From Jeff Waring.  This is what he would do.  He would wrap the howling bitch in rope and place her in the shallow river.  He would place heavy stones on her chest one by one until she slowly drowned.

The whore is sputtering and spitting out lung-fulls of water, but still cursing as she drowns.  Crouching by the side of the river, Sunday remembers something else about the man who claimed to be her father for 17 years.  When all was said and done, Warring was a practical man.  If he were here, he would shoot Yanina in the head and be done with her.

Sunday pries Frank’s gun from his cold fingers and presses it against the whore’s forehead.

Suddenly, Sunday remembers the rest.  She lowers the gun.

“His blood doesn’t flow in me.”

————————————-

Yanina sits by a warm fire.  She’s unbound, dressed in fresh clothes, warmed and full of food.

When she finishes her coffee, Sunday kicks her ass up and down the canyon then tosses her, whimpering, on her mule and points her towards the hills, where hopefully she won’t encounter any more foolish German men and can live out the rest of her life as the miserable shit that she is.

This Ends the Sixth Cycle of  BURNT

The Story So Far