Gringo Pistolero - Michael Martin Murphey

When the bandit, Chico Cana, crossed the river, at Boquillas

Stole the young bride of the rancher Juan Otero

Juan caught up his fastest mare, and north to Marathon he rode

To hire himself, a gringo pistolero

Spread the word along the river, tell it through the borderland

That the Hound of Death is howling, after Chico Cana’s band

Juan will seal their fate as surely as the rising of the sun

With the guns, of the gringo pistolero

The round hat of a trooper, cast a shadow ‘crost his eyes

As he listened to the tale of Juan Otero

At the name of Chico Cana, there could be no talk of price

Just the Gringo’s vow of vengeance, «Yo arrero»

Oil the big Colt automatics, and with the daylight, he was gone

With the coming cold, and darkness, he rode into Castollon

And a drunken bandit, caught there read the message

«Talk or Die!»

In the eyes of the Gringo Pistolero

Where the Canyon Colorado, twists its way among the rocks

And the ribbon of the sky is long and narrow

In a jacal of adobe, bruised and tied up on the floor

Wept the young wife of the rancher Juan Otero

Bandit mirrors on the cliff-tops, flash the message now

«He comes»

Ask the number of his followers, the number of their guns

And the aviso flashed to Chico, like the fallin' of a stone

«He comes alone, the Gringo Pistolero.»

Hidden high above the canyon where the falcon rides the wind

Chico’s best hawk-eyed aviso, Juan Romero

Put his mirror in his shirt and gazed with worry toward the rocks

Where he last had seen the Gringo Pistolero

«Put the sights up to 800;

hold a yard left, for the wind

And there’s one, By God, aviso that will NEVER flash again!»

Weeping red tears, from a third eye, that the guilty cannot feel

From the Springfield of the Gringo Pistolero

«Chico Cana, you have stole your last damn U.S. dollar bill!

I have come for you and all your companeros

You can fight and do your damnedest, or just send the lady out!»

Came the challenge of the Gringo Pistolero

Bandit rifles down the canyon, to the left and to the right

Fearful eyes that watched and waited ‘til the falling of the night

Angry cut-throats, that ignored the weeping lady on the floor

And through the back door, came the Gringo Pistolero!

Big Colt autos spitting Thunder-Death at everything that moved!

Flashing lightning in the jacal, long and narrow

Ending hate, and greed and cruelty, with final flying truth

From the sure hand of the Gringo Pistolero!

When one hot and smoking pistol dropped down empty in the dirt

Then another sprang like magic, from inside the gringo’s shirt

And the lead-storm never stopped, ‘til there was no one left unhurt

But the lady and the Gringo Pistolero

Word has spread to Ojinaga, where the Conchos tumbles down

And a man’s death can come swifter than an arrow

That although the law be empty words, still justice can be found

For no border stops the Gringo Pistolero!

And the old wives tell how Juan’s wife came back

Beautiful and fair

And lived happily through children, and the years of silver hair

But, the young girls say Otero did not treat her well, back there

So she left him for the Gringo Pistolero!

When the bandit, Chico Cana, crossed the river, at Boquillas

Stole the young bride of the rancher Juan Otero

Juan caught up his fastest mare, and north to Marathon he rode

To hire himself, a gringo pistolero