Ballad of Hunted Gunfighter

(Slow, rhythmic thumping like a heartbeat)

(Sound of a match striking)

The fire’s eating green wood, spitting sparks against the dark

I’m sitting on a saddlebag, waiting for a mark.

But the scrub-brush isn’t empty, and the air is getting thick

With the smell of cordite smoke and a lamp without a wick.

There’s a fella by the water-trough who shouldn't be upright

He’s got a messy chest-wound that’s leaking out the light.

And the lead is in the dirt, but the debt is in the room

It’s a crowded kind of lonesome in the canyon’s belly-womb.

I can’t outrun the faces, and I can’t outshoot the shade

Every notch upon the handle is a tether I have made.

Yeah, the tally-man is coming, and he’s bringing back the dead.

The Marshall’s standing quiet with a badge turned black by soot

He’s tracing circles in the sand with a heavy, limping foot.

He doesn’t reach for iron, and he doesn’t say a word

Just watches me get smaller like a tattered, broken bird.

Then the gambler from the basement—he’s shuffling thin air

With a deck of greasy nothing and a hollow, milky stare.

(Music swells, distorted slide guitar)

I told 'em all to get. I told 'em "Boys, I'm done."

But you don't get a Sunday just 'cause you put down the gun.

The quiet is the hammer, and the memory is the pin

And the chamber’s always loaded with the places that I’ve been.

The fire’s down to embers, just a red and glowing eye

The stars are getting swallowed by a bruised and heavy sky.

I feel a hand upon my neck, cold as winter well-water

The ghost of every man I sent to the sudden, bloody slaughter.

My heart is just a dry husk, rattling in my coat

As the Waco Kid leans inward and puts a finger to my throat.

(Drums stop)

(Only the sound of wind whistling)

It’s a long walk...

In the dark...

With the men you left behind.

(Fade out on a single, low guitar note)