| When the bandit, Chico Cana, crossed the river, at Boquillas
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| Stole the young bride of the rancher Juan Otero
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| Juan caught up his fastest mare, and north to Marathon he rode
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| To hire himself, a gringo pistolero
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| Spread the word along the river, tell it through the borderland
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| That the Hound of Death is howling, after Chico Cana’s band
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| Juan will seal their fate as surely as the rising of the sun
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| With the guns, of the gringo pistolero
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| The round hat of a trooper, cast a shadow ‘crost his eyes
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| As he listened to the tale of Juan Otero
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| At the name of Chico Cana, there could be no talk of price
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| Just the Gringo’s vow of vengeance, «Yo arrero»
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| Oil the big Colt automatics, and with the daylight, he was gone
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| With the coming cold, and darkness, he rode into Castollon
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| And a drunken bandit, caught there read the message
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| «Talk or Die!»
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| In the eyes of the Gringo Pistolero
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| Where the Canyon Colorado, twists its way among the rocks
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| And the ribbon of the sky is long and narrow
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| In a jacal of adobe, bruised and tied up on the floor
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| Wept the young wife of the rancher Juan Otero
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| Bandit mirrors on the cliff-tops, flash the message now
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| «He comes»
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| Ask the number of his followers, the number of their guns
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| And the aviso flashed to Chico, like the fallin' of a stone
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| «He comes alone, the Gringo Pistolero.»
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| Hidden high above the canyon where the falcon rides the wind
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| Chico’s best hawk-eyed aviso, Juan Romero
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| Put his mirror in his shirt and gazed with worry toward the rocks
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| Where he last had seen the Gringo Pistolero
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| «Put the sights up to 800; |
| hold a yard left, for the wind
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| And there’s one, By God, aviso that will NEVER flash again!»
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| Weeping red tears, from a third eye, that the guilty cannot feel
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| From the Springfield of the Gringo Pistolero
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| «Chico Cana, you have stole your last damn U.S. dollar bill!
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| I have come for you and all your companeros
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| You can fight and do your damnedest, or just send the lady out!»
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| Came the challenge of the Gringo Pistolero
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| Bandit rifles down the canyon, to the left and to the right
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| Fearful eyes that watched and waited ‘til the falling of the night
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| Angry cut-throats, that ignored the weeping lady on the floor
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| And through the back door, came the Gringo Pistolero!
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| Big Colt autos spitting Thunder-Death at everything that moved!
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| Flashing lightning in the jacal, long and narrow
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| Ending hate, and greed and cruelty, with final flying truth
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| From the sure hand of the Gringo Pistolero!
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| When one hot and smoking pistol dropped down empty in the dirt
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| Then another sprang like magic, from inside the gringo’s shirt
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| And the lead-storm never stopped, ‘til there was no one left unhurt
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| But the lady and the Gringo Pistolero
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| Word has spread to Ojinaga, where the Conchos tumbles down
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| And a man’s death can come swifter than an arrow
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| That although the law be empty words, still justice can be found
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| For no border stops the Gringo Pistolero!
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| And the old wives tell how Juan’s wife came back
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| Beautiful and fair
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| And lived happily through children, and the years of silver hair
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| But, the young girls say Otero did not treat her well, back there
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| 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 |