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You boys don't know what all we did,
Back in the time of War.
You know what we've been doing since,
But we did worse before.
We were not in an army,
But we fought one, hand to hand.
The Yankees had the railroads,
But they could not take our land.
We fought them, we had beat them,
But our generals, they gave in.
They didn't wish to lose more lives
Well, that way, you can't win.
Their War was over, bless them,
But ours continued still.
A man who lives outside the Law
Has needs that he must fill.
My comrades from the battlefields,
Our kinsmen, and our friends,
They rode with me to Yankee banks,
And we were desperate men.
We robbed their trains and coaches.
We stole the Yankee gold.
(It's only Yankees rides on such,
Or so we had been told.)
We wouldn't take a nickel
From poor or Southern folk.
To those who hid and sheltered us,
We opened up our poke.
The Pinkertons came after us,
The railroad's hunting hounds,
But not a soul would tell them
Where we might be found.
The papers sometimes blamed us,
For people would get killed.
The Pinkertons, the guards, and all
Of course, some blood was spilled.
You heard how, when we went up North,
That big bank job went wrong.
That's where we lost so many
Of the friends who rode along.
So just me and my brother
Rode back from that last raid.
We left our old surroundings
And took up the farming trade.
But boys, you know a racehorse
Isn't meant to pull a plow.
And Charley, you have rode with me,
And Bob is starting now.
With loyal men to side me,
I'll show them how it's done.
I've got a fat bank spotted.
We'll make a final run
That picture never will hang straight.
It's crooked, that's a fact.
I'll just climb up and straighten that,
And Bob, you watch my back.
("Robert Ford came around, like a thief in the night,
and laid Jesse James in his grave."
Billy Gashade)
Copyright ©2003 N. Ross Peterson. All rights reserved.
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