Johnny Bravo and I were talking last night, and it turns out we have a lot of common interests, this song is one that cannot be had for love or money, sung best by the original artist, Allen Wayne Damron, but the lyrics are still great, so here go's.
GRINGO PISTOLERO
Allen Wayne Damron, Tim Henderson
When the bandit Chico Cano crossed the river at Boquillas,
Stole the young bride of the rancher Juan Otero,
Juan caught up his fastest mare, and up to Marathon he rode,
To hire himself a gringo pistolero.
Send the word along the river; tell it through the borderland,
That the hound of death is howling after Chico Cano'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 'cross his eyes,
As he listened to the tale of Juan Otero.
At the name of Chico Cano there could be no talk of price,
Just the Gringo's vow of vengeance: "Yo arrero."
He oiled his big Colt automatics, and by 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 sweet wife the rancher Juan Otero.
Bandit mirrors in the cliff top flash the message "Now he comes"
Asked the number of his followers, the number of their guns.
The aviso flashed to Chico like the falling of a stone:
"He comes alone, the Gringo Pistolero."
Hidden high above the canyon where the falcon rides the wind,
Chico's best hawkeyed aviso, Juan Romero,
Tucked his mirror in his shirt and gazed with worry towards the rocks
Where he last had seen the Gringo Pistolero.
Put the sights up to eight hundred, 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's a gift he cannot feel
From the Springfield of the Gringo Pistolero.
"Chico Cano, you have stole your last damn US dollar bill.
I have come for you and all your companjeros.
You can fight and do your damnedest or just send the lady out,"
Came the echo of the Gringo Pistolero.
Bandit rifles down the canyon to the left and to the right,
Fearful eyes that watch and waited till the falling of the light,
Angry cutthroats who ignore 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.
One hot and smoking pistol dropped down empty in the dirt
And another flashed 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 is spread to Ojinaga where the Conchos tumble down
And a man's death can come swifter than an arrow,
That although the law can be empty words until justice could be found,
For no border stopped the Gringo Pistolero.
And the old wives tell how Juan's bride came back beautiful and fair,
Lived happily through children and years of silver hair,
But the young girls said that Otero did not treat her well back there
So she left him for the Gringo Pistolero.