East Texas Red

Lyrics

Down in the scrub oak timber Of that Southeast Texas gulf There used to ride an old brakeman A brakeman double tough He worked the town of Kilgore And Longview 9 miles down Us travelers called him East Texas Red The meanest bull around If you rode by night or by broad daylight In the wind, in the snow, or sun You'd always see little East Texas Red Sporting that smooth running gun The tail got switched down the stems in main And everybody said The meanest bull on then shiney rails is littlе East Texas Red It was early in thе morning Around near 9 or 10 When a couple of boys on the hunt of a job Stood out in the blizzardy wind Hungry and cold they knocked on the doors Of the working folks around For a piece of meat or a spud or two To boil the stew around Well Red come down off the cinder dump And he waves off number two He kicked their stew pot into the bush And he dumped out all their stew One traveler said Mr East Texas Red You better get your business right Cause you gonna ride your westbound train Just one year from tonight Well Red he just laughed and climbed up the bank Swung on the side of a wheeler The boys caught a boxcar to Seminole And on West out to Amarillo They struck them a job of oilfield work And they followed the pipeline down It took them many places Until one year rolled around It was on one cold and wintery day They got them a gulf bound train They shivered and they shook with their money in their clothes To go see Kilgore again Over hills of sand and hard froze roads Where cotton wagons roll On past the town of Kilgore And in to ol Longview In their warm suits of clothes and their jackets They walked into a store They paid the man for some meat and stuff To boil a stew once more They walked the ties back last the yard Til they got to the same spot Where East Texas Red just one year before Had dumped out their stew pot The smoke from their fire went higher and higher And this man come down the line He ducked his head into the blizzardy wind And he waved off number 9 Come down off of the cinder dump And down to the same spot And there were the same two men again Around the same stew pot Red went to his knees and he hollered please Don't pull that trigger on me I did not get my business right But the man did not hear his plea A gun came out of an overcoat He got hit with the one and two And Red lay dead when the other two men Sat down to eat their stew