The Cowboy Outlaw

by Brian Dewan

Gather 'round my children, and I'll tell a tale of woe

About a famous cowboy outlaw who lived a hundred years ago.

Today his soul at last is resting peacefully in hell

Though many years have passed away since through the gallows-trap he fell.

He was sitting propped up in a chair just after he was hanged

And they photographed his body as a distant churchbell rang.

A circus man was waiting with fifty dollars in his coat

And he bought the cowboy outlaw so he could have him in his show.

And very soon he was embalmed and toured from town to town

People paid to see the outlaw that they'd heard so much about

He stood before them with a pistol against a painted scene

The greatest cowboy outlaw that the world had ever seen

But in time he was forgotten and no one knew his name

And when he began to fall apart they took his booth away

They painted him with varnish and put a crown upon his head

Come and see the king of Egypt said the sign out front instead

And then one year the circus closed, the tents were packed away

And he was sold to an amusement park on Massachusetts Bay

He was sold for next to nothing and they packed him in the van

They thought they'd bought a dummy but they'd really bought a man.

He was sprayed a special color to help him look a fright

And they hung him from a gallows 'neath an ultra-violet light

He hung there in a spookhouse for many, many years

As youthful faces passed him by in tiny railroad cars

Until one fine and fateful day in 1976

He fell down from the gallows when the hangman's noose unhitched

His arm broke at the shoulder as he clattered to the floor

And the man who went to fix him was stunned by what he saw

And the teenage boys did holler, and the teenage girls did faint

When they saw the bone protruding from the varnish and the paint

A coroner came to serve him and ran a slew of tests

they found out who he was, in time, and laid his soul to rest

A hundred hears have come and gone since he spoke his final words

I'm not afraid to die and leave behind this rotten world

So go and pull the lever hangman, now my race on Earth is run

And he thought his life was ended but it had only just begun

--

Steve Nicholson, 74431.40@compuserve.com