Down in the scubble country
to the southeast Texas Gulf,
there used to ride a brakeman,
a brakeman double tough.
He worked the town of Kilgore
and Longview
twelve miles down.
And the travelers all said that Little East Texas Red,
he was the meanest bull around
If you rode by night or
the broad daylight,
in the wintry wind or the sun
You would always see
Little East Texas Red,
just a sportin' his smooth runnin' gun
And the tail got switched down
the stems and manes
And everybody said that the
meanest bull on them shiny irons
was that little East Texas red
It was on a cold and a windy morn,
it was along towards nine or ten
A couple of boys on the hunt of a job,
they stood in that blizzardy wind
Hungry and cold they knocked on the doors
of the working people around
For a piece of meat and a
carrot or a spud
just to boil a stew around
Well East Texas Red come down
the line
and he swung off that old number two
He kicked their bucket over
a bush
and he dumped out all of their stew
And the traveler said,
Little East Texas Red,
you better get your business straight
Cause you're gonna ride
your little black train
just one year from today
Well Red, he laughed and
he climbed the bank
and he swung on the side of a wheeler
And the boys caught a
tanker to Salmonell,
then west to Amarillo
They caught them a job of
oil field work
and they followed a pipeline down
It took them lots of places
before that year had rolled around
Then on a cold and a windy morn
they caught them a gulf -bound train
They shivered and shook with a dough
in their clothes
to the scrubble flats again
With their warm suits of clothes
and their overcoats
they walked into a store
They paid that man for some
meat and stuff
just to boil the stew once more
The ties they tracked down
that cinder dump
and they came to that same old spot
Where East Texas Red
just one year ago
had dumped their last stew pot
Well the smoke of their fire
went higher and higher
and Red come down the line
With his head ducked low
in that wintry wind
he waved old number nine
He walked on down through
the jungle yards
and he came to the same old spot
And there was the same two men again
around that same stew pot
Red went to his knees and he hollered,
Please don't pull your trigger on me.
I did not get my business straight,
But he did not get his say.
A gun wheeled out of an
overcoat
And it played that 0 -1 -2.
And Red was dead when the other
two men
Sat down to eat their stew. you