Ballad Of The Red Fox

Down where the black water don’t run clear

Cypress trees whisper what a man can’t hear

There’s a rider comes quiet through the midnight fog

With a rifle on his back and a heart gone hard

They say he crossed the ocean from a frozen land

With blood on his boots and a gun in his hand

Didn’t bring mercy, didn’t bring law

Just a red-eyed stare and a quick-draw claw

Oh the Red Fox rides where the lanterns die

Where the wolves don’t howl and the crows don’t cry

If you see his shadow when the moon hangs low

Pray to God he ain’t the man you owe

Down in the marsh where the old ghosts sing

A guitar cries soft on a rusted string

Bluewater wind and a devil’s tune

Calling lost souls to the swamp too soon

They say the Fox once rode through the burning rain

Left a town in ashes and a trail of pain

Lawmen chased him but they lost his track

Only hoofbeats fading in the dark out back

Oh the Red Fox rides where the lanterns die

Where the wolves don’t howl and the crows don’t cry

If you see his shadow when the moon hangs low

Pray to God he ain’t the man you owe

Some men run from their sins at night

Some men drown them in whiskey and fight

But the Fox just rides where the wind blows cold

With a heart like iron and a soul half sold

Now if you’re riding through the pines alone

And you hear hoofbeats where the road ain’t known

Don’t turn around and don’t look back slow

’Cause the last thing you’ll see…

is the Red Fox’s shadow.