Born under a south Kentucky sky   He’d come west to Mexico to fight 1842 at Mier    The gutters filled with blood and fear   Barely made it back to Texas alive      With Missouri Volunteers when the war began    In ’46 they crossed the Rio Grande   There he met his dark-eyed love      But said good bye when the war was done   He swore that he’d come back for her again      Oh oh novia   Oh oh your man is gone   Maybe he’s in Texas   But we’ll take what God has left us    And we’ll leave for California with the dawn      Worked his way back to Old Mexico   To reclaim the love he’d left two years ago    Back to those same city walls    Where he’d watched copper cannonballs    Like wayward suns roll down the cobblestones      They put him in a prison left alone   With other yankee fools so far from home   Parade them through the square in chains   ‘Till in rode Captain Glanton’s gang   Apache scalps for bounties paid in gold      Glanton’s men were killers all by trade   And through the prison bars a deal was made    Glanton needed three new men    Hired the lovelorn veteran   The killers rode out through the governor’s gates      The Veteran left camp ‘fore the rising sun   No killer he’d left other work undone   He was not yet two days out   When Glanton’s naked native scouts   Brought back his empty horse and his brand new gun