Chambers - Ben Nichols, Benjamin Nichols

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