Ian Tyson - Claude Dallas lyrics

Album: All The Good ´Uns (1996)

In a land the Spanish once had called the Northern Mystery,
Where rivers run & disappear the mustang still is free.
By the Devil´s wash & coyote hole in the wild Owyhee Range
Somewhere in the sage tonight the wind calls out his name.
Aye,aye,aye.

Come gather ´round me buckaroos & a story I´ll tell
Of the fugitive Claude Dallas who just broke out of jail.
You might think this tale is history from before the West was won,
But the events that I will describe took place in nineteen eighty-one.

He was born out in Virginia,left home when school was through;
In the deserts of Nevada he became a buckaroo,
And he learned the ways of cattle,and he learned to sit a horse,
And he always packed a pistol,and he practiced deadly force.

Then Claude he became a trapper,and he dreamed of the bygone days,
And he studied bobcat logic & their wild & silent ways
In the bloody runs near Paradise, in monitors down south
Trapping cats & coyotes,living hand to mouth.
Aye,aye,aye.

Then Claude took to livin´ all alone out many miles from town,
A friend--Jim Stevens--brought supplies & he stayed to hang around.
That day two wardens--Pogue & Elms--rode into check Claude out,
They were seeking violations & to see what Claude´s about.

Now Claude had hung some venison,he had a bobcat pelt or two;
Pogue claimed they were out of season,he said "Dallas,you are all thru."
But Dallas would not leave his camp.He refused to go to town.
As the wind howled throught the bull-camp they stared each other down.

Its hard to say what happend next,perhaps we will never know,
They were going to take Claude in to jail,and he vowed he would never go.
Jim Stevens heard the gunfire,and when he turned around
Bill Pogue was falling backwards,Conley Elms he fell face down.
Aye,aye,aye.

Jim stevens walked on over;there was a gun near Bill Pogue´s hand.
It was hard to say who drawn his 1st,but Claude had made his stand.
Claude said "I´m justified Jim,they were going to cut me down,
And a man´s got a right to hang some meat
When he has livin´ this far from town."

It took eighteen men & fifteen months to finally run Claude down.
In the sage outside of Paradise they drove him to the ground.
Convicted up in Idaho--manslaughter by decree--
Thirty yeahrs at maximum,but soon Claude would break free.

Theres two sides two this story,there may be no right or wrong,
The lawman & the renegade have graced a thousand songs.
The story is an old one.Conclusion´s hard to draw,
But Claude´s out in the sage tonight he may be the last outlaw.
Aye,aye,aye.

In a land the Spanish once had called the Northern Mystery,
Where rivers run & disappear the mustang still is free.
By the Devil´s wash & the coyote hole in the wild Owyhee Range
Somewhere in the sage tonight the wind calls out his name.
Aye,aye,aye

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