Black Magic

I was on the south road, headed for Savannah.
I was tired of being poor. Didn't suit me any more.
I'd sung up all the songs you dream on, trying to stay ahead.
The dollar had to live on, drunk it down instead.
And I run up on this stranger in the in the dirt.
And he looked like some unfinished dirty work.

He was barely breathing, wasn't nothing left to say.
I helped myself and took his gun. He was dying anyway.

I was down in Texas. It was barely two months later.
I had found myself a name. I had stumbled into fame.
I shot a man from Louisiana with the stranger's gun.
He never even cleared his leather before the shot had rung.
And I'd never wore a six-gun in my life,
so was strange to me that I could take a life.
Now they're telling me I'm faster than any living man.
It must have been black magic I was holding in my hand.

If I take it off, they'll shoot me down. If I wear it someone dies.
The devil make that deadly thing, you know I do not lie.
I don't believe in fortune, but I do believe in sin.
It must have been black magic in that gun that did him in.

I was riding cross the border just outside Durango,
when a bullet split the night. Of behind me on my right.
I never saw the coward's face. I never got no plan.
I tried to get a shot off, I never had no chance.
And the pain was like no pain I'd ever known.
So I was satisfied I'd dye alone.

I was barely breathing, wasn't nothing to say.
He helped himself and stole my gun. I was dying anyway.

Author Unknown