Lone Run
The gleaming silver and black iron horse
thundered down the virgin track,
puffing and steaming with magnum force,
burning and churning black smoke from her stack.
Through the renegade land of the Navajo
smoke signals painted the sentinel sky.
The dark iron horse kicked and grunted below
snaking up close to the river's side.
The braves stood tall and ready for battle.
Their Indian faces were bright with war paint.
This black iron horse with no bridle or saddle,
the white man's dark dragon must be slain.
Groaning up the grade in the blazing sun
she climbed the railed ladder to Pinto Pass.
The shiny iron horse on her maiden run
didn’t have a clue it would be her last.
The tribe made ready for the coming attack.
With ponies and ropes they dragged jagged boulders
around a blind bend where there's no turnin' back.
They laid in wait by the tracks’ soiled shoulders.
The train crested the tall hill and ran the pass
then bullishly started her downhill run.
Her eyes were blind to the jagged rock mass
as the steel rails glared in the mid-day sun.
The tracks became a bold funeral pyre
bordered by Indians west and east.
They watched the iron horse explode and expire.
She'd breathe no more this mangled black beast.
This silver-black steed had only one run;
now she's scrap metal strewn under the plain.
She's buried there somewhere in Pinto Pass canyon.
This was her lone run; she won't run again.