Claude Dallas
By Ian Tyson ASCAP
1986 Slick Fork Music --
CAPAC and
Tom Russell 1986 End of the
Trail -- CAPAC
In a land the Spanish once had
called the Northern Mystery
Where rivers run and disappear
And the Mustang still lives free
By the Devil's wash and the
coyote hole
In the wild Owyee Range
Somewhere in the sage tonight
The wind calls out his name
Aye Aye Aye
Come gather round me
buckaroos
And the story I will tell
The fugitive Claude Dallas
Who just broke out jail
You might think this tale is
history
From before the West was won
But the events that I'll describe
took place in 1981
He was born out in Virginia
Left home when school was
through
In the deserts of Nevada
He became a buckaroo
He learned the ways of cattle
He learned to sit a horse
He always packed a pistol
And he practiced deadly force
Then Claude he became a
trapper
He dreamed of the bygone days
He studied bobcat logic
In the wild and silent ways
In the bloody runs near paradise
In the monitors down south
Trapping cats and coyotes
Living hand and mouth
Aye Aye Aye
Then Claude took to living all
alone
Out many miles from town
A friend Jim Stevens brought
supplies
And he stayed to hang around
That day two wardens Pogue
and Elms
Drove in to check Claude out
They were seeking violations
And to see what Claude's about
Now Claude had hung some
venison
Had a bobcat pelt or two
Pogue claimed they were out of
season
He says, "DaIIas you're all
through"
But Dallas would not leave his
camp
He refused to go to town
As the wind howled through the
bull camp
They stared each other down
It's hard to say what happened
next
Perhaps we'll never know
They were going to take Claude
into jail
And he'd vowed he'd never go
Jim Stevens heard the gunfire
And when he turned around
Bill Pogue was fallin' 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's hard to say who'd drawn his
first
But Claude had made his stand
Claude said, "I'm justified Jim...
They were going to cut me
down. . .
A man's got a right to hang some
meat
When he's livin' this far from
town."
It took 18 men and 15 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 years at maximum
But soon Claude would break
free
There's two sides to this story
There may be no right or wrong
The lawman and the renegade
Have graced a thousand songs
So 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
Repeat 1st Verse