El Llano Estacado - Tom Russell

If I may trust your love, she cried

And you would have me for a bride

Ride the wild plain and bring

A flask of water from the Mustang Spring

Fly as o’er the eagle’s wing

On the Llano Estacado

He smiled and left without a word

Grabbed up saddle, bit, and spur

Cinched his horse and rode away

through prickly pear and old Maguey,

vanished with the dying day

on the Llano Estacado.

All through the night he gallops on

Daylight broke, he rode alone

Spurred his horse and drew no rein

Across that dry, forsaken plain

Until the Mustang Spring he gained

On the Llano Estacado.

Crazy with love, in Enamorado!

Alone out on the Llano Estacado.

A bitter rest, a few short drinks

Across the spring a buzzard waits

His flask was full and so he turned

To gain the bride he soon would earn

But the sky bright red it burned

On the Llano Estacado

Oh how this shining desert glow

His eyes were burning as he rode

Was this the dream or drunken one

Or was he really riding on

Was that a skull that gleamed and shone

On the Llano Estacado

Oh hold onto his horse he cried

Ignore the devils in the sky

Bear up a little longer yet

His cracked lips he longed to wet

His mouth was black with blood and sweat

On the Llano Estacado

Crazy with love, in Enamorado!

Alone out on the Llano Estacado.

Still against his chest he held

The water flask for her he filled

He longed to drink but well he knew

If empty her love he’d lose

But his raging thirst it grew

On the Llano Estacado

His horse went down he wandered on

Dizzy, blinded and alone

And you out there with watery eyes

Think of how it is to die

Beneath the cruel, uncloudy sky

Of the Llano Estacado

At last he stumbled, then he fell

His race was run he knew full well

Raising to his lips the flask

His face a blistered, painful mask

Drank too, no more could she ask

Of the Llano Estacado

Crazy with love, in Enamorado!

He died out on the Llano Estacado.

That night at the Presido

Beneath the torchlights way below

She danced and never thought of him

A victim of a woman’s whim

Lying with that death like grin

On the Llano Estacado

Crazy with love, in Enamorado!

Alone out on the Llano Estacado.

Crazy with love, in Enamorado!

Alone out on the Llano Estacado.