We packed the van with maps and matches,
Dust on our boots, pens in our hands.
Four young ghosts before the haunting,
Chasing dead things across the land.
Laredo heat and library whispers,
Names in ink and bones in stone.
Every road sign pointed southward,
Toward a rider with no home.
Moon over mesquite,
Wind through the wire.
Something in the dark,
Calling us closer.
El Muerto, ride through the night,
No face in the moonlight, no end in sight.
Hooves like thunder, death in the reins,
He comes back bleeding through the plains.
El Muerto, we heard your cry,
"It is mine, it is all mine."
South Texas shadows, open and wide,
There is no grave that can hold that ride.
Freer gave us restless horses,
San Diego gave us screams.
Alice filled our sleep with rot and leather,
Ben Bolt waited in our dreams.
Josefa stood beside the graveyard,
Black dress moving in the heat.
She said, "Some truths don't need believing;
Some truths rise and find your feet."
Cold in the thermal,
Breath in the black.
Something without a head,
Still finding its way back.
El Muerto, ride through the night,
No face in the moonlight, no end in sight.
Hooves like thunder, death in the reins,
He comes back bleeding through the plains.
El Muerto, we heard your cry,
"It is mine, it is all mine."
South Texas shadows, open and wide,
There is no grave that can hold that ride.
Lantern burning blue in the cemetery,
Graves stood up like witnesses.
Flies in a storm, teeth in the silence,
God, forgive the things we missed.
Was it a man or something wearing,
All the fear that people fed?
Every time his name is spoken,
Something wakes among the dead.
Don’t look back,
Don’t leave the fire,
Don’t hear the breathing,
Outside the wire.
Four came hunting,
Five remained.
One rode out,
And knew our names.
El Muerto, ride through the night,
Headless and hollow in the dead white light.
Hooves like judgment, hide like flame,
Call him once and he will come again.
El Muerto, we heard your cry,
"It is mine, it is all mine."
South Texas shadows, open and wide,
There is no grave that can hold that ride.
We never wrote the book we came for,
Never told it straight the same.
But when the brush goes still at midnight,
I still hear him speak my name.