Monday, October 26, 2009

Harris Austin: a rather ordinary outlaw

Harris Austin was one of those minor outlaws
that barely rate a word or two.
Full of sass, piss, an' vinegar,
used as a tool ta' camouflage he's a fool.
He shot a man fer' a shot of whiskey
in a place called Tishomingo.
Perhaps he had a few too many
an' imagined he was Johnny Ringo.
Thomas Elliot took three rounds,
two ta' the torso, an' one ta' the temple.
Austin never even called him out,
he liked ta' keep his killin' simple.
He even stood so close ta' the future corpse
that powder left burns on his face.
Then seein' the looks of the patrons,
he skedaddled in total disgrace.
He decided it was time
ta' take himself a long vacation.
Mounted his horse an' took ta' the hills
in the heart of the Chickasaw Nation.
The law mounted a posse straight-away,
but Austin knew those hills.
He escaped an' evaded fer' a half-dozen years
before Deputy Marshall Carr, without any frills,
tracked Austin down an' brought him in,
so the townfolk could gawk at his trial.
The verdict came in, he hung fer' his sin,
an' jus' like he lived,
he did it without any style.

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