1. BLOOD AND SMOKE

Pushed from the plains
Sustained by raids
Perpetual war
Upon the adversary

Iron in their word of life
Peace in a fearful treaty
Brown robe offerings
Apache sitting pretty

To receive Christ
In a false conversion
Double-tongued ruse
Of the wily heathens

Gifts of the Padres
Left in the remains
Framed by raids
Inciting northern rage

Beneath the Comanche Moon
Iron in their word of death
San Sabá ablaze
Blood, smoke, revenge


2. BAD HAND

Six hundred soldiers hunt Comanches
Through deserts of vast eternity
Twenty Tonks ferret them out
To vanquish their ancient enemy

Shadowed by scouts
Vanishing into the hills
Where the buffalo stampede
Where white men fear to tread

Facing the barren waste
Acts of blunder and omission
Fruitful errors, full of seeds
Blossom into wisdom

Campfire lights, traitorous beacons
Scared awake by the midnight raid
Driving off the unguarded horses
They had met the Lord of the Plains

Outnumbered and outgunned
A village fled No-finger Chief
As far as the eye could reach
Neither an object nor a living thing

In the heart of Comancheria
The battle within reach
A blue norther unleashed it’s fury
Shielding the forlorn Quahadis

Freezing rain
Frigid wind
Blinding snow
Darkening sky

Gathering twilight for a cursed enemy
Silhouettes fading from the horizon


3. DAWN OF LIBERTY

It grows as it goes
Through struggle and toil
Invaded, unconquered Foreign boots upon the soil

Revolt in Santa Fe
To arise on Christmas Day
Smothered at its birth
The Ancients rise again

Gray Eminence of Taos
Stoking flames of dissent
Ceding land, reaping hatred
Sickness unto death

To the home of the gringo
In the dark before sunrise
Flinging arrows to rout them
Clawing the walls to survive

With lightning in their veins
War chants on liquored tongues
Shot, stabbed, and pierced
Bent’s scalp baking in the sun

Los diablos Americanos
Struck in swift reprisal
Pursued from hilltop to hilltop
To the pueblo at red willows

The citadel besieged
Raining hellfire and damnation
Bursting shells, shrieking wounded
Little quarter asked or given

A drumhead court-martial
In the wake of devastation
From a cottonwood in Taos
The conquered hung for treason

If an injury must be done
Let it be so severe
That with the passage of time
Vengeance need not be feared


4. THE LONG WALK

Come dress your ranks, gallant souls, in a row
Kit Carson is waiting to crush the savage foe
At night, we march over lofty hills of snow
To first chastise, then civilize, Bold Johnny Navajo

Wolves of the mountains
Fallen world, devoid of majesty
At the frozen peak of Fortress Rock
Bitter cold, famished agony

The lurker at the threshold
To deliver them from strife
In their homeland, burning crops
Leaving scorched earth behind

He who seeks to deceive
Will find a willing participant
Fear preserves the deceiver
By the dread of punishment

They say there was a great roundup
And the Diné were ripped from their land
To be marched by the riders of judgement
Who destroy those who fail their demands


5. WITHERING FIRE

Jerusalem, captain!
Yonder comes a thousand Indians!

A single horse
To draw Hays in
Twenty warriors
To foment bloodthirst

Circumventing the ambush
With nerves of steel
Trounced, forced to flee
The Rangers on their heels

Charge their flank
Hold the line
Crowd them!
Powder-burn them!

Hand to hand
Rough and tumble
Under withering fire
Pursued for miles

The running fight dragged on
Until a shot rang out
The warriors scattered in despair
Their Chief fell dead from his mount

A bullet for every finger
Unceasing slaughter from horseback
At the Battle of Walker’s Creek
The Comanches met their match


6. SACCHARINE SKY

(Instrumental)


7. WHITE EYES

On John Ward’s ranch at Sonoita Creek
From savage wilderness, fruitful husbandry
With God’s enrichment came risk of raids
The one eyed warrior’s singular aim

Scaling a tree at the valley floor
A one eyed boy awaits his fate
Coaxed from the branches and spared
In an unorthodox act of mercy

A line drawn in the sand
Let no one pass

Imprisoned at a false assemblage
Cut from the tent to escape the camp
From the ridgetop, Cochise glowered
A tin cup still clenched in his hand

White eyes refused the exchange
Blood for blood, fair reciprocity
Apache signal fires upon every peak
War dance echoes through the valley

Lashed to a wagon train and burned alive
From the station, watching the smoke rise

Buzzards circled butchered men
As Bascom held the fort
Pierced vitals, drained lifeblood
Gold fillings on a mutilated corpse

In stillness and solitude, corpses hung in the trees
High enough only the vultures could feed
Spirits of the dead haunt Apache Pass
The innocent suffer while the guilty go free


8. LORD OF THE PLAINS

In the midst of a land without silence
Star Chief Quanah guards the last frontier
Fearless in the face of noble death
The wolves draws near

Three thousand soldiers took the field
A monumental force sent against the foe
The great white father imposing lines on paper
Stretching barbed wire across the panhandle

Enraged hearts of the resistance
Taking federal rations in January
And raiding under the summer moon
Burning war path of a crippled adversary

Mackenzies Fourth, cloaked in a fog of dust
A grand finality for Palo Duro camp
On a goat trail down through jaws of death
To deliver a final blow to the homeland

Raking fire over the lodges
Hot breath of an angry God
Dust, sunlight, a crackling fire
Sun, moon, stars forgot

False assurance in broken magic
Life passes as a shadow
Phantom herd haunt the canyon
Galloping amidst bleached bones

Sanctum sanctorum, done and dusted
Though like the wanderer, the sun gone down
Quanah held to the end with an iron will
One could bend horseshoes around

Last Chief of the Comanches
Resting until day breaks
Shadows fall, darkness fades
The Lord of the Plains