Our Town's Unknown Hero
It is said that here in old Elmerton,
up in the mountains of fair Idaho,
terrible things regularly went down,
evil all of the townspeople would know.
A bandit known only as ‘Beast’ Horton
had killed the sheriff and taken control,
he and three thugs ruled it all by the gun,
and left numerous people lying cold.
There was no family that wasn’t touched,
that didn’t have to put loved ones in the grave,
the few who challenged Beast all had no luck,
townsfolk soon began to move away.
But just as the fear was reaching its crest
a worn-down drifter appeared on the street,
who the man was, they hadn’t the slightest,
but he strode on without missing a beat.
When Beast Horton came out of the saloon
there was a look of true shock in his eyes,
then he sneered and said,”You god-damned poltroon,
you came all of this way just to die!”
The drifter shook his head, said to the beast:
“It’s been a year, but I’ve run you filth down,
for what you have taken, prepare to screech
in Hell once I put you all in the ground!”
He drew with incredible speed on his foes,
in a heat-beat one thug had hit the dirt,
the drifter dove, quickly getting down low,
to avoid a barrage of lead and hurt.
Rolling, he shot, hitting one in the gut,
collapsing to the boardwalk with a groan,
then a sharp blow, the impact of a slug,
covered his thigh with blood of his own.
Still the man fired, head-shooting a third,
leaving Horton as the only one left,
then he ribs jerked, good lord did it hurt,
that hard bullet taking all of his breath.
Horton stalked forwards, convinced he had won,
said,”I really did have such fun with your wife.”
With a last burst the man lunged at Horton,
and skewed his neck with a Bowie knife!
The Beast fell back, dead, the man collapsed too,
and the townsfolk rushed on out, to his side,
they asked his name, began,”Please, who are you?”
But the hero just slowly closed his eyes…
That happened one-hundred-fifty years back,
they say many tried hard to learn his name,
but despite a search on multiple tracks
the man remains unknown to this very day.
They carved ‘Here Lies Elmerton’s Unknown Hero’
on his grave when they laid the man to rest,
now he’s a folk figure the tourists all know,
a sight to see when they come tour the west.
But to me it feels sad, not knowing why
this man took on an impossible fight,
never to know why he was willing to die,
who he was, why he’d lay down his life…
The world should know why a man
Lays down his life.
Copyright © David Welch | Year Posted 2018
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