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The Fool Kid Named Benny Pence

October had now come again just like it did back since,
The gunfighter Sam Holt had shot the kid named Benny Pence.

It was on All Hallows’ night with the moon high and blood red—
When Benny came lookin’ for him before he shot him dead.

Why would a fool farm boy try to draw on that gun slinger?
When he had no chance on God’s earth if he raised a finger?

But sure enough on that night, that’s what all the town then saw—
When Benny Pence raised his gun and said the fatal word: “Draw!”

But that had been a year ago come this All Hallows’ Eve,
And Sam Holt felt a cold wind blow that made him want to leave.

The harvest moon now hung above as Sam walked down the street—
He stopped for one brief moment at the place where they did meet.

Then like a dream that voice came back that meekly called him out—
Sam’s cold, sweaty hand then trembled as he began to shout:

“Don’t call me Ben! I’ll shoot you dead, and this time I’ll make good!”
Then Sam wildly drew and fired at the pale moon where he stood.

Somewhere a hoot owl screamed and Sam’s loud shots rang out on high,
As he fired and fired again at Ben’s shadow so he’d die.

But when the gun smoke cleared and that dim vision was not there,
Sam Holt now stood just a dyin’ in the dusty street square.

There were no gunshots in Sam’s body, no marks found at all—
His hair now white, his once ruddy flesh now a deathly pall. 

Yet when the town folk buried Sam, they noticed at Boot Hill,
Two other graves marked Pence by the one they had come to fill.

Benny Pence and his brother Bud, had died a year apart—
Both shot down by Sam Holt that feared gunslinger with no heart.

And so the three now rested within gun fire of the others—
Holt now dead of fright from those two departed Pence brothers.

And so each year it happened: other slingers would meet fate—
And die of fright All Hallows’ night when the hour was late.

So now folk knew the story of that fool kid Benny Pence—
Come back to revenge his brother each All Hallows’ night since.

Copyright © Glen Enloe | Year Posted 2006

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