Dead Man's Hand

(album: Strange Trails - 2015)

Yellow lines in the dead of the night, I was heading back out west.
Trying to keep my eyes open wide, I'd gone days without any rest.
Saw him lying in the road looking bad about 20 yards ahead.
You come back from a trip to the east but you don't come back from the dead.

Sure as hell he was dead as they come and he was already starting to smell.
Just a kid with his hair slicked back and a knife tucked into his belt.
Was he unforgiven or just tired of living a life that never felt like his?
Though I was was worn and weary, I thought I'd bury him
and lay his soul to rest out in the desert night.

I laid him down in a grave in the sand
and he grabbed my arm with his dead man's hand.
He said: "I know I'm dead but I don't wanna lie
in a grave out here where the coyote's cry.

I stared right into the endless void
and I ain't going back if I got any choice.
I know how to live, I don't know how to die
and there ain't no thrills in the afterlife.

So lift me up out of here my friend
and I'll wander the night 'til the ages end."
Lit by the moon he walked through the sand
and he waved goodbye with his dead man's hand.

He will roam forever, haunting the desert.
He will roam forever, haunting the desert.