South Coast

My name is Juan Hano de Castro
My father was a Spanish Grandee
But I won my wife in a card game
To hell with those lords o'er the sea

Well the South Coast is a wild coast and lonely
You might win in a game at Jolon
But a lion still rules the Barranca
And a man there is always alone

I played in a card game at Jolon
I played with an outlaw named Juan
And after I'd taken his money
I staked all against his daughter Dawn

I picked up the ace ... I had won her
My heart it was down at my feet
Jumped up to my throat in a hurry
Like a young summer's day she was sweet.

He opened the door to the kitchen
And he called the girl out with a curse
Saying "Take her, Goddamn her, you've won her
She's yours now for better or worse"

Her arms had to tighten around me
As we rode down the hills to the south
Not a word did I hear from her that day
Nor a kiss from her pretty young mouth

But that was a gay happy winter
We carved on a cradle of pine
By the fire in that neat little cabin
And I sang with that gay wife of mine.

That night I got hurt in a landslide
Crushed hip and twice broken bone
She saddled her pony like lightning
And rode off for the doctor in Cholon

The lion screamed in the Barranca
Buck, he bolted and he fell on his side
My young wife lay dead in the moonlight
My heart died that night with my bride