Locked in the saddlebag, Lincoln’s command, Holding the Union across the torn land! Pony Express on the alkali trace, Just seventeen winters and wind in our face! Sacramento by sundown, Saint Joe in the rear— Flesh against darkness and bone against fear! Mind the deep badger-holes hid in the shale, Keep your ears pitched to the overland trail. October’s a knife coming off Ruby Crest, With a crust of white salt on the hair of your chest. My fingers are stiff on the frost-bitten rein, While the company Bible taps time to the strain— Just one lightweight Colt and the mail on your back, And the wolves of the basin out watching our track. White steam from your nostrils, white foam on the bit, The war’s in the East, boy, and we’re in the grit! Two minutes for water, a fresh mount in stall, And we’ve beaten the clock through the teeth of the squall! Locked in the saddlebag, Lincoln’s command, Holding the Union across the torn land! Pony Express on the alkali trace, Just seventeen winters and wind in our face! Sacramento by sundown, Saint Joe in the rear— Flesh against darkness and bone against fear! See the red streak of dawn cutting over the ridge, Just four hundred yards past the dry creek-bed bridge! Your flanks are a lather of alkali rime, But we’ve shaved twenty minutes off company time. There’s a bucket of oats and a rub-down with straw, And coffee boiling hot for the chill in my jaw! Whoa, Roan... easy now... nobody’s out in the yard, No fresh saddled bay with the stock-tender’s guard. The keeper just sits on the step by the door, With my heavy mochila left dead on the floor. Look up at the ridge-pole—fresh timber of pine, And a single bright thread of new copper-drawn line: It hums in the frost-wind, a cold iron song, While a brass key inside clicks the message along... I slide from the stirrup on knees made of lead, Pull the rough woolen blanket up over your head. They’ve tethered the lightning from sea unto sea, And tomorrow belongs to the wire, not me. Though a current runs faster than blood in the vein, It never rode out through this freezing black plain! Let the copper hum on through the salt and the stone— That mountain behind us belongs to us, Roan! Locked in the saddlebag, Lincoln’s command, Holding the Union across the torn land! Pony Express on the alkali trace, Just seventeen winters and wind in our face! Sacramento by sundown, Saint Joe in the rear— Flesh against darkness and bone against fear! The lightning’s in the wire, boy, from sea to shining sea— But we owned the dark, Roan, just horses and me! We owned the dark!
