Kansas Jim and Pin-Chin Rose,

Were lovers, way out west,

Rose looked strange, but then again,

Kansas Jim was not the best.

Now Rose had never been a beauty, and she knew it,

Her face was a little too narrow at the chin,

And one eye was slightly bigger than the other,

But that didn’t matter to her lover, Kansas Jim.

Kansas Jim was known throughout the region,

As the fastest gun this side of Abilene,

A heartless man who’d kill with little reason,

But he treated Rose as though she were a queen.

Of course no-one called her Pin-Chin in his presents,

Because he’d shoot them like a dog, and that’s a fact,

But some folks became much braver with their words and their behaviour,

Behind Kansas Jim and Pin-Chin Roses backs.

Well they owned a little homestead on the border,

Where they farmed a sun parched barren piece of land,

But at night Jim would scour the range for cattle that had strayed,

Drive them back and then alter their brand.

But one day when Jim came home he found Rose crying,

With her face bruised bad and her clothes in disarray,

And he vowed that when he found the man that did this,

He would kill him in the slowest possible way.

It turned out to be a man called Clayton Parfett,

A man to who Jim’s reputation was not known,

A drifter on the run from Carson City,

Who had a reputation of his own.

He was wanted for the shooting of a sheriff,

Stage robbery and several other crimes,

A gunman near as fast as Wild Bill Hickok,

Who’d proved his speed more than a dozen times.

Laws to him were made just to be broken,

And women were to use and then abuse,

This was the man that Kansas Jim was chasing,

And he finally tracked him down to Veracruz.

Parfett knew that Jim was gunning for him,

But made no attempt to hide or get away,

He just ordered up a beer then looked round the room and sneered,

“Tell Kansas Jim to come and make his play”.

But Kansas Jim had fallen from his saddle,

When something spooked his horse outside of town,

A rider riding like all hell pursued him,

Left Jim dazed and lying on the ground.

So Parfett stayed and drank till late that evening,

Then staggered out like a man who’d drunk too much,

So he never saw the blade glint in the street lamp,

But he felt the sting as flesh and cold steel touched.

The tendons of his right arm had been severed,

That arm would be of use to him no more,

As his assailant disappeared into the shadows,

Clayton saw Jim tie his horse outside the store.

Kansas Jim watched Clayton walk towards him,

Believing he was coming to throw lead,

Clayton called to Jim while still approaching,

But Jim couldn’t hear a single word he said.

As Clayton neared Jim started walking forward,

Eager now to get the man in range,

When he was, he opened fire, fulfilling his desire,

Firing time and time and time again.

The first two shots hit Clayton in the midriff,

The next two almost tore his arm apart,

The fifth half ounce of lead, merely grazed his head,

Before the final bullet tore into his heart.

The townsfolk that had seen it stared in wonder,

That someone had beaten Claytons hand at last,

They had no idea that Clayton had been wounded

And Clayton Parfett never stood a chance.

But who was the shadowy figure in the darkness,

To this very day nobody really knows,

Clayton had an awful lot of enemies,

And not the least of them was Pin-Chin Rose.

By S.E.Ralph

28/3/2019