I figured as long as I had my Lawrence Hammond album out, I'd add the lyrics to my favorite song of his. I consider him one of those writers and singers who got far less than his due.

Don't sing this one just before going to bed!

THE LEGEND OF THE PALE-EYED COMPANION
(Lawrence Hammond, Desert Jewel Songs BMI, 1972)
As sung by Lawrence Hammond on "Coyote's Dream," Takoma 1047, 1976

They say a New Mexico winter
Will drive old Satan from his home,
And the poor cowboy who's caught in the blizzard
Well he knows that he's never alone.

'Cause the Devil's on the range in the winter.
His eyes are the color of snow,
And they call him the Pale-Eyed Companion.
He's got the shape of a wolf 'round his soul.

I ain't a man of superstition,
But there are things beneath the sky
That can make a long-time cowboy
Lay down in the cold snow to die.

He feeds on the flames of your campfire
To stoke up the fires of his soul,
And he'll creep up when the wind starts to howlin'.
Lord, he'll leave you at the mercy of the cold.

Now a blizzard it caught me north of Clayton.
I had fifty head to go up to Raton.
The prairie dogs they froze down in their burrows,
And every step another steer was gone.

I ain't a man of superstition,
But there was something caught their eye
That made them longhorns sure get edgy
When I built me a fire for the night.

The blizzard it sang.
The cowbells they rang.
The note in the wind got so strange ...
When I turned 'round in fright,
Two eyes in the night
Put the winter right into my veins.

I drew out my rifle and sighted.
I whispered a prayer to the skies,
But I found I could only stand and shiver
In the light of his pale snowy eyes.

And them longhorns they'll die if you run them
Too fast in the high drifted snow,
But I saddled my pony and I drove them
Just as fast as any longhorn will go.

I ain't a man to run from danger.
Many's the time I've walked Boot Hill,
But the ghost of the Sangre de Christos
Never blinked as he closed for the kill.

I never have rightly remembered
How I rode myself in from the range,
But I remember that trail boss a-swearin'
As I left just twenty head on his hands.

I stayed drunk the rest of the winter.
Now they say that I'm touched by the moon,
But it's because there's a Pale-eyed Companion
Who waits for me outside the saloon.

Nobody wants a drunken cowboy,
But whiskey's warm and friends are cold.
Now they say I'm just tellin' stories
'Cause I rode them longhorns down in the snow.