Here's another song a bit more "honest" about Mike Fink by Bob Dyer. Cathy Barton and Dave Para also do it on one of their early Folk Legacy recordings and that CD is available still at Folk Legacy Records. Lyrics are below.


MIKE FINK........Bob Dyer


Well, my daddy was a bear in the Allegheny Mountains
And my mother was a 'gator in the Ohio.
I was born full-growed at the forks of the river
And I cut my teeth on a catfish bone.

Oh, my name is Mike Fink, I'm a keelboat poler,
I'm a Salt River roarer and I eat live coals .
I'm a half-alligator and I ride tornaders,
And I can out-feather, out-jump, out-hop, out-skip,
Throw down and lick any man on the river.

Well, I poled the Ohio and I poled the Mississippi
And I poled the Missouri when she's choked with snags.
I poled on the wilds and the salts of the Kentucky
And I never met a man that I couldn't out-brag.

Well, Betsy is my shooting iron, she shouts like the thunder
And she flashes like the lightning and she kicks like a mule.
I can clip an Indian scalp, knock it cleaner than a whistle;
I can knock a tin cup off the head of a fool.

Well, Carpenter's a name that I guess you've heard tell of;
I taught that critter everything that he knowed.
But he done me dirt on the Yellowstone River
And I crossed his eyes with a musket ball.

Well, some say I died on the Yellowstone River
Or was shot by a man by the name of Talbot.
But if you want to know the truth about what really happened,
You're gonna have to come knocking on the devil's door.