down the river

I was eighteen

My brother was twenty-one

One saturday evening

When all the work was done

We went down to the river

Had some trot lines to run

My brother walter

Had a fight the week before

Knocked a boy named wilson

Through the pool hall door

They said you don't mess with wilson

Unless you want a war

We put the boat in the water

I made the engine run

Loaded the lantern

Against the sinking sun

And my brother walter

Was loading his gun

And we went down the river

Down past the coal docks

We were running our lines

Heard some drunken boaters

Racing up behind

It was Wilson and his cousin

They had trouble on their minds

They passed on by us

Probably going to tend their pots

We headed up the river

With the fish we'd caught

But before we made the landing

I thought I heard a shot

Back down the river

My brother Walter fell over the side

I couldn't find him no matter how I tried

And looked along the bank

But I couldn't find where they'd hide

They drug the river

They searched it up and down

Couldn't find his body

So they decided that he'd drowned

But I knew better

And Wilson bragged around town

So one night I floated down

Right above wilson's shack

I hid in the woods

Till I saw him walk out back

I put a bullet in his head

And dropped him in his tracks

And we went down the river

Down below the trestle

Where the water runs slow

I chained him to an anvil

And then I let him go

And five years later

I ain't told a soul

And I ain't done much fishing

I hardly wet a line