The Haunted Ranch lyrics

When I was a cattle driver, in a time long gone away Something happened to me I still recall to this day I was driving a herd through the wilds of Goiás With seven fellow riders, and I rode as the foreman boss When we reached Catalão, past the hills of Minas Gerais I delivered all the cattle, locked them safe inside the pens that night But I slept with troubled longing, missing home and all my kin At the rooster's cry by sunrise, I saddled up my weary horse and rode alone again For nine long hours I traveled through the rising countryside Toward the fall of afternoon came a drizzling silver sky Not a living soul around me, save the vultures circling high And the rain grew ever heavier through the ghostly mist rolling by My exhausted horse kept climbing every muddy mountain side Then I prayed unto Our Lady for her holy grace divine At that moment down below me, near the shadow of a rise Stood an old abandoned farmhouse, so I chose to spend the night in that forsaken land of Minas Ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh I hung up all my saddle gear and turned my chestnut loose With splinters from the broken walls I lit the old wood stove Dried my clothes beside the fire, laid my blanket on the floor While the little shack kept trembling underneath the thunder's roar Then a strange and dreadful feeling slowly filled me up with fear I could sense some cursed presence drawing ever near With my skin alive in shivers, I whispered every prayer Curled up tight beneath my blanket when I heard low moans arising from the cellar down below That awful groaning sound kept crawling closer through the storm At first I thought somebody there was wandering in the rain forlorn While the leaking roof kept dripping, came the voice of a dying man Like a soul condemned to suffering in some dark forgotten land This old house is truly haunted, so I thought in rising fright Crossed myself a hundred times and kept on praying through the night Then a blinding flash of lightning filled the room with ghostly white And beside me through the doorway hung a dead man from the rafters swaying slowly in the light Ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh Then I drew my old revolver with its finely sighted steel And I shouted: Hellfire's coming, defend yourself, Satan Whether I had missed or hit him, I could never truly tell But I know the dreadful moaning vanished silent as a spell Morning light was slowly breaking and the Sun began to rise So I rode away still heading toward Querência dos Pinhais I gave up the life of cattle, changed the course of all my days Sent the cowboys on their separate roads and never drove another herd through the wilds of Goiás again