The seventh of his brothers from the seventh born before,
Gregorio Cortez could shoot a perfect forty-four
And he could talk to the horses, he was part of the land,
With his proud honest heart and his pistol in hand.

This Cortez, he had a brother with a hearty big-mouthed laugh
And this brother never acted except on his own behalf;
He played a perfect trick and he had just begun to gloat
When the sheriff stopped his laughter with a bullet in the throat.

When you shoot a real man’s brother, there’s a price that you must pay
And this sheriff quickly cleared his debt by dying that same way
For Gregorio Cortez was not a man who let his brother die in vain
Without seeing that the killer met his justice and was slain.

From that time on, Cortez was on his own to find a way
With a little sorrel mare his brother died to get that day.
And he killed so many sheriffs in his journey to be free
That the posses ran in terror when he came around the tree.

But because his people suffered just because he was alive,
Cortez went back to help the others, not to let himself survive.
His enemies soon poisoned him, and he is dead under the earth.
But until the stars have fallen, no-one will forget his worth.