What My Favorite Song Means: Gringo Pistolero by Tim Henderson and Allen Damron

Gringo Pistolero is just one of the songs on which Tim Henderson and Allen Damron collaborated over the years. They were both Austin-based singers/songwriters. Both were founders, with Rod Kennedy and others, of the famed Kerrville Folk Festival.

Gringo Pistolero is based on an actual event from the history of the Big Bend area of Texas. From More Tales of the Big Bend by Elton Miles, " On August 10, 1919, an airplane flew out of Marfa on a regular patrol of the Rio Grande ... Lieutenants H.G. Peterson, pilot and D. H. Davis, observer-gunner." The Gringo Pistolero actually existed. He was Captain Leonard F. Matlack, a U.S. Army Cavalry officer stationed along the border since 1917.

Tim and Allen take some "poetic license" with historical accuracy for the sake of a good song or "corrido." Gringo Pistolero contains a villain, a hero, a beautiful victim and some of the best combination of English and Spanish
The steely-eyed determination and seriousness of the Gringo Pistolero is exemplified by this lyric:

"A drunken bandit captured, with the message,
'Talk or Die' in the eyes of the Gringo Pistolero"

The cruelty of the villain is shown by these lines:

" In a jacal of adobe bruised and tied up one the floor
wept the sweet wife of the rancher Juan Otero."

and

"Angry cutthroat said, 'Ignore the weeping Lady on the floor!' "

Another poetic license taken by Tim Henderson and Allen Damron in the writing of Gringo Pistolero was to change the villain from Jesus "Pegleg" Renteria who kidnapped the aviators to Chico Cano. Both were border bandits and revolutionaries of the era in the Big Bend area. Chico had a bigger reputation and was blamed for many exploits for which he was not, in fact, responsible. However, it is known that he and Captain Matlack had interactions, both peaceable and not. Besides, Chico Cano fits a rhyme scheme with more facility than does Pegleg Renteria. Pegleg is very colorful, but it's a bear to rhyme another word with.

For a romantic hook, the two male aviators morphed into a beautiful, young woman. After all, a brave Army officer rescuing a beautiful, young woman is more romantic than a brave Army officer rescuing two other Army officers.

Tim Henderson and Allen Damron create vivid pictures throughout Gringo Pistolero. This lyric is but one example,

"Weeping red tears from a third eye that the guilty cannot feel
from the Springfield of the Gringo Pistolero"

Another part of that same verse relates how the shot was fired from 800 yards away. The marksmanship skills it would take to make a "between-the-eyes" shot with a 1903 30.06 rifle with peep sites, in a heavy wind are impressive! Only two songwriters who also possess the knowledge of marksmanship skills could have written those lines or these,

"Big Colt autos spitting thunder death at everything that moved
Flashing lightening in a jacal, long and narrow"

In the above lyric, Tim and Allen refer, of course, to the Colt's 1911 model .45 semi-automatic handgun designed by John Moses Browning. Now because I knew Allen, I know that the Colt .45 was his favorite carry pistol jacal after dark, would indeed look very much like huge lightening flashes in a completely dark environment. The sound of multiple .45 cartridges being fired in a small enclosed space would be as deafening as the loudest clap of thunder you've ever heard.

If I had to choose two lines from Gringo Pistolerothat make it my favorite,

"Ending hate and greed and cruelty with final flying truth
from the sure hand of the Gringo Pistolero"

When my [now] husband introduced me to this song in 1988, we had been dating a short time. He worked in the District Attorney's office and I was a Parole Officer. As we talked about our work, we found that I was often supervising parolees that he had helped to convict! Since a large part of my caseload was sex offenders with a preference for children, the above line appealed to me in ways few people can truly understand. But, my husband understood exactly how it felt. He especially understood with the repeat offenders and the murderers.

The justice meted out by Captain Matlack as described by Tim Henderson and Allen Damron in Gringo Pistolero is the kind of justice many people working in the Criminal Justice system fantasize about. It was beginning to be missed even in that era,

"That although 'the law' be empty words still Justice could be found
for no border stopped the Gringo Pistolero"

The entire song is not grim and dark, however. The last verse tells about the "young bride" and her return to husband and home.

The old wives have their version,

"And lived happily through children and the years of silver hair"

The young women tell another version of her life after her rescue,

"...Otero did not treat her well back there,
So she left him for the Gringo Pistolero"

As Allen Damron sang that last, he would have a smile on his face and a wicked twinkle in his eye. He had a way of caressing the words when he sang if the mood of song called for it. He could spit a distasteful adjective out of his mouth so that the listener, whether in person or on a recording knew the subject of that descriptor was deserving of all the contempt Allen had just given him/her/it.

Allen's guitar playing was a component of tone setting throughout the song,too. Allen Damron was a great finger picker. He would alternate the picking with strumming, to change moods as the song progressed. As he came to the end of the verse and the words "Gringo Pistolero" he gave the guitar a flourish. It was a consistent, repetitive motion, because as he did it, he would fling his hand off the guitar and up in the air briefly.

Every time I visualize the Gringo Pistolero, I don't see Captain Leonard Matlack, although I have seen his picture. I see instead the face of my own dearly beloved husband. I know that it is one of his favorite songs as well, but that's not why I see his face. I know that were I in danger, he would move heaven and earth, even to the extent the Gringo Pistolero was willing to, in order to ensure my safe return. What woman could not like a song that reminds her of how very much she is cherished?