The Black Dog

I am a trader, I sell goods from my caravan
 I sell to mining towns in Kentucky, Tennessee, and Alabama
 Once on a moonless night, I was looking for a place to rest
 When I saw a black figure walking slow in the road ahead
 So I kinda hung behind, for a while I could see it was a black dog
 The black dog stopped and turned and his eyes glowed like inken gold
 And I followed him slowly until I came to a clearing on the side of the road
 And I stopped, and he stopped too, I cooked my meal I even made him a plate
 But that black dog just sat on the hill, still, and watched me as I ate
 Then he ran off North, towards the mountains over the ridge
 I arrived at the next town spooked and after my business day
 I saw that black dog again standing stoic near the southern gate
 He ran North again and my blood ran cold but still I willed to carry on
 Well I finished my last few stops and got my scared ass right back home
 By the next town I was down and sore and sick from a lack of sleep
 This dog was haunting my mind, my stomach so twisted I couldn't eat
 Some ol' miners were missin, their familes were out on their porches in the fog
 And it caught my eye in a picture next to one of them miners was that ol' black dog
 The old lady with the picture told me there had been a rockslide
 Said 12 miners were missing, maybe dead, and her husband and his dog was inside
 So I told 'em 'bout seeing the dog and how he ran off on that road to the South
 And they said that the way he was running was towards a mine they call the "Devils mouth"
 We headed out that way and about three hours later we got to the site
 And they opened that Devil's mouth with about 50 pounds of dynamite
 The rising purple smoke basked in the burning red of the dying sunlight
 There inside, barely alive, was that old miner trapped under the rocks
 Said he'd been wasting there for over a week with no food or water, help or sleep
 Since the rockslide trapped him underneath
 Killing his old black dog