The sun was bright that summer’s day,

high in the noon-time sky,

a breezy day full of fear

a day that was hot and dry.

<><> <>down the empty streets the wind blew in

from the desert it did flow,

and with it came the toughest man

you’d ever want to know.

<>He came to town to clean it out

<>of criminals who’d moved in.

<>The lowest of this worthless lot,

<>was the killer known as Jim.

<>Jim Miller was, by all accounts,

<>the meanest of them all.

<>His bullets flew into good, strong men,

<>He laughed as he watched them fall.

He killed them all to get revenge,

or for whisky or for pay.

for Killer-Miller, as he’d been called, it was work

that was all in a normal day.

The man who’d come into town that day

was as stoic as he was brave,

He knew he had a job to do

in a town he had to save.

He’d hitched up his favorite rig,

To hold his army .38

then he went on out to the empty street,

For Jim he had to wait.

As the sun rose up in the featureless sky

no one was there to be seen,

then as suddenly as the desert wind,

A man was on the scene.

<>It was the bandit, Jim, and his long black coat

that hid his secret, unknown.

Beneath the coat was a plate of iron

that kept him coming home.

The Man turned ’round to face his foe

as he approached him from the west.

As Jim approached, the man could see

something in Jim’s vest.

Jim began to draw upon

the man standing down the street.

But just as quick, the stoic man,was

jumping off his feet.

To Jim’s side he shot, to hit his mark

and make his target, true.

To miss the plate that kept Jim alive,

and to give Jim Miller his due.

Jim went down with just one shot,

a fate he himself had meted out.

He went down so quickly that

he couldn’t even shout.

This stranger then unhitched his rig

and layed his holster down.

His job was finished now

as he had cleaned this town.

The last the townsfolk saw of him

as he was riding west,

he’d managed to remove Jim’s coat

and was wearing the iron-vest.