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