The Ballad of Bill McBride

In humble homage to the vast Great White North, the Yukon Territories and Alaska, and to the great Robert Service, one of the finest writers of ballads who ever lived and the “Bard of the Yukon”, I present my own ballad, written in his style, in 1996.  

The Ballad of Bill McBride
                                 By: Matt Mitchell

1. I was walking in winter twilight,
Lost an’ frostbit an’ half dead,
The snow blown hills were a glis’nin white,
An them was last night’s bed.

2. The wolf’s howl near and the moon shine bright,
With a silence-bred fear in that dead, still night.
I was searchin’ for a sign, for any sign of life,
An’ that’s when I saw the light.

3. There was a wanderin’ fool, keen to prose an verse,
Sittin’ by a campfire, fingerin’ his purse,
He called to me and drew me near,
And in that chill, that night so still, he told his tale o’ fear.

4. I sat by the fire, weathered and worn,
Lookin’ of a haggard ol’ mare,
An’ he started to speak, wi’ words hellborn,
An’ damn if I didn’ scare!

5. His tale was told of a sled dog race,
Of a kid mushin’ the land o’ hell,
In a time o’ gold and endless cold,
When life was naught but drudge ‘n’ dwell.

6. The kid his name was Bill McBride,
He’d come north lookin for gold,
But a good disposition jus’ wasn’t fittin
In a land that ate up the bold.

7. The kid panned for a year but soon was starving,
So he hitched his ‘mutes to race,
An’ carve a trail ‘cross a thousand miles of hell,
Eatin snow to keep the pace.

8. The feller wandered on, tellin his tale,
An I felt the dark draw nigh,
He said the kid’s team ran like the wind,
So he nearly thought they’d fly!

9. Kid Bill McBride grit his teeth an’ clenched his knuckles white,
An’ fought wi’ ev’ry bone in his body to beat the frozen night.
The ice an’ snow an’ bone chilling cold sapped dry the Kid’s desire,
But the midnight sun lit up the run like kindling on a fire.

10. They covered the hills and scorched the ice,
Till they came on a large froze lake,
An’ lo and behold, there popped from the trees
The man they called Big Jake!

11. The feller I was listenin’ to, said
Second place the kid couldn’ take,
So he mushed ‘em on, and they hit the ice,
Neck an’ neck wi’ Big ol’ Jake!

12. The cold battered his face, (Already frostbit)
An’ he called his ‘mutes to slow,
Just a bit, but that did the trick, as
Big Jake sprayed ‘em all wi’ snow.

13. Now, Big Jake was of the winnin’ sort,
An’ he’d won it the year gone by,
An’ I reckon, (He said) that he’d rather be dead,
Than to lose to Kid McBride.

14. The feller I was listenin’ to, said
The kid had to clear his eyes to see,
An when he did, he seen the ice split,
An Big Jake had done the deed.

15. Now Jake, he never slowed ‘em down,
He jus’ mushed ‘em louder an’ louder,
He broke for the trees an’ went to his knees,
when the ice, it busted to powder,

16. But he made the bank, as Kid Bill sank,
An’ he turned to look once more,
Twas nuthin’ there but ice an’ air,
an’ he knew the Kid was dead on the floor.

17. The kid hit the floor like a ton o’ ore,
And then he saw a glimmer,
The biggest chunk o’ gold he’d ever seen,
An’ just his luck, (That rock would fill a bucket!) he never
was a swimmer.

18. The icy water sapped his will,
An’ the ‘mutes were tied to the sled,
An’ eerie silence caught ‘em all,
An’ soon they all were dead.

19. Big Jake won the race but you shoulda’ seen his face
When the kid’s mute’s rode by,
An’ there he was, all covered wi’ mud,
The ghost of Bill McBride!

20. The feller stopped his verse,
An’ fingered his purse,
An’ his ghastly pale caught my eye,
an’ it was then I knew that it was true,
That feller was Bill McBride!

21. He stood real slow an’ showed me the gold,
He’d pulled from the bottom o’ that lake pit,
He tossed it aside and I damn near died
When he said he wanted me to take it!

22. If you’re ever out in the silent wild, when all you hear is cold stark fear,
And the Great Alone becomes your home with the timber wolf, the bear, and the deer,
Be wary of the wanderer, and mark my words, no lie,
This feller that tells his tale of woe is the Ghost of Bill McBride!