Story Behind The Song

I came up with the basics of the chorus while working on a song about betrayal. I wanted to convey the resulting pain and bitterness, but focus on the resilience of those who learn from it, but refuse to let it change them. When I decided to make it completely metophorical and possibly historical/fiction...I enlisted the help of a best friend and historical fiction novelist Mike Blakely. He immediately told me that one of the most shameful acts of betrayal in U.S. and Indian relations was the massacre at Sand Creek and suggested that I research that. I did and together we finished the song. That's him singing those big, beautiful harmonies!

Song Description

At dawn on November 29, 1864, Colonel John Chivington ordered a group of some 700 volunteer U.S. soldiers to attack a village of Southern Cheyenne and Arapaho Indians who were significantly outnumbered and mostly unarmed. As they had been instructed, the Indian camp, which was situated along Sand Creek in southeastern CO, was flying both the U.S. flag, and the white flag of truce. Chivington ignored their peaceful intent and ordered the charge. This is the account of fictitious Chief Cayuse Cimarron (Wild Horse). Though the character is a fabrication, the event is historically, tragically accurate.

Lyrics

Cayuse Cimarron
Jeffrey W. Posey & Mike Blakely

I have stood between a spooked horse and what daylight he could see
But I am not a man who will not rise up from his knees
Unbroken I will stand and I will fight to save my home
Soy Cayuse Cimarron

Chill of winter fell on Sand Creek where my people camped in peace
Comforted by promises of white men we?d believed
If we would raise your flag of truce no harm to us would come
Soy Cayuse Cimarron

I am the winds that howl, the dark of night, the rising of the sun
I am the wildest river you won?t change the course I run
I am faith (truth) and I am rage that into battle ride as one
Soy Cayuse Cimarron

Your Army Colonel led the way and killers marched headlong
Then Chivington spurred on his troups and thundered through the dawn
Betrayal makes my blood run hot as fire from your gun
Soy Cayuse Cimarron

As our children screamed their mothers cried for mercy all in vain
The young, the old, the yet unborn in a deadly coward?s rain
The blood we spill tomorrow stains the hands of Chivington
Soy Cayuse Cimarron

There were times I wasn?t half the man who vows to fight today
But I have held the moon and I have felt it slip away
And now I will not sleep ?til I avenge that bloody dawn
Soy Cayuse Cimarron

I am the one called Wild Horse in your white man?s fork-ed tongue,
Soy Cayuse Cimarron