Story Behind The Song

I was reading a book about the Grateful Dead and there was a section about the type of characters that appear in their songs - people running from the law, gamblers, outsiders, loners. The next day, this idea came to me of someone, in the Old West, who kills a man in self defense and has to flee to Mexico.

Song Description

This tells the story of a rancher who gets into a barroom fight and kills a man in self defense. Then he flees the dead man's friends to Mexico.