Train Heists in Remote Desert Areas of the West
Have Netted Millions in Nike Shoes. USA Today
Just south of the Grand Canyon, where the deer and cactus play,
a freight train was a-haulin' down the line to Santa Fe.
It carried precious cargo – Nike shoes, Air Jordans 4 –
and the engineer gave throttle, and he gave the throttle more.
For he'd heard tell of bandits all along these lonely parts,
bandits with their sights set on those shoes with thieving hearts.
They'd climb aboard the box cars when the train so much as slowed,
and then they'd cut a brake hose and prepare to take their load.
For then the train would have to stop, and from the stalled caboose
the conductor had to helplessly watch thieves and shoes vamoose;
in U-Haul trucks hid cleverly behind the desert rocks,
those Nike shoes would disappear without their Nike socks.
But our intrepid engineer was not about to let
those precious shoes just vanish in thin Nike air, not yet!
So when he felt the brake hose go, and when he had to stop,
he pulled out his Colt .45 and said, "I'll let 'er pop!"
And then those thieves, they pulled their guns and aimed them at the cab,
and said, "Man, you ain't gonna shoot – and you ain't gonna blab."
The engineer, he held his ground, and he took steady aim,
for if those shoes were going to go, he would not be to blame.
He said, "Now you aren't Jesse James, you're not the Dalton Boys –
so just pipe down and drop your guns, and quit your makin' noise."
The bandits, they held steady; and our hero, just the same.
And then those guns began to blaze their way to Western fame.
Oh, somewhere in this land of law and order there is glee;
somewhere in this land of justice, men are strong and free.
But south of the Grand Canyon where the Colorado rolls,
our brave hero crossed the Jordan – full of air, and full of holes.