[Intro]
Dust rose red at morning,
No bird sang in the heat.
The road was long and empty,
But death had taken feet.

[Verse]
I came back from the trading path,
With silver light and tired hands,
But smoke was climbing black and bitter
Over our forsaken lands.
No laughter by the cooking fires,
No children running through the shade,
Only silence, torn and waiting,
Where my world had been betrayed.

[Pre-Chorus]
I called their names into the ashes,
But the ashes gave no sound.
I fell beside the broken blankets,
Pressed my face against the ground.

[Chorus]
Blood on the Mescalero Road,
Blood where the desert flowers grow.
Take my sorrow, make it stone,
I will not walk this war alone.

[Verse]
The sun looked down like burning iron,
The horses would not drink the stream,
Every breath became a weapon,
Every memory became a scream.
I was not born to carry hatred,
I was not born with killing hands,
But grief can forge a quiet hunter
From the bones of broken lands.

[Pre-Chorus]
I heard the thunder in my heartbeat,
I saw the dead within the flame,
And the road that stole my people
Carved a warrior from my name.

[Chorus]
Blood on the Mescalero Road,
Blood where the desert flowers grow.
Take my sorrow, make it stone,
I will not walk this war alone.

[Instrumental]
Guitars strike hard like hooves in flight,
Drums pound grief into the night.

[Bridge]
No priest could wash the red away,
No treaty mend the torn,
A man may bury all he loves
And rise before the morn.

[Breakdown]
This is not hunger.
This is not rage.
This is a wound
That outlives the age.

[Build-up]
By the fire, by the grave,
I will stand, I will not cave.

[Chorus]
Blood on the Mescalero Road,
Blood where the desert flowers grow.
Take my sorrow, make it stone,
I will not walk this war alone.

[Chorus]
Blood on the Mescalero Road,
The mountain knows, the river knows.
Until my final breath is owed,
I ride with blood on the Mescalero Road.

[Outro]
Dust fell cold at evening,
No bird sang in the heat.
A man walked out of mourning
With war beneath his feet.
