There's a ledger in the back of Kelly's bar,
kept in pencil, kept in blood,
every name that owes another
since the river turned to mud.
I was owed by half of Dawson
and I owed the other half,
and we drank on that arrangement
like it was a decent laugh.
But the frost don't take an IOU,
the frost don't take your hand,
and the cold keeps better books
than any man.
Come November, come the silence,
come the sixty under nought,
and the men who talked of April
stopped their talking, every thought.
And the frost don't take an IOU,
the frost don't take your hand,
and the cold keeps better books
than any man.
I found Mullen in the doorway,
he was owed two hundred clean,
and he'd settled up in silver
that no living man had seen.
Standing upright, hat still on him,
looking east and looking paid —
and I laughed until I couldn't,
and I dug where I could not.
Now the frost don't take an IOU,
the frost don't take my hand,
but the cold keeps better books
than any man —
and my name's on the page.
The cold keeps better books
than any man...