verse 1
   D           A         D
I'd play the red river valley 
    A                              D
and he'd sit out in the kitchen and cry
     G                                     D
and run his fingers through seventy years of livin'
           G                                 A
and wonder lord, has ever will our drill run dry
          A7                     D
we were friends me and this old man.


chorus:
     Bm                        G
Like desperados waiting for a train,
     Bm                        G      Em A7
Like desperados waiting for a train


verse 2
       D              A               D
He's a drifter and a driller of oil wells 
        A                     D
and an old school man of the world
      G                                  D 
He'd let me drive his car when he's too drunk to
         G                               A
and he'd wink and give me money for the girls
        A7                               D
and our lives were like some old western movie.(chorus)


verse 3
         D                  A                    D
From the time that I could walk he'd take me with him
     A                         D
to a bar called the Green Frog Cafe
               G                          D
and there were old men with beer guts and dominoes 
  G                                 A
lyin' 'bout their lives while they'd play
    A7                            D
and I was a kid they called his side kick.(chorus)


verse 4
    D            A                  D 
One day I looked up and he's pushin eighty
       A                                     D 
and there's brown tobacco stains all down his chin 
   G                                 D 
to me he's one of the heroes of this country
      G                                  A
so why's he all dressed up like them old men
         A7                              D 
drinkin' beer and playin' Moon and Forty Two.(chorus)


verse 5
    D               A              D 
The day before he died I went to see him 
      A                       D 
I was grown and he was almost gone 
       G                                        D 
so we just closed our eyes and dreamed us up a kitchen 
     G                             A
and sang another verse to that old song 
         A                                D
come on Jack, that son of a guns a-comin'  (chorus 4x)
                                            fade out on G at the end. 

Hope you like it I played it by ear and got this. I think its the closest to the actual song.