Pecos Bill had one of the strangest childhoods a boy ever had. It all
started after his father decided that there was no longer enough room
in east Texas for his family.
"Pack up, Ma!" he cried. "Neighbors movin' in fifty miles away! It's getting' too crowded!"
So
they loaded up a wagon with all their things. Now some say they had
fifteen children while others say eighteen. However many there were, the
children were louder than thunder. And as they set off across the wild
country of west Texas, their mother and father could hardly hear a
thing.
Now, as they came to the Pecos River, the wagon hit a big
rock. The force threw little Bill out of the wagon and he landed on the
sandy ground. Mother did not know Bill was gone until she gathered the
children for the midday meal. Mother set off with some of the children
to look for Bill, but they could find no sign of him.
Well, some
people say Bill was just a baby when his family lost him. Others say he
was four years old. But all agree that a group of animals called
coyotes found Bill and raised him. Bill did all the things those animals
did, like chase lizards and howl at the moon. He became as good a
coyote as any.

Now, Bill spent seventeen years living like a coyote until one day a
cowboy rode by on his horse. Some say the cowboy was one of Bill's
brothers. Whoever he was, he took one look at Bill and asked, "What are
you?"
Bill was not used to human language. At first, he could not
say anything. The cowboy repeated his question. This time, Bill said,
"varmint."
That is a word used for any kind of wild animal.
"No you aren't," said the cowboy.
"Yes, I am," said Bill. "I have fleas."
"Lots of people have fleas," said the cowboy. "You don't have a tail."
"Yes, I do," said Bill.
"Show it to me then," the cowboy said.
Bill looked at his backside and realized that he did not have a tail like the other coyotes. "Well, what am I then?" asked Bill.
"You're
a cowboy! So start acting like one!" the cowboy cried out. Well that
was all Bill needed to hear. He said goodbye to his coyote friends and
left to join the world of humans.
Now, Pecos Bill was a good
cowboy. Still, he hungered for adventure. One day he heard about a rough
group of men. There is some debate over what the group was called. But
one storyteller calls it the "Hell's Gate Gang."
So Bill set out
across the rough country to find this gang of men. Well, Bill's horse
soon was injured so Bill had to carry it for a hundred miles. Then Bill
met a rattlesnake fifty feet long. The snake made a hissing noise and
was not about to let Bill pass. But after a tense minute, Bill beat the
snake until it surrendered. He felt sorry for the varmint, though, and
wrapped it around his arm.
After Bill walked another hundred
miles, he came across an angry mountain lion. There was a huge battle,
but Bill took control of the big cat and put his saddle on it. He rode
that mountain lion all the way to the camp of the Hell's Gate Gang.
Now, when Bill saw the gang he shouted out, "Who's the boss around here?"
A
huge cowboy, nine feet tall, took one look at Bill and said in a shaky
voice, "I was the boss. But you are the boss from here on in."
With
his gang, Pecos Bill was able to create the biggest ranch in the
Southwest. Bill and his men had so many cattle that they needed all of
New Mexico to hold them. Arizona was the pasture where the cattle ate
grass.
Pecos Bill invented the art of being a cowboy. He invented
the skill of throwing a special rope called a lasso over a cow's head
to catch wandering cattle.
Some say he used a rattlesnake for a lasso. Others say he made a lasso so big that it circled the whole Earth.
Bill
invented the method of using a hot branding iron to permanently put the
mark of a ranch on a cow's skin. That helped stop people from stealing
cattle. Some say he invented cowboy songs to help calm the cattle and
make the cowboy's life easier. But he is also said to have invented
tarantulas and scorpions as jokes. Cowboys have had trouble with those
poisonous creatures ever since.
Now, Pecos Bill could ride
anything that ever was. So, as some tell the story, there came a storm
bigger than any other. It all happened during the worst drought the West
had ever seen. It was so dry that horses and cows started to dry up and
blow away in the wind. So when Bill saw the windstorm, he got an idea.
The huge tornado kicked across the land like a wild bronco. But Bill
jumped on it without a thought.
He rode that tornado across Texas,
New Mexico and Arizona, all the time squeezing the rain out of it to
save the land from drought. When the storm was over, Bill fell off the
tornado. He landed in California. He left a hole so deep that to this
day it is known as Death Valley.
Now, Bill had a horse named Widow
Maker. He got that name because any man who rode that horse would be
thrown off and killed and his wife would become a widow. No one could
ride that horse but Bill.
And Widow Maker, in the end, caused the
biggest problem for Pecos Bill. You see, one day Bill saw a woman. Not
just any woman, but a wild, red- haired woman, riding a giant catfish
down the Rio Grande River.
Her name was Slue-foot Sue. And Bill
fell in love with her at first sight. Well, Bill would not rest until he
had asked for her hand in marriage. And Slue-foot Sue accepted.
On
their wedding day, Pecos Bill dressed in his best buckskin suit. And
Sue wore a beautiful white dress with a huge steel-spring bustle in the
back. It was the kind of big dress that many women wore in those days —
the bigger the better.
Now, after the marriage ceremony Slue-foot
Sue got a really bad idea. She decided that she wanted to ride Widow
Maker. Bill begged her not to try. But she had her mind made up.
Well,
the second she jumped on the horse's back he began to kick and buck
like nothing anyone had ever seen. He sent Sue flying so high that she
sailed clear over the new moon.
She fell back to Earth, but the steel-spring bustle just bounced her back up as high as before.
Now,
there are many different stories about what happened next. One story
says Bill saw that Sue was in trouble. She would keep bouncing forever
if nothing was done. So he took his rope out -- though some say it was a
huge rattlesnake -- and lassoed Sue to catch her and bring her down to
Earth. Only, she just bounced him back up with her.
Somehow the
two came to rest on the moon. And that's where they stayed. Some people
say they raised a family up there. Their children were as loud and wild
as Bill and Sue were in their younger days. People say the sound of
thunder that sometimes carries over the dry land around the Pecos River
is nothing more than Pecos Bill's family laughing up a storm.

This
tall tale of Pecos Bill was adapted for Special English and produced by
Mario Ritter. Your storyteller was Barbara Klein. I'm Steve Ember.

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