The Tall Tale of Pecos Bill
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When I first hear’d about Pecos Bill, I had just finished up a little job in a little village in New Mexico. Albuquerque hain’t had rain in most a year and the crops had long since dried up and blown away by thet ol’ high desert wind. The cattle were next, and when I got there it weren’t a purty sight. The drought had not jeest dried up all the watering holes, but there warn’t no grass or hay to feed on. Most of them had got so skinny that the sun passed right through ’em, they didn’t even make a shadow. The ranchers had to tie rocks to the cows feet to keep them from blowin’ away. They had to keep standin’ them cows back up every time a tumbleweed hit ’em. The thing was that they got plenty of clouds pass by overhead, but the couldn’t coax even a drop of rain out of ’em. They were all out of si’tific solutions. They had called in the best Navajo rain dancers, they had shot off cannons at ’em trying to poke a hole in ’em, and advertised for some fancy Louisiana witch doctors to chant some rain out of them. Nothing, gull-durned nothing worked. I just happened by on my way west to help Paul make a harness for his pet blue ox. Well, these folks were in quite a ways with this drought thing, but I didn’t see much I could do about it. These folks kept telling me how they wished Pecos Bill were in the area, he could fix it in the shake of a rattlesnakes tail. I tried to put it out of my mind, but they jus’ kept it up, story after story about this Bill character. Well not to be outdone (and I ain’t sure I ever was), I decided to stick around a day and fix their problem.
Next mornin’, jest after dawn I gathered up all the rope they could muster up. Well, to make a long tale short ’nuf to stand, with the help of Tornado, my horse, I dragged all that rope up the Sandia Mountain. Anyone who has ever been through Albuquerque knows that that mountain is so high that when clouds come wandering across the high desert they can’t get high ’nough to pass o’r her, so they bump into the top and slide south to the pass where they can continue east with their belly still full of water. Not this time. As they come neer to bumpin’ into miss Sandia I lassoed the biggest one and set Tornado a slidin’ down the slope. As the rope tightened, it started squeezin’ that cloud until it finally burst. The hole that popped was facing the mountain and hit with such force that this ol’ cloud started back-tracking right smack over Albuquerque, and as it started losing water my rope kept tightening until it lowered me and Tornado to the ground.
Well, anyway, ‘nuff said. I’m still fumin’ about all this attention folks are giving to the Bill, whoever he is. So I right then and thar I ‘cided to turn around and look up this man or beast. Seems I couldn’t lose. If’n he was real, why Paul and I could use a hand, the work was piling up and an extra hand wouldn’t hurt. On the other hand, if he was just a puff of smoke, I’d put a stop to all the fuss that’s bein’ made over ’im.
I first got on his trail in Amarillo. A dusty little crossroads, but a keg of beer and a couple of them 5 pound steaks made it whole lot easier to swaller the braggin’ they were doing about “their” Bill. Seems ‘cording to them, that he and his gal Slue Foot spent a lot of time in these parts. Any how, they wern’t much help, I jest got a lot of cow manure about how someone saw him heading east down toward the river riding a panther, worse, they ’luded he was using a rattlesnake for a whip. Well, if south’s where he went, then that’s whar I’m headed.
A couple of days ride put me in the town of Pecos.
No one was quite sure where he was actually born, but since he was raised somewhere along the Pecos river, this was just as gooda place as any to say he was from. “Doesn’t he have a last name?” was usually either met with one of them twisted looks that I take to mean no one knew, or they would tell me “that’s why we call him Pecos, he ain’t got no last name”. One feller who looked old enough to have witnessed the creation said that Bill was from somewhere back east. His parents decided to go west and he fell plum off the wagon when they were crossing the Pecos River. The youngun was taken in by a female coyote who nursed him till he was old enough to hunt. Well it made some sense to me that this might be his home since the main trail goin’ west from Abilene came right through Pecos, so his parents probably came by here.
The folks there said he was heading east to Abelene. This one fella obliged my questions by telling me how he has run upon some bad weather a few years back, and saw a funnel cloud coming across the plain. He said “my head told me to skedaddle but my legs wern’t listen’n, I just stood there quackin’ in my boots”. Then he blubbered the darnest thing. Said that thar tornado started wabbling and changing direction – it was a sight! It was then that he saw Pecos Bill ridin’ that twister like a buckin’ bronco. Bill had lassoed it and was ridin’ it down.
I guess it was a couple a days later, pushing on down the trail I ran into cowpoke just making camp. He offered and I said making camp with him would give my bones a rest. Sides, I needed to sort some of this out. When the eatin’ was done and we was settlin’ in with his whiskey, I felt obliged to ask if he had heard of this Bill. He was quiet for a while, ponderin’. Then a smile crossed his lips. Said not only had he head of him, he’d seen him. Said some dern fool had lassoed a rain cloud in Albuquerque. It set off such a chain reaction that clouds as far north as the Raton pass had started leaking. When Bill got there Albuquerque was so deep in water Bill had to quick dig a river to get all the water down to the ocean. He thought awhile then said sorta matter-of-factly, “They wanted to name it Pecos Bill river, but Ole Bill noted that there was already a river named Pecos, he thought it should just be called Big River, so I spose that’s what they’ll call it”. Said it was a wonder how Bill got that river dug, but that there’s another story.
Well, I got to tell you, I never did catch up with this fellow Pecos Bill, but I sure did get my fill of stories about him. I missed out helping Paul too, but I heard he did get a harness made for that ole blue ox of his, and that him and that ox had used it to hook to those curvy, crooked lumber roads and pull them straight.
I’m a headin’ to San Antonio here soon. I hear tell that Slue Foot Sue is going to make an honest man out of Bill and I’d like to be there for the weddin’. I hear tell that Texas is changin’ their slogan. They were the State of Endless Stars, but when Bill got a yes to his proposal to Slue, he got drunk happy and shot out all the stars but one. The governor is pushin’ for the new slogan to be the Lone Star State. Sure will be easier to make a flag iffen he gets his way.
About Pecos River
Learn about the real river that gave Pecos Bill — and our store — its name.
About Pecos River