night. That was in Texas, savvy. And that night Pecos Bill was born.
The next mornin’ the Ole Woman put him on a bear’s skin and left him
to play with his self while she made the corn-pone for breakfast. And
right then’s when they come dang near losin’ Pecos Bill.
“Bears or Indians?” asked Lanky.
“Neither one,” said Joe. “Bears and Indians didn’t mean nothin’ to
that old man. He would have et ’em for breakfast. Once later when the
Ole Man and the older brats was gone, the Comanches did try to git
Bill, but the Ole Woman lit into ’em with the broom-handle and killed
forty-nine right on the spot. She never knowed how many she crippled
and let git away. No, it wasn’t the Indians. It was miskeeters.”
“Malaria?” said Lanky.
“You guessed wrong again,” said Joe. “This is what happened. The Ole
Woman was cookin’ corn-pone, and all of a sudden it got dark, and there
was the dangest singin’ and hummin’ you ever heard. Then they seen it
was a swarm of big black miskeeters; and they was so thick around Bill
that you jest couldn’t see him.
“The Ole Man felt his way to the wagon and got out his gun. He thought
he’d shoot it off in the air and scere them miskeeters away. He pointed
the muzzle of the gun toward the sky and pulled the trigger. What he
seen then was a little beam of light come through. It was jest like
bein’ in a dark room and lookin’ out through a piece of windmill pipe.
That was jest for a minute, for right away the hole shet up, and them
miskeeters swarmed around Pecos, and the Ole Man seen they was goin’ to
pack him off if he didn’t do somethin’ right away.
“Then he happened to recollect that he’d brought his hog-renderin’
kettle along; so he fought his way back to the wagon and rolled it out
and turned it over the kid. He was scered the lad would git lonesome
under there by his self, so he jest slipped the choppin’ axe under the
edge of the kettle for the chap to play with.
“Well, them danged miskeeters jest buzzed and buzzed around the kettle,
tryin’ to find a way to git in. D’rec’ly they all backed off, and the
Old Man and the Ole Woman thought they’d give up and was goin’ away.
Then all at once one of them miskeeters comes at that kettle like a
bat out of hell. He hit the kettle and rammed his bill clean through
it; and he stuck there. Then another one come at the kettle jest like
the first one had; and he stuck, too. Then they kept comin’, and every
one stuck. The Ole Man and the Ole Woman and the older brats stood
there watchin’ them miskeeters ram that kettle. After each one of them
varmints (they was too big to be called insects) hit the kettle, there
would be a little ring--_ding!_ like that. Purty soon the old folks
got on to what was happenin. Every time a miskeeter would ram his
bill through the kettle, Pecos would brad it with the choppin’ axe.
Well, after while them miskeeters jest naturally lifted that kettle
right up and flew off with it. The others thought they had Pecos Bill
and follered the kettle off. Of course the Ole Man hated to lose his
utensil. He said he didn’t know how the Ole Woman was goin’ to render
up the lard and bear’s grease now; but it was worth a hundred kettles
to know he had such a smart brat. And from that time the Ole Man would
always talk about Bill as a chap of Great Possibilities. He ’lowed that
if the brat jest had the proper raisin’, he’d make a great man some
day. He said he was goin’ to try to do his part by him; so he begun
givin’ him a diet of jerked game with whiskey and onions for breakfast.
He lapped it up so well that in three days the Ole Woman weaned him.”
“Did the Ole Man settle there on the Sabine?” asked Lanky.
“Naw,” said Joe. “He squatted on a little sandy hill on the Trinity
somewheres east of where Dallas is now. It was jest an accident that he
stopped where he did.”
“How was that?” asked Lanky.
“Well,” said Joe, “you see, it was like this. They was travelin’ west
in their customary and habitual manner, which was with the Ole Man and
the six oldest kids walkin’ alongside Spot and Buck, and the Ole Woman
and the seven youngest kids in the wagon. Jest as they was comin’ to
the foot of a sandy hill, a big rain come up. It rained so hard that
the Ole Man couldn’t see the wagon, but he stuck close to them trusty
oxen of his, and they went right up the hill. When he got to the top,
he seen that it had about quit rainin’; and he looked back and seen the
wagon still at the bottom of the hill, and there was the brats that had
been walkin’ with him under it.”
“Did the harness break?” asked Lanky.
“Naw, it wasn’t that,” said Joe. “You see, he was usin’ a rawhide
lariat for a log-chain, and it had got wet. I reckon you know what
rawhide does when it gits wet, don’t you, Lanky? It stretches. There
ain’t no rubber that will stretch like wet rawhide. Well, that’s what
happened to that lariat. It stretched so that the Ole Man drove his
oxen a mile up the hill without movin’ the wagon an inch. Not an inch
had he moved her, by gar.
“Well, the sun was shinin’ now, and it got brighter and brighter, and
while the Ole Man was wonderin’ what in the dickens to do next, Ole
Spot jest dropped down dead from sunstroke. That sort of got next to
the Ole Man, for he said that brute had been a real friend to him, and
besides he was worth his weight in gold. Still, he ’lowed he’d might as
well skin him. So he got out his old Bowie knife and started to work.
“Well, sir, while he was skinnin’ Spot, a norther came up, and damn me,
if Ole Buck didn’t keel over, froze to death.
“So the Ole Man decided he’d jest as well stop there where he was. So
he told the Ole Woman to bring up the brats. He throwed the ox yoke
over a stump; and the Ole Woman brought up some chuck and some beddin’
from the wagon. Then they et supper and tucked the kids into bed. The
Ole Man tried to blow out the lantern, but she wouldn’t blow. He raised
up the globe, and there was the flame froze stiff as an icicle. He jest
broke it off and buried it in the sand and turned in and went to sleep.
“The next mornin’ when he woke up, it was clear and the sun was warm.
Well, the Ole Woman cooked a bite, and while they was eatin’, here come
the wagon right up the hill. You see the rawhide was dryin’ out. That’s
the way it does.”
“That’s what it does, all right,” said Red. “Once I knowed a
clod-hopper that made his self a rawhide hat. It worked fine till one
day he got caught out in the rain. Then the sun come out, and that hat
drawed up so he couldn’t git it off. And it was drawin’ up and mashin’
his head somethin’ terrible. Lucky for him, it wasn’t very far to a
tank, and he got off and stood on his head in the water a few minutes
and it come right off.”
“Well,” said Joe, “that’s what the rawhide log-chain done. It dried
out, and that wagon come right up the hill; and when it got up to where
the Ole Man and the Ole Woman was, the Ole Man got his choppin’ axe
and begun cuttin’ down trees to make him a cabin. And that’s where he
settled.”
“Did Pecos Bill grow up there in East Texas?” asked Lanky.
“He left when he was a mere lad,” said Joe. “But he lived there a
little while. The Ole Man got along fine till his corn give out,
because there was plenty of game. But he jest couldn’t do without his
corn-pone and his corn whiskey. So he cleared a little patch and put it
in corn.”
“And worked it without his steers?” asked Lanky.
“Why not?” said Joe. “He made him a light Georgie-stock out of wood,
and the Ole Woman and one of the bigger kids could pull it fine. He
made some harness out of the hide of Old Spot, and he’d hitch ’em and
plough all day.
“They used to all go out in the field and leave Pecos Bill in the cabin
by his self. One day when Bill was about three years old, the Ole Man
was ploughin’ and jest as he turned the Ole Woman and the kid he had
hitched up with her around to start a new row, the Ole Woman begun
yellin’ and tryin’ to get out of the harness.
“‘What’s eatin’ on you, Ole Woman?’ says the Ole Man. ‘I never seen you
do like this before. Must have a tick in your ear.’
“The Ole Woman yelled that she seen a panther go in the cabin where
Bill was.
“The Ole Man told her not to git excited. ‘It’s a half hour by sun till
dinner time yet,’ he says, ‘and that dang panther needn’t expect no
help from me nohow. The fool critter ought to of had more sense than to
go in there. He’ll jest have to make out the best way he can.’
“So they ploughed on till dinner time, and when they come back to the
cabin, there was Pecos Bill a-chewin’ on a piece of raw panther flank.
“They lived there another year or two before the Ole Man taken a notion
to leave.”
“I reckon you know how he come to git the idear in his head, don’t you,
Joe?” said Red.
“I’ll bite,” said Joe. “Go ahead.”
“Why, this ain’t no sell,” said Red. “I’ve heard Windy Williams tell it
a hundred times.
“One time the Ole Man had the Ole Woman and one of the big kids hitched
up to the plough in his customary and habitual manner, jist as Joe
has been tellin’ about, and all at once here comes a piece of paper
blowin’ across the field. The Ole Woman shied a little bit off to one
side; then the kid got to prancin’, and then they tore loose and went
lickity-split, rearin’ and tearin’ across that corn patch, draggin’
the Ole Man with ’em. The Ole Man stumped his toe on a root, and then
they got loose from him and tore up the Georgie-stock. After while they
quieted down, and the Ole Man got up and fetched ’em in. Then he went
out and picked up the piece of paper where it was hung on a stump. He
seen it was an old newspaper. That set him to wonderin’.
“The next mornin’ he got his rifle and begun lookin’ around. About five
miles from his place he found some wagon tracks, and he follered the
tracks till he come to a new cabin about fifty miles up the creek. Then
he come home and told the Ole Woman and the kids to git ready to leave.
He calkilated the country was gittin’ too thickly settled for him.”
“How did he get away without a team?” asked Lanky.
“Oh, that was easy,” said Red. “He sent Pecos Bill out to ketch a
couple of mustangs, and in about an hour the lad run ’em down. The Ole
Man fixed up the harness he’d been usin’ to plough with, and loaded in
his stuff and his wife and kids, and pulled out.
“They kept goin’ west till finally they come to the Pecos River, which
the Ole Man said he’d ford or bust. He got across all right, but as he
was drivin’ up the bank on the west side, the end-gate come out of the
wagon, and Pecos Bill fell out. The Ole Man and the Ole Woman never
missed him till they got about thirty miles further on; then they said
it wasn’t worth while turnin’ back. They said they guessed the chap
could take kere of his self, and if he couldn’t he wasn’t worth turnin’
back for nohow. So that’s how Pecos Bill come to be called Pecos Bill.”
“What became of him?” asked Lanky. “What happened to him then?”
“What happened to him then?” said Red. “That would take a long time to
tell.”
“We’ll tell you about that some other time, Lanky,” said Joe.
ADVENTURES OF PECOS BILL
“How old was Pecos Bill when he was lost on the Pecos River?” Lanky
asked Joe on the next night when supper was finished and the four were
sitting around the fire smoking.
“I guess he must of been about four year old,” said Joe. “Some says
he was jest a year old, but that can’t be right. The Ole Man made two
or three crops down on the Trinity before the country got so thickly
settled that he had to leave.”
“What became of the family?” asked Lanky.
“That would be hard to answer,” said Joe; “hard to answer. I don’t
suppose there’s a soul that knows for certain. There’s been tales about
’em bein’ et up by wild beasts, but that ain’t likely; and there’s been
tales about ’em bein’ killed by the Indians, but that ain’t likely
neither. Why, them Red-Skins would run like scered jack-rabbits when
they seen the Ole Man comin’, or the Ole Woman either. Then there’s
tales about ’em dyin’ for water in the desert, which may be so; but
more than likely they settled somewheres and lived a happy and peaceful
life.”
“The chances are,” said Red, “that they settled in the Lost Canyon, and
their offspring may be livin’ there yet for all anybody knows.”
“Where is the Lost Canyon?” asked Lanky.
“That’s jist what nobody don’t know,” said Red; “but it’s out in the
Big Bend Country somewheres, and it opens into the Río Grande. It gits
wide, and there’s springs in it, and buffalo a-grazin’ on the grass,
and it’s a fine country.”
“How do you know about it?” asked Lanky. “Have you ever been there?”
“Naw,” said Red, “but people has. But you never can find it when you’re
lookin’ for it. Them that finds it, finds it accidentally, and then
they can’t go back. That’s jist the place that would of suited Pecos
Bill’s Ole Man, and the chances are that’s where he stopped. Some day
I’m goin’ to happen on that canyon myself, and if I do, I’ll jist stake
me out a ranch; that is unless it’s inhabited by Pecos Bill’s race. If
it is, I reckon I’ll let ’em have it.”
“And what became of Pecos Bill?” asked Lanky.
“Why,” said Joe, “he jest growed up with the country. There wasn’t
nothin’ else he could do. He got to runnin’ with a bunch of coyotes and
took up with ’em. He learned their language and took up all their bad
habits. He could set on the ground and howl with the best of ’em, and
run down a jack-rabbit jest as quick, too. He used to run ahead of the
pack and pull down a forty-eight point buck and bite a hole in his neck
before the rest of the coyotes got there. But he always divided with
the pack, and that’s probably the reason they throwed off on him like
they did.”
“Did he ever teach anybody else the coyote language?” asked Lanky.
“Jest one old prospector that befriended him once. That was all. You
see the old man couldn’t find no gold and he went to trappin’, and he
used the language that Bill had taught him to call up the coyotes and
git ’em in his traps. Bill said it was a dirty trick, and he wouldn’t
teach nobody else how to speak coyote. Bill would of killed the old
prospector if it hadn’t of been that the old man done him a favor once.”
“What did he do?” asked Lanky.
“Why, it was him that found Bill and brought him back to civilization
and liquor, which Bill had jest about forgot the taste of.”
“How old was Bill at that time?” asked Lanky.
“Oh, I guess he was about ten years old,” said Joe. “One day this old
prospector comes along and he hears the most terrible racket anybody
ever heard of--rocks a-rollin’ down the canyon, brush a-poppin’, and
the awfullest howlin’ and squallin’ you could imagine; and he looks
up the canyon and sees what he first thinks is a cloud comin’ up, but
purty soon he discovers it’s fur a-flyin’.
“Well, he decides to walk up the canyon a piece and investigate, and
purty soon he comes on Pecos Bill, who has a big grizzly bear under
each arm jest mortally squeezin’ the stuffin’ out of ’em. And while the
old prospector stands there a-watchin’, Bill tears off a hind leg and
begins eatin’ on it.
“‘A game scrap, son,’ says the old prospector, ‘and who be ye?’
“‘Me?’ says Bill. ‘I’m a varmit.’
“‘Naw, ye ain’t a varmit,’ says the old prospector; ‘you’re a human.’
“‘Naw,’ says Bill, ‘I ain’t no human; I’m a varmit.’
“‘How come?’ says the prospector.
“‘Don’t I go naked?’ says Bill.
“‘Shore ye do,’ says the old Prospector. ‘Shore ye’re naked. So is the
Indians, and them critters is part human, anyway. That don’t spell
nothin’.’
“‘Don’t I have fleas?’ says Bill.
“‘Shore ye do,’ says the old prospector, ‘but all Texians has fleas.’
“‘Don’t I howl?’ says Bill.
“‘Yeah, ye howl all right,’ says the old prospector, ‘but nearly all
Texians is howlin’ most of the time. That don’t spell nothin’ neither.’
“‘Well, jest the same I’m a coyote,’ says Bill.
“‘Naw, ye ain’t a coyote,’ says the old prospector. ‘A coyote’s got a
tail, ain’t he?’
“‘Yeah,’ says Bill, ‘a coyote’s got a tail.’
“‘But you ain’t got no tail,’ says the old prospector. ‘Jest feel and
see if you have.’
“Bill felt and shore nuff, he didn’t have no tail.
“‘Well, I’ll be danged,’ he says. ‘I never did notice that before. I
guess I ain’t a coyote, after all. Show me them humans, and if I like
their looks, maybe I’ll throw in with ’em.’
“Well, he showed Bill the way to an outfit, and it wasn’t long till he
was the most famous and noted man in the whole cow country.”
“It was him,” said Hank, “that invented ropin’. He had a rope that
reached from the Río Grande to the Big Bow, and he shore did swing a
mean loop. He used to amuse his self by throwin’ a little _Julian_[2]
up in the sky and fetchin’ down the buzzards and eagles that flew
over. He roped everything he ever seen: bears and wolves and panthers,
elk and buffalo. The first time he seen a train, he thought it was some
kind of varmit, and damn me if he didn’t sling a loop over it and dang
near wreck the thing.
“One time his ropin’ shore did come in handy, for he saved the life of
a very dear friend.”
“How was that?” asked Lanky.
“Well, Bill had a hoss that he thought the world of, and he had a good
reason to, too, for he had raised him from a colt, feedin’ him on a
special diet of nitroglycerin and barbed wire, which made him very
tough and also very ornery when anybody tried to handle him but Bill.
The hoss thought the world of Bill, but when anybody else come around,
it was all off. He had more ways of pitchin’ than Carter had oats. Lots
of men tried to ride him, but only one man besides Bill ever mounted
that hoss and lived. That’s the reason Bill named him Widow-Maker.”
“Who was that man?” asked Lanky.
“That was Bill’s friend that I was goin’ to tell you about Bill savin’
his life,” said Hank. “You see this feller gits his heart set on ridin’
Widow-Maker. Bill tried to talk him out of it, but he wouldn’t listen.
He said he could ride anything that had hair. It had been his ambition
from youth, he said, to find a critter that could make him pull
leather. So Bill, seein’ the pore feller’s heart was about to break,
finally told him to go ahead.
[Illustration: “_A-settin’ on that tornado and a-spurrin’ it in the
withers._”]
“He gits on Widow-Maker, and that hoss begins to go through his
gaits, doin’ the end-to-end, the sunfish, and the back-throw; and about
that time the rider goes up in the sky. Bill watches him through a
spyglass and sees him land on Pike’s Peak. No doubt he would of starved
to death up there, but Bill roped him by the neck and drug him down,
thus savin’ his life.”
“Yeah,” said Red, “Widow-Maker was jist the sort of hoss that suited
Bill exactly. For one thing, it saved him a lot of shootin’, because
he didn’t have no trouble keepin’ other people off his mount; and as
for Bill, he could ride anything that had hair and some things that
didn’t have. Once, jist for fun, he throwed a surcingle on a streak of
lightin’ and rode it over Pike’s Peak.
“Another time he bet a Stetson hat he could ride a cyclone. He went
up on the Kansas line and simply eared that tornado down and got on
it. Down he come across Oklahoma and the Panhandle a-settin’ on that
tornado, a-curlin’ his mustache and a-spurrin’ it in the withers.
Seein’ it couldn’t throw him, it jist naturally rained out from under
him, and that’s the way Bill got the only spill he ever had.
“Yeah,” continued Red, “I reckon Bill was mighty hard to throw. A smart
lad he was, and a playful sort of feller, too. In his spare time he
used to amuse his self puttin’ thorns on things--bushes and cactuses
and the like, and he even stuck horns on the toads so they’d match up
with the rest of the country.”
“I see he’s been at work in this country,” said Lanky. “Did he live all
his life in Texas?”
“Naw, he didn’t,” said Joe. “Bill was a good deal like his old man.
When he had killed all the Indians and bad men, and the country got
all peaceful and quiet, he jest couldn’t stand it any longer, and he
saddled up his hoss and started west. Out on the New Mexico line he met
an old trapper, and they got to talkin’, and Bill told him why he was
leavin’, and said if the old man knowed where there was a tough outfit,
he’d be much obliged if he would tell him how to git to it.
“‘Ride up the draw about two hundred miles,’ says the old trapper, ‘and
you’ll find a bunch of guys so tough that they bite nails in two jest
for the fun of it.’
“So Bill rides on in a hurry, gittin’ somewhat reckless on account of
wantin’ to git to that outfit and git a look at the bad _hombres_ that
the old man has told him about. The first thing Bill knowed, his hoss
stumps his toe on a mountain and breaks his fool neck rollin’ down the
side, and so Bill finds his self afoot.
“He takes off his saddle and goes walkin’ on, packin’ it, till all at
once he comes to a big rattlesnake. He was twelve feet long and had
fangs like the tushes of a _javelina_; and he rears up and sings at
Bill and sticks out his tongue like he was lookin’ for a scrap. There
wasn’t nothin’ that Bill wouldn’t fight, and he always fought fair; and
jest to be shore that rattlesnake had a fair show and couldn’t claim he
took advantage of him, Bill let him have three bites before he begun.
Then he jest naturally lit into that reptile and mortally flailed the
stuffin’ out of him. Bill was always quick to forgive, though, and let
by-gones be by-gones, and when the snake give up, Bill took him up and
curled him around his neck, and picked up his saddle and outfit and
went on his way.
“As he was goin’ along through a canyon, all at once a big mountain
lion jumped off of a cliff and spraddled out all over Bill. Bill never
got excited. He jest took his time and laid down his saddle and his
snake, and then he turned loose on that cougar. Well, sir, the hair
flew so it rose up like a cloud and the jack-rabbits and road-runners
thought it was sundown. It wasn’t long till that cougar had jest all he
could stand, and he begun to lick Bill’s hand and cry like a kitten.
“Well, Bill jest ears him down and slips his bridle on his head, throws
on the saddle and cinches her tight, and mounts the beast. Well, that
cat jest tears out across the mountains and canyons with Bill on his
back a-spurrin’ him in the shoulders and quirtin’ him down the flank
with the rattlesnake.
“And that’s the way Bill rode into the camp of the outfit the old
trapper had told him about. When he gits there, he reaches out and
cheeks down the cougar and sets him on his haunches and gits down and
looks at his saddle.
“There was them tough _hombres_ a-settin’ around the fire playin’
_monte_. There was a pot of coffee and a bucket of beans a-boilin’
on the fire, and as Bill hadn’t had nothin’ to eat for several days,
he was hungry; so he stuck his hand down in the bucket and grabbed a
handful of beans and crammed ’em into his mouth. Then he grabbed the
coffee pot and washed ’em down, and wiped his mouth on a prickly-pear.
Then he turned to the men and said, ‘Who in the hell is boss around
here, anyway?’
“‘I was,’ says a big stout feller about seven feet tall, ‘but you are
now, stranger.’
“And that was the beginning of Bill’s outfit.”
“But it was only the beginnin’s,” said Red; “for it wasn’t long
after that that he staked out New Mexico and fenced Arizona for a
calf-pasture. He built a big ranch-house and had a big yard around
it. It was so far from the yard gate to the front door, that he used
to keep a string of saddle hosses at stations along the way, for the
convenience of visitors. Bill always was a hospitable sort of chap, and
when company come, he always tried to persuade them to stay as long
as he could git ’em to. Deputy sheriffs and brand inspectors he never
would let leave a-tall.
“One time his outfit was so big that he would have his cooks jist dam
up a draw to mix the biscuit dough in. They would dump in the flour and
the salt and the bakin’-powder and mix it up with teams and fresnoes.
You can still see places where the dough was left in the bottom of
the draw when they moved on. Alkali lakes they call ’em. That’s the
bakin’-powder that stayed in the ground.
“One time when there was a big drought and water got scerce on Bill’s
range, he lit in and dug the Río Grande and ditched water from the Gulf
of Mexico. Old man Windy Williams was water boy on the job, and he said
Bill shore drove his men hard for a few days till they got through, and
it kept him busy carryin’ water.”
“I guess it took about all of Bill’s time to manage a ranch like that,”
said Lanky.
“Not all, not all,” said Joe. “That was his main vocation and callin’,
but he found time for a good many other things. He was always goin’ in
for somethin’ else when the cattle business got slack.