A long time ago, down in Texas, there was plenty of room and even more sky. Only a few pioneers lived out there. One of those folks was Pecos Bill, the youngest of 13 children.
Bill was always pretty different. When he was born he refused to drink his mother's milk, so she had to feed him the milk of a mountain lion. Little Bill played with wild bear cubs. He was real friendly with all the animals.One day when Bill was just a baby, his father packed up the whole family and they moved to the edge of the Pecos River. Now, around Pecos County some people say that the oldest coyotes remember that day.
You see, what happened was that the wagon was crossing a dry stream bed when suddenly it hit a big rock. Little Bill flew right out of that wagon. He landed so hard that he lost all his breath, so he couldn't cry out. No one in the family saw him fall. They just traveled on.
For a while little Bill sat there in the dry stream bed looking around. Then suddenly, in the distance, he spied a pack of coyotes.
The coyotes looked at Bill, and he looked at them. You see, these coyotes had never seen a human baby before; they didn't know quite what to think. The pack moved closer until one of the females trotted right up to Bill and offered him a piece of deer meat. Bill didn't want to hurt her feelings; he had always had a special affection for animals. So he began to chew. And that made the coyotes feel kindly toward Bill. That day they welcomed him into their pack.
For many years Bill lived with the coyotes. He learned their language; he ran with
them; and at night he curled up beside them in their dens. When the full moon rose in that big sky, Ball and the coyotes raised their heads and howled through the night.
By the time Pecos Bill was 10 years old he could outrun and out-howl any coyote. He never saw any other human beings. Pecos Bill believed he was a coyote.
He might have believed that forever, but one day a cowboy happened by. The cowboy stopped his horse and stared down at the strange-looking boy, clothed in fur and hide. Then he leaned over and asked, "What's your name, son?"
Bill didn't understand human language, so he didn't say a word. The cowboy tossed Bill a plug of tobacco. Bill ate it and just stared up at him.
Pretty soon the cowboy decided Bill needed him, so he stayed. He taught Bill to talk like a human and tried to prove to Bill that he wasn't a coyote.
At first Bill didn't believe the cowboy. "I can howl," he said.
"All Texans can howl," the cowboy said, "but boy, you don't have a bushy tail. You got to have a bushy tail to be a real coyote."
Finally Bill saw the cowboy was right, and he knew he had to leave. So he said goodbye to his coyote family and thanked them for all
they had taught him. Then he straddled a mountain lion and rode with the cowboy to join the other cowboys at the ranch.
As they rode across the desert prairie, Bill caught a rattlesnake. Whoosh, in a second he turned that rattlesnake into a rope. He threw that rattlesnake rope right out there and caught a few Gila monsters with it. "This here is a lasso," he said to the cowboy. And that was just the first of Bill's many inventions.
Before Pecos Bill came along, cowboys weren't exactly sure how to round up cattle. They used to lay a looped rope on the ground, and then they hid behind bushes and waited for the steer to step into the loop. Pecos Bill changed all that.
The minute he arrived at the cowboys' ranch, he slid off his mountain lion and walked up to the biggest cowboy there. He showed him his rattlesnake rope. The big cowboy looked down at little Bill and said, "I was boss before, but now I think you are."
And that's how Pecos Bill took over. He taught the cowboys almost everything they know today. He invented spurs for them to wear on their boots, and he taught them how to round up cattle, and he taught them how to drive those cattle clear across the range.
One night, feeling a little lonely for the old days, he strode out to the corral. He was thinking about his friends, the coyotes. When the moon came up, large and glowing as a big ripe orange but a whole lot bigger, Bill started to sing the way the coyotes had taught him, except this time he made up some human words to go along so that the cowboys would understand.
And after that the cowboys always sang songs. They sang about the lonesome prairie, and about the Texas sky, and about the wind whistling through the tall, dry grass, and about lonely nights and other cowboy things.
Pecos Bill wanted a horse. For a long time he watched the son of White Mustang, the Ghost King of the Prairie. This young mustang had a wild spirit, and he could run faster than any horse Bill had ever seen. Fact is, he was the only horse Bill couldn't outrun. Bill wanted that horse, I'll tell you. So finally he rigged up a huge slingshot and he climbed right in. Then he shot himself high over the cactus and greasewood. He landed, splat, in front of the horse.
Now that mustang was so surprised, he stopped. But he had been running so fast that his hooves stuck in the mud. Bill leaped onto the mustang's back and yanked on his golden mane. Phewwp, he pulled the mustang free. Off they flew.
Bill rode that horse a whole week long in and out of the canyons. Finally he promised he would never place a bit in the mustang's mouth and he also promised that no other human being would ever sit in the mustang's saddle. From that day on Bill and that mustang were partners.
Bill named his horse Widow-Maker. Together they traveled the prairies, starting new ranches and helping out on long cattle drives. Sometimes they holed up with a band of coyotes and sang late into the night.
Then came the year of the terrible drought. The land shriveled up and all the snakes hid underground to keep from frying. Even the coyotes stopped howling, their throats were so dry. "Hey, Bill," the cowboys said, "You have to help us bring some rain down here."
Bill looked up at that big hot sun. He saw whirls of dust spinning up from the hard yellow earth. And then one day he saw a tall, whirling tower flying over in Oklahoma. Bill climbed up on Widow-Maker's back and chased that cyclone. A knife of lightning struck the ground and quivered just long enough for Bill to grab hold. Then it whipped him right into the sky. When Bill was high as the top of the cyclone, he jumped onto its spinning shoulders.
Everyone in Texas and Oklahoma and New Mexico and Arizona was watching by then. They watched Bill wrap his legs around the cyclone's belly and squeeze so hard the cyclone started to pant. Then Bill swung his lasso around the cyclone's neck and pulled so hard the cyclone began to choke, spitting out all the rain that was mixed up inside of it.
Down below the coyotes and the jackrabbits and the lizards and the snakes lifted their heads and stuck out their tongues and caught the sweet falling rain. The cowboys whooped with delight and held out their pans to catch the drops. Everyone cried out praises for Pecos Bill and Widow-Maker. And forever afterward Pecos Bill was famous all over the Southwest.