Pecos Bill

by James Cloyd Bowman

  The situation, however, was quickly relieved by the arrival of my lord and his train of camp followers. Pack horses extended in a line as far as the eye could see. They were undoubtedly bringing the most impossible collection of useless house furniture that had ever been assembled in the state of Texas. There were the best beds and the most costly mattresses. There were chairs of all sorts and descriptions, and fancy lace curtains, and sets of Old English china!

  “Won’t the Texas fleas we’re leavin’ behind find a paradise inside them mattresses?” scoffed Moon Hennessey.

  What had already appeared was nothing, however, to the excitement that came with the arrival of the two women! And no wonder, for this was positively the first time in the history of the state of Texas that Pecos and Gun Smith and the rest had ever heard of gentlewomen trying to live on a ranch. And one of them a beauteous young lady, at that.

  My lord arrived in high spirits, screwed his monocle and announced, “Oh, yes, by Jove, here we are, don’t you know.”

  “So we perceive,” answered Pecos Bill with easy dignity.

  A moment later the women entered and my lord continued, “This is the place—don’t you think it deucedly quaint?”

  Pecos and Gun Smith and the other men snatched off their five-gallon hats and swallowed their tongues. They stood nervously fidgeting through a long silence, and then Slue-foot Sue, the beauteous young lady aforesaid, began suddenly to chatter, “Oh, Mother, I have never been quite so excited in all my born life! Look! They even wear hairy pantaloons and jingly spurs and real guns that shoot bullets, and hats big enough to cover the moon, and everything else we’ve read about! Why, I just can’t wait till I can jump into cowboy clothes myself. Won’t I look gorgeous, though, when I hop on a real wild Texas bronco! Oh, it will be simply adorable. I haven’t been so excited since the day I rode the catfish down the Rio Grande with only a surcingle.”

  During this time, my lord had drawn a silk handkerchief from his breast pocket and had dusted a bench for his wife. Now she sat down weakly, so overcome by her daughter’s daring she could scarcely speak. “Sue, you shock me to death! Your father and I will see that you remain dressed properly as becomes a gentlewoman!”

  By this time my lord had also dusted off a bench for himself and had sat down gingerly lest he might spot his tweeds. Slue-foot Sue paid not the least attention to her severe parents. She was like an uncorked bottle of ginger ale. She danced about the shack floor, clapped her hands, kicked up her heels, and began to sing a song she’d learned on the way up the mountainside:

  “As I was a-walkin’ one morning for pleasure

  I spied a cowpuncher all ridin’ along;

  His hat was throwed back and his spurs was a-jinglin’,

  As he approached me a-singin’ this song:

  ‘Whoopee! tu yi yo, git along, little dogies,

  It’s your misfortune and none of my own,

  Whoopee ti yi yo, git along, little dogies,

  For you know that Texas will be your new home.’”

  As soon as the lively girl had finished, she looked sharply about the circle of gaping cowboys and said glibly, “I say, Mr. Cowboy—I mean you with the shiny eyes and the red hair and the big boots—how much will you charge to give me a course of lessons in bronco riding? I’ve already had saddle lessons in London…And I’ve ridden catfish in the Rio Grande and a few little things like that, but your wild cow ponies are entirely different. I can tell by your looks that you’re the one boy who knows exactly how a bronco should be ridden.”

  Sue dancing about the shack floor

  When Slue-foot Sue said “big boots,” all the men wanted to laugh aloud. It seemed the girl was ignorant of the cowboy customs! So their faces remained as hard as bronze, and Pecos Bill himself blushed so hard that the crimson showed plainly through his tanned skin. He replied in a confused manner that gave his men the keenest enjoyment: “Well, as soon as your mother and your father give their consent to your wearing a buckskin shirt and chaps—excuse me, er, I mean—of course, I wouldn’t want to charge you a cent—as I was saying—of course, I’m busy today—but another time—I’ll return after you are all settled and have nothing else to worry about.”

  “Upon my word!” Slue-foot Sue chirped again, as she looked at the tense, uncomfortable cowmen. “Why, the books didn’t say a word about real alive cowpunchers being more bashful than schoolboys! Upon my word, I can scarcely believe my eyes!”

  Without waiting for a reply, she clapped her hands joyously, stamped her foot, kicked her wild heels about the rough floor, singing:

  “Sing ’er out, my bold Coyotes!

  leather fists and leather throats,

  Tell the stars the way we rubbed the haughty down.

  We’re the fiercest wolves a-prowling

  and it’s just our night for howling—

  Ee-yow! a-riding up the rocky trail from town!”

  While Sue was singing her mother rose stiffly and spoke in high-pitched reproof. “Sue, child! Wherever did you learn such terrific songs! Stop, I say. Cease immediately!”

  “I’m sorry, Mother dear,” the excited girl answered, “but when I’m feeling like this there’s nothing in the world can stop me! But what harm is there in feeling the way I do now? I’m in the most wonderful country on earth!”

  It was thus that Slue-foot Sue suddenly made her way into the minds and hearts of the men.

  Soon my lord beckoned Pecos Bill, Gun Smith, and the others out into the shack kitchen and there gave them the money for the Pinnacle Mountain Ranch. As soon as this was finished, Pecos Bill and Gun Smith wished my lord the best of luck with his new venture, and then set out for the I. X. L. Ranch.

  As the men rode along their way they were green-eyed to think that Slue-foot Sue should have chosen Pecos Bill to teach her to ride. But they hadn’t forgotten what she had called him.

  Gun Smith started the ball rolling. “Big Boots, what is the color of your sweet little horsewoman’s hair and eyes?”

  “You can call them any color you like,” Pecos Bill answered with a broad smile. “The joke is on you fellows, whatever their color may be. I can see, with half an eye, that you’re all as jealous as a nest of porcupines. I’m the man—thanks to my large understanding—who is to teach the most wonderful woman in Texas or the Southwest to ride the loping cow horse!”

  “Yes—er—” Gun Smith retorted in imitation of Pecos Bill’s earlier confused reply to Slue-foot Sue, “scuse me—I mean, er—I was sayin’—today I’m busy—but—I’m a wonderful Romeo!”

  When Gun Smith ended his speech, the mesa resounded loud and long with laughter. And then, as the men rode forward, chap rubbing friendly chap, they started to argue seriously over the color of Slue-foot Sue’s hair and eyes. The fact was, had it been known, they had all been so badly scared at the time they had the chance to look at the girl, that they had observed nothing accurately. They could not have told—had their lives depended upon their report—anything definite about a single one of Slue-foot Sue’s features. All the time they were arguing, every man was seeing in Slue-foot Sue the girl of his dreams.

  Very soon Gun Smith and Chuck decided that she was a perfect pinto maverick, and Moon Hennessey and his followers decided just as positively that she was a walleyed albion bronco. The longer and hotter the debate waxed the more each was sure that he was absolutely right.

  Pecos Bill kept entirely out of the argument. Only once did he speak, and that was when Moon Hennessey recklessly used a disrespectful word in referring to Slue-foot Sue. Then his hand instantly found the butt of his gun and he said coolly, “Moon, take that back! You’re entirely wrong, and you know it!”

  Moon Hennessey’s face went white in anger, then slowly relaxed.

  “I did say what I didn’t know,” he answered slowly.

  “You know you did, and we all know it,” added Pecos Bill very quietly.

  The other men pretended to take no notice of the occurrence. Mushmouth started a rollicking
song, playing his lip piano with one side of his mouth and singing the words with the other. The matter was dropped immediately. Moon Hennessey, however, had been publicly disgraced and began to nurse again his old grudge against his leader—a grudge that was to grow more bitter with the passing of time.

  As he continued riding leisurely in the lead, Pecos Bill was, for the first time in his life, being plagued with unreal fancies. Wherever he directed Widow Maker, or whichever way he looked, he saw before him a pair of roguish, sparkling, dancing eyes, and heard a liquid voice that he said to himself was like clear water in a mountain brook, breaking over white pebbles. Just around the next curve in the trail he kept coming upon the gleam of sparkling blue eyes with an aura of burnished gold.

  However hard he tried, Pecos could not shake this vision of beauty from him. Even when he later tried to sleep, he seemed ever pursuing, against his better judgment, Slue-foot Sue, who was riding a catfish down a wide river faster than he could swim. She would dart into the most dangerous current and for the instant completely vanish. She was taunting and luring him despite his will. What had suddenly happened was that Pecos Bill, greatest cowboy of them all, had fallen head over heels in love.

  Just as they were finally reaching the I. X. L. Ranch shack, Gun Smith put an end to all future arguments concerning Slue-foot Sue.

  “If we hadn’t o’ been quite so greedy in cheatin’ the old dude, some of us could go back to Pinnacle Mountain. We could pretend that we’d left behind a pair of big boots or somethin’ even more valuable, say a surcingle the size to fit a catfish! But as matters now stand between us and the owner of the Perpetual Motion Ranch, we’d best be mighty careful even about whisperin’ the name of Old Pinnacle or of sayin’ anything to anyone about the place. Somebody from His Majesty’s Kingdom will likely be wantin’ to hang most of us to the nearest tree. And you can’t blame my lord in the least if he actually tries to do it! Take my advice. Spend your time talkin’ about somethin’ else. Never mention the old dude or his pinto maverick again as long as you live!”

  “Your advice is excellent—that is, as far as you are all concerned,” added Pecos Bill with decision.

  “But you are a law unto yourself, I infer!” snarled Moon Hennessey.

  “The affair at Pinnacle Mountain is closed!” replied Pecos Bill.

  To Widow Maker, however, Pecos whispered smilingly, “Honesty is sure on our side in this deal. Aren’t we glad now that we filled Pinnacle Mountain with more steers than Slue-foot Sue’s father paid us for!”

  CHAPTER 13

  CUTTING PEEWEE’S EYETEETH

  Gun Smith and his string of men very soon learned that the running of a ranch on anything like the scale of Pecos Bill’s ambition was not entirely child’s play. The fact was that Pecos had already rounded up so many stray cattle his men were worked almost to death. Things were popping from the minute at early dawn when Bean Hole shouted, “Roll out! You sleepy beggars! Come and take it, or I’ll throw it out in the slop!” Until they were safely at rest on their pallets at long after midnight, there was not a single idle minute. They were often in the saddle twenty-seven hours a day and seventeen days a week. There were always cattle and more cattle!

  Pecos Bill was absent for days at a time. He had started other ranches—though his men did not know it—and had to share his time among them.

  With this state of affairs, the cowpunchers found it necessary to make their own amusement, for without a little fun they would have broken under the strain. Practical jokes became the order of the day. And woe betide any innocent greenhorn who happened to apply for work in their midst.

  If the greenhorn showed a true sense of humor and if he took no offense, but entered heartily into the horseplay, he was likely to get off fairly easy. If, however, a know-it-all, who pretended that he was bridlewise when he wasn’t, came bragging into camp that he had seen the elephant and had talked with the owl, then the real fun began.

  It so happened one evening while Pecos Bill was away that the men saw a stranger approaching on foot. They were, at the time, gathered about the chuck wagon eating their supper. While he was still half a mile away, their sharp eyes detected that he was a breezy young man who gave evidence by every movement that he was away from home for the first time. As he came nearer they saw instantly that he had on a new suit of mail-order cowboy clothes. He was carrying himself with a swagger, very evidently entirely convinced that he was making an impression. He carelessly dangled his cigarette loosely between his lips in a way that made the cowpunchers think him a dude.

  “What do you think,” called Moon Hennessey, pretending he was trying to conceal what he was saying from the approaching stranger, “is it a blue jay or a robin?”

  “It ain’t yet growed enough tail feathers to be a jay,” commented Chuck with assumed sagacity, “and it ain’t got quite neat enough clothes to be a robin!”

  “It’s more like a peewee,” added Gun Smith pleasantly between huge bites of boiled cow. “Sounds and looks exactly like that sort of retirin’ creature.”

  The stranger had heard all that was being said and immediately showed his dislike for such childish humor, “Oh, I know your little game, all right!”

  “Now it’s got out its hammer,” continued Gun Smith coolly. “I guess it’s got a drop or two of woodpecker’s blood in its veins somewhere. But not enough to do it any harm, for it’s plain to see, after all, it’s only an ordinary complainin’ peewee.”

  “What I want to know without any more fooling,” interrupted the stranger, quite out of patience, “is whether I can sleep here tonight.”

  “Now I know for sure it’s a whinin’ peewee!” Gun Smith announced decisively. Then turning politely to the stranger, he added, “What was it you was wishin’ to communicate, Mr. Peewee?”

  “I was just asking whether I could bunk with you tonight!” the stranger repeated in a tone of sarcasm. He showed his growing impatience by the way he put his cigarette nervously to his mouth and by the way he tilted his chin and blew the smoke through his nose.

  “Bunk!” Gun Smith replied, with perfect good manners. “I never heard tell of that particular critter. Is he a blood relation of the prairie dog? Oh, yes, I do seem to remember hearin’ that he was a twin cousin to the skunk. But, my friend, all I can say is that you got me guessin’.”

  “Sleep, then,” exploded the stranger as he threw his cigarette to the ground and crushed it beneath his heel.

  “Oh, well, now that you’ve chewed it finer, I begin to understand you,” replied Gun Smith in the best of humor. “It’s a place to sleep you’re drivin’ at, is it? I’m really very sorry to be obliged to tell you that we have no time to sleep around this ranch. The nearest we ever come to it is when we drop off into a catnap for a few minutes every week or two. Of course, you won’t understand how dangerous it is around here, and so, of course, you won’t realize why we don’t dare to sleep, even if we had the chance.” And then, suddenly changing to a very serious tone of voice, he asked, “By the way, my friend, are you acquainted with the Wouser?”

  “What is it, something good to eat?” queried the stranger, showing himself a smart aleck.

  “I see that my first impression of you was quite correct. You’re only a complainin’ peewee,” Gun Smith went on seriously. “You evidently ain’t got the slightest acquaintance with the Texas wilderness. Wousers are a cross between a mountain lion and a grizzly bear—or that’s what they look like, only they are three times bigger’n a long-horned steer. Why, they take two men at a single meal and think no more about it than as if they were feedin’ on bunchgrass. And so, you see, one of us has to be responsible for keepin’ the Wousers away while the others take a short catnap. He has to keep his trigger finger awake all night long.”

  “That sounds reasonable,” answered the stranger with increasing respect for what was being said to him.

  “Another of us’s got to keep off the tarantulas,” continued Gun Smith, as sober as a judge, “and still a
nother’s accountable for guardin’ off the rattlesnakes. Still another of us has to keep his ear open for the first sound of the stampedin’ herd. Then there’s the skunks and the porcupines. One of the boys has to go around—whenever anybody begins to snore—and close his mouth so that the Leaping Lizards won’t jump down his throat. Then there’s the Gilaopolis that’s bigger’n a yearlin’ calf and has a feverish breath so hot he can melt all the solder off our tomato cans. Yes, and about the worst of ’em all is the Hellidad that looks like a cross between a zebra and a ostrich. His particular desire is to lick you bald-headed while you slumber. So you see, Mr. Peewee, a cowboy takes his life literally out of his own hands when he allows himself to do more’n take a light catnap!”

  “But you haven’t answered my question,” the stranger replied in a very changed tone of voice.

  “I don’t know as we object. We’re a little crowded here for sleepin’ quarters, as you see,” Gun Smith drawled as he pointed to the four corners of the out-of-doors. “But we can manage somehow to find room to spread you a pallet, I suppose. You won’t object to lyin’ between two of us ol’ flea-bitten critters, will you? We make it a rule here never to leave a stranger to himself, for he is pretty sure to forget and fall into a deep sleep. Then by the time we get him awake agin it’s too late and the damage has gone beyond repair.”

  “That’s what happened last month to that Mr. Percival Lowell Snodgrass we had with us from Massachusetts. Stranger, you can see his grave over there now. A big bull rattlesnake took him a nip on the wrist,” added Moon Hennessey with mock seriousness.

  The Hellidad’s particular desire is to lick you bald-headed while you slumber.

  By this time Mr. Peewee was beginning to be visibly nervous. He was only too glad to get the chance to lie between Gun Smith and Chuck.

  Later in the evening, after all were stowed away safely for the night, things began to happen.

  Gun Smith pretended to fall asleep immediately. He stretched himself, mumbled something which sounded as if he were terribly tired, and within a few minutes he began to snore. Making believe not to awaken him, Chuck reached over quietly and closed his mouth.