Pecos Bill

There aren?t that many cowboys these days. Not real ones like Pecos Bill. Whoo boy! Bill was a piece of work boy. Woo, he was the doggonedest goldangdest, dad blamedest, son of a prairie sod that ever rode across these great United States of America any cowpuncher worth a lick will tell you that if it weren?t for Bill there wouldn?t have been a Wild West. It just would?ve been plain old mundane. And who wants to hear stories about the Great Mundane West. Hoot-di-doo! It took a man like Pecos Bill to conquer the West. Before he came on the scene, cowboys didn?t know a thing about cows. They read some books about sheep. But what?s that gonna do? And let me tell you a cowboy who does not know about cows is pretty lame. It?s a wild thing but we?re putting our socks on over our boots here, aren?t we? We?re getting a little bit ahead of ourselves sliding down the hill without really knowing where the cactus are. Because to understand what Bill was about you got to know that he was half coyote.
Bill started out his life just like you and me. Only slightly different. He was the youngest of fourteen brothers and sisters, and his folks live right smack in the middle of Texas. They were your regular family of prairie settlers except Bill?s father had a powerful fear of getting hemmed in by neighbors. When Bill was only a couple of weeks old, his father decided the family was gonna move. Some other family had moved in right next door. Which was only two hundred miles away. ?If it?s one thing I can?t stand,? said Bill?s father. ?It?s being cramped by squatters.?
So, Bills family piled into their Conestoga wagon and headed west. They traveling that wagon for two weeks when quite by accident, little Bill squirted out the back. Since pioneers were busy pioneering all the time, Bill?s parents didn?t realize he was gone until they took a head count three weeks later. By that time they decided to chalk up the loss of their youngest son to experience, and didn?t bother backtracking to find the little devil.
So, there was poor Bill. A mere babe all alone on the ridge. His parents, and his brothers, and his sisters were gone forever. Pecos Bill?s prospects look mighty slim. He was lord in a snake?s belly in a wagon rut. Luckily, the first critter to happen upon Bill was a coyote. Like all coyotes this one had a soft spot for youngins. So, she took him. So, she took him back let?s just let me fix my teeth here. There they are. These are on store but ones and they don?t hang in that well. So, she took him back over to the den. There Bill grew up just like a coyote. A darn good coyote too.
Bill learned to run across the plains. Kickin? up clouds of dust faster than a jackrabbit. He was so fast he could outrun the deer when two of them played tag. Well, that deer would look up, go ?Ahh!? And he was gone. Mostly he played fair with the other coyotes. Although from time to time he did take advantage of them. He was especially good at the sing alongs at night when all the coyotes would go up on the ridge and howl at the moon.
One day Bill was scouting down by the Pecos River looking for his coyote buddies when he came across the strangest creature. Mind you Bill had never seen a cowboy before because he was a coyote and coyotes have no time for humans for fear that they might end up on the collar of some coat of a woman named Thelma in New York. So Bill sidled up to the cowboy coyote-style, you know that little tap dance move they do when they make a move then freeze. So you think they?re a large four-legged bush. And he investigated the situation. Bill had never seen anything like this sorry dude before. The cowboy couldn?t believe his eyes either because as you can imagine Bill was quite a sight for the stranger to behold. He looked down at Bill from his horse and said, ?Why, you?re as naked as jaybird, partner. Why in tarnation you running around without clothes? Did you lose ?em in a poker game or are you just glad to see me?? ?What do you mean naked?? Bill howled. ?I?m a coyote and coyotes don?t wear no clothes.? ?That?ll be the day,? said the cowboy. ?You?re no coyote. Shucks, you don?t even have a tail. You?re a human being.? Bill turned his head to look down along his backside and by Jiminy, hood-di-do, he didn?t have a tail. But Bill was not completely convinced. After all he was happy to be a coyote. ?But I?ve got fleas, and I howl at the moon at night.? Bill replied. ?Well go on, everybody knows that all Texicans got fleas and howl at the moon.? Bill didn?t wanna believe he was no longer a coyote. But the stranger had made several valid points.
The cowboy was a neighborly sort, so he gave Bill the extra set of duds he kept in his saddlebag. And as soon as Bill put on these clothes it was like he was a natural born cowboy. It took Bill an hour to learn how to talk. Back in those days coyote lingo and Texican were almost the same language. You know, basically a lot of howls and vowels. He had only fifty words to learn.
Bill had woke up thinking he was a coyote and by sundown he was a walkin?, talkin? cowboy. Naturally he still had more than a few coyote notions left in him. It ended up being a pretty full day for Pecos Bill.