Pecos Bill: The Greatest Cowboy of All Time
384
Pecos Bill: The Greatest Cowboy of All Time
384Paperback(Reprint)
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Overview
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9780807563762 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Whitman, Albert & Company |
| Publication date: | 10/01/2017 |
| Edition description: | Reprint |
| Pages: | 384 |
| Product dimensions: | 6.00(w) x 8.00(h) x 1.00(d) |
| Lexile: | 1030L (what's this?) |
| Age Range: | 9 - 12 Years |
About the Author
Laura Bannon was born in Michigan. She attended the Art Institute of Chicago, where she later taught in the children's art program. She wrote and illustrated over thirty books and won the Children's Reading Round Table award for her contribution to children's literature.
Read an Excerpt
CHAPTER 1
PECOS BILL BECOMES A COYOTE
Pecos Bill had the strangest and most exciting experience any boy ever had. He became a member of a pack of wild Coyotes, and until he was a grown man, believed that his name was Cropear, and that he was a full-blooded Coyote. Later he discovered that he was a human being and very shortly thereafter became the greatest cowboy of all time. This is how it all came about.
Pecos Bill's family was migrating westward through Texas in the early days, in an old covered wagon with wheels made from cross sections of a sycamore log. His father and mother were riding in the front seat, and his father was driving a walleyed, spavined roan horse and a red and white spotted milk cow hitched side by side. The eighteen children in the back of the wagon were making such a medley of noises that their mother said it wasn't possible even to hear thunder.
Just as the wagon was rattling down to the ford across the Pecos River, the rear left wheel bounced over a great piece of rock, and Bill, his red hair bristling like porcupine quills, rolled out of the rear of the wagon, and landed, up to his neck, in a pile of loose sand. He was only four years old at the time, and he lay dazed until the wagon had crossed the river and had disappeared into the sagebrush. It wasn't until his mother rounded up the family for the noonday meal that Bill was missed. The last anyone remembered seeing him was just before they had forded the river.
The mother and eight or ten of the older children hurried back to the river and hunted everywhere, but they could find no trace of the lost boy. When evening came, they were forced to go back to the covered wagon, and later, to continue their journey without him. Ever after, when they thought of Bill, they remembered the river, and so they naturally came to speak of him as Pecos Bill.
What had happened to Bill was this. He had strayed off into the mesquite, and a few hours later was found by a wise old Coyote, who was the undisputed leader of the Loyal and Approved Packs of the Pecos and Rio Grande Valleys. He was, in fact, the granddaddy of the entire race of Coyotes, and so his followers, out of affection to him, called him Grandy.
When he accidentally met Bill, Grandy was curious, but shy. He sniffed and he yelped, and he ran this way and that, the better to get the scent, and to make sure there was no danger. After a while he came quite near, sat up on his haunches, and waited to see what the boy would do. Bill trotted up to Grandy and began running his hands through the long, shaggy hair.
"What a nice old doggy you are," he repeated again and again.
"Yes, and what a nice Cropear you are," yelped Grandy joyously.
And so, ever after, the Coyotes called the child Cropear.
Grandy was much pleased with his find and so, by running ahead and stopping and barking softly, he led the boy to the jagged side of Cabezon, or the Big Head, as it was called. This was a towering mass of mountain that rose abruptly, as if by magic, from the prairie. Around the base of this mountain the various families of the Loyal and Approved Packs had burrowed out their dens.
Here, far away from the nearest human dwelling, Grandy made a home for Cropear, and taught him all the knowledge of the wild out-of-doors. He led Cropear to the berries that were good to eat and dug up roots that were sweet and spicy. He showed the boy how to break open the small nuts from the piñon, and when Cropear wanted a drink, he led him to a vigorous young mother Coyote who gave him of her milk. Cropear thus drank in the very life blood of a thousand generations of wild life and became a native beast of the prairie, without at all knowing that he was a man-child.
Grandy became his teacher and schooled him in the knowledge that had been handed down through thousands of generations of the pack's life. He taught Cropear the many signal calls, and the code of right and wrong, and the gentle art of loyalty to the leader. He also trained him to leap long distances and to dance and to flip-flop and to twirl his body so fast that the eye could not follow his movements. And most important of all, he instructed him in the silent, rigid pose of invisibility, so that he could see all that was going on around him without being seen.
And as Cropear grew tall and strong, he became the pet of the pack. The Coyotes were always bringing him what they thought he would like to eat, and were ever showing him the many secrets of the fine art of hunting. They taught him where the Field Mouse nested, where the Song Thrush hid her eggs, where the Squirrel stored his nuts, and where the Mountain Sheep concealed their young among the towering rocks.
When the Jackrabbit was to be hunted, they gave Cropear his station and taught him to do his turn in the relay race. And when the Pronghorn Antelope was to be captured, Cropear took his place among the encircling pack and helped bring the fleeting animal to bay and pull him down, in spite of his darting, charging antlers.
Grandy took pains to introduce Cropear to each of the animals and made every one of them promise he would not harm the growing man-child. "Au-g-gh!" growled the Mountain Lion, "I will be as careful as I can. But be sure to tell your child to be careful too!"
"Gr-r-rr!" growled the fierce Grizzly Bear, "I have crunched many a marrow bone, but I will not harm your boy. Gr-r-rr!"
"Yes, we'll keep our perfumery and our quills in our inside vest pockets," mumbled the silly Skunk and Porcupine, as if suffering from adenoids.
But when Grandy talked things over with the Bull Rattlesnake, he was met with the defiance of hissing rattles. "Nobody will ever make me promise to protect anybody or anything! S-s-s-s-ss! I'll do just as I please!"
"Be careful of your wicked tongue," warned Grandy, "or you'll be very sorry."
But when Grandy met the Wouser, things were even worse. The Wouser was a cross between the Mountain Lion and the Grizzly Bear, and was ten times larger than either. Besides that, he was the nastiest creature in the world. "I can only give you fair warning," yowled the Wouser, "and if you prize your man-child, as you say you do, you will have to keep him out of harm's way!" And as the Wouser continued, he stalked back and forth, lashing his tail and gnashing his jaws and acting as if he were ready to snap somebody's head off. "What's more, you know that nobody treats me as a friend. Everybody runs around behind my back spreading lies about me. Everybody says I carry hydrophobia — the deadly poison — about on my person, and because of all these lies, I am shunned like a leper. Now you come sneaking around asking me to help you. Get out of my sight before I do something I shall be sorry for!"
"I'm not sneaking," barked Grandy in defiance, "and besides, you're the one who will be sorry in the end."
So it happened that all the animals, save only the Bull Rattlesnake and the Wouser, promised to help Cropear bear a charmed life so that no harm should come near him. And by good fortune, the boy was never sick. The vigorous exercise and the fresh air and the constant sunlight helped him to become the healthiest, strongest, most active boy in the world.
All this time Cropear was growing up in the belief that he was a full-blooded Coyote. Long before he had grown to manhood, he learned to understand the language of every creeping, hopping, walking, and flying creature, and, boy-like, he began to amuse himself by mimicking every animal of his acquaintance. He soon learned to trill and warble like a Mocking Bird and to growl like a Grizzly Bear. He could even yowl like a Wouser and sputter like a stupid Skunk.
The Coyotes didn't much like this mimic language, for they were never sure whether they were hearing a Sage Hen or a Buffalo or a Cricket, or whether it was merely Cropear at his play. But Cropear was so full of animal spirits and healthy mischief that he could never keep long from this sport. In time he became so expert as a mimic that he could confuse even the Rattlesnake or the Field Mouse or the Antelope. He could thus call any animal to himself, assume the rigid pose of invisibility, and completely deceive the cleverest creature alive.
By the time Cropear had become a man, he could run with the fleetest of the Coyotes. At night, he squatted on his haunches in the circle and barked and yipped and howled sadly, according to the best tradition of the pack.
The Loyal and Approved Packs were proud, indeed, that they had made a man-child into a noble Coyote, the equal of the best both in the hunt and in the inner circle where the laws and customs of the pack were unfolded. They were prouder still that they had taught him to believe that the Human Race, to a greater extent than any other race of animals, was inhuman. Just what the Human Race was, Cropear never knew, however. For Grandy kept him far away even from the cowboys' trails.
As the years passed, the fame of Cropear spread widely, for the proud Coyotes could not help bragging about him to everybody they met, and the other animals began to envy the clever pack that had made the man-child into a Coyote. Naturally enough, Cropear became the chief surgeon of the pack. When a cactus thorn or a porcupine quill lodged in the foot or embedded itself in the muzzle of any of his brethren, Cropear, with his supple human hand, pulled it out.
Thus the years ran through their ceaseless glass, and the shadow of time lengthened among the pack. Grandy, for all his wisdom, grew too feeble to follow the trail; too heavy and slow to pull down the alert, bounding Pronghorn; or to nip the heels of the fleeting Buffalo Calf. His teeth loosened so that he could no longer tear the savory meat from the bone, or crunch out the juicy marrow.
Then one day Grandy went out alone to hunt and did not return, and everyone knew that he had gone down the long, long trail that has no turning.
But there was no longer need for anyone to help Cropear. He was sturdy and supple, swift as a bird in flight. Often he got the better of the pack in the hunt and outwitted his brother Coyotes every day. Many of them began to wonder if they had done such a wise thing after all in making Cropear a member of their pack.
CHAPTER 2PECOS BILL DISCOVERS HE IS A HUMAN
Not long after Grandy's disappearance, a remarkable adventure befell Cropear. He was, at the time, hunting across the rolling mesa. He had just stopped to examine a stretch of grassy plain where the prairie dogs had built themselves a city. The prairie dogs were making merry as if playing at hide-and-seek in and out of their hidden doorways.
Cropear was lying on the ground, stretched out on his stomach and resting on his elbows, his chin in his palms. He suddenly became aware of the dull tlot, tlot of an approaching bronco. This was not strange, for he had often met ponies. But now he became conscious of a strange odor. Cropear prided himself on knowing every scent of every animal in his part of the world. This, however, was different; it tickled his nose and was like fire in the wild grasses. It was, in fact, the first whiff of tobacco he had smelled since he was a child, and it awakened in him a vague memory of a world of long lost dreams.
Immediately Cropear became curious and forgot for the moment the first and most universal law of the pack — the law of staying put, of sitting so still that he could not be seen. He sat up suddenly and threw his head about to see what this strange smell might be. There, but a few yards distant, the buckskin cow pony and his rider, Chuck, came to a sudden, slithering halt.
Cropear suddenly let out three scared yelps and turned on his heels to run away. Chuck — himself a perfect mimic — repeated the scared yelps. This aroused Cropear's curiosity further. He stopped and let out another series of yelps. These Chuck again repeated. In the Coyote language, Cropear was asking, "Who are you? Who are you?" Chuck was repeating this question without in the least knowing what the yips meant.
Thus began the most amusing dialogue in all the history of talk. Cropear would bark a question over and over, and in reply Chuck would mimic him perfectly.
Cropear kept galloping in circles, curiously sniffing, and wondering when and where it was he had smelled man and tobacco. Chuck kept his hand on his gun and his eyes on the strange wild creature. He couldn't help admiring the sheer physical beauty of this perfect, healthy wild man. Every muscle was so fully developed that he looked like another Hercules.
Cropear was, in fact, as straight as a wagon tongue. His skin, from living all his life in the open sunlight and wind, was a lustrous brown, covered with a fine silken fell of burnished red hair. Over his shoulders lay the bristling mane of his unshorn locks.
After an hour or two of galloping about, Cropear lost much of his fear, approached nearer, and squatted down on his haunches to see what would happen.
"You're a funny baby!" Chuck laughed.
"Funny baby," Cropear lisped like a child of four.
The cowpuncher talked in a low, musical accent, and slowly and brokenly at first, Cropear began to prattle. He was taking up the thread of his speech where he had dropped it years before when he was lost by his family.
For nearly a month Chuck wandered around on the mesa and continued his dialogue with Cropear. Chuck would patiently repeat words and sentences many times. He was forced to use his hands and arms and his face and voice to illustrate all that he said. But Cropear proved such an apt pupil that soon he was saying and understanding everything. What's more, Cropear's speech became far more grammatical than Chuck's own, for only the finest language had ever been permitted among the Coyotes. And Cropear had evolved a combination of the two. The worst he ever said from then on, in cowboy lingo, was just an "ain't" or two.
Chuck was astonished at the speed with which he learned. "He's brighter'n a new minted dollar!" Chuck declared to his bronco.
Over and over Chuck asked Cropear, "Who in the name of common sense are you, anyhow?" Cropear tried his best to remember, yet all he knew was that he was a Coyote. "But who are you?" Cropear asked in turn.
"My real name is Bob Hunt," Chuck laughed, "but the boys all call me Chuck Wagon because I'm always hungry — Chuck for short." He drawled his words musically as he swung into an easy position across his saddle. "What are you doin', runnin' around here naked like a wild Coyote? That's what I want to know."
"I am a Coyote," Cropear snapped back.
"Coyote, nothin'! You're a human!"
"An accursed human! I guess not! I wouldn't belong to that degraded inhuman race for anything in the world. Haven't I got fleas? Don't I hunt with the pack and run the fleet Pronghorn Antelope and the spry Jackrabbit off their legs? And don't I sit on my haunches, and don't I have my place in the circle, and don't I howl at night in accordance with the ancient approved custom of all thoroughbred Coyotes? Don't you suppose I know who I am as well as you?" Cropear answered, quite out of patience.
"You've just been eatin' of the locoweed and are a little out of your head," laughed Chuck. "Besides, every human in Texas has got fleas, so that's got nothin' at all to do with it."
"I haven't been eating of the locoweed! Only silly cattle and mustangs do a thing like that. I am in my right mind — and what's more, I am a Coyote!"
"You're loco, or else I am," insisted the smiling Chuck. "Why, you're a human just the same as I am. Don't you know that every Coyote's got a long bushy tail? Now, you ain't got no tail at all and you know it."
Strange as it may seem, this was the first time that Cropear had really looked himself over, and sure enough, he saw at once that he had no tail.
"But no one has ever before said that to me. Perhaps — no, I won't believe it. I don't want to be a depraved inhuman ... I know, for all you say, that I'm a full-blooded noble Coyote!"
Because of his sudden fears, Cropear was fighting to hold to his belief.
"If you wasn't so perfectly serious about it all, you'd be a downright scream," Chuck cackled. "As it is, I almost pity you."
"You're the one who needs to be pitied," snarled Cropear. "Anyone that's got to be an inhuman needs pity. Here you sit with a piece of cowhide over your head, the wool of the sheep over your shoulders and legs, and calfskin over your feet. Why, you can't even use your own legs. You've got to have a bronco to carry you around fast. Me, an inhuman human, no!" Cropear fairly spat his words, he was so disgusted.
"Human!" Chuck continued. "Human! Why, say, you're the only perfect human critter I've ever laid eyes on. If I had the muscles you've got, I'd turn in some mornin' before breakfast and beat up every prize fighter in all creation, and that within an inch of his life."
"But you haven't yet proved I'm not a noble Coyote," Cropear added with stubborn courage.
"It's proof you want, is it? Well, then, come with me and I'll give you all the proof you'll ever need, and that in a hurry."
(Continues…)
Excerpted from "Pecos Bill"
by .
Copyright © 2017 Albert Whitman & Company.
Excerpted by permission of Albert Whitman & Company.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.
Table of Contents
Preface to the New Edition,
Preface to the First Edition,
Part 1: Pecos Bill Becomes a Cowboy,
Chapter 1. Pecos Bill Becomes a Coyote,
Chapter 2. Pecos Bill Discovers He Is a Human,
Chapter 3. Pecos Bill Meets a Cowpuncher,
Chapter 4. Pecos Bill Becomes a Cowpuncher,
Part 2: Modern Cowpunching Is Invented and Developed,
Chapter 5. Pecos Bill Invents Modern Cowpunching,
Chapter 6. Pecos Bill Teaches the Cowboys to Play,
Chapter 7. Pecos Bill Invents the Perpetual Motion Ranch,
Chapter 8. Pecos Bill Gentles the Devil's Cavalry,
Part 3: Pecos Bill Roams the Southwest,
Chapter 9. Pecos Bill Busts Pegasus,
Chapter 10. Old Satan Busts Pikes Peak,
Chapter 11. Eyeglass Dude Englishmen,
Chapter 12. Enter Slue-Foot Sue,
Chapter 13. Cutting Peewee's Eyeteeth,
Chapter 14. Pecos Bill Busts the Cyclone,
Chapter 15. The Mysterious Stranger,
Chapter 16. Slue-Foot Sue Dodges the Moon,
Part 4: The Passing of Pecos Bill,
Chapter 17. Rustlers Deluxe,
Chapter 18. The Going of Pecos and Widow Maker,
Chapter 19. The Fabled Demigod,