Pecos Bill

by James Cloyd Bowman

  Within a few minutes his mouth was wide open again and he was puffing like a winded bull maverick on a stiff grade. Then before Chuck could reach him again, Gun Smith made believe he was choking. He sat up, let out a suppressed shriek, and began struggling with something that seemed caught in his throat. He had a piece of rawhide ready for the occasion and in the moonlight this looked to Mr. Peewee strangely like a Leaping Lizard. Finally Gun Smith dislodged it, jumped up and ran a few paces away from the others and pretended to vomit violently.

  “I’ll be makin’ the old fool a halter to keep his mouth shut if this keeps up,” growled Moon Hennessey. “What does he think he is, keepin’ the rest of us awake like this?”

  When Gun Smith came back, he proceeded to tell everybody, in no unmistaken language, what he thought of such a lizard-infested state as Texas.

  “Shut up, you blatherin’ idiot,” shouted Mushmouth, pretending to be as mad as a hornet. “Don’t you know the rest of us can’t sleep while you’re yowlin’ around, you old catamount! We’ll be makin’ you a halter tomorrow, sure!”

  “Another word, an’ I’ll throw out the first fellow who says it,” growled Chuck. “Gun Smith, you lay down again and keep your old fool mouth shut.”

  Mr. Peewee could hear him panting and gagging and still cursing lizards under his breath. Mr. Peewee’s hands were by this time clasped over his own mouth as tight as a vise.

  Everything for the minute was so quiet that Mr. Peewee could hear his heart thumping a mile a minute. He had never known what it was to be scared. But he did now.

  Thus things dragged on for nearly an hour—an hour that seemed at least three or four months to the frightened tenderfoot. Then across the silence there came a most unearthly shriek. It simply curdled Peewee’s blood. It sounded to him like the despairing wail of a dying man and the yowl of a grizzly bear. Nobody stirred for a minute, during which the tenderfoot shivered in an ague of fear. Again the same cry resounded, but very much nearer.

  Needless to say, it was Mushmouth, who had sneaked away when no one was watching and was now running toward the spot where the men lay, making these unearthly noises.

  When the third shriek sounded but a few rods away, Gun Smith and Chuck sat up suddenly. Both grabbed the tenderfoot and shook him hard as they shouted, “Up! Up! It’s the Wouser!”

  They grabbed their guns and fired four or five distinct volleys high in the air. Again came the bloodcurdling shriek, now but a few yards away. Following this immediately came another volley of gunfire, which brought a howl of pain and then prolonged silence.

  Everybody rushed over in the direction of the sound and Gun Smith spoke loud enough to be heard for half a mile, “Upon my life, it’s the biggest Wouser we’ve seen this year. Bullfrog Doyle, you and Chuck stand guard. His mate’ll be around any minute now, and if we ain’t mighty careful he’ll sure carry one or more of us away!”

  A few minutes later, when they began to look around for Mr. Peewee, they could find no trace of him. They circled the camp for half a mile and called to him, but no greenhorn was to be seen. As they were later assembling, Gun Smith happened to hear a noise in the top of the scraggly live oak. There hung the half-crazed Peewee, clinging to the topmost branches, scared literally out of his senses.

  Gun Smith and the others tried to tell him that there was no further danger, that the terrible Wouser was surely dead, but nothing could persuade him to come down. When they saw that further coaxing was useless, they went back to their pallets and slept soundly for the remainder of the night.

  At breakfast the next morning Bean Hole asked casually, “Did you boys have a good night?”

  “Why, yes, not a mouse stirred,” said Gun Smith, who was eating with real relish. “It’s the best night we’ve had this month.” Then looking in the greenhorn’s direction, he added with a flickering smile, “Our stranger here is a species of bird all right…It’s a regular peewee. It flew the coop while we was all asleep and roosted in the live oak.”

  Everybody laughed heartily.

  Peewee, however, was still as pale as a ghost, and could not be coaxed to taste a bite of food.

  After breakfast, Gun Smith drew Peewee aside and quietly explained that everything had been intended as a joke. He produced the piece of rawhide and showed how he had faked the lizard. Peewee would not believe what was told him until Mushmouth finally gave the bloodcurdling howl of the Wouser.

  “There’s nothin’ to be the least ashamed of,” Gun Smith assured him. “Just forget it. Everybody comin’ to the cattle country for the first time has got it to go through with sooner or later. We was all initiated in our time too, you know.”

  Gun Smith was so entirely kind that the stranger quickly confided his desire to buy a horse and an outfit and become a real cowboy. “I want the horse that I buy to be the best horse on the whole ranch. He must be able to throw dust in everybody’s eyes. You understand what I mean.”

  “Yes, I understand perfectly,” replied Gun Smith quietly, as he realized how much he detested this sort of bragging.

  “And will you hire me to work for you?” questioned the stranger with new enthusiasm.

  “Why, yes, I’ll hire you…We’re always in need of more men. Every time Pecos brings home a new herd we have to find outriders to accompany it. We have at least two hundred outriders with our various herds this very minute.”

  “And do you know where I can get the horse I’m looking for?”

  “Let me see, let me see,” replied Gun Smith as he tried to think of the horse he would like the greenhorn to buy. “I have it,” he added the next minute, “you walk back to town and find Sport McKaye. Tell him Gun Smith sent you. Then offer him one hundred dollars for the bronco he calls Baldy. You’ll know the pony by the narrow white stripe between his eyes and by the white stockin’ on his right front pastern and the one not quite so high on his left hind foot.

  “After that, go to the general store. Tell the proprietor you want the brightest pair of red blankets he’s got in stock. Be sure to buy yourself two pearl-mounted Mexican guns and two pearl-handled bowie knives to match them. Get yourself a plaited quirt and a rawhide rope. Buy a Mexican saddle and everythin’ else you think you need to go along with it, and then come back and I’ll teach you to be a real cowboy in less’n no time at all.”

  Mr. Peewee, as he had come to be called by everyone, lost no time in getting started to town. It was a long trail of five miles and Gun Smith smiled dryly to see him depart so proudly.

  When Peewee reached town he paid Sport McKaye one hundred dollars for Baldy, the worst little stove-up pack pony in the entire range country. Really, the pony wasn’t worth two dollars and a half. At the store he fitted himself out with all the showy things he could lay his hands on. He paid three hundred dollars for everything, when a knowing buyer could have bought the entire layout for less than seventy-five.

  When Peewee rode back to the ranch, he little suspected that he had been cheated out of his very eyeteeth. He was, in fact, as happy as a lark.

  “Say, but you’re a dandy,” smiled Gun Smith in greeting. “Why, you look as if you’d just jumped out of the pages of one of these yellow-backed story books,” he added in subtle irony, which luckily went entirely over Peewee’s head.

  At supper all the boys pretended to want to trade ponies with Peewee. “How much’ll you take to boot?” bantered Moon Hennessey, who had one of the best ponies on the ranch. “My horse has got a spavin and a ringbone, he’s sprung and he’s stringhalted, but aside from a few triflin’ blemishes, such as these, I’ll warrant him sound as a dollar.”

  “I wouldn’t trade Baldy off at any price,” bragged Peewee, feeling mighty proud. “Baldy’s just the kind of horse I’ve always dreamed of ownin’ someday, and you can bet I’m goin’ to keep him.”

  After the boys had exhausted their wits in trying to trade Peewee out of his worthless Baldy, they turned their attention to another topic. Chuck suggested casually that it was about time for the gang
to ride in and shoot up Wichita Falls, the nearest trading post.

  “This is a little job we do regularly at least once a year, merely as a matter of form,” explained Gun Smith, “and I shouldn’t be surprised but you’re about right.”

  “Tonight’s the only free night I have this week,” explained Chuck.

  “Me too,” chimed in Moon Hennessey.

  “Same here,” added Mushmouth.

  “All in favor of doin’ it tonight, stick up your hands,” smiled Gun Smith.

  Every hand went up except Peewee’s.

  “What do you say to goin’ out on this jaunt with us, Mr. Peewee?” asked Gun Smith.

  “I’m game for anything, of course, now that I have a horse and outfit!”

  “That’s a fine spirit,” chirped Gun Smith as he slapped the greenhorn across the shoulder hard enough to leave a blister. “Our boss, Pecos Bill, when he gets back tomorrow and finds you here, will be prouder’n ever of his I. X. L. outfit. If you make good tonight, he’ll likely enough be in favor of promotin’ you to the position of boss of one of his other ranches.”

  Before time to start on the expedition to paint Wichita Falls red, Gun Smith drew Peewee aside and explained carefully just what was to be done. Peewee was to ride Baldy up and down the street, shoot first one pearl-handled gun into the air and then the other. He was to give the wildest whoops and pretend he was locoed. If the sheriff dared show his face, Peewee was to call him a runt maverick, put spurs to Baldy and ride away on the wings of the wind.

  “If necessary, we’ll all be on hand to pull you out. When the sheriff sees you, he’ll run for his life,” Gun Smith declared glibly.

  The boys kept passing the bottle of red-pepper moonshine to Peewee before time to start. And he took a hearty nip each time just to prove he was a regular cowhand. So by the time he rode into Wichita Falls, Peewee was feeling sure that he could, if it were at all necessary shoot up the sheriff himself—the runt maverick.

  Peewee began spurring his stove-up pack pony up and down the only street in town, shooting his revolvers and yelling, “Ee-yow! Ee-yow! Ee-yow!”

  The cowboys knew something would happen any minute. So they hid themselves and their ponies in the sagebrush nearby.

  The sheriff watched and waited until Peewee had completely winded his old nag and had shot his last bullet. He then appeared bravely on the scene. Gun Smith and his men could distinctly hear all that happened. First came the voice of the sheriff.

  “Halt! You’re under arrest!”

  Immediately afterward sounded the thick voice of Peewee. “You’re a runt maverick, that’s what you are! Get back into your prairie dog hole where you belong!”

  There followed then the rapid clatter of hooves, then a sudden grinding of gravel as the sheriff grabbed Baldy’s rein and brought him to a quick slithering halt. A brief moment of silence followed, and then Peewee’s thick guttural, “You’re a runt mav—”

  At this instant there sang out a quick dull thud as the butt of the sheriff’s quirt came down squarely across Peewee’s mouth. The end had thus arrived as far as Peewee was concerned.

  One by one the cowboys sneaked quietly back to the ranch. Gun Smith alone remained behind, and after an hour of waiting, he galloped easily into town and stopped casually at the general store.

  “Got them buckskin gauntlet gloves in yet?” he asked innocently.

  “No, but we’ve got one of your fool greenhorn mavericks in the calaboose!” announced the sheriff from the rear of the store.

  “You don’t say!” Gun Smith replied, pretending to be much astonished. “What’s up?”

  “Your outfit can’t ‘runt maverick’ Ol’ Sol, I want you all to distinctly understand that!”

  “Who is it you’ve got?” Gun Smith asked quietly.

  “The dumb greenhorn that paid Sport McKaye a hundred dollars for his worthless stove-up pack pony, Baldy.”

  “A hundred dollars! I’m sure surprised!” answered Gun Smith, hiding his feelings.

  “Yes, a hundred dollars, and Baldy ain’t worth more’n a five spot of any man’s honest money.”

  “I’m sure surprised,” repeated Gun Smith. “And to think, only this mornin’ this Peewee told me, as loud as a brass band, that he knowed it all. He said he’d seen the elephant and talked with the owl.”

  “He’s seein’ a lot tonight he’s never seen before,” cackled the sheriff.

  After everybody had laughed heartily, Gun Smith gained the consent of the sheriff to bail Peewee out of the calaboose, as they called the local jail.

  By the time Gun Smith got him and Baldy back to the ranch, Peewee was all in. His front teeth were so loose they rattled when he tried to talk and his lips were so swollen and bleeding he could scarcely open his mouth.

  Without a word, Gun Smith unsaddled Baldy, and told the greenhorn to go to sleep.

  Next morning when Peewee awoke, he found himself alone. He thought he had gone to sleep with his head on his saddle, but now his head was resting heavily on a stone. He looked here and there and everywhere, but could find nothing.

  All this while the cowboys were watching his actions from an ambush. They were so full of laughter that their sides ached.

  Finally the greenhorn stamped the very dust of the ranch from his shoes. He hit the trail and began to cut the dirt for town. He was a sadder but wiser man. The elephant had given him a brisk slap with its trunk and the owl was hooting all sorts of wisdom in his ears.

  When Peewee arrived in town he found Baldy hitched securely in front of the general store where he couldn’t help but see him. The gaudy red blankets fairly shouted at him and his belt with his brace of empty pistols was hanging limp from his saddlehorn.

  Half an hour later, in a bare room, with a rude table and a half dozen rude chairs, Peewee found himself facing the stern-looking judge.

  The judge and the sheriff both knew that Gun Smith and his crowd were really to blame for all that had happened. They also knew that these cowboys were entirely too clever to allow themselves to become entangled within the meshes of the law.

  “Young man,” the judge began slowly, after he had squinted his eyes and cocked his wise old head slightly, “you drink more squirrel whiskey than you can carry. You come into town like a roaring Wouser. You ride up and down the street shooting off your guns as if you thought you were the leader of the Devil’s Cavalry. You yell like a crazy man. You call our much-respected sheriff a runt maverick! You show your utter disrespect for all law and order. Is this a correct statement of your offense?”

  “I guess you’re right, judge,” Peewee answered from the depth of his despair.

  “Now, I don’t care a continental who your ancestors are nor where you hail from. What I do know is that you’ve acted like a regular greenhorn. Your first trip in, you buy from Sport McKaye a stove-up pack pony named Baldy for one hundred dollars. Well, sir, that pony ain’t worth five dollars of any man’s honest money. Next you go to the store and blow in a lot of cash for a no-good, showy outfit. Your second trip in you try to set your heel on our sacred law and order. The only reasonable explanation is that you’re a dyed-in-the-wool greenhorn, that you don’t realize the kind of law-abiding country you are now in. You’re in the greatest country and the best little town God ever made! Remember that!

  “The usual fine for your offense is $150.00. The usual sentence is six months in the calaboose on black bread and cold water.

  “This is, however, like as not your first offense. You are clearly new to our part of the world. I will remit this sentence and fine under this one condition: you go back out to I. X. L. Ranch and get Pecos Bill to vouch for your conduct.”

  After the judge had finished with Peewee, Old Sol, the sheriff, gave him a million dollars’ worth of good advice in less than thirty seconds. “If a man knows any secrets about himself, he should die and let them be buried with him, as somebody says somewhere. Remember, my lad, that the man who toots his own horn all the while never finds anybody els
e to toot for him. The big game to play, lad, is to let the other fellow do all the tooting.”

  The sheriff took Peewee to see Sport McKaye, and he was glad to return the one hundred dollars. He took Peewee to the general store and there the outfit was exchanged for the best that money could buy.

  When Peewee explained later in the day all that had happened to him, Gun Smith smiled wistfully.

  “It’s all in the day’s work, my lad. The future is kind to the man who forgets today what a fool he made of himself yesterday. I mean, the man who don’t allow yesterday to stand in the way of today and tomorrow. We boys just naturally had to have our little fun, you might say. Now that you’re initiated, you can get to be a regular cowboy. It’s up to you. Want to try?”

  “I sure do,” Peewee answered humbly.

  “Well, then, consider yourself hired till Pecos gets home, anyway. Report to Chuck and tell him that I said to give you an honest job.”

  Peewee did as he was told and in time became one of the most skillful with the rope and one of the quietest with his tongue of all the boys in the I. X. L.

  CHAPTER 14

  PECOS BILL BUSTS THE CYCLONE

  Gun Smith and his cowmen were so busy with work and play that they did not notice the passing of summer. With the coming of early fall a drought set in. For weeks the baking sun parched the prairie. The streams dried up and the grass withered to a sere yellow. Day after day the men lived in dust. There was grimy dirt and gritty sand in their hair and eyes and ears. The herded cattle lolled their tongues and grew haggard and fretful.

  Pecos Bill finally found it necessary to furnish water for his famishing herds. For a long time he puzzled his brain trying to invent some method that would make him a water boy to all his countless cattle. One day, as a last resort, he lassoed a grove of prickly pear trees and gave Widow Maker the word to go. For hours together he dragged this thorny bundle back and forth at the end of his lariat. Widow Maker flew at breakneck speed and the earth rumbled and the dust rose up until the sky was a dirty gray. By the time Pecos was through with this little chore, he had gouged out a canal ten feet deep and twenty-five miles in length.