Anyone and everyone in cattle country will tell you who Pecos Bill is. He was the wildest in the Wild West. And not just anyone, but it was he who invented the lasso. He grew up among coyotes and did not know until he was ten years old that he was not a steppe wolf, but a man.
And it all happened like this. His father had a large ranch on the Red River, that is, on the Red River, in eastern Texas. He lived well there until another ranch appeared in the neighborhood, two days' drive away. And it seemed to Pecos Bill’s father that life had become a bit cramped. So he put twenty-seven of his children on the wagon, including Bill, who had only recently been born, and moved further to the West.
The roads at that time were bad, everything was full of potholes and potholes, and the cart shook and swayed. At one turn, just near the Pecos River, she was thrown so hard that Little Bill rolled to the ground.
But a full two weeks and eleven days passed when the parents counted their children again. This time there were only twenty-six of them. However, you must admit that it was already too late to go back to look for Bill.
Fortunately, everything turned out well with Bill. He stuck with a pack of coyotes and learned their language. And in return he taught the coyotes to howl. In those distant times in Texas there was such a life that everyone knew how to howl, so it didn’t cost Bill anything to comprehend this science even before he fell off the wagon.
Bill never left the coyotes until he was ten years old. And then one fine day, while searching through the bushes, he met a cowboy. The cowboy saw the completely naked boy and was very surprised.
-Where is your cowboy hat? he asked Bill. - A cowboy without a hat is not a man!
The ranch is a cattle farm.
“I’m not a man,” said Bill. - I'm a coyote. Do you see I have fleas?
“Every cowboy has fleas,” answered the cowboy. “You’re not a coyote, you’re a human!” Do you want me to prove it? If you were a coyote, you would grow a tail. Where's your tail?
And Bill realized that he was no coyote. And he was very embarrassed that he was walking around the prairie without a cowboy hat. He left the coyotes and joined the cowboys. They gave him a luxurious cowboy hat. Then real cowboy pants were made from three Texas skins. The only thing missing was a horse. Big horse. We forgot to tell you that Bill grew very quickly and when he sat on an ordinary horse, of which there were plenty on every ranch, his legs dragged along the ground.
Never mind, Bill was found here too. No wonder he spent his childhood among coyotes. He went to the mountains to catch a grizzly bear, the largest that was found in those places. He decided to chase him until the grizzly was exhausted, and then he would bring him to the ranch, like a tame one.
That's how it all turned out. Bill jumped on top of the grizzly, wrapped his legs around his sides, squeezing him like scissors, hugged him tightly by the neck and gave him spurs. The bear got so excited. He galloped and kicked and tossed Bill, arched his back, reared, trying to knock him down, throw him off, trample him, finish him off, exhaust him. Up, down, back and forth, skipping, galloping, spinning in place, weaving, and finally gave up.
Pecos Bill had never had this much fun. It was then, riding into the ranch on the back of a tamed grizzly bear, that he shared with the cowboys his great discovery: how to ride around wild animals, be they bears or wild mustangs.
The Cowboys certainly appreciated his discovery. But Pecos Bill had to tinker for a long time before he managed to turn all the wild animals into broken horses.
In the end, Bill simply ran out of steam and left the wild mustangs to teach each other. But then he suddenly became bored, he felt so abandoned
and no one needs it. True, not for long. Horses are not everything in a cowboy's life. Texas was full of other cattle as well. And Bill, after thinking, decided that she also deserved his attention. Of course, he was no fool and understood perfectly well that the character and habits of long-horned Texas cows could not be changed. They were too incapable of learning. But he worked on their appearance.
Bill came up with a brand - a brand. Bill marked each cow with his own brand. In this case, he turned out to be simply an artist. What graceful and wondrous pictures he drew on the side of every long-horned Texan!
When Bill lived on the ranch and it was time to brand cattle or hunt bear and caguar, at least three wagons with food supplies were brought for him. Three cooks worked for him day and night, otherwise he would have died of hunger.
There were a lot of bad people and desperate thugs in Texas back then. Bill was hunting for them too. He was a sharp shooter. He hit without a miss, so he had to make his own personal cemetery for those bandits whom he missed.
It was around then that he came up with his famous lasso. All cowboys had a special whip with which they reminded the horses that they should not forget the lessons they were taught. One day Bill was riding his bear, and along the way they came across a rattlesnake. She twisted herself into such an intricate loop that Bill couldn’t take his eyes off her. Then it hit him: wouldn’t it be possible to repeat the same loop for business?
Soon after that, Bill put a brand on one too violent bull, who did not want to behave quietly. A little more, and not Bill, but the bull was ready to stamp a brand on his side with its long horns.
“Listen,” Bill then said to his rattlesnake friend, “help me put this naughty beast in his place.”
The rattlesnake readily agreed. She curled up
ring and grabbed herself with her teeth in the middle of her back. It turned out to be a big dead loop. Bill immediately realized that if he took the snake by the tail and threw a noose around the bull, he would finally make the stubborn beast stand still. So he did, and everything worked out very well. Only one thing upset Bill: the rattlesnake killed itself because its teeth were poisonous.
“Why not replace the snake with a rope?” - Bill thought.
That's how he invented the lasso.
Since then, all cowboys have used the lasso. Moreover, Bill became so skilled in this matter that he could already lasso an entire herd of long-horned Texans with one throw.
And all the time he worked in Texas, Bill rode a giant grizzly bear. He loved him dearly, which is true, that’s true, and yet he, like all cowboys, dreamed of a horse. One day he heard about a standing stallion that had been seen in New Mexico. It was a giant white stallion, just his height. Bill immediately decided to find him.
Rest assured, he found this stallion, and caught it, and bridled it, and sat astride it. Bill assured that the horse had already been broken. For Bill, he was circled. However, if anyone else tried to ride him, he immediately found himself below and plowed the ground with his nose. This stallion was such a fighter and kicker that the cowboys nicknamed him “The Patron of Widows.” It would be more accurate to call him “The Widowmaker,” because he destroyed husbands by making their wives widows, but they just don’t say that.
Even Bill's best friend, Jack from Texas, couldn't ride the Patron of Widows. The first time he tried to ride it, he was thrown out of the saddle in no time and landed not just anywhere, but on the top of Pike Mountain. This was the first time a person had reached the top of Pike Mountain. But Jack from Texas didn’t know how to get down, and he almost died of hunger there until Pecos Bill was told what had happened. He immediately threw the lasso, lassoed Jack and pulled him off the mountain. Yes
Jack was saved and to the end of his life he remained grateful to Pecos Bill for this.
By that time, Pecos Bill had already become such a famous cowboy that he was always the first and foremost on the largest ranches in the land of cattle breeders. One night he was driving across the endless prairie when he suddenly came across a large corral where horses were being ridden. There were a lot of cowboys gathered around.
-Who is your boss? asked Pecos Bill. A huge fellow - Bill had never seen one like him in his life,
He was almost two meters and a quarter, looked at Bill and said:
- I was. And now it will be you.
Pecos Bill soon became friends with more than just cowboys. For example, with the first shooter Pley Smith. At a shooting competition, Pli invited his opponent to unload his Colt into the air. And while his bullet was flying, Pli managed to take aim, shoot and split the flying bullet exactly in two.
And also with a musician. Lipslap was a great musician. How he played the harmonica! When he put the harmonica to his lips and began to play, all the coyotes in the area howled loudly. Pecos Bill liked Lipslap's performance so much that he also invited a singer to sing to the accompaniment of a harmonica. This is how the first cowboy songs were born.
Pecos Bill's friend, Belly Pickens, was famous for the fact that if he stood sideways to you, you simply could not see him - he was so thin. He should have been called Invisible Pickens, and certainly not Puzan.
The cook at Pecos Bill's camp was named Harry Fry. No one in the world baked pancakes better than him. In his large frying pan he baked seventeen pancakes at once. Moreover, he could turn over all seventeen at once. He took the frying pan - once! - he shook it, and all the pancakes flew into the air and turned over at once. What a master! True, sometimes he tossed the pancakes so high that instead of plopping onto the frying pan, they
remained in the air. Some still fly there.
One day, all the cowboys gathered to watch Pecos Bill saddle Kick, his second stallion. The kicker could kick for six days in a row, and the Patron of Widows could also kick on Sunday. Of the cowboys, Pecos Bill was the only one who could ride both. What on earth did he not drive? Anything you could ride on. And no one ever dropped him. Pecos Bill himself said so. And so the cowboys gathered to bet: no, he can’t ride everything, someone will still throw him off. And this someone is a terrible hurricane tornado.
Pecos Bill accepted the bet and went out onto the plain to look around to see if he could see a black tornado or a thundercloud somewhere. Finally a real hurricane hit. He twisted and turned, galloped and frolicked like an unbroken wild mustang.
“It’s not a sin to ride a horse like this!” Pecos Bill said.
Wasting no time, Bill untwisted his lasso, draped it around the hurricane's neck, and held it by the ears while he saddled and mounted.
- To the Powder River! - Bill shouted. - Come on, gallop! - and he gave spurs to the hurricane.
With a groan and a howl, the hurricane flew through the states of New Mexico, Arizona, California and back. Whatever he did along the way, but all in vain, Bill sat firmly in the saddle. Finally the hurricane gave up and poured out all the rain.
Bill, of course, understood that such a downpour would not go in vain; it would destroy everything in its path. Therefore, he ran ahead of the cloud, which was just looking for a place on the ground where it could pour out, and slammed his heels into the ground - he wanted to dig deep ditches for water with his heels, and he slammed with such force that he crushed hard boulders with his spurs. This is where the Rio Grande River came from.
Returning to the ranch, Bill found his boys sitting on the corral fence. And with them there were some other people whom Pecos Bill had never seen before. And dressed
they were somehow unusual and wonderful. They looked a little like cowboys, but Bill couldn't help but grin when he saw how dressed they were.
Jack from Texas explained to Bill that they were from the East and called themselves "Yankees." And he said, gently nudging Bill with his shoulder:
- Just look how they ride!
Bill looked and his grin spread from ear to ear. Wider and wider... And now he was laughing loudly, looking at the well-dressed Yankees. How they ride! This is hilarious! Bill held his stomach and laughed and laughed - he just couldn't stop.
This is what finished off Pecos Bill. They say the poor guy burst out laughing, but we will never believe it.
Translated from Russian · original on wisdomlib.ru