THE EXODUS OF PECOS BILLLanky had been sent for, and this was his last night in camp. His face was tanned; he had gained in weight; he had earned money in his own right. He felt that he was now a man.He and his cronies sat around the fire in silence. Joe and the boys would miss the kid, and he hated to leave. This silence wouldn’t do.“What became of Pecos Bill?” asked Lanky.“That would be hard to say,” said Joe, “hard to say. Everybody knows he’s gone, jest like the open range and the longhorn steer; but jest how and where he passed in his checks, I don’t suppose anybody will ever find out for certain. A lot of the fellers that knowed him are dead, and a lot of ’em has bad memories—a lot of the old-timers has bad memories—and some of ’em are sech damn liars that you can’t go by what they say.”“You’ve seen Pecos Bill, haven’t you, Joe?” said Lanky.“Well, yes, that is I seen him when I was a young buck. But I never seen him die, and I never could find out jest how he was took off. I’ve seen some mighty hot arguments on the subject, and I’ve knowed one or two fellers to die with their boots on after gittin’ in a quarrel in jest that way.”“I heard one account a few years ago,” said Red, “that may be right. There was a feller in Amarillonamed Gabriel Asbury Jackson. He’d worked his self out of a job in Kansas and had come to Texas to buck the cigarette evil. One time he cornered a bunch of us that was too drunk to make a git-away and begun talkin’ to us about smokin’.“‘Young men,’ he says, ‘beware of cigarettes. You think you’re smart to smoke a sack of Bull Durham every day, do you? Well, look at Pecos Bill. A stalwart young man he was, tough as nails, a fine specimen. But he got to foolin’ with cigarettes. What did they do for him?’ he says. ‘Why, nothin’ at first. But did he quit? No!’ he says. ‘He puffed away for ninety years, but they finally got him. And they’ll git you, every mother’s son of you, if you don’t leave ’em alone.’”“That ain’t so,” said Joe. “That man was jest a liar. Cigarettes never killed Pecos Bill. He was, however, a great smoker, but he never smoked Bull Durham. He made him up a mixture of his own, the principal ingredients bein’ Kentucky home-spun, sulphur, and gun-powder. Why, he would have thought he was a sissy if he’d smoked Bull Durham.“When the matches was scerce Bill used to ride out into a thunderstorm and light his cigarette with a streak of lightnin’, and that’s no doubt what’s back of a tale you hear every once in a while about him bein’ struck and kilt. But nobody that knows how Bill throwed a surcingle over a streak of lightnin’ and rode it over Pike’s Peak will ever believe that story.”“I heard it was liquor that killed pore Bill,” said Hank.“Must of been boot-leg,” said Red.“Naw,” said Hank. “You see, Bill bein’ brought up as he was from tender youth on whiskey and onions, was still a young man when whiskey lost its kick for him. He got to puttin’ nitroglycerin in his drinks. That worked all right for a while, but soon he had to go to wolf-bait; and when that got so it didn’t work, he went to fish-hooks. Bill used to say, rather sorrowful-like, that that was the only way he could git an idear from his booze. But after about fifty years the fish-hooks rusted out his interior parts and brought pore Bill to an early grave.”“I don’t know who told you that windy,” said Joe. “It might of been your own daddy. But it ain’t so. It’s jest another damn lie concocted by them damn prohibition men.”“I heard another tale,” said Red, “which may be right for all I know. I heard that Bill went to Fort Worth one time, and there he seen a Boston man who had jist come to Texas with a mail-order cowboy outfit on; and when Bill seen him, he jist naturally laid down and laughed his self to death.”“That may be so,” said Joe, “but I doubt it. I heard one tale about the death of Pecos Bill that I believe is the real correct and true account.”“And what was that?” asked Lanky.“Well, Bill happened to drift into Cheyenne jest as the first rodeo was bein’ put on. Bein’ a bit curious to know what it was all about, he went out to the grounds to look the thing over. When he seen the ropers and the riders, he begun to weep; the first tears he’d shedsince the death of Slue-Foot Sue. Well, finally when a country lawyer jest three years out of Mississippi got up to make a speech and referred to the men on horseback as cowboys, Bill turned white and begun to tremble. And then when the country lawyer went on to talk about ‘keepin’ inviolate the sacred traditions of the Old West,’ Bill jest went out and crawled in a prairie-dog hole and died of solemncholy.”Lanky looked at Red and Hank. They had not missed the point, but they chose to ignore it.Joe talked on. “After several years,” he said, “when all Bill’s would-be rivals was sure he was dead, they all begun to try to ruin his reputation and defame his character. They said he was a hot-headed, overbearin’ sort of feller. They was too scered to use the word, even after Bill died, but what they meant was that he was akiller.“Now, Pecos Bill did kill lots of men. He never kept no tally his self, and I don’t suppose nobody will ever know jest how many he took off. Of course I’m not referrin’ to Mex’cans and Indians. Bill didn’t count them. But Bill wasn’t a bad man, and he hardly ever killed a man without just cause.“For instance, there was Big Ike that he shot for snorin’, that Bill’s enemies talked up so much. But them that was doin’ the talkin’ would forgit to mention that Bill had been standin’ guard over Mexico steers every night for six weeks and was gittin’ a bit sleepy.“Then there was Ris Risbone. Ris was one of these practical jokers, and he ramrodded an outfit that fell in behind Bill’s on the trail. Ris had a dozen or sojokes, and when he pulled one, he slapped his knees and laughed and laughed whether anybody else was a-laughin’ or not. One day Ris rode up to Bill’s chuck-wagon when there wasn’t nobody there but the cook, and he was asleep in the shade of the wagon with his head between the wheels. Ris slipped up and grabbed the trace chains and begun rattlin’ ’em and yellin’ ‘Whoa! Whoa!’ The pore spick woke up thinkin’ that the team was runnin’ away, and that he was about to git his pass to Saint Peter. He jumped up and bumped his head on the wagon; then he wakes up and looks around, and there stands Ris slappin’ his knees and laughin’. Jest then Bill rides up, but he never said nothin’.“When the outfits got to Abilene, Bill was in the White Elephant with some of his men, fixin’ to take a drink. Jest as Bill was about to drop his fish-hooks in his glass, Ris poked his head in at the winder and yelled, ‘Fire! Fire!’—and Bill did.“In one killin’, however, Bill acted a bit hasty, as he admitted his self. One day he called Three-Fingered Ed out of the saloon, sayin’ he’d like to speak with him in private. Bill led Ed out into a back alley, and there they stopped.“‘Say, Ed,’ he says, lookin’ him right in the eye, ‘didn’t you say that Mike said I was a hot-headed, overbearin’ sort of feller?’“‘Naw,’ says Ed, ‘You mistook me. He never said that.’“‘Well, doggone,’ says Bill, ‘ain’t that too bad. I’ve gone and killed an innocent man.’“Well, Lanky, maybe your pa’ll let you come back next fall.”The End
Lanky had been sent for, and this was his last night in camp. His face was tanned; he had gained in weight; he had earned money in his own right. He felt that he was now a man.
He and his cronies sat around the fire in silence. Joe and the boys would miss the kid, and he hated to leave. This silence wouldn’t do.
“What became of Pecos Bill?” asked Lanky.
“That would be hard to say,” said Joe, “hard to say. Everybody knows he’s gone, jest like the open range and the longhorn steer; but jest how and where he passed in his checks, I don’t suppose anybody will ever find out for certain. A lot of the fellers that knowed him are dead, and a lot of ’em has bad memories—a lot of the old-timers has bad memories—and some of ’em are sech damn liars that you can’t go by what they say.”
“You’ve seen Pecos Bill, haven’t you, Joe?” said Lanky.
“Well, yes, that is I seen him when I was a young buck. But I never seen him die, and I never could find out jest how he was took off. I’ve seen some mighty hot arguments on the subject, and I’ve knowed one or two fellers to die with their boots on after gittin’ in a quarrel in jest that way.”
“I heard one account a few years ago,” said Red, “that may be right. There was a feller in Amarillonamed Gabriel Asbury Jackson. He’d worked his self out of a job in Kansas and had come to Texas to buck the cigarette evil. One time he cornered a bunch of us that was too drunk to make a git-away and begun talkin’ to us about smokin’.
“‘Young men,’ he says, ‘beware of cigarettes. You think you’re smart to smoke a sack of Bull Durham every day, do you? Well, look at Pecos Bill. A stalwart young man he was, tough as nails, a fine specimen. But he got to foolin’ with cigarettes. What did they do for him?’ he says. ‘Why, nothin’ at first. But did he quit? No!’ he says. ‘He puffed away for ninety years, but they finally got him. And they’ll git you, every mother’s son of you, if you don’t leave ’em alone.’”
“That ain’t so,” said Joe. “That man was jest a liar. Cigarettes never killed Pecos Bill. He was, however, a great smoker, but he never smoked Bull Durham. He made him up a mixture of his own, the principal ingredients bein’ Kentucky home-spun, sulphur, and gun-powder. Why, he would have thought he was a sissy if he’d smoked Bull Durham.
“When the matches was scerce Bill used to ride out into a thunderstorm and light his cigarette with a streak of lightnin’, and that’s no doubt what’s back of a tale you hear every once in a while about him bein’ struck and kilt. But nobody that knows how Bill throwed a surcingle over a streak of lightnin’ and rode it over Pike’s Peak will ever believe that story.”
“I heard it was liquor that killed pore Bill,” said Hank.
“Must of been boot-leg,” said Red.
“Naw,” said Hank. “You see, Bill bein’ brought up as he was from tender youth on whiskey and onions, was still a young man when whiskey lost its kick for him. He got to puttin’ nitroglycerin in his drinks. That worked all right for a while, but soon he had to go to wolf-bait; and when that got so it didn’t work, he went to fish-hooks. Bill used to say, rather sorrowful-like, that that was the only way he could git an idear from his booze. But after about fifty years the fish-hooks rusted out his interior parts and brought pore Bill to an early grave.”
“I don’t know who told you that windy,” said Joe. “It might of been your own daddy. But it ain’t so. It’s jest another damn lie concocted by them damn prohibition men.”
“I heard another tale,” said Red, “which may be right for all I know. I heard that Bill went to Fort Worth one time, and there he seen a Boston man who had jist come to Texas with a mail-order cowboy outfit on; and when Bill seen him, he jist naturally laid down and laughed his self to death.”
“That may be so,” said Joe, “but I doubt it. I heard one tale about the death of Pecos Bill that I believe is the real correct and true account.”
“And what was that?” asked Lanky.
“Well, Bill happened to drift into Cheyenne jest as the first rodeo was bein’ put on. Bein’ a bit curious to know what it was all about, he went out to the grounds to look the thing over. When he seen the ropers and the riders, he begun to weep; the first tears he’d shedsince the death of Slue-Foot Sue. Well, finally when a country lawyer jest three years out of Mississippi got up to make a speech and referred to the men on horseback as cowboys, Bill turned white and begun to tremble. And then when the country lawyer went on to talk about ‘keepin’ inviolate the sacred traditions of the Old West,’ Bill jest went out and crawled in a prairie-dog hole and died of solemncholy.”
Lanky looked at Red and Hank. They had not missed the point, but they chose to ignore it.
Joe talked on. “After several years,” he said, “when all Bill’s would-be rivals was sure he was dead, they all begun to try to ruin his reputation and defame his character. They said he was a hot-headed, overbearin’ sort of feller. They was too scered to use the word, even after Bill died, but what they meant was that he was akiller.
“Now, Pecos Bill did kill lots of men. He never kept no tally his self, and I don’t suppose nobody will ever know jest how many he took off. Of course I’m not referrin’ to Mex’cans and Indians. Bill didn’t count them. But Bill wasn’t a bad man, and he hardly ever killed a man without just cause.
“For instance, there was Big Ike that he shot for snorin’, that Bill’s enemies talked up so much. But them that was doin’ the talkin’ would forgit to mention that Bill had been standin’ guard over Mexico steers every night for six weeks and was gittin’ a bit sleepy.
“Then there was Ris Risbone. Ris was one of these practical jokers, and he ramrodded an outfit that fell in behind Bill’s on the trail. Ris had a dozen or sojokes, and when he pulled one, he slapped his knees and laughed and laughed whether anybody else was a-laughin’ or not. One day Ris rode up to Bill’s chuck-wagon when there wasn’t nobody there but the cook, and he was asleep in the shade of the wagon with his head between the wheels. Ris slipped up and grabbed the trace chains and begun rattlin’ ’em and yellin’ ‘Whoa! Whoa!’ The pore spick woke up thinkin’ that the team was runnin’ away, and that he was about to git his pass to Saint Peter. He jumped up and bumped his head on the wagon; then he wakes up and looks around, and there stands Ris slappin’ his knees and laughin’. Jest then Bill rides up, but he never said nothin’.
“When the outfits got to Abilene, Bill was in the White Elephant with some of his men, fixin’ to take a drink. Jest as Bill was about to drop his fish-hooks in his glass, Ris poked his head in at the winder and yelled, ‘Fire! Fire!’—and Bill did.
“In one killin’, however, Bill acted a bit hasty, as he admitted his self. One day he called Three-Fingered Ed out of the saloon, sayin’ he’d like to speak with him in private. Bill led Ed out into a back alley, and there they stopped.
“‘Say, Ed,’ he says, lookin’ him right in the eye, ‘didn’t you say that Mike said I was a hot-headed, overbearin’ sort of feller?’
“‘Naw,’ says Ed, ‘You mistook me. He never said that.’
“‘Well, doggone,’ says Bill, ‘ain’t that too bad. I’ve gone and killed an innocent man.’
“Well, Lanky, maybe your pa’ll let you come back next fall.”
The End