Latest / The Boy Scout Book of Campfire Stories / Tall Tales from Texas - Mody Coggin Boatright

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Tall Tales from Texas - Mody Coggin Boatright · The Boy Scout Book of Campfire Stories

• 0:01
  Speaker 1: Section one of Tall Tales from Texas. This is a
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  Speaker 1: LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain.
• 0:09
  Speaker 1: For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox dot org.
• 0:14
  Speaker 1: Read by Verla Vieira, Tall Tales from Texas by Mody
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: Coggan boltwright Pisenous Windies. There was just enough light left
• 0:24
  Speaker 1: in the sky to reveal the bed had herd. The
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: first night shift had gone on. One could see the
• 0:30
  Speaker 1: riders silhouetted against the sky as they rode around the cattle,
• 0:33
  Speaker 1: quieting them with the cruding melodies of Bury Me Not
• 0:37
  Speaker 1: on the Lone Prairie and the Trail of eighty three.
• 0:40
  Speaker 1: The men had finished supper. Some had spread their beds
• 0:43
  Speaker 1: and were lying upon them. They had not yet gone
• 0:46
  Speaker 1: through their short ritual of going to bed. Others sat
• 0:49
  Speaker 1: around the camp fire. Red Wallace observed that it was
• 0:52
  Speaker 1: time to hit the hay. As he started to the
• 0:55
  Speaker 1: wagon for his bed roll, he stumbled over small greasewood bush.
• 1:00
  Speaker 1: Real rattle came from underneath. Red jump back. Pickin up
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  Speaker 1: a stone, you dirty rascal, he exclaimed. Thought you'd bite me,
• 1:08
  Speaker 1: didn't ye? Of all the nerve tryin to bite me,
• 1:11
  Speaker 1: You cheeky son of a gun wanted to bite me.
• 1:14
  Speaker 2: Take that.
• 1:15
  Speaker 1: The rock struck the snake squarely on the head. A rattlesnake,
• 1:19
  Speaker 1: exclaimed Lanky, a tenderfoot of the high school age, whom
• 1:22
  Speaker 1: the Boss had taken on the day before, and whom
• 1:25
  Speaker 1: Joe Martin had informally christened Lanky. I've been wishing all
• 1:29
  Speaker 1: afternoon to see one. You'll get to see all that
• 1:32
  Speaker 1: you want to see if you stay with this outfit,
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  Speaker 1: though they ain't as numerous as they used to be,
• 1:36
  Speaker 1: answered Red, are they really as poisonous as they've been
• 1:40
  Speaker 1: reputation of being? Asked Lanky pie's ne's asked Red, seating
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  Speaker 1: himself on the bed roll he had just brought from
• 1:47
  Speaker 1: the wagon. One of them cutthroats took off three of
• 1:50
  Speaker 1: the best friends I ever had in this world. You see,
• 1:53
  Speaker 1: it was like this poker. Bill was out ridin fence.
• 1:56
  Speaker 1: He gets down to nail up a loose wire, an
• 1:58
  Speaker 1: one of these reptiles grabs him by the heel. Bill
• 2:01
  Speaker 1: grabs him by the tail and just naturally flails the
• 2:04
  Speaker 1: everlasting stuffin out of him on the fence post. Then
• 2:07
  Speaker 1: Bill takes off his boot looks at his heel. The
• 2:11
  Speaker 1: fan ain't touched the skin, so he puts back on
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  Speaker 1: his boot, goes on his way, thinking nothing of it.
• 2:16
  Speaker 1: About a week afterwards, Bill gets a sore heel. He
• 2:19
  Speaker 1: comes in one day at dinner and tells the boss
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  Speaker 1: he can't work that evening, and he lays down on
• 2:24
  Speaker 1: his bunk, and we goes off and leaves him. When
• 2:26
  Speaker 1: we comes in at night, there lays poor Bill a corpse.
• 2:30
  Speaker 1: He must have known he was going to die, because
• 2:32
  Speaker 1: there on a piece of paper was his will. All
• 2:34
  Speaker 1: rode out. It says, my saddle to Red, my bridle
• 2:38
  Speaker 1: to Pete, and my boots to Ed. Well, we buries
• 2:42
  Speaker 1: poor Bill, having a swell funeral with a circuit rider
• 2:45
  Speaker 1: to do the preaching. Ed, out of respect to the deceased,
• 2:49
  Speaker 1: wears the boots to the funeral. Pretty soon it gets
• 2:52
  Speaker 1: a sore heel. Bill's boots, he says, are a little
• 2:55
  Speaker 1: too big. They made a blister on my heel. One
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  Speaker 1: morning he takes to his bunk, saying he guessed his
• 3:01
  Speaker 1: socket pies at his heel. That night he breathes his last.
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  Speaker 1: Fine man, he was too They don't make better men
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  Speaker 1: than Ed Wilson. Just before he dies, he calls us
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  Speaker 1: all to his bedside and says, boys, I'm goin to
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  Speaker 1: the big round up. I ain't been as righteous as
• 3:17
  Speaker 1: I ought to have been, but I'm hoping the big
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  Speaker 1: range boss will cut me into his herd. Dave, you
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  Speaker 1: can have my bridle, Red, you can take my saddle,
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  Speaker 1: and Pete you can have my boots. Then was the
• 3:30
  Speaker 1: last words he ever spoke. Ed's family asks us to
• 3:33
  Speaker 1: send the corpse back to Virginia, which we does, me
• 3:36
  Speaker 1: going along with it, and I meets Ed's family and
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  Speaker 1: tells them what a fine man he was, and how
• 3:41
  Speaker 1: he always done his duty and everything, and fine folks
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  Speaker 1: they was too. When I gets back to the ranch,
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  Speaker 1: I find poor Pete all laid out for the undertaker.
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  Speaker 1: He died of the sore heel, says the boss, just
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  Speaker 1: like Bilin Ed. He says, give his boots to you.
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  Speaker 1: By this time, I was gettin suspicious. I takes the
• 4:00
  Speaker 1: boots and examines them close, and there in the spur
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  Speaker 1: piece of the left boot is the fang of that dirty,
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  Speaker 1: low down cutthroat reptile. I takes the plyers and pulls
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  Speaker 1: out the fang, and to make sure it don't cause
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  Speaker 1: any more devilment. I takes a spade and buries it
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  Speaker 1: at the back of the bunk house. Then I puts
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  Speaker 1: on the boots and wears them right on. This is
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  Speaker 1: them I got on. Now, see that place right there
• 4:22
  Speaker 1: that looks like a pinhole, that's where I pulled the
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  Speaker 1: critter's fang out. I guess it didn't do any more harm,
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  Speaker 1: said Lanky. None to speak of, replied Red. The boss's
• 4:32
  Speaker 1: old hound dog comes along and sees where I buried
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  Speaker 1: the fang, and he forgets but what he buried a
• 4:37
  Speaker 1: bone there, and he begins digging like a fool. Pretty
• 4:40
  Speaker 1: soon as pause swells up and we have to shoot him.
• 4:43
  Speaker 1: But as far as I know, that was the end
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  Speaker 1: and the extent of that reptile's devilment. Well well, said Hank.
• 4:50
  Speaker 1: That puts me in mind of a thing that happened
• 4:52
  Speaker 1: to Jess Simpson and me just before I joined this outfit.
• 4:55
  Speaker 1: We was going to a rodeo at Vega and Jess's flivver,
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  Speaker 1: and just before we gets Lubbock, we sees a rattlesnake
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  Speaker 1: in the road ahead of us. Watch me get him,
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  Speaker 1: says Jess. And just as the critter raises his head
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  Speaker 1: to strike. Jess busts him one right in the mouth
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  Speaker 1: with the front tire of his forward One last venomous
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  Speaker 1: reptile in the world, says Jess. And we drives on,
• 5:16
  Speaker 1: thinkin' that's all o that, Jess. As we gets to Lubbock,
• 5:19
  Speaker 1: Jess notices that a tire is nearly down. He pulls
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  Speaker 1: up to a little garage in the edge of town
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  Speaker 1: and has it fixed, and then we goes on. When
• 5:28
  Speaker 1: we gets to plain View, we notices that the tire
• 5:30
  Speaker 1: is nearly flat again, so he has it fixed there.
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  Speaker 1: Then we goes on to the rodeo and Jess win's
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  Speaker 1: a hundred dollars bulldoggin' an me seventy five goat ropin',
• 5:40
  Speaker 1: which we spends an starts home. We gets back to
• 5:43
  Speaker 1: plain View, it stops at the same garage where we
• 5:45
  Speaker 1: had our tire fix comin' up, and we notices a
• 5:48
  Speaker 1: new man changing tires. Where's the fellow that was here
• 5:51
  Speaker 1: last week, says Jess. He was so good to us
• 5:54
  Speaker 1: and fixed our tires so good I thought I'd bring
• 5:56
  Speaker 1: him a little snake medicine, says Jess, sort of winkin'.
• 6:00
  Speaker 1: Poor feller. We buried him yesterday, says the man. His
• 6:03
  Speaker 1: hand all swoll up and he died. Now, Ain't that
• 6:07
  Speaker 1: too bad? Says jess Fine man he was. I never
• 6:11
  Speaker 1: seen him till we stopped her last week on her
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  Speaker 1: way to Vega. But soon as I looked him in
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  Speaker 1: the eye, I says to my pal, here e an me,
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  Speaker 1: there's a fine feller. I'm sort of funny that way,
• 6:21
  Speaker 1: he says. When I first see a man, I can
• 6:23
  Speaker 1: look him in the eye and tell whether he's any
• 6:25
  Speaker 1: count or not. Tell his family. The two of his
• 6:28
  Speaker 1: true friends lament his death, I says, I reckon, we
• 6:32
  Speaker 1: better be gettin on. We drives on, wondering if that
• 6:35
  Speaker 1: dirty reptile did cause the poor Feller's death. We'll stop
• 6:38
  Speaker 1: at Lubock, says Jess An see if the feller there
• 6:41
  Speaker 1: is all right. And so he drives up to the
• 6:43
  Speaker 1: little garage, which is a one man outfit, and there
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  Speaker 1: was a woman runnin it. Where is the man that
• 6:49
  Speaker 1: was here last week? Says I? Oh, my husband, says
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  Speaker 1: the woman. We laid him away last tuesday, tears coming
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  Speaker 1: in her eyes as she spoke. I'm a poor cowpuncher, said,
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  Speaker 1: and I spent all my money on the rodeo. But
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  Speaker 1: I'll write you a draft on the boss for a
• 7:05
  Speaker 1: month's wages, and it'll be honored too. You needn't be
• 7:08
  Speaker 1: worried about that. I'll do the same, says Jess. You
• 7:12
  Speaker 1: gentlemen are very kind, She says, but I couldn't accept it. Besides,
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  Speaker 1: our home and business is paid for, and there's the
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  Speaker 1: insurance money. How did it happen, asked Jess. I guess
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  Speaker 1: it was blood pisin, She says. His finger swelled up,
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  Speaker 1: an he got sicker and sicker and died. Are you
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  Speaker 1: all friends of his? That we are? Says Jess. And
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  Speaker 1: I want to say right here that there never was
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  Speaker 1: a better man than than your husband. Na there wasn't,
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  Speaker 1: says I. And we wish you good luck. We'll have
• 7:42
  Speaker 1: to be gettin away. We drives off, overcome with sorrow
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  Speaker 1: on account of the death of them two men. Sometimes,
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  Speaker 1: yet when I'm ridin along by myself, I think of
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  Speaker 1: them and their graves, and I feel that me and
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  Speaker 1: Jess somehow had a hand in it. An I'd just
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  Speaker 1: get my hoss and saddle if it hadn't happened. No,
• 8:00
  Speaker 1: sir Lankey, if you see one of them critters in
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  Speaker 1: the road. Don't run over him. You might be the
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  Speaker 1: innocent means of taking off several lives. The fire had
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  Speaker 1: died to a bed of coals. It was no longer
• 8:12
  Speaker 1: possible to see the night herders, but the indistinct songs
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  Speaker 1: reached the camp. Lankey was seated on his bed roll.
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  Speaker 1: The sitters had dwindled to four. I didn't know they
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  Speaker 1: were that bad, observed Lankey. That bad, said Joe Martin.
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  Speaker 1: Joe was a veteran of the open range and of
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  Speaker 1: the overland trail far and near. He was known by
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  Speaker 1: the name of Windy Joe. But Lanky had not learned
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  Speaker 1: of this last fact. That bad said Joe again. Them
• 8:40
  Speaker 1: snakes that Redd and Hank told you about must have
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  Speaker 1: been baby snakes. They couldn't have been real. Hemen venomous reptiles,
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  Speaker 1: like the one that killed Ike Morgan. Ike was one
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  Speaker 1: of the best friends I ever had in this world.
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  Speaker 1: He worked on the Yellow House when Reddin Hank here
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  Speaker 1: was wearin foldin' breeches. Ike was some cow hand. He
• 9:00
  Speaker 1: did have a wooden leg. I reckon, I might as
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  Speaker 1: well tell you how he got his wooden leg. While
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  Speaker 1: I'm about it, you see. It was like this. Ike
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  Speaker 1: was ridin the range one winter day, and as he
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  Speaker 1: started up a little canyon, his horse fell and caught
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  Speaker 1: Ike's leg. The critter broke two of his own legs
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  Speaker 1: in the fall, and there he was on Ike's leg
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  Speaker 1: and couldn't get up, And there was poor Ike wondering
• 9:21
  Speaker 1: if he'd starve before anybody found him. Pretty soon Ike
• 9:25
  Speaker 1: smelled a norther, and the next thing he knowed, the
• 9:27
  Speaker 1: norther was there, And the next thing he knowed after
• 9:30
  Speaker 1: that he had eye sickles on his nose. Ike knowed
• 9:33
  Speaker 1: he'd phrased to death and that mouey pronto if you
• 9:36
  Speaker 1: didn't find some way to get loose. He figured and figured.
• 9:40
  Speaker 1: I was one thing about Ike. He always used his
• 9:42
  Speaker 1: head well, he figured and figured, And pretty soon he
• 9:46
  Speaker 1: looked around and he seen an axe about a hundred
• 9:48
  Speaker 1: yards off. He loud, some nestor had been haulin' wood
• 9:52
  Speaker 1: out of the canyon and had lost his axe. And
• 9:55
  Speaker 1: mighty glad Ike was of the nester's hard look too,
• 9:58
  Speaker 1: And just to show you the nerve of the man an,
• 10:00
  Speaker 1: he goes over and gets the axe and chops off
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  Speaker 1: his own leg an, he didn't have any chloro for
• 10:05
  Speaker 1: him neither it not bein' wormy season. An he gets
• 10:08
  Speaker 1: his self loose and walks ten miles into headquarters. That's
• 10:12
  Speaker 1: what I call nerve. But what I started off to
• 10:15
  Speaker 1: tell you was how Ike met his death. The boss
• 10:17
  Speaker 1: sent acted town and had the blacksmith make him a
• 10:20
  Speaker 1: peg leg a fine limb it was too. Ike had
• 10:24
  Speaker 1: him a stirrup made to fit it. An he could
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  Speaker 1: ride as good as ever many a bronk he peeled.
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  Speaker 1: After that, he could dance like a fool, an hold
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  Speaker 1: his own in any shootin' match that any tough ombree
• 10:34
  Speaker 1: ever started. Shame it was that he had to be
• 10:37
  Speaker 1: killed by a dirty reptile. Ike was fixin fence in
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  Speaker 1: the canyon one evenin jest. At dusk he needs a
• 10:44
  Speaker 1: stay for the fence, and he looks over in the
• 10:46
  Speaker 1: bushes and see what in the dusk of the evenin'
• 10:48
  Speaker 1: looks like a pole. It gets down to pick it up.
• 10:51
  Speaker 1: Damn me if it wasn't one of them low down reptiles,
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  Speaker 1: A big specimen with twenty eight rattles and a button,
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  Speaker 1: and the son of a gun nabs Ike by the
• 10:59
  Speaker 1: wooden leg that don't worry Ike much, And while the
• 11:02
  Speaker 1: critter holds him by the peg, I takes out a
• 11:05
  Speaker 1: six shooter and sends the gentleman on to his happy
• 11:07
  Speaker 1: hunting ground, cutting off the twenty eight rattles and the
• 11:10
  Speaker 1: button for a keepsake, which I now have and will
• 11:13
  Speaker 1: show you sometime if you'll make me think of it.
• 11:16
  Speaker 1: I gets on his house and rides to the bunk
• 11:19
  Speaker 1: house where me and Ezra Jenkins are, And when he
• 11:21
  Speaker 1: tries to lift his wooden leg out of the stirrup,
• 11:24
  Speaker 1: it won't come. Ezra and me gets the axe and
• 11:27
  Speaker 1: the cold chisel and cuts off the stirrup from around
• 11:29
  Speaker 1: the peg and brings Zike in the house. By that time,
• 11:32
  Speaker 1: the leg is as big as a steer, and it
• 11:34
  Speaker 1: is all we can do to carry him in. Ezra
• 11:37
  Speaker 1: gets his fencing hatchet and me the chopping axe, and
• 11:40
  Speaker 1: we begins to try to reduce Ike's leg to its
• 11:43
  Speaker 1: natural and proper size. We trims and we trims, and
• 11:46
  Speaker 1: the leg swells and swals, and the more we trims,
• 11:50
  Speaker 1: the more it swells. However, for the first ten hours
• 11:53
  Speaker 1: with gains on the swellin', but we begins to tire
• 11:56
  Speaker 1: and there's nobody to spell us. I takes the axe
• 11:58
  Speaker 1: and keeps Ezra busy packing out the chips and splinters.
• 12:02
  Speaker 1: We works all night, chopping and trimming and packing out,
• 12:05
  Speaker 1: but we gets weaker and weaker, and the swellin keeps
• 12:08
  Speaker 1: gaining on us. Finally, after three days, we just naturally
• 12:12
  Speaker 1: gives teetotally out and has to sit down and see
• 12:15
  Speaker 1: poor Ike die. But said Lanky, A bite on the
• 12:19
  Speaker 1: wooden legs shouldn't have given him any pain. How did
• 12:21
  Speaker 1: it kill him? Well, you see, it was like this,
• 12:24
  Speaker 1: replied Joe. His leg just swelled and swelled till it
• 12:28
  Speaker 1: got so big it just naturally smothered him to death.
• 12:31
  Speaker 1: Fine Feller, He was too, one of the best friends
• 12:34
  Speaker 1: I ever had in this world. There was just one
• 12:37
  Speaker 1: good thing about it, added Joe. Ezra and me had
• 12:40
  Speaker 1: enough kindling wood to do us all winter. Joe chunked
• 12:44
  Speaker 1: up the fire and put on the coffee pot. Have
• 12:46
  Speaker 1: a cigarette, offered Lanky, roll my own, said Joel, fishing
• 12:50
  Speaker 1: out a shruck. It was Hank's turn. Too bad about Ike,
• 12:55
  Speaker 1: he said, But I don't doubt's tall. It's so like
• 12:58
  Speaker 1: you say, for I seen a similar case, very similar case,
• 13:02
  Speaker 1: except it wasn't a man's leg. Me and Jim Arbury
• 13:06
  Speaker 1: hitched up the hosses one mornin and went out to
• 13:08
  Speaker 1: bring in a little stove wood. He headed out towards
• 13:11
  Speaker 1: a little mesquite thicket, and just before we got to it,
• 13:14
  Speaker 1: I seen the lead hoss shy. What's the matter with
• 13:17
  Speaker 1: old Pete? I asked Jim, what's the matter with him?
• 13:21
  Speaker 1: Jim says, my god man says he look at that
• 13:24
  Speaker 1: reptile big of the fence post, and sure enough there's
• 13:27
  Speaker 1: a great big rattler hold of the wagon tongue. He
• 13:30
  Speaker 1: nabbed it and he wouldn't let go. Jim noted exactly
• 13:34
  Speaker 1: what to do. He jumped down and pulled out the
• 13:37
  Speaker 1: coupling pen, letting the double tree go, and drove the
• 13:40
  Speaker 1: team out of the way. Grab the axe, he says, well,
• 13:44
  Speaker 1: I jumped out with the axe and begun work. I
• 13:46
  Speaker 1: sure hated to do it, but I noted it had
• 13:48
  Speaker 1: to be done. I had to chop off the wagon tongue,
• 13:52
  Speaker 1: and be damned quick about it too, to save the wagon.
• 13:55
  Speaker 1: Them tails of yours and Joel's just made me think
• 13:58
  Speaker 1: how lucky Jack piercin' me was to be killed one time,
• 14:01
  Speaker 1: said Red. The boss sends us out in the winter
• 14:04
  Speaker 1: time de fences section starve out. We puts up the
• 14:07
  Speaker 1: posts on three sides, and then we finds that the
• 14:10
  Speaker 1: boss hasn't figure right cause there ain't none for the
• 14:13
  Speaker 1: other side. We starts to the canyon, thinking we have
• 14:16
  Speaker 1: to cut some and snake him out. We gets to
• 14:18
  Speaker 1: the rim rock and there we sees what looks like
• 14:20
  Speaker 1: a lot of cedar logs. We remarks on our good
• 14:23
  Speaker 1: luck and wonders how the timber got there. But when
• 14:26
  Speaker 1: we drives up clothes, we finds a bunch of big
• 14:28
  Speaker 1: hiberneatn reptiles. There was ten thousand. I guess cuss the luck,
• 14:33
  Speaker 1: says Jack. I thought we'd found our posts. We have,
• 14:37
  Speaker 1: says I. Then why ain't we them? Critters are big
• 14:40
  Speaker 1: enough and stiff enough. We'll take em along. You're the doctor,
• 14:43
  Speaker 1: says Jack. Well, we gathers up the biggest an the straightest,
• 14:48
  Speaker 1: and loads him in. We find we don't have to
• 14:50
  Speaker 1: dig post holes. I'd stand one of the critters on
• 14:53
  Speaker 1: his tail and Jack would drive him in the ground
• 14:55
  Speaker 1: with a twelve pound sledge hammer. We stapled on the
• 14:58
  Speaker 1: wire and told the boss to come mount and expect
• 15:00
  Speaker 1: the job. Boys, he says, you do have a brain.
• 15:04
  Speaker 1: Leastways one between you. You saved at least a week's work.
• 15:08
  Speaker 1: I'll let you go to Kansas City when we ship again.
• 15:11
  Speaker 1: Was the fence permanent, asked Lanky. It was till spring,
• 15:14
  Speaker 1: said Red. You see, when spring come them reptiles just
• 15:18
  Speaker 1: naturally thought out an come too, and crawled off with
• 15:21
  Speaker 1: a whole mile o wire good six wire fence we
• 15:24
  Speaker 1: had made too, hog tight, horse high, and bull strong.
• 15:28
  Speaker 1: Is it true, asked Lanky, that rattlesnakes and kingsnakes are
• 15:32
  Speaker 1: natural enemies and fight each other. I don't know about that,
• 15:36
  Speaker 1: said Joe, but I'll tell you what I seen once.
• 15:39
  Speaker 1: Strange thing was too. I came upon a king snake
• 15:42
  Speaker 1: an a rattlesnake one time fightin for dear life. Each
• 15:45
  Speaker 1: one would grab the other and then stick his head
• 15:48
  Speaker 1: under his belly for protection. Finally, just at the same time,
• 15:52
  Speaker 1: they napped each other by the tail and begun Swallerin'.
• 15:55
  Speaker 1: There there was jes like a ring, and they swallered
• 15:58
  Speaker 1: an swallowed, and the ring got left lit littler. Just
• 16:01
  Speaker 1: then I heard a panther yell and I looked up
• 16:04
  Speaker 1: just a minute, just a fraction, and when I looked again.
• 16:07
  Speaker 2: Damn me.
• 16:07
  Speaker 1: If them snakes wasn't gone. I looked for him. I
• 16:10
  Speaker 1: reckon an hour, and it was right out on the
• 16:12
  Speaker 1: open prairie where there wasn't any holes or rocks, and
• 16:16
  Speaker 1: I never could find them critters. Now, most rattlers, said Red,
• 16:20
  Speaker 1: It's just like bad men. They just naturally mean or
• 16:23
  Speaker 1: buy you when you ain't look it. No matter how
• 16:25
  Speaker 1: kind yarded him. You'll find one once in a while. However,
• 16:29
  Speaker 1: there's a pretty decent sort of chap. I recollect one
• 16:32
  Speaker 1: in particular, which was a gentlemanly critter. You're the first
• 16:36
  Speaker 1: man I ever heard speak a good word for a rattlesnake,
• 16:39
  Speaker 1: said Lanky. I couldn't make no complaint about the conduct
• 16:43
  Speaker 1: and behavior this particular rattlesnake, said Red. He treated me
• 16:46
  Speaker 1: decent enough. What did he do? Asked Lanky Well, said Red.
• 16:52
  Speaker 1: I was fishing one time out on the Pekoa son
• 16:54
  Speaker 1: I run out of bait. What I wanted was a
• 16:57
  Speaker 1: frog that I looked and looked for nearly an hour
• 16:59
  Speaker 1: and couldn't find none. Finally I seen a rattlesnake trying
• 17:03
  Speaker 1: to swallow a big bullfrog. I think some my saif, well,
• 17:06
  Speaker 1: I'm gonna have that frog, even if I get snake bit.
• 17:09
  Speaker 1: You see, I had a bottle of snake medicine in
• 17:11
  Speaker 1: my pocket, Old Rocking Rye. It was. I put my
• 17:15
  Speaker 1: foot on that rattlesnake's tail and took a hold of
• 17:17
  Speaker 1: that frog's hiding legs and just naturally extracted him right
• 17:20
  Speaker 1: out of the reptile's mouth. Well, instead of getting ringy
• 17:24
  Speaker 1: and showing fight like most rattlers would, this here snake
• 17:28
  Speaker 1: just looks so sad and doubt in the mouth that
• 17:30
  Speaker 1: I couldn't help feeling sorry for the gritter here. Old
• 17:33
  Speaker 1: feller cheer up, says, I givin him a swig of
• 17:36
  Speaker 1: old Rocking Rye out of my bottle. He takes a
• 17:39
  Speaker 1: dram and crawls off, just as pert as a fresh
• 17:41
  Speaker 1: cutting hoss. I puts the frog on my hook and
• 17:44
  Speaker 1: sits down to fish. Just as I was about to
• 17:47
  Speaker 1: get a bite, I feel something tapping me on the leg.
• 17:50
  Speaker 1: I looks down, a damn me. If there ain't that
• 17:53
  Speaker 1: rattlesnake back with two frogs in his mouth, Hank stirred
• 17:56
  Speaker 1: up the coals and put on a askeet grub lanky.
• 18:00
  Speaker 1: Even Missus c by asking if rattlesnakes ever got in
• 18:02
  Speaker 1: people's beds occasionally, said Hank. Occasionally, though they ain't as
• 18:07
  Speaker 1: thick as they used to be. One time, I woke
• 18:09
  Speaker 1: up in the night, thinking it was about time for
• 18:11
  Speaker 1: me to stand guard. I felt something cold on my chest,
• 18:15
  Speaker 1: and I knowed what it was. I says to myself, now, Hank,
• 18:19
  Speaker 1: keep cool, keep cool. All the time I was easing
• 18:23
  Speaker 1: my hand back around to the top of my head
• 18:25
  Speaker 1: to get a hold of my six gun, I was
• 18:27
  Speaker 1: as careful as I could be, but I reckon. The
• 18:30
  Speaker 1: critter got on to what I was doing, for just
• 18:32
  Speaker 1: as I was about to touch the gun, he raised
• 18:34
  Speaker 1: up his head and opened his mouth to strike. Then
• 18:37
  Speaker 1: I let him have a bullet right in the mouth.
• 18:39
  Speaker 1: That was the quickest draw I ever made. I got
• 18:43
  Speaker 1: in a fix just like that one time, said Joe,
• 18:46
  Speaker 1: except fool like I didn't have my gun. Handy, what'd
• 18:49
  Speaker 1: you do, asked Linky. Well, said Joe, after thinking it
• 18:54
  Speaker 1: over and singing, there wasn't nothing I could do. I
• 18:56
  Speaker 1: just shut my eyes and went back to sleep. And
• 18:59
  Speaker 1: when I woke up in the mornin' the critter was gone,
• 19:01
  Speaker 1: just crawled off on his own free will and accord well,
• 19:05
  Speaker 1: said Red, that shows what a tenderfoot you was an
• 19:09
  Speaker 1: haink too. You just to put hair rope around your
• 19:12
  Speaker 1: bed before he went to sleep, then snakes wouldn't come in.
• 19:16
  Speaker 1: I'd read that a story, said Lanky, but I didn't
• 19:19
  Speaker 1: know if it were really true. True is the gospel?
• 19:22
  Speaker 1: Said Red? How's it work? Asked Lanky. Tickles their bellies,
• 19:26
  Speaker 1: replied Red, A rattlesnake just can't stand ticklin. One fall
• 19:31
  Speaker 1: when we was workin the cook one night, didn't make
• 19:33
  Speaker 1: camp till dark. Then we found out he had bitted
• 19:36
  Speaker 1: us in a regular dinner reptiles. We made our beds
• 19:40
  Speaker 1: right up, touching each other, and put hair ropes on
• 19:42
  Speaker 1: the ground all around the whole outfit. The next morning
• 19:45
  Speaker 1: we counted a hundred and twenty nine rattlesnakes around the beds.
• 19:49
  Speaker 1: They had just naturally tickled their fool cells to death
• 19:52
  Speaker 1: trying to crawl over the rope. The critters, however, ain't
• 19:56
  Speaker 1: so numerous as they used to be in Pekoa's bells times,
• 19:59
  Speaker 1: said Joe. That man almost put him out of business
• 20:02
  Speaker 1: in his day. How did he do that, asked Lankie.
• 20:06
  Speaker 1: Bill was a very smart and ingenious lad, said Joe.
• 20:10
  Speaker 1: He was the first man to capture a whifflepuffel. He
• 20:13
  Speaker 1: was the first man to train prairie dogs to dig
• 20:15
  Speaker 1: post holes, and he was the first man to do
• 20:17
  Speaker 1: a lot of things. Among other things, he invented a
• 20:20
  Speaker 1: way to slay rattlesnake's wholesale. When Bill wanted to capture
• 20:25
  Speaker 1: or exterminate any sort of reptile or bird or beast,
• 20:28
  Speaker 1: he would study the critter's habits and find out what
• 20:31
  Speaker 1: his weakness was. Then he would go off and study
• 20:34
  Speaker 1: and study, and pretty soon he would come back with
• 20:36
  Speaker 1: the way all figured out. Bill always used his head.
• 20:40
  Speaker 1: He put in two of the best years of his
• 20:42
  Speaker 1: life studying rattlesnake's. Not that Bill was afraid of em,
• 20:46
  Speaker 1: but one of the critters bid his horse one time.
• 20:48
  Speaker 1: Then he got mad. But he never let on. He
• 20:51
  Speaker 1: just went out and made friends with him and lived
• 20:53
  Speaker 1: with him and noticed their habits and their diet, and
• 20:56
  Speaker 1: where they liked to live at different times of the year.
• 20:58
  Speaker 1: And all that. Bill discovered that rattlesnakes had rather have
• 21:02
  Speaker 1: mothballs than to eat anything under the sun. A rattlesnake
• 21:06
  Speaker 1: will leave a young and tender rabbit any day for
• 21:08
  Speaker 1: a mothball. Bill found out likewise that a rattlesnake just
• 21:12
  Speaker 1: can't stand chili powder. Those two clues give'm an idea. First,
• 21:17
  Speaker 1: he took some chili powder and soaked it in nitroglycerin.
• 21:20
  Speaker 1: He rolled this into little pills and coated them with
• 21:23
  Speaker 1: the mothball. Then he took these balls and scattered em
• 21:26
  Speaker 1: around where the reptiles stay.
• 21:28
  Speaker 2: Well.
• 21:29
  Speaker 1: The critters would come out and find the moth balls
• 21:31
  Speaker 1: and swallow em right down, not thinkin' there might be
• 21:34
  Speaker 1: a ketch somewheres purty. Soon the outside coating would melt off,
• 21:38
  Speaker 1: and the chili powder would burn the critters on the inside.
• 21:41
  Speaker 1: This would make 'em mad, and they'd beat their tails
• 21:44
  Speaker 1: against the ground and rocks, which exploded the nitroglycerin and
• 21:47
  Speaker 1: blowed em into smithereens. We used to kill em that
• 21:50
  Speaker 1: way here on the ranch, but the boss made us
• 21:53
  Speaker 1: quit after one of the critters crawled under a steer
• 21:55
  Speaker 1: and blowed him into atoms. I think that would be
• 21:58
  Speaker 1: a rather dangerous method, said Lanky. But what is that
• 22:01
  Speaker 1: whiffle pufful you mentioned a few minutes ago. Oh you'll
• 22:05
  Speaker 1: learn when you get a little older, replied Joe. You'd
• 22:08
  Speaker 1: better hit the hay now, Lanky, you stand next guard.
• 22:12
  Speaker 1: Lanky bent down to untie his bed roll. Then he
• 22:15
  Speaker 1: jumped straight into the air. My god, I'm bitten, he yelled.
• 22:19
  Speaker 1: Bring the butcher knife and the coal oil, said Hank,
• 22:22
  Speaker 1: and heat a Brandon iron speck. We ought to cut
• 22:25
  Speaker 1: off his hand right now before the pieson's spread, said Red.
• 22:29
  Speaker 1: Where's the axe now, lad, don't let em buffalo you,
• 22:32
  Speaker 1: said Joe, you ain't bit at all. But there's blood
• 22:35
  Speaker 1: on my hand, said Lanky. See that's a sure sign
• 22:39
  Speaker 1: you ain't bit, said Joe. That's the snake's blood. See
• 22:42
  Speaker 1: that's the very snake red kilt. But he struck me,
• 22:46
  Speaker 1: said Lanky, Sure he did. Them devilish critters will strike
• 22:50
  Speaker 1: after they have their heads cut off reflex. That's what
• 22:53
  Speaker 1: they call it. Three trick. They played on you well well,
• 22:57
  Speaker 1: said Red. The gritter's head is gone still. I think
• 23:00
  Speaker 1: we'd better cut his hand off to make sure them
• 23:03
  Speaker 1: things is so pisnous. The bite might kill him anyway.
• 23:07
  Speaker 1: I seen a man bit just like that one time,
• 23:10
  Speaker 1: and he never was right in his head again, said Hank.
• 23:13
  Speaker 1: Which one of you was it, asked Lanky. And the
• 23:18
  Speaker 1: section one.
• 23:24
  Speaker 3: Section two of Tall Tales from Texas. This is a
• 23:28
  Speaker 3: LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain.
• 23:32
  Speaker 3: For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox dot org.
• 23:36
  Speaker 3: Read by Claire Tall Tales from Texas by Mody Coggan
• 23:40
  Speaker 3: Boatwright speed. On Linky's second night in the cow camp,
• 23:46
  Speaker 3: there were many allusions to his snake bite. Now, Linky,
• 23:49
  Speaker 3: watch out for rattlesnakes and don't get bit again, said Hank.
• 23:53
  Speaker 3: I hope you'll recover without an operation, said Red. But
• 23:55
  Speaker 3: I still think we ought to have cut your hand off,
• 23:58
  Speaker 3: no telling what might happen. Ought to be on the
• 24:00
  Speaker 3: safe side. Don't let him buffalo, Lanky, don't let em buffalo,
• 24:04
  Speaker 3: you said, Joe. You ain't such a greenhorn as lots
• 24:07
  Speaker 3: o chaps. I've seen why. When Red here first come
• 24:10
  Speaker 3: to this outfit, he was so ignorant. He didn't know
• 24:13
  Speaker 3: split beans from coffee. He thought you had to have
• 24:17
  Speaker 3: a gun to shoot craps. He thought a dogie was
• 24:20
  Speaker 3: something you built houses out of He thought Alasso was
• 24:22
  Speaker 3: a girl, and Romuta a kind of grass. When the
• 24:25
  Speaker 3: boss got ringy, Red said he was a wrangler. Why
• 24:29
  Speaker 3: he even thought a cowboy was a bull? He was
• 24:31
  Speaker 3: nearly as bad as old Barrego. Mason's sheepherder said, Hank
• 24:35
  Speaker 3: I reckon, Joe's told you about him, ain't he lanky?
• 24:38
  Speaker 1: No?
• 24:39
  Speaker 3: Well, a guy comes down from the East and tries
• 24:41
  Speaker 3: to get a job runnin cattle, He loud. He's jest
• 24:45
  Speaker 3: graduated from college Harvard or Gale or some of them
• 24:48
  Speaker 3: big schools up there. Said he'd been a big athlete
• 24:51
  Speaker 3: and played in all sorts of games, and runnin' bigfoot
• 24:53
  Speaker 3: races and the like load. He came to Texas to
• 24:56
  Speaker 3: be a big rancher, he said, though he'd be willin
• 24:59
  Speaker 3: to begin at the bottom and work his way up,
• 25:01
  Speaker 3: and for the time being he'd take a job as
• 25:03
  Speaker 3: a common cow hand. Well, he went to all the
• 25:05
  Speaker 3: outfits in the whole country, and he couldn't get anybody
• 25:08
  Speaker 3: to take him on. Why not ask Lanky? Well, it
• 25:11
  Speaker 3: was mostly on account of his lingo. He wouldn't talk
• 25:13
  Speaker 3: United States like other people. He wouldn't ask for a job.
• 25:16
  Speaker 3: He was wantin' a position or employment with a future
• 25:19
  Speaker 3: to it. And he wouldn't say wages, but always asked
• 25:22
  Speaker 3: about remuneration and emolument and the like. Some of the
• 25:26
  Speaker 3: bosses didn't know what the hell he was talkin' about.
• 25:28
  Speaker 3: Some of 'em said he must be a rustler, and
• 25:30
  Speaker 3: others said they wouldn't hire a damn foreigner until he
• 25:32
  Speaker 3: learned to talk United States, or at least Mexican. And
• 25:36
  Speaker 3: so the poor feller had to hire himself to a
• 25:38
  Speaker 3: damn sheep man. It nearly broke his heart. It makes
• 25:41
  Speaker 3: me sorry for the poor fool every time I think
• 25:43
  Speaker 3: of it. And when old man Mason took him down
• 25:46
  Speaker 3: to the sheep pens and turned out the boregas and
• 25:48
  Speaker 3: the poor greenhorn seen he was goin to have to walk,
• 25:52
  Speaker 3: he just naturally broke down and cried. He told old
• 25:55
  Speaker 3: man Mason that his sweetheart back east had just died,
• 25:58
  Speaker 3: and that he'd come out west to get over it.
• 26:00
  Speaker 3: Old Man Mason told him the first thing to do
• 26:02
  Speaker 3: was to take them sheep out to graze. He told
• 26:05
  Speaker 3: him to be sure to get 'em back by night,
• 26:07
  Speaker 3: and be damned sure to look after the lambs and
• 26:09
  Speaker 3: get every one of 'em back in the pen. If
• 26:12
  Speaker 3: he didn't, there'd be some tall hell raisin in the camp.
• 26:15
  Speaker 3: Old Man Mason went back to his shack and set
• 26:17
  Speaker 3: in the shade all day. Finally it was might nigh dark,
• 26:20
  Speaker 3: an the herder hadn't come in with the woolies. The
• 26:23
  Speaker 3: old man waited awhile longer, and still the herder didn't
• 26:25
  Speaker 3: show up. About nine o'clock, he started out to the pens,
• 26:28
  Speaker 3: about three hundred yards from the house, to see if
• 26:31
  Speaker 3: he could see anything of the critters. On the way,
• 26:33
  Speaker 3: he met his new sheep herder. Did you have any
• 26:36
  Speaker 3: trouble with the sheep, says he Not with the sheep,
• 26:38
  Speaker 3: says the herder, But he says the lambs occasioned me
• 26:41
  Speaker 3: considerable annoyance and perturbation. Well, old man Mason didn't know
• 26:46
  Speaker 3: what the hell he meant, and he didn't want to
• 26:47
  Speaker 3: ask for fear he'd appear ignorant, so went on to
• 26:50
  Speaker 3: the pens to see what was the matter with the lambs.
• 26:53
  Speaker 3: The moon was up and he could see over the
• 26:54
  Speaker 3: rock fence. The sheep was all huddled in the middle
• 26:57
  Speaker 3: of the pen, and the old man counted a hundred
• 26:59
  Speaker 3: and seventy five jackras runnin' around an button the fence,
• 27:01
  Speaker 3: doin' their damndest to gee out. I got up considerable
• 27:05
  Speaker 3: speed once myself, said Joe, once when I was a
• 27:08
  Speaker 3: good deal younger than I am now. But it wasn't
• 27:10
  Speaker 3: no rabbit that I was chasin'. It was a prairie fire.
• 27:13
  Speaker 3: You mean it was a prairie fire chasin you, don't,
• 27:15
  Speaker 3: you said lanky Na, said Joe. It was jist as
• 27:18
  Speaker 3: I was sayin, I was chasin' the prairie fire. It
• 27:21
  Speaker 3: wasn't the prairie fire chasin' me. It was back in
• 27:24
  Speaker 3: the early days. One time, when I was out huntin
• 27:26
  Speaker 3: cattle on the plains one day in August, I reckon
• 27:29
  Speaker 3: it was I follered off some cow tracks an got
• 27:31
  Speaker 3: lost from the outfit. I was out two days without
• 27:34
  Speaker 3: nothin to eat. Finally I come on a little hurt
• 27:37
  Speaker 3: a buffalo. I shoot a good fat cow and cuts
• 27:39
  Speaker 3: off a piece of tenderloin. Well, when I begins to
• 27:42
  Speaker 3: look around for somethin to cook it with, not a
• 27:44
  Speaker 3: thing can I find. There ain't a stick of timber,
• 27:47
  Speaker 3: not a twig, nor a dry buffalo chip nowhere around
• 27:49
  Speaker 3: there I was hungry enough to have that meat raw
• 27:52
  Speaker 3: an bloody, and I needed it too, for I was
• 27:55
  Speaker 3: so hungry that I was weak in the knees. But
• 27:57
  Speaker 3: somehow I never was much of a raw meat eater.
• 27:59
  Speaker 3: It ain't civilized. Well, as I was saying, I couldn't
• 28:02
  Speaker 3: find no regular fuel, so I calculated i'd try the
• 28:05
  Speaker 3: prairie grass, which was long and curly and dry. I
• 28:08
  Speaker 3: gathers up a big pile, puts the hunk of meat
• 28:10
  Speaker 3: on my ramrod and holds it over the grass and
• 28:12
  Speaker 3: lights a match. Just one flash and the fire's all gone,
• 28:15
  Speaker 3: except the wind comes up all at once and sets
• 28:17
  Speaker 3: the dang prairie on fire. Well, sir, I take out
• 28:20
  Speaker 3: after that prairie fire, holding my meat over the blaze.
• 28:23
  Speaker 3: It would burn along prety regular for a while, then
• 28:25
  Speaker 3: all of a sudden it would give a big jump
• 28:27
  Speaker 3: and tear out across the plains like hell after a
• 28:29
  Speaker 3: wild woman, and I'd have to do my dangis to
• 28:32
  Speaker 3: keep up with it while I chase that prairie fire.
• 28:34
  Speaker 3: About three hours, I reckon, but I finally got my
• 28:37
  Speaker 3: meat cooked. I ate it and it shore did taste
• 28:40
  Speaker 3: good too, and started back across the burnt country to
• 28:42
  Speaker 3: where i'd shot the buffalo. Damn me if I hadn't
• 28:45
  Speaker 3: run so far in three hours that it took me
• 28:47
  Speaker 3: two days to get back there. My hoss was waitin
• 28:50
  Speaker 3: for me, and I found the outfit the next day. Yeah,
• 28:53
  Speaker 3: that was pretty good run, and said Red, But you
• 28:55
  Speaker 3: nor the feller, Hank was a tellin' about either. Wasn't
• 28:57
  Speaker 3: as swift as one of them college chaps we had
• 29:00
  Speaker 3: on an outfit where I worked once. Not near so
• 29:02
  Speaker 3: swift been a good thing for him if he hadn't
• 29:05
  Speaker 3: been so fast, too swift for his own good?
• 29:07
  Speaker 1: How was that?
• 29:08
  Speaker 3: Asked Lanky. Here's the way it was, said Red. He
• 29:11
  Speaker 3: was a greenhorn, but he was a learnin fast. Would
• 29:14
  Speaker 3: have made a good cowhn poor Feller, he got to
• 29:16
  Speaker 3: be a pretty good shot with a Winchester and six
• 29:18
  Speaker 3: shooter both an. He was always practicin on rabbits and
• 29:22
  Speaker 3: coyotes and prairie dogs and things. Then he decided he'd
• 29:25
  Speaker 3: have a lot of critters mounted and send'em back to
• 29:27
  Speaker 3: his folks. Well, he gets everything he wants but a
• 29:30
  Speaker 3: prairie dog. But he jest can't get a hole to one.
• 29:32
  Speaker 3: Them critters? Are they hard to hit, ask Lanky, Oh,
• 29:36
  Speaker 3: he could hit him, all right. He got so, he
• 29:38
  Speaker 3: could plug him right in the eye. But they always
• 29:40
  Speaker 3: jumped in their holes and got away. They'll do it
• 29:42
  Speaker 3: every time, Lanky, They'll do it every time. By one day,
• 29:45
  Speaker 3: he took his forty five Winchester and shot one of
• 29:47
  Speaker 3: the critters cleanin too, but the front end grabbed the
• 29:49
  Speaker 3: hind end An run down the hole with it before
• 29:52
  Speaker 3: he could get there. Well, he asked the boss if
• 29:54
  Speaker 3: there was any way he could get one.
• 29:55
  Speaker 1: An.
• 29:55
  Speaker 3: The boss told him to take good aim and jest
• 29:57
  Speaker 3: as soon as he pulled the trigger to run just
• 29:59
  Speaker 3: as fast as he could. An, maybe he'd get there
• 30:01
  Speaker 3: in time to grab the critter before he got away. Well,
• 30:04
  Speaker 3: he goes out, An finds a prairie dog a sittin
• 30:06
  Speaker 3: on his hole, a barkin in the sun. He pulls
• 30:08
  Speaker 3: out a six shooter and takes good aim at the
• 30:10
  Speaker 3: critter's eye. An jest. As soon as he pulls the trigger,
• 30:13
  Speaker 3: he runs to beat hell. Jist like the boss told
• 30:15
  Speaker 3: him to. He got there in time, all right. An
• 30:17
  Speaker 3: bent down to grab the prairie dog, but jest as
• 30:20
  Speaker 3: he touched it, the bullet hit him in the back
• 30:21
  Speaker 3: of jist below the left shoulder blade. When we found
• 30:24
  Speaker 3: him that evenin' he was crippled so bad we had
• 30:26
  Speaker 3: to shoot him too bad too, for he had the
• 30:29
  Speaker 3: makin's of a first class cow hand. Yeah, said Joe.
• 30:32
  Speaker 3: Them guys you all been tellin about was mighty swift.
• 30:35
  Speaker 3: But you don't have to go back east to find speed. Well,
• 30:37
  Speaker 3: I've seen an old cowhand that growed up right here
• 30:40
  Speaker 3: in Texas that could a beat any of them Eastern fellers.
• 30:43
  Speaker 3: Tell you what I saw.
• 30:44
  Speaker 2: Once.
• 30:44
  Speaker 3: One day after the spring work was over, a bunch
• 30:46
  Speaker 3: of us decided to have a baseball game. Well, we
• 30:49
  Speaker 3: chose up, but we liked one man havin enough men
• 30:51
  Speaker 3: for two teams. What we gonna do, says I. I
• 30:54
  Speaker 3: guess we'll have to get along with two fielders on
• 30:57
  Speaker 3: our side. Pete Dawson spoke up and says, all you
• 31:00
  Speaker 3: men get in the field, and I'll pitch and kiitch
• 31:02
  Speaker 3: both A damn me if that's not what he done.
• 31:05
  Speaker 3: He got on the pitcher's box, which was a prairie
• 31:07
  Speaker 3: dog hole, and he'd throw a ball so it whistled
• 31:09
  Speaker 3: like a bullet, and then he'd run in a half
• 31:11
  Speaker 3: circle and git behind the batter and kitch it. Not
• 31:14
  Speaker 3: a batter ever touch the ball. It was jest three
• 31:16
  Speaker 3: up an three down with them, and there wasn't nothing
• 31:19
  Speaker 3: for the rest of us to do. When it was
• 31:21
  Speaker 3: Pete's back, he'd just knock a slow grounder out towards first,
• 31:24
  Speaker 3: an he'd make a home run before the first baseman
• 31:26
  Speaker 3: could get a hole of the ball. We beat him
• 31:29
  Speaker 3: ninety six to nothin'. One time Pete was with us
• 31:32
  Speaker 3: when we was moving a bunch of wild Mexico steers.
• 31:35
  Speaker 3: One night, the fool brute stampeded. We all just on
• 31:37
  Speaker 3: a hoss's try to turn 'em an get 'em to millin'.
• 31:40
  Speaker 3: We had all good hosses, especially Pete, who had a
• 31:43
  Speaker 3: fine hoss he'd won lots of money with, but we
• 31:46
  Speaker 3: couldn't get ahead of them steers. They was jes too
• 31:49
  Speaker 3: swift for us. Directly, Pete jumps off and takes his
• 31:52
  Speaker 3: slicker and six shooter with him. He circles around, and
• 31:55
  Speaker 3: in no time, after trumping about a half dozen jack
• 31:57
  Speaker 3: rabbits to death, he's in front of that herd. We
• 31:59
  Speaker 3: all expected to see him get killed, but he jest
• 32:02
  Speaker 3: trots along in front of the critters Waviin' a slicker
• 32:04
  Speaker 3: and Firin' a six shooter. After he'd run that way
• 32:07
  Speaker 3: about ten miles, the herd got to millin' and purty.
• 32:10
  Speaker 3: Soon they quieted down, an we never had no more
• 32:13
  Speaker 3: trouble with him. That jist naturally took all the pertness
• 32:15
  Speaker 3: and spirit out of them brutes. They was so ashamed
• 32:17
  Speaker 3: of themselves that from then on they was as gentle
• 32:20
  Speaker 3: as a bunch of milk cows. The only thing that
• 32:22
  Speaker 3: hurt Pete was that when it was over, his nose
• 32:25
  Speaker 3: was bleedin' like six bits got too hot. I s'pose,
• 32:28
  Speaker 3: said Lanky Nah, said Joe, that wasn't it. The bleedin'
• 32:32
  Speaker 3: was from the outside. He'd just runs so fast. The
• 32:34
  Speaker 3: wind jest naturally peeled all the hide off his nose,
• 32:37
  Speaker 3: and he had to keep it tied up for about
• 32:39
  Speaker 3: ten days till he growed some more skin. I bet
• 32:42
  Speaker 3: a hoss an saddle, said Red that he couldn't have
• 32:44
  Speaker 3: turned off Old Man Coffee's bowl like that. That brute
• 32:47
  Speaker 3: had speed. One time Old Man Coffee shipped out a
• 32:50
  Speaker 3: trainload of cattle from where he was ranchin' on the
• 32:52
  Speaker 3: Lappin' flat. An this here, Bold decides he wants to
• 32:55
  Speaker 3: go with him. They cut him back an the train
• 32:57
  Speaker 3: pulls out in the night. Well, sir. The next mornin'
• 33:00
  Speaker 3: them cowpunchers looks out the cabooswinder an, there's that bull
• 33:03
  Speaker 3: trotting along by the train. Bellerin an pawin up the
• 33:05
  Speaker 3: dust and hookin' up the telegraph poles as he passes.
• 33:09
  Speaker 3: Mm bye. He followed that train all the way to
• 33:11
  Speaker 3: Kansas City and had to be shipped back. The feller's
• 33:14
  Speaker 3: starting to sell him to the packers jist fer spite,
• 33:16
  Speaker 3: but they knowed Old Man Coffee never would get over
• 33:18
  Speaker 3: it if they did. Yeah, I heard of that, critter,
• 33:21
  Speaker 3: said Joe fact is. I rode a hundred miles just
• 33:23
  Speaker 3: to see him once, but I didn't get to. We
• 33:26
  Speaker 3: gets to Old Man Coffee's place about dinner time, and
• 33:28
  Speaker 3: we goes in and asks if he's home. Nah, he
• 33:31
  Speaker 3: ain't at home right now, says his wife. Get down
• 33:33
  Speaker 3: an look at your saddles, an, come in and eat.
• 33:35
  Speaker 3: Where's he this mornin', I asks? He laughed About nine o'clock.
• 33:39
  Speaker 3: She says he's goin over to Phoenix. Said he might
• 33:41
  Speaker 3: go by Roswell. I reckon, we won't get to see him.
• 33:44
  Speaker 3: I says, just n't saddle your hosses. She says, I
• 33:47
  Speaker 3: look for him back about an hour by sun. That is,
• 33:49
  Speaker 3: if he don't have no hard luck. Wonder if you
• 33:51
  Speaker 3: could tell us where his fast bull is. I says,
• 33:54
  Speaker 3: we come over to see him. Oh, she says, he'd
• 33:56
  Speaker 3: ridin' the bull. That's how I know he'll get back tonight.
• 33:59
  Speaker 3: I reckon that code of outrun a Malamo bird, said Hank.
• 34:03
  Speaker 3: No doubt he could, said Joe, no doubt he could.
• 34:06
  Speaker 3: What is a Malamo bird like, asked Lanky. But Joe
• 34:09
  Speaker 3: forestalled Hank by saying, Lanky, you didn't get enough sleep
• 34:12
  Speaker 3: last night, what with all this rattlesnake skier, I seen
• 34:15
  Speaker 3: you not. And while Hank was a telling about that
• 34:17
  Speaker 3: sheep herder of old man Mason's though, I couldn't blame
• 34:20
  Speaker 3: you much for that. Go to beds on and maybe
• 34:21
  Speaker 3: we'll see a Malamo bird tomorrow. End of section two.
• 34:31
  Speaker 4: Section three of Tall Tales from Texas. This is a
• 34:36
  Speaker 4: LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain.
• 34:40
  Speaker 4: For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox dot
• 34:44
  Speaker 4: Org read by Justin S. Barrett, Tall Tales from Texas
• 34:50
  Speaker 4: by Mody Coggan, Boatwright, Birds and Beasts. It was Lanky's
• 34:56
  Speaker 4: third night in cowcamp. The herd had embedded, and the
• 35:00
  Speaker 4: first night shift had gone on. Lanky, sore of muscle
• 35:03
  Speaker 4: but extremely contented, sat by the fire with Red Wallace,
• 35:07
  Speaker 4: Hank Williams, and Joe Martin, the men who on the
• 35:10
  Speaker 4: first night had imparted to him the esoteric lore of
• 35:13
  Speaker 4: the Rattlesnake, and who on the second night had entertained
• 35:17
  Speaker 4: him with yarns of marvelous speed. Lanky had proved a
• 35:20
  Speaker 4: good listener. He had done his best to appear credulous.
• 35:24
  Speaker 4: He had interrupted seldom, and when he had, he had
• 35:27
  Speaker 4: always followed his cue and had propounded only the questions
• 35:31
  Speaker 4: that the narrators wanted him to ask. It is not surprising, therefore,
• 35:35
  Speaker 4: that on this night the older men were loaded for him.
• 35:40
  Speaker 4: It was Red Wallace that discharged the first missile. We
• 35:44
  Speaker 4: as speakin' of millimo birds. Last night he observed, I
• 35:48
  Speaker 4: seen signed to day lots of sign That's funny, I'd
• 35:53
  Speaker 4: done that very same thing, said Hank. I seen I
• 35:57
  Speaker 4: reckon a hundred holes where they been feedin. Do you
• 36:01
  Speaker 4: suppose we're likely to see any of them, asked Lanky.
• 36:04
  Speaker 4: Not likely, said Joe, Not likely. They're mighty scarce these days,
• 36:09
  Speaker 4: mighty scarce and mighty shy. Mighty shy. I ain't seen
• 36:14
  Speaker 4: one in years. You might keep your eye appealed. Though
• 36:17
  Speaker 4: we might happen on one any time. We might. You
• 36:20
  Speaker 4: never can tell. Yeah, we might broke in, Hank. Still,
• 36:26
  Speaker 4: we're more likely to hear one than to see one.
• 36:29
  Speaker 4: They've got a way of no one when somebody's about,
• 36:32
  Speaker 4: though he's a mile off. Yeah, they're mighty hard to see,
• 36:36
  Speaker 4: especially these days, mighty hard to see. What sort of
• 36:40
  Speaker 4: bird is the millimo? Asked Lanky.
• 36:43
  Speaker 2: What is he like?
• 36:45
  Speaker 4: Oh, replied Hank. He's like a millimo. There ain't nothing
• 36:49
  Speaker 4: else just like him. Is he large or small? Asked Lanky.
• 36:55
  Speaker 4: He's rather large, said Hank, though not as big as
• 36:58
  Speaker 4: an ostrich, I reckon, though oh, somewhat bigger than a crane,
• 37:02
  Speaker 4: which he somewhat resembles. In general makeup and confirmation. In
• 37:07
  Speaker 4: the fall, when the rain comes and fills up the
• 37:10
  Speaker 4: lakes like they are now, the critters comes in or
• 37:14
  Speaker 4: used to and feeds around the edges of the water.
• 37:17
  Speaker 4: They've got long legs like stilts for wading in the water,
• 37:21
  Speaker 4: a long neck, and a long beak that they uses
• 37:24
  Speaker 4: to bore into the soft ground for the earthworms, which
• 37:27
  Speaker 4: is their principal food and diet. I ain't talking about
• 37:31
  Speaker 4: the little, puny earthworms like school boys used to fish with. Nah, Sir,
• 37:35
  Speaker 4: the milimoe bird would be ashamed of hisself if he
• 37:38
  Speaker 4: ate one of them kind. He digs down into the
• 37:41
  Speaker 4: ground and catches the big fellers. Show enough, he man
• 37:45
  Speaker 4: worms that looks like inner tubes. I've seen holes you
• 37:49
  Speaker 4: could hide a horse's leg in where them critters had
• 37:51
  Speaker 4: been excavating for grub. More than one good cow horses
• 37:55
  Speaker 4: had to be shot from stepping in holes of these birds.
• 37:58
  Speaker 4: Is made not to say nothing of the good cow
• 38:01
  Speaker 4: hands that has had their necks broke. But as I
• 38:05
  Speaker 4: was saying about the millimo bird, he just has a
• 38:08
  Speaker 4: way of knowing where the big worms lives. And when
• 38:11
  Speaker 4: he comes to a place where he knows one of
• 38:13
  Speaker 4: them big fellows is all curled up taking a nap
• 38:16
  Speaker 4: down under the ground. He sticks his bill into the
• 38:19
  Speaker 4: soil and begins to bore and bore walking around and around,
• 38:25
  Speaker 4: burt as soon his bill goes out of sight, then
• 38:27
  Speaker 4: his head, then his neck clean up to his shoulders.
• 38:31
  Speaker 4: That's the way you can slip up on one of them.
• 38:34
  Speaker 4: If you can catch him in just that stage, maybe
• 38:37
  Speaker 4: you can get sight of him. Well, he bores around
• 38:40
  Speaker 4: a while in the hole he has dug. Then all
• 38:43
  Speaker 4: at once he sets back like a horse when there's
• 38:46
  Speaker 4: a big steer on the other end of the rope,
• 38:48
  Speaker 4: and you know then he's got a hold of one
• 38:50
  Speaker 4: of them big worms. The more he pulls, the more
• 38:53
  Speaker 4: the worm stretches. If he lets up the least bed
• 38:57
  Speaker 4: the worm jerks his head and neck back in the whole.
• 39:01
  Speaker 4: I seen one once, a bobbing up and down like
• 39:03
  Speaker 4: that for two hours and fifteen minutes before he finally
• 39:07
  Speaker 4: got his worm. Well, he pulls and tseles and yanks
• 39:12
  Speaker 4: and jerks, and finding the worm just can't stand it
• 39:15
  Speaker 4: no longer and has to let go. He shoots out
• 39:19
  Speaker 4: just like a nigger shooter when you turn it loose,
• 39:22
  Speaker 4: and like as not, he hits the milimue in the eye.
• 39:25
  Speaker 4: But he's a good natured bird, and don't get ringy
• 39:28
  Speaker 4: about it. Just why he does it. I don't know.
• 39:31
  Speaker 4: Maybe he's so glad to get the worm out, or
• 39:33
  Speaker 4: maybe he sees the Joe's on him after all, Danny.
• 39:37
  Speaker 4: How when the worm comes out and hits him in
• 39:39
  Speaker 4: the eye, he just naturally gets tickled and rears back
• 39:42
  Speaker 4: on his hind legs and laughs through his beak. So
• 39:45
  Speaker 4: you can hear him a mile or more I see,
• 39:48
  Speaker 4: said Lanky. A strange bird, But mighty shy, replied Hank.
• 39:54
  Speaker 4: Mighty shy. Yeah, they're all shy critters all right, agreed Joe.
• 39:59
  Speaker 4: But they ain't near where as the whifful Pooful. Why then,
• 40:03
  Speaker 4: things is so bashful. They don't feel comfortable unless they're
• 40:06
  Speaker 4: hitting the bottom of a bottomless lake. Are they a fish,
• 40:10
  Speaker 4: asked Lanky. Not exactly a fish, explained Joe, A sort
• 40:15
  Speaker 4: of cross I reckon between an eel and a heela monster.
• 40:20
  Speaker 4: Are there any around here, asked Lanky. Well maybe, replied Joe.
• 40:26
  Speaker 4: Maybe a few. Still, I doubt it. You see, right
• 40:30
  Speaker 4: around here the lakes go dry sometimes in the dry season,
• 40:34
  Speaker 4: and the whiffle pooful wants water, and plenty of it
• 40:37
  Speaker 4: mucha agua. Still there may be a few out in
• 40:42
  Speaker 4: the Roswell country. They used to be numerous, also Innatoya
• 40:46
  Speaker 4: Creek and Leon water holes. I expect though they're getting
• 40:50
  Speaker 4: scarce out in them parts now half game is getting scarce.
• 40:54
  Speaker 2: Still.
• 40:55
  Speaker 4: Them critters is mighty hard to catch, and it's just
• 40:58
  Speaker 4: a few that knows how to do it. In fact,
• 41:02
  Speaker 4: do people fish for them, then, asked Lanky. Some does,
• 41:06
  Speaker 4: replied Joe. But it ain't no use to fish form
• 41:09
  Speaker 4: with a regular fishing outfit. I've seen them rich dudes
• 41:12
  Speaker 4: from the East come out with their fine tackle rods
• 41:15
  Speaker 4: and reels and pull that fool finery and fish and
• 41:19
  Speaker 4: fish form all day long and never get a nibble.
• 41:23
  Speaker 4: Still they can be caught. How does one catch them,
• 41:28
  Speaker 4: asked Lanky. So far as I know, it was Peko's
• 41:32
  Speaker 4: Bill that discovered the method. During pekos Bill's time, there
• 41:36
  Speaker 4: was a lot of people that didn't believe there was
• 41:38
  Speaker 4: any such animal as the whifflepoof ol living in the
• 41:41
  Speaker 4: bottom of the lakes. Bill said he knowed there was,
• 41:44
  Speaker 4: and he chow them. So he studied and studied, and
• 41:48
  Speaker 4: finally he found a way to capture the critters. First,
• 41:52
  Speaker 4: he gets together a rowboat, a long post holelogger in
• 41:56
  Speaker 4: a can of oil. Then he hunts up the funniest
• 41:59
  Speaker 4: storyteller he can fine and takes him along and sets out.
• 42:03
  Speaker 4: He rows out on the lake to where the water's deep.
• 42:06
  Speaker 4: Then he takes the posthole ogger and bores a hole
• 42:09
  Speaker 4: clean down to the bottom so as the Whifflepoofole can
• 42:13
  Speaker 4: come up to the top. Then he has the storyteller
• 42:16
  Speaker 4: tell the funniest stories he can think of, all about
• 42:20
  Speaker 4: Pat and Mike and an Englishman and a scotchman and
• 42:23
  Speaker 4: all that. Pretty soon the whifflepoofle gets interested and pricks
• 42:28
  Speaker 4: up his ears. Then Bill tells the storyteller to get funnier.
• 42:32
  Speaker 4: Then pretty soon the whifflepoofol is so amused that he
• 42:36
  Speaker 4: comes up through the hole and sticks out his head.
• 42:39
  Speaker 4: Bill tells the man to keep on getting funnier and
• 42:42
  Speaker 4: funnier till the whifflepoofle comes clean out on top of
• 42:45
  Speaker 4: the water. Then Bill begins to ply the oars very
• 42:49
  Speaker 4: gentle like. At first, the whifflepoofol is so interested and
• 42:53
  Speaker 4: amused that he just naturally can't help but follow the storyteller,
• 42:58
  Speaker 4: who all the time is getting fun and funnier. Bill
• 43:02
  Speaker 4: rolls faster and faster, all the time making straight for
• 43:05
  Speaker 4: the bank. Just before he gets there, when he's rowing
• 43:09
  Speaker 4: as fast as he can, he pours the oil out
• 43:12
  Speaker 4: on the water and cuts sharply to the left. By
• 43:16
  Speaker 4: that time, the whifflepoofle has got up so much speed
• 43:19
  Speaker 4: on the slick water that he can't stop, and he
• 43:22
  Speaker 4: just naturally slides right out on the bank. Then pikos
• 43:26
  Speaker 4: bill lands on him. If you ever get one of
• 43:28
  Speaker 4: the critters on the land, he's just as helpless as
• 43:31
  Speaker 4: a year old baby. But they're mighty bashful, mighty bashful
• 43:36
  Speaker 4: in that particular. They ain't as tall like the club
• 43:39
  Speaker 4: tailed glyptodont, said Red, which is a very ferocious and
• 43:44
  Speaker 4: vicious beast. I can tell you, Lanky, when you were
• 43:47
  Speaker 4: riding around in the canyons and meet one of them fellas,
• 43:50
  Speaker 4: you'd better not get into any disputes with him about
• 43:53
  Speaker 4: your highway rights. Just give him the whole road and
• 43:56
  Speaker 4: don't argue with him. And be careful you don't hang
• 43:58
  Speaker 4: around under the rim rock where them critters is around.
• 44:02
  Speaker 4: I take it they are animals, said Lanky, Yeah, I
• 44:06
  Speaker 4: I guess they belong to the Kingdom of beasts. Replied Red.
• 44:10
  Speaker 4: Some people call them wang doodles, but they ain't real
• 44:13
  Speaker 4: wang doodles, being much bigger and more ferocious. They're pretty
• 44:18
  Speaker 4: scarce now. But when we work the canyon tomorrow, I
• 44:21
  Speaker 4: can show you places where they have been. Yes, sir,
• 44:24
  Speaker 4: I can show you the very spot where one of
• 44:27
  Speaker 4: them fellas took off one of the very best friends
• 44:30
  Speaker 4: I ever had in this world, a sort of mountain lion,
• 44:33
  Speaker 4: I suppose, said lanky Son. One of them babies would
• 44:37
  Speaker 4: make a mountain lion look like a kitten. Besides, they
• 44:40
  Speaker 4: don't belong to the feline spacies, know how, being more
• 44:44
  Speaker 4: like a kangaroo and build and about sixteen hands high.
• 44:48
  Speaker 4: Went on all fours though most of the time they
• 44:50
  Speaker 4: hop around on their hind legs and tail and keep
• 44:53
  Speaker 4: their forepaws ready to biff anything that gets in their way.
• 44:57
  Speaker 4: And if one of them critters hits you, well, you're
• 44:59
  Speaker 4: luck if they find anything to bury. However, that ain't
• 45:04
  Speaker 4: their main method of combat. That ain't the way one
• 45:08
  Speaker 4: of them took off my dear friend Jack's snodgrass was
• 45:11
  Speaker 4: his name. The glyptodont has got a big flat tail
• 45:14
  Speaker 4: made out of stuff like cow's horn, except there ain't
• 45:18
  Speaker 4: no bone in it. This tail, being springy is a
• 45:21
  Speaker 4: great aid and help in more ways than one. He
• 45:25
  Speaker 4: can jump along with it and clear brush, and he
• 45:27
  Speaker 4: can land on it when he wants to jump off
• 45:29
  Speaker 4: of a cliff, and he don't feel no bad effects
• 45:32
  Speaker 4: from the jar. Well, I started to tell you how
• 45:36
  Speaker 4: one of them beasts took off my dear friend Jack Snodgrass.
• 45:40
  Speaker 4: Jack used to work on this outfit, and one fall
• 45:43
  Speaker 4: he was working the canyon just like will be tomorrow,
• 45:46
  Speaker 4: and Jack gets a glimpse of the glyptodont. Jack was
• 45:49
  Speaker 4: always a curious lad, so he teared around to see
• 45:53
  Speaker 4: what the critter was about. Jack was on the other
• 45:55
  Speaker 4: side of a cane in any way, and he allowed
• 45:57
  Speaker 4: he'd have plenty of time to make his stampede if
• 46:00
  Speaker 4: the critter showed any signs of combat. So Jack just
• 46:04
  Speaker 4: looks across to see what's going on. Directly, the glyptodont
• 46:08
  Speaker 4: gets wind of him and looks him right straight for
• 46:11
  Speaker 4: a minute or two, but Jack still ain't worried none.
• 46:14
  Speaker 4: Having the canyon between him and the ferocious beast, he
• 46:18
  Speaker 4: just stands there and watches him to see what he
• 46:20
  Speaker 4: is about. Pretty soon he notices that the glyptodont is
• 46:24
  Speaker 4: spading around on the ground with his tail. Presently, he
• 46:28
  Speaker 4: scoops up a big boulder, just like you'd lift it
• 46:32
  Speaker 4: with a shovel. He carries this on his tail, being
• 46:35
  Speaker 4: careful not to let it fall off, and backs up
• 46:38
  Speaker 4: and eases it off on the top of a bigger boulder.
• 46:41
  Speaker 4: Jack begins to try to figure out a way to
• 46:43
  Speaker 4: capture the brute he lives. If he ever could get
• 46:46
  Speaker 4: him broke, he'd be a mighty handy animal to have
• 46:49
  Speaker 4: around the place. About tanking time, well, the glyptodon walks
• 46:53
  Speaker 4: over to the other side of the rock he's set
• 46:55
  Speaker 4: up and squats on his hind legs. Then he draws
• 46:59
  Speaker 4: up his front leg and begins to whirl around and
• 47:02
  Speaker 4: around on his hind legs, just like a spool of
• 47:05
  Speaker 4: barbed wire on a crowbar when you're stringing fence. After
• 47:09
  Speaker 4: he spins around a while, he lets down his tail,
• 47:12
  Speaker 4: which hits the rock he's set up, which comes through
• 47:15
  Speaker 4: the air like a cannon ball. That was the last
• 47:18
  Speaker 4: thing poor Jack ever knowed. We buried him, poor Feller
• 47:23
  Speaker 4: next day. That is all of him we could find.
• 47:27
  Speaker 4: When we're over there tomorrow, I'll show you the place
• 47:29
  Speaker 4: where he got kilt, as well as a lot of
• 47:31
  Speaker 4: other places where them critters is catapulted the rocks up
• 47:35
  Speaker 4: and down the canyons, just to keep in practice and
• 47:38
  Speaker 4: for the fun of seeing them roll. Yeah, them club
• 47:41
  Speaker 4: tail glypti dons is ferocious animals. They're vicious brutes, agreed Joe.
• 47:47
  Speaker 4: But they ain't got much on the Gwinter. I never
• 47:51
  Speaker 4: heard of a Gwinter, said lanky Well, replied Joe. Did
• 47:56
  Speaker 4: you ever hear of a gota fro? No? Did you
• 47:59
  Speaker 4: ever hear of a side swiper?
• 48:01
  Speaker 1: No?
• 48:03
  Speaker 4: Did you ever hear of a mountain stem winder? No?
• 48:06
  Speaker 4: I never heard of them either. Well, they are really
• 48:09
  Speaker 4: all one and the same thing. But the real, true
• 48:12
  Speaker 4: and correct name was Gwinter. And what sort of a
• 48:15
  Speaker 4: beast is, he asked lanky Well. He's a grass eaten quadruped,
• 48:21
  Speaker 4: said Joe, something like a cross between a buffalo and
• 48:24
  Speaker 4: a mountain gup, only he's a lot more ferocious. The
• 48:27
  Speaker 4: peculiar thing about the Gwinter is is legs. Instead of
• 48:31
  Speaker 4: having four legs of equal length like a critter ought
• 48:33
  Speaker 4: to have, or two short legs in front and two
• 48:36
  Speaker 4: long ones behind at the glip to dawn. These brutes
• 48:40
  Speaker 4: have two long legs on the downhill side and two
• 48:44
  Speaker 4: short legs on the uphill side. This is mighty convenient
• 48:48
  Speaker 4: for him since they don't live on level ground.
• 48:50
  Speaker 2: Nohow.
• 48:51
  Speaker 4: Some of them has their right legs long and some
• 48:54
  Speaker 4: of them has their right legs short, depending on which
• 48:56
  Speaker 4: way they graze around the mountains. The Cheesesas and the
• 49:00
  Speaker 4: Davis in the Guadaloupe Mountains used to be full of
• 49:02
  Speaker 4: them up there. Them critters was thicker than the buffalo
• 49:06
  Speaker 4: or the antelope on the planes. But they're getting mighty
• 49:09
  Speaker 4: scarce now. Still, they took off many a cow han
• 49:13
  Speaker 4: in the early days. And sometimes you get a tenderfoot
• 49:16
  Speaker 4: gets in the way of one of them, and don't
• 49:18
  Speaker 4: come back home to the truck wagon at night. If
• 49:21
  Speaker 4: one of them critters ever starts toward you, lancke, don't
• 49:24
  Speaker 4: for anything. Let him know you're scared. If you try
• 49:28
  Speaker 4: to run, he'll get you shore. Just stand there and
• 49:31
  Speaker 4: look him right in the eye like he was glad
• 49:34
  Speaker 4: to see him. He'll be coming right toward you with
• 49:36
  Speaker 4: his head down like a bat shot out of a cannon. Still,
• 49:40
  Speaker 4: don't move, And if you're in the saddle hold your house.
• 49:44
  Speaker 4: Just let that winter alone till he gets in two
• 49:47
  Speaker 4: steps of you. Then take a couple of steps down
• 49:50
  Speaker 4: the hill. He can't run the other way, and you'll
• 49:53
  Speaker 4: be safe ten to one. He'll be so mad about it,
• 49:56
  Speaker 4: he'll try and follow you anyway, and when he gets
• 49:59
  Speaker 4: his short legs downhill, he's a goner. Just stand by
• 50:02
  Speaker 4: and watch him roll down the mountain and break his
• 50:04
  Speaker 4: fool neck. That's one reason why they're so scarce. The
• 50:08
  Speaker 4: cowboys learned that trick. Another reason is that they fought
• 50:12
  Speaker 4: among themselves too much. You see them that has their
• 50:16
  Speaker 4: long legs on the right used to meet them that
• 50:18
  Speaker 4: has their long legs on the left, as they grazed
• 50:21
  Speaker 4: around the mountains, And when the two of them met
• 50:24
  Speaker 4: like that, they always tangled up. Finally they fought till
• 50:27
  Speaker 4: the weaker side all got kilt. So now there's only
• 50:30
  Speaker 4: one kind on each mountain. On some mountains it's the
• 50:33
  Speaker 4: right leggers, and on some mountains it's the left leggers.
• 50:37
  Speaker 4: If somebody would capture one alive, said Lanky, he could
• 50:40
  Speaker 4: sell them into a circus for five thousand dollars. That's
• 50:44
  Speaker 4: been tried. Some that's been tried, replied Joe, however, your
• 50:49
  Speaker 4: figure's too small. Once, when I was punching cattle in
• 50:53
  Speaker 4: the cheeseas Barnum and Bailey A sent a filler all
• 50:55
  Speaker 4: the way down from New York City with fifty thousand
• 50:58
  Speaker 4: dollars to pay any man that would cage him a winter.
• 51:02
  Speaker 4: For a long time, he could get nobody to try it,
• 51:05
  Speaker 4: till finally he came to our outfit. I want to
• 51:08
  Speaker 4: endanger the lives of my men in any such manner
• 51:11
  Speaker 4: and fashion, says the boss. However, he says, turn into us.
• 51:17
  Speaker 4: If any of you men want to try it on
• 51:19
  Speaker 4: your own hook, you can. There ain't much work to
• 51:22
  Speaker 4: do right now, and I'll let you off for a
• 51:24
  Speaker 4: few days. Well, we gets our best mounts and robes
• 51:27
  Speaker 4: and looks after our cinches and sets out. We scouts
• 51:31
  Speaker 4: around a while and showing off. We here's one snort
• 51:35
  Speaker 4: right near the foot of Eggshell Mountain. Well, let's out
• 51:39
  Speaker 4: our wildest yells and fires off our six shooters, and somehow,
• 51:43
  Speaker 4: by luck, I guess, we get secret of buffaloed. And
• 51:47
  Speaker 4: he goes tearing around the mountain, and us after him.
• 51:50
  Speaker 4: Each tamy goes around the mountain, he gets a little higher.
• 51:53
  Speaker 4: We sees our Hosses is going to give out if
• 51:55
  Speaker 4: we don't figure out some way to spell him. We
• 51:58
  Speaker 4: allows that since he got the critter on the run,
• 52:01
  Speaker 4: two of us will be enough to go around the
• 52:03
  Speaker 4: mountain and the others stay put. Then on the next round,
• 52:06
  Speaker 4: two more goes, and so on and so forth. Each
• 52:10
  Speaker 4: time we gets a bit nearer to the top. Finally
• 52:13
  Speaker 4: we all joins in in order to be there when
• 52:15
  Speaker 4: he gets to the top and can't go no further.
• 52:18
  Speaker 4: And pretty soon there he is at the top. How
• 52:21
  Speaker 4: did he escape, asked Lanky. Why the breude just turned
• 52:26
  Speaker 4: right through hisself, just clean wrong side out like a sock,
• 52:30
  Speaker 4: and run the other way. And that was the last
• 52:33
  Speaker 4: you saw of him. Oh, we used to see him occasionally,
• 52:37
  Speaker 4: as we know by his long legs being on the
• 52:39
  Speaker 4: other side. But when winter came he caught cold and died.
• 52:44
  Speaker 4: And that's what you'll do, Lanky. If you sit there
• 52:46
  Speaker 4: by the coals and shiver, you'd better get a little
• 52:48
  Speaker 4: shut out before you stand guard. End of section three.
• 53:00
  Speaker 5: Section four of Tall Tails from Texas. This is a
• 53:04
  Speaker 5: LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain
• 53:09
  Speaker 5: for more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox dot org.
• 53:14
  Speaker 5: Read by Jesse B. Tall Tails from Texas by Mody Coggin, Boatwright,
• 53:20
  Speaker 5: Wind and weather. The day had been blustery enough, and
• 53:26
  Speaker 5: Lanky's eyes were red from the sands having cut into
• 53:29
  Speaker 5: his eyeballs. There was still dust in the air, but
• 53:32
  Speaker 5: at twilight the wind had subsided, and Lanky was experiencing
• 53:35
  Speaker 5: that feeling of intense relief that comes when the sandstorm
• 53:38
  Speaker 5: is over. During the day, there had been little talk.
• 53:43
  Speaker 5: Lanky had most of the time ridden within normal hailing
• 53:46
  Speaker 5: distance of Red Wallace. The conversation would have been difficult,
• 53:49
  Speaker 5: and neither he nor Red had been in the mood
• 53:51
  Speaker 5: for it. At noon, each man swallowed his beans and
• 53:55
  Speaker 5: bacon as rapidly as he could. Even then he consumed
• 53:59
  Speaker 5: a considerable quantity of sand. The old timers were sitting
• 54:04
  Speaker 5: expectantly around the fire. Their experience with tender feet told
• 54:08
  Speaker 5: them that Lanky would open the conversation and that the
• 54:11
  Speaker 5: topic would be the wind. Terrible day we had, he observed,
• 54:16
  Speaker 5: how much sandstorm weather are we likely to have? Son replied, Red,
• 54:22
  Speaker 5: what you've seen today is the gentle zephyrs of spring.
• 54:25
  Speaker 5: You ain't seen a real sandstorm, then, replied Lanky. I'd
• 54:30
  Speaker 5: like to know how I'm to know one when I
• 54:32
  Speaker 5: meet it. Well, i'll tell you, Lanky, said Red. I'll
• 54:36
  Speaker 5: tell you exactly how you can know. Do you recollect
• 54:40
  Speaker 5: seeing a long chain hangin suspended from the big hackberry
• 54:44
  Speaker 5: tree in front of the bunk house that immense chain,
• 54:48
  Speaker 5: asked Lanky. Yeah, said Red, that's a log chain. And
• 54:53
  Speaker 5: you wonder what it was up there for no doubt. Well,
• 54:56
  Speaker 5: it's to tell when there's a sandstorm. As long as
• 54:59
  Speaker 5: it's ha and straight down, we know there ain't no
• 55:02
  Speaker 5: wind to speak of. When it hangs out at an
• 55:05
  Speaker 5: angle of forty five degrees, we speak of a slight breeze.
• 55:09
  Speaker 5: It's only when she's sticking straight out parallel to the
• 55:12
  Speaker 5: ground that it's correct and proper to speak of a windstorm.
• 55:17
  Speaker 5: I think winds like that would blow all the houses
• 55:19
  Speaker 5: and windmills over, observed Lanky. It ain't only the houses
• 55:23
  Speaker 5: and windmills, said Hank, it's real estate. Why there was
• 55:27
  Speaker 5: a feller coming here one time and filed on a
• 55:30
  Speaker 5: section of land in Colonel Slaughter's pasture, and a big
• 55:33
  Speaker 5: sandstorm come along and he never did find that section.
• 55:37
  Speaker 5: He advertised in all the papers for it, offering a
• 55:40
  Speaker 5: reward for its return, and he got lots of answers
• 55:43
  Speaker 5: from people down in the brush country that had stray
• 55:45
  Speaker 5: sections on their hands that they wanted to get rid of.
• 55:49
  Speaker 5: But he looked him over and said none of em
• 55:51
  Speaker 5: had his brand on him, and so he had to
• 55:53
  Speaker 5: go back east. Yeah, the wind does some mighty funny things,
• 55:57
  Speaker 5: said Joe. I come dang near losing the best saddle
• 56:01
  Speaker 5: hoss I ever had on account of a sandstorm. I
• 56:04
  Speaker 5: guess he got against the drift fence where the tumbleweeds
• 56:07
  Speaker 5: and sand collected and buried the gritter alive, said Hank. Nah,
• 56:11
  Speaker 5: that wasn't it, replied Joe. Though I've dug many a
• 56:15
  Speaker 5: cow brewd out of the sand drifts, it wasn't that.
• 56:18
  Speaker 5: In them days, I was working cattle out on the
• 56:21
  Speaker 5: Monahan's country. One evening, the boss tells me to swing
• 56:25
  Speaker 5: up a little drawl, sayin' the wagon would be at
• 56:28
  Speaker 5: the head well. I got out of the draw. Jest
• 56:30
  Speaker 5: as dark, and I looked around, but I couldn't see
• 56:33
  Speaker 5: no camp fire anywheres in sight. I rode around awhile
• 56:37
  Speaker 5: but still not seein no signs of the wagon, and
• 56:40
  Speaker 5: beIN tired, I desired to turn in. I was scared
• 56:44
  Speaker 5: to turn my horse loose. Brown Jug was his name,
• 56:47
  Speaker 5: for fear he'd strike off to the remuter and leave
• 56:49
  Speaker 5: me there afoot. So I stakes him to a little
• 56:52
  Speaker 5: cottonwood bush on top of a mound. I knowed better
• 56:56
  Speaker 5: than to hobble the gritter, for he was wise to
• 56:58
  Speaker 5: walking off with the hobbles on well. When I got
• 57:01
  Speaker 5: him staked out, I took off the saddle, which I
• 57:03
  Speaker 5: used for a pillow, and the blanket which I used
• 57:05
  Speaker 5: for a bed, and went to sleep. In the morning.
• 57:10
  Speaker 5: When I woke up and looked around, the scenery wasn't
• 57:13
  Speaker 5: exactly familiar. There was a big cottonwood tree which I
• 57:16
  Speaker 5: couldn't remember seeing the night before, and I wondered how
• 57:19
  Speaker 5: I come to miss it? And it looks some more
• 57:22
  Speaker 5: and there wasn't any brown Jug in sight anywheres. I
• 57:26
  Speaker 5: thinks to myself, the critter never played a dirty trick
• 57:29
  Speaker 5: like that on me before, and allows he must be
• 57:31
  Speaker 5: round here somewheres. Surely, I says to myself. I ought
• 57:36
  Speaker 5: to be able to find the bush. I tied him to,
• 57:39
  Speaker 5: so I whistles three times, and then I hears a
• 57:42
  Speaker 5: weak nicker way up in the top of the tree.
• 57:45
  Speaker 5: And I looks up an damn me, if there wasn't
• 57:47
  Speaker 5: that poor critter with his tongue hanging out dang not
• 57:50
  Speaker 5: choked to death. Then I seen what had happened. I
• 57:54
  Speaker 5: tied the hoss on top of a sand dune. The
• 57:57
  Speaker 5: wind had come up and the sand had blowed away.
• 58:00
  Speaker 5: Wait what I calculated on beIN a bush was in
• 58:03
  Speaker 5: fact a great big tree, so dang big, in fact,
• 58:06
  Speaker 5: that the thirty foot lariat wouldn't let poured brown jug
• 58:09
  Speaker 5: more than halfway to the ground. If I hadn't woke
• 58:12
  Speaker 5: up just when I did, the poor brute would have
• 58:15
  Speaker 5: choked to death's shore. How'd you get him down, asked Linky.
• 58:20
  Speaker 5: Oh that was easy, said Joe. In them days, I
• 58:22
  Speaker 5: always had my old sits gun by me, and I
• 58:25
  Speaker 5: just whipped her out and put a bullet through the
• 58:27
  Speaker 5: rope and let brown jug down. The fall didn't seem
• 58:30
  Speaker 5: to hurt him none, and after he blowed a little
• 58:32
  Speaker 5: while he was as pert as Ever, However, the wind
• 58:35
  Speaker 5: got up again in the middle of the mornin' and
• 58:38
  Speaker 5: the only way I could keep the hoss on the
• 58:40
  Speaker 5: ground was to tie big rocks to the horn of
• 58:42
  Speaker 5: the saddle. That shows you've got more sense than a
• 58:46
  Speaker 5: prairie dog, said Hank, which surprises me many a time.
• 58:50
  Speaker 5: On the South Plains during the sandstorm, I've seen them
• 58:52
  Speaker 5: critters ten feet in the air, digging with all their might,
• 58:56
  Speaker 5: trying to get back to their holes. I'll tell you
• 58:59
  Speaker 5: what I've said, said Red. And it was the funniest
• 59:02
  Speaker 5: sight I ever saw. Caused by a sandstorm. One day
• 59:06
  Speaker 5: in the spring, the boss sent me out to pies
• 59:08
  Speaker 5: and prairie dogs. He was one man I didn't work
• 59:11
  Speaker 5: for long. He just couldn't stand to see a man
• 59:13
  Speaker 5: not doing something. So when the wind would get bad
• 59:16
  Speaker 5: and he didn't want to go out hisself, he would
• 59:19
  Speaker 5: send us out to ride fence and pies and dogs
• 59:21
  Speaker 5: in the light. Well, this time I rode over to
• 59:25
  Speaker 5: where I knowed there was a big town, and I
• 59:27
  Speaker 5: rode up, and what do you suppose I saw? The
• 59:31
  Speaker 5: sand was all blowed away and there was them holes
• 59:33
  Speaker 5: sticking forty feet in the air. I never know before
• 59:37
  Speaker 5: that time how crooked them critters made their residences. The
• 59:42
  Speaker 5: wind's pretty hard on the road and sometimes said, hank,
• 59:45
  Speaker 5: I know a wind. However, that helped out a poor
• 59:47
  Speaker 5: human down on self withdrawal that was about to starve.
• 59:51
  Speaker 5: This feller had come in to farm and he raised
• 59:54
  Speaker 5: a crip full of corn, but the ranchers wouldn't buy
• 59:57
  Speaker 5: it because it wasn't shelled and wouldn't go in a
• 1:00:01
  Speaker 5: So the poor farmer was about to starve in his
• 1:00:03
  Speaker 5: old lady and kids to boot. This feller was just
• 1:00:07
  Speaker 5: fresh from the sticks and didn't have much confidence in
• 1:00:10
  Speaker 5: anybody anyway, and he lowed the ranchers was waiting for
• 1:00:13
  Speaker 5: a chance to steal his corn, so he nailed up
• 1:00:16
  Speaker 5: the crib door good and tight. He noticed a knot
• 1:00:19
  Speaker 5: hole in one of the walls, but he saw it
• 1:00:20
  Speaker 5: was too little for an ear of corn to go through,
• 1:00:23
  Speaker 5: so he just let that go. One day a wind
• 1:00:26
  Speaker 5: come up, and the farmer and his folks hid in
• 1:00:29
  Speaker 5: the dugout like prairie dogs. And the next day the
• 1:00:32
  Speaker 5: wind laid and they crawled out and looked around, and
• 1:00:35
  Speaker 5: there was corn cobs scattered all alongside the crib. The
• 1:00:40
  Speaker 5: old man thought, sure somebody had stole his corn, But
• 1:00:44
  Speaker 5: when he got the crib door open, he saw it there,
• 1:00:47
  Speaker 5: all shelled as purty as if he'd done hisself. He
• 1:00:51
  Speaker 5: was a sort of ignorant and superstitious man, And the
• 1:00:54
  Speaker 5: next day, when I happened by, he says to me
• 1:00:56
  Speaker 5: that the fairies had come and shelled his corn. Well,
• 1:01:00
  Speaker 5: I never did take no stock in fairies and the like,
• 1:01:03
  Speaker 5: and I know there must be a reasonable and insane
• 1:01:05
  Speaker 5: explanation somewheres. So I picked up one of the corn
• 1:01:09
  Speaker 5: cobs and stuck it in the knothole. It was just
• 1:01:12
  Speaker 5: a good type fit. Then I told the man what
• 1:01:16
  Speaker 5: must have happened. The wind got up and would have
• 1:01:18
  Speaker 5: blowed all his corn out of the crib, But the
• 1:01:21
  Speaker 5: knothole wasn't big enough for an ear to go through.
• 1:01:24
  Speaker 5: Hence each ear got shelled, and all the corn was
• 1:01:27
  Speaker 5: left in the crib. It was just as simple as that,
• 1:01:31
  Speaker 5: perfectly natural. If them old fellers we read about that
• 1:01:34
  Speaker 5: believed in fairies and witches and all that crap had
• 1:01:36
  Speaker 5: just used their heads, they'd found out that everything's natural
• 1:01:40
  Speaker 5: and simple enough. They put me in mind of Mexicans.
• 1:01:44
  Speaker 5: Be as I was about to say, the old man
• 1:01:46
  Speaker 5: sold his corn and got on pretty well. There was
• 1:01:50
  Speaker 5: a farmer close to us one time, said Joe, that
• 1:01:53
  Speaker 5: lost his milk cows in a curious manner. He had
• 1:01:56
  Speaker 5: a little patch of popcorn, and one hot day the
• 1:01:59
  Speaker 5: cows broke to the patch and started eating it up.
• 1:02:02
  Speaker 5: All of a sudden, that corn begun popping and flying
• 1:02:05
  Speaker 5: every which way. Did the shooting grains kill the cows,
• 1:02:09
  Speaker 5: asked Lanky, Nah, said Joe.
• 1:02:12
  Speaker 4: When the full critter.
• 1:02:13
  Speaker 5: Saw that popcorn flying through the air, they thought it
• 1:02:16
  Speaker 5: was snow and just naturally froze to death. Do you
• 1:02:21
  Speaker 5: ever have tornadoes out here? Said Lanky, You mean cyclones,
• 1:02:25
  Speaker 5: asked Joe. Well, yes, sometimes A queer thing happened to
• 1:02:30
  Speaker 5: me one time up here, just below the cap rock.
• 1:02:33
  Speaker 5: We was goin up the trail, and one evening it
• 1:02:35
  Speaker 5: was hot as blazes and sultry, and still the cattle
• 1:02:40
  Speaker 5: was getting nervous, and we was all expecting hell to
• 1:02:43
  Speaker 5: break loose any time. And sure enough it did. A
• 1:02:47
  Speaker 5: cloud come up in the northwest, and it thundered and lightened,
• 1:02:50
  Speaker 5: and then the storm struck us. Them steers just naturally
• 1:02:54
  Speaker 5: hasted their tails and left the country. I was on
• 1:02:57
  Speaker 5: a good house, but it was all I could do
• 1:02:59
  Speaker 5: to stay insighted them cattle. My pony was giving me
• 1:03:03
  Speaker 5: all he had, and he wasn't gaining on them steers none.
• 1:03:06
  Speaker 5: Neither was the other boys getting close to him directly.
• 1:03:10
  Speaker 5: I looked back over my shoulder like and there was
• 1:03:12
  Speaker 5: them clouds violin and whirling around in the sky. Then
• 1:03:16
  Speaker 5: all at once a funnel drops down and takes out
• 1:03:19
  Speaker 5: after me. I started quirting my horse. I feel right
• 1:03:22
  Speaker 5: mean about it, yet when I think about it, for
• 1:03:25
  Speaker 5: he was doing his best to catch that herd, and
• 1:03:27
  Speaker 5: he couldn't do no more.
• 1:03:29
  Speaker 4: Well.
• 1:03:30
  Speaker 5: The next thing I knowed, I was up in the air,
• 1:03:32
  Speaker 5: still in the saddle, with my horse under me, whirling
• 1:03:35
  Speaker 5: round and round like a top. That cyclone carried me
• 1:03:39
  Speaker 5: around in the air like that for half an hour
• 1:03:42
  Speaker 5: or more, ME scared all the time that it was
• 1:03:45
  Speaker 5: going to drop me, but it didn't. After a while,
• 1:03:49
  Speaker 5: it sets me down, just as gentle as a mother
• 1:03:52
  Speaker 5: with her baby. I looks up and there's the herd
• 1:03:56
  Speaker 5: coming hell bent for election, right towards me. I get
• 1:04:00
  Speaker 5: it's off my slicker and fires off my six shooter
• 1:04:02
  Speaker 5: and turns them steers and gets em to millin'. Pretty
• 1:04:05
  Speaker 5: soon the other boys rides up and we gets em
• 1:04:07
  Speaker 5: quieted down, and the whole outfit has to set up
• 1:04:10
  Speaker 5: and sing to 'em all night. The next day we
• 1:04:15
  Speaker 5: counted em out, and we hadn't lost a single head,
• 1:04:18
  Speaker 5: not a single cowbrew was missin'. If it hadn't been
• 1:04:21
  Speaker 5: for that cyclone, we'd been gathering cattle for a week,
• 1:04:25
  Speaker 5: and then likely we wouldn't have found 'em all. That's
• 1:04:28
  Speaker 5: the way it is, said Red. Some winds is good
• 1:04:31
  Speaker 5: and some winds is bad. But I'd rather have sand
• 1:04:34
  Speaker 5: storms and risk a cyclone once in a while than
• 1:04:38
  Speaker 5: have a mud in the rainy season like they have
• 1:04:40
  Speaker 5: on the black Land Divide. We found lots of mud
• 1:04:44
  Speaker 5: when we drove through last fall, said Lenky, you jest
• 1:04:48
  Speaker 5: thought you found mud, replied Red, you ought to have
• 1:04:51
  Speaker 5: seen them flats before they'd begun makin' roads. When I
• 1:04:55
  Speaker 5: first hit that country, they was jest vincin' off the lanes.
• 1:04:59
  Speaker 5: And when I got a job, the boss put me
• 1:05:02
  Speaker 5: to riding fence. One day, I was riding along by
• 1:05:06
  Speaker 5: the lane and I looked over and there was a
• 1:05:09
  Speaker 5: good brand new Stetson hat lying on the top of
• 1:05:12
  Speaker 5: a mud hole. I thinks to myself, that's a good hat,
• 1:05:16
  Speaker 5: and I might as well have it as the next feller.
• 1:05:19
  Speaker 5: So I got down and got a hold of a
• 1:05:21
  Speaker 5: fence post to study myself, and reached out to get it.
• 1:05:24
  Speaker 5: Just as I touched the crown, the feller yelled out, Hey,
• 1:05:27
  Speaker 5: what you doing there? He says. Then I noticed for
• 1:05:30
  Speaker 5: the first time that there was a man's head sticking
• 1:05:32
  Speaker 5: out of the mud. I asked the feller if he
• 1:05:35
  Speaker 5: needed my help, but he said he was riding a
• 1:05:37
  Speaker 5: mighty good horse, and he guessed he'd make it through
• 1:05:40
  Speaker 5: all right. He afterwards got to be a mighty good
• 1:05:43
  Speaker 5: friend of mine. Pete Jackson was his name. Well, Sir,
• 1:05:48
  Speaker 5: said Joe, speaking of mud. That puts me in mind
• 1:05:51
  Speaker 5: of one experience I had going up the trail in
• 1:05:53
  Speaker 5: eighty three. We was kind of late in getting through,
• 1:05:56
  Speaker 5: and the rainy weather had already set in before we
• 1:05:59
  Speaker 5: crossed the black Land Divide. We hadn't hardly got across
• 1:06:03
  Speaker 5: when we begun to notice that our horses was losing
• 1:06:06
  Speaker 5: all their purtiness. The boss's pet cow, Hoss, got as
• 1:06:10
  Speaker 5: lazy as a jackass. My own favorite hoss, brown Jug,
• 1:06:14
  Speaker 5: just got sleepier and sleepier till finally he just laid
• 1:06:18
  Speaker 5: down and went to sleep and never did wake up.
• 1:06:21
  Speaker 5: We lost half of our remutera just like that. The
• 1:06:25
  Speaker 5: boss was terribly worried because he didn't like the idea
• 1:06:28
  Speaker 5: of training on foot, and because he didn't know whether
• 1:06:31
  Speaker 5: his hands would stay with him or not if he
• 1:06:33
  Speaker 5: didn't have nothing for him to ride. Well, I figured
• 1:06:36
  Speaker 5: there must be a cause of hossickness, just as there
• 1:06:39
  Speaker 5: is for everything else. So I begins to take note.
• 1:06:44
  Speaker 5: I notices that all the sick horses has mudballs on
• 1:06:47
  Speaker 5: their tails. Then I guess is what must be the matter.
• 1:06:50
  Speaker 5: The weight of the mud on the critter's tails was
• 1:06:53
  Speaker 5: making such a pull on the brute's hides that they
• 1:06:56
  Speaker 5: just couldn't shut their eyes. And I figured that being
• 1:06:59
  Speaker 5: unable to show at their eyes, they was just naturally
• 1:07:01
  Speaker 5: dying for sleep. I tells the boss, and we cuts
• 1:07:05
  Speaker 5: off the balls of mud. As soon as we cut
• 1:07:07
  Speaker 5: one off, the critter would fall into a deep sleep,
• 1:07:10
  Speaker 5: just like Adam in the Bible. Some of the worst
• 1:07:13
  Speaker 5: ones slept steady for four days and nights and then
• 1:07:15
  Speaker 5: woke up fresh and purt. As ever still said red.
• 1:07:21
  Speaker 5: It ain't the mud, and it ain't the wind that
• 1:07:23
  Speaker 5: makes Texas weather bad. It's the sudden and quick changes.
• 1:07:27
  Speaker 5: That's right, said Hank. That's right, as our new boss
• 1:07:30
  Speaker 5: found out once he lowed he was going to keep
• 1:07:33
  Speaker 5: a record of the weather. So he comes home with
• 1:07:36
  Speaker 5: a brand new thermometer and hangs it up on the
• 1:07:38
  Speaker 5: front porch and calls us boys to look at it well, sir.
• 1:07:42
  Speaker 5: While we were standing there, the mercury runs up to
• 1:07:44
  Speaker 5: about ninety or one hundred to get a good start.
• 1:07:48
  Speaker 5: Then all of a sudden, down she goes with such
• 1:07:50
  Speaker 5: a jar that she just naturally knocks the bottom right
• 1:07:53
  Speaker 5: out of the tube and ruins the boss's new thingumabob
• 1:07:56
  Speaker 5: good instrument. It was too, not just a mercantile adverse,
• 1:08:00
  Speaker 5: but a good one that he had bought and paid
• 1:08:02
  Speaker 5: money for. But that didn't FaZe that man none. He
• 1:08:06
  Speaker 5: sent off back east somewheres and had one made to
• 1:08:08
  Speaker 5: order with a rubber cushion in the bottom of the
• 1:08:10
  Speaker 5: tube to take up the jar when the mercury fell.
• 1:08:13
  Speaker 5: He got a patent on that idea and got rich.
• 1:08:16
  Speaker 5: His thermometers are in use all over the Southwest. They're
• 1:08:20
  Speaker 5: the only kind that'll stand the climate. This fellow was
• 1:08:24
  Speaker 5: just crazy about his new thermometer. He was always looking
• 1:08:27
  Speaker 5: and see how cold it was or how hot it was.
• 1:08:30
  Speaker 5: Once a norther came up in the night and he
• 1:08:32
  Speaker 5: just had to get up and go look at his instrument.
• 1:08:35
  Speaker 5: He struck a match so he could see, and the
• 1:08:37
  Speaker 5: match just froze, and he had to build a fire
• 1:08:40
  Speaker 5: and warm it up before he could blow it out.
• 1:08:44
  Speaker 5: That might sound a bit windy to a fella that
• 1:08:47
  Speaker 5: didn't know the country, said Joe, but it's probably so.
• 1:08:50
  Speaker 5: I seen sunshine freeze right on the streets of Amarilla
• 1:08:53
  Speaker 5: one time, during one of the long cold spells they
• 1:08:56
  Speaker 5: had up there. All the chickens died for want of sleep.
• 1:08:59
  Speaker 5: You see, they couldn't tell when it was night, and
• 1:09:01
  Speaker 5: the sunshine stayed froze so long they just naturally died.
• 1:09:07
  Speaker 5: Speaking of things freezing, said Red, I've seen words freeze once.
• 1:09:12
  Speaker 5: We was out in the blizzard cutting drift fences and
• 1:09:14
  Speaker 5: trying to point the herds to the canyons, and we'd
• 1:09:17
  Speaker 5: yell and cuss the gritters, but we couldn't even hear ourselves. Well, sir.
• 1:09:22
  Speaker 5: We finally got the brutes into the brakes and was
• 1:09:25
  Speaker 5: on our way back when it started moderating. All of
• 1:09:29
  Speaker 5: a sudden, we heard the dangus mess of yellin and
• 1:09:31
  Speaker 5: cussin and cowbawlin that you ever heard tell of. Presently
• 1:09:35
  Speaker 5: we recognized the very words we had spoke on the
• 1:09:38
  Speaker 5: way down. It seems to me, said Lankye, that I
• 1:09:42
  Speaker 5: learned a story something like that from Addison and Steel. Doubtless,
• 1:09:47
  Speaker 5: said Red. Doubtless you did this that I was telling
• 1:09:50
  Speaker 5: about happened right over here on Addison and Steele's outfit.
• 1:09:54
  Speaker 5: I was working for him at the time, Yeah, said Hank.
• 1:09:57
  Speaker 5: Them northers come mighty sudden at times. One time Bill
• 1:10:01
  Speaker 5: Anger and me rides up to a tank and the
• 1:10:04
  Speaker 5: day's so warm and purty, we decides to go in swimmin'.
• 1:10:07
  Speaker 5: We was just ready to strip off, when all of
• 1:10:10
  Speaker 5: a sudden we notices the bull frogs all along the
• 1:10:12
  Speaker 5: dam jumpin out of the willows like bats shot out
• 1:10:15
  Speaker 5: of a cannon. They hit the water all right and
• 1:10:18
  Speaker 5: went under. But them critters got fooled that time. They
• 1:10:22
  Speaker 5: poked out their heads like they always do, and there
• 1:10:25
  Speaker 5: they was froze tight as a hat band in the
• 1:10:28
  Speaker 5: ice all along the side of the tank for about
• 1:10:32
  Speaker 5: ten feet from the dam. The ice was just naturally
• 1:10:34
  Speaker 5: speckled with frogheads. That puts me in mind, said Joe,
• 1:10:40
  Speaker 5: of a tale Bill Bishop used to tell. Bill said
• 1:10:44
  Speaker 5: one time he started in swimming and dove off of
• 1:10:47
  Speaker 5: a high bluff into a deep hole of water. But
• 1:10:50
  Speaker 5: just as he was leaving the bluff, a drought comin
• 1:10:53
  Speaker 5: dried up all the water. Bill thought, sure he'd kill
• 1:10:56
  Speaker 5: hisself on the rock bottom of the creek bed. But
• 1:10:59
  Speaker 5: down comes arise from a rain up above and fills
• 1:11:02
  Speaker 5: up the hole just in time to save him. Lucky,
• 1:11:05
  Speaker 5: said Lanky, Yes, said Joe. I guess he was. He
• 1:11:09
  Speaker 5: had not so powerful lucky after all. Just as he
• 1:11:13
  Speaker 5: was sticking up his head, it got frozen in the ice,
• 1:11:15
  Speaker 5: like them frogs Hank was telling you about, And he
• 1:11:18
  Speaker 5: had to stay there all day before the boys come
• 1:11:20
  Speaker 5: and chopped him out. Leastwise, that's what he used to tell.
• 1:11:24
  Speaker 5: But he was such a damn wendy that you never
• 1:11:26
  Speaker 5: knowed when he was telling the truth and when he
• 1:11:28
  Speaker 5: was trying to load somebody. End of section four read
• 1:11:35
  Speaker 5: by Jesse b.
• 1:11:43
  Speaker 2: Section five of Tall Tales from Texas. This is a
• 1:11:47
  Speaker 2: LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain.
• 1:11:51
  Speaker 2: For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox dot org.
• 1:11:57
  Speaker 2: Tall Tales from Texas by Mody Coggan Boatwright By the
• 1:12:01
  Speaker 2: breadth of a hare, Blankie had become intensely interested in
• 1:12:06
  Speaker 2: the narratives of Joe and his apprentices. He was happy
• 1:12:10
  Speaker 2: that he had been assigned to the same guard. While
• 1:12:13
  Speaker 2: during the day he had been trying to think of
• 1:12:14
  Speaker 2: the most pregnant question to put when the day's work
• 1:12:18
  Speaker 2: should be over and he should again sit with the
• 1:12:20
  Speaker 2: windy trio around the campfire, he thought of one that
• 1:12:23
  Speaker 2: he felt sure would elicit an interesting yarn. What he
• 1:12:27
  Speaker 2: asked Joe was the narrowest escape you ever had. Joe
• 1:12:33
  Speaker 2: pulled out a shuck. He reached leisurely the sack of
• 1:12:37
  Speaker 2: bull Durham in his vest pocket. He rolled the cigarette
• 1:12:40
  Speaker 2: with deliberation. He was not going to play the fool
• 1:12:43
  Speaker 2: by committing himself in any superlative way until he had
• 1:12:47
  Speaker 2: heard from his upstart rivals, young men trying to usurp
• 1:12:52
  Speaker 2: the arts and prerogatives universally recognized as belonging to the
• 1:12:56
  Speaker 2: old well. He said, that would be hard to say.
• 1:13:01
  Speaker 2: Hard to say when a man knocks around as much
• 1:13:04
  Speaker 2: as I have, and in the days when the West
• 1:13:07
  Speaker 2: was wild too, he's bound to have had many a
• 1:13:09
  Speaker 2: close call with Mexicans, rustlers, bad men, stampedes, blizzards and
• 1:13:15
  Speaker 2: the like. However, one of the worst skiers I ever
• 1:13:19
  Speaker 2: had was once when I got caught in a buffalo stampede.
• 1:13:22
  Speaker 2: I reckon, you know something about the buffalo yes, said Mikey.
• 1:13:26
  Speaker 2: I've read a little bit about them, well, said Joe.
• 1:13:31
  Speaker 2: I can't say, as I've read very much about him.
• 1:13:34
  Speaker 2: I seen the planes black with him, and I've killed
• 1:13:36
  Speaker 2: a many a one in my day too. Well, I
• 1:13:39
  Speaker 2: started out to tell you what a close shave I
• 1:13:41
  Speaker 2: had one time at Buffalo Gap. I was a full
• 1:13:44
  Speaker 2: young buck then, and one morning in the spring after
• 1:13:47
  Speaker 2: I first hit that country, I heard a great roaring
• 1:13:50
  Speaker 2: and bellowin and I listened a while wondering what it was.
• 1:13:54
  Speaker 2: Then I says to myself, I bet that's a Buffalo herd,
• 1:13:58
  Speaker 2: for I had heard the old timers tell about him
• 1:14:00
  Speaker 2: and how they come through the pass called Buffalo Gap.
• 1:14:03
  Speaker 2: Every spring, going north, I rides up on one of
• 1:14:07
  Speaker 2: the hills that overlooks the gap, so as I could
• 1:14:09
  Speaker 2: look right down on the beasts as they come by there,
• 1:14:13
  Speaker 2: I stops to see him pass. I didn't get there
• 1:14:16
  Speaker 2: much too soon, but right away the whole pass was
• 1:14:18
  Speaker 2: choked with buffalo as thick as they could crowd, jammed
• 1:14:22
  Speaker 2: in closer than stairs in a stock car. I was
• 1:14:25
  Speaker 2: riding a full bronk, and he got to rearing and
• 1:14:29
  Speaker 2: a pitchin, and the first thing I knowed, we was
• 1:14:32
  Speaker 2: rolling down the hill together. Well, the hoss turned three
• 1:14:35
  Speaker 2: or four cats in there, and first he was on top,
• 1:14:38
  Speaker 2: and then I was, but the critter lit feet down
• 1:14:41
  Speaker 2: right on top of the backs of them buffalo, and
• 1:14:44
  Speaker 2: I was still in the saddle and didn't have no
• 1:14:47
  Speaker 2: bones broke. Don't ask me whether I pulled leather or not,
• 1:14:50
  Speaker 2: like he don't ask me that. Well, then brutes begun
• 1:14:54
  Speaker 2: to run, and the first thing I knowed they was
• 1:14:57
  Speaker 2: in a regular stampede. I seen what was happening. They
• 1:15:00
  Speaker 2: was carrying me and that hoss north just as fast
• 1:15:04
  Speaker 2: as they could run, which was pretty fast, yes, sir,
• 1:15:07
  Speaker 2: pretty fast. I rains the horse around and turns him
• 1:15:11
  Speaker 2: south and digs his sides with the brawls, and he
• 1:15:14
  Speaker 2: runs toward the south just as fast as he could,
• 1:15:18
  Speaker 2: and he was a right per pony too, well, sir.
• 1:15:21
  Speaker 2: I rides, and I rides all the time, keeping my
• 1:15:25
  Speaker 2: eye peeled for the tail end of the herd, but
• 1:15:28
  Speaker 2: I seize nothing but buffalo, miles and miles of them.
• 1:15:33
  Speaker 2: It was about the middle of the morning when my
• 1:15:35
  Speaker 2: hoss fell off with me like that, and hour by son,
• 1:15:38
  Speaker 2: I was still riding all the time, looking for the
• 1:15:41
  Speaker 2: end of the herd, and thinking that Charley would come sometime.
• 1:15:44
  Speaker 2: I happened to look to the side, And what do
• 1:15:46
  Speaker 2: you think I seen, Lankie, What do you think I
• 1:15:50
  Speaker 2: seen help coming, I suppose, said Lanky. No such luck,
• 1:15:55
  Speaker 2: said Joe, No such luck. It was the bushes and
• 1:16:00
  Speaker 2: the rocks we turned over when me and that horse
• 1:16:03
  Speaker 2: rolled down the hill. Well, I rides another half hour,
• 1:16:07
  Speaker 2: I guess, And I begins to feel the hoss quiver
• 1:16:09
  Speaker 2: and shake under me. And I knowed that jig was
• 1:16:12
  Speaker 2: about up. When a hoss does that way, Lanky, he's
• 1:16:14
  Speaker 2: about ready to drop dead. And I know that might
• 1:16:17
  Speaker 2: happen anytime. Pretty soon, I sees an opening, and just
• 1:16:21
  Speaker 2: as that pony jumped off the rump of the last buffalo,
• 1:16:25
  Speaker 2: Damn me if he didn't dropping his tracks dead as
• 1:16:27
  Speaker 2: a hammer, I know that was going to happen. When
• 1:16:30
  Speaker 2: I felt him quiver, well, I climbed out on the hill.
• 1:16:33
  Speaker 2: Afoot forgetting to get my saddle, and damn lucky it
• 1:16:37
  Speaker 2: was I forgot too. For as soon as I got
• 1:16:39
  Speaker 2: to the top of the hill and sat down on
• 1:16:40
  Speaker 2: a rock to rest, I looked back and there was
• 1:16:43
  Speaker 2: the main herd coming into sight, roaring and bellowing like
• 1:16:48
  Speaker 2: a cyclone. I had to walk back to my outfit,
• 1:16:51
  Speaker 2: and several days later I rode back to the pass.
• 1:16:54
  Speaker 2: But all I found of that hoss and saddle was
• 1:16:57
  Speaker 2: a little greasy spot on the ground. That was a
• 1:17:01
  Speaker 2: narrow escape, said Lanky. I suspect you have had as
• 1:17:05
  Speaker 2: many close calls as anybody. Well, I couldn't say about that,
• 1:17:10
  Speaker 2: said Joe. But I know that if that hoss had
• 1:17:13
  Speaker 2: give out ten minutes sooner, Joe Martin wouldn't be settin
• 1:17:17
  Speaker 2: here talkin to you tonight, Yeah, said Hank. Joe always
• 1:17:22
  Speaker 2: was a lucky cuss. If he was to fall in
• 1:17:25
  Speaker 2: a sewer, he'd come out with a lily in each hand.
• 1:17:28
  Speaker 2: Now me, I was born too late. Land all took up,
• 1:17:31
  Speaker 2: Buffalo all gone, no more trail driving up north. Still,
• 1:17:36
  Speaker 2: what with reptiles and beasts and Mexico stairs and buckin'
• 1:17:40
  Speaker 2: hosses and the like. I've had my share of close calls.
• 1:17:44
  Speaker 2: Funny how some little thing you don't expect, just as
• 1:17:46
  Speaker 2: like as not comes along and takes you off. Nothing
• 1:17:49
  Speaker 2: ain't got you yet, Hank said, Red, you're here, Ain't
• 1:17:53
  Speaker 2: you what you kickin about? I was just thinking how
• 1:17:56
  Speaker 2: near I come to being killed once, And if it
• 1:17:59
  Speaker 2: hadn't a been for Zach Weber, I would have been
• 1:18:02
  Speaker 2: That lad could handle a six gun. I can tell
• 1:18:05
  Speaker 2: you I've seen him knock down six flying quail with
• 1:18:08
  Speaker 2: his old Colt forty five riding out a high run.
• 1:18:12
  Speaker 2: He could turn six pigeons loose at one time and
• 1:18:15
  Speaker 2: knock every one of them down before they could get away.
• 1:18:18
  Speaker 2: When he went duck hunting, he never packed anything, but
• 1:18:21
  Speaker 2: he's all six shooter. Some of the boys had shotguns,
• 1:18:25
  Speaker 2: but Zack said his conscience never would get over it
• 1:18:28
  Speaker 2: if he turned one of them murderous implements loose on
• 1:18:30
  Speaker 2: a poor, helpless foul And he never shot a duck
• 1:18:34
  Speaker 2: on the water either. Not Zack mighty glad I was
• 1:18:37
  Speaker 2: that he could shoot like that too, for he'd saved
• 1:18:40
  Speaker 2: my life. Bandit trouble, asked Lanky. No worse, said Hank,
• 1:18:47
  Speaker 2: Though I could tell you something about Glen Springs, but
• 1:18:50
  Speaker 2: that's not the time Zach saved my life. Have you
• 1:18:53
  Speaker 2: ever seen cantipede lankey? No, said Lankey. I don't suppose
• 1:18:58
  Speaker 2: I have. Well, I'll tell you what they look like,
• 1:19:01
  Speaker 2: so as you'll know them and don't catch them for
• 1:19:04
  Speaker 2: plate things. Lackie, don't catch him for plate things, just
• 1:19:07
  Speaker 2: as well. Petiatle snake their flat yellow worms with a
• 1:19:11
  Speaker 2: hundred legs like fringe on each side and on every foot.
• 1:19:15
  Speaker 2: There's a little hook at the centipede can hook into
• 1:19:18
  Speaker 2: things that he walks on, and them hooks is so
• 1:19:22
  Speaker 2: pisonous that if he walks across your skin while he's mad,
• 1:19:26
  Speaker 2: your flesh will putrefy and you'll go as crazy as
• 1:19:30
  Speaker 2: a low code hoss, and like has not take to
• 1:19:33
  Speaker 2: the bushes like a jack rabbit unless somebody holds you.
• 1:19:36
  Speaker 2: That's how pisonous they are. Well, what I started out
• 1:19:40
  Speaker 2: to tell you was one time at dinner, me and
• 1:19:42
  Speaker 2: Zach were sitting on the ground about fifty feet apart,
• 1:19:45
  Speaker 2: facing each other, eating our beans and sow belly all
• 1:19:48
  Speaker 2: at once I got a glimpse of something like a
• 1:19:50
  Speaker 2: yellow streak running up my vest on my bandanner, but
• 1:19:53
  Speaker 2: I just barely did get a glimpse and couldn't tell
• 1:19:56
  Speaker 2: what it was. Is there something on my neck? I
• 1:19:59
  Speaker 2: said to Zach. Good god man, says Zach. It's a
• 1:20:04
  Speaker 2: saint paid well. We took off our gloves to eat.
• 1:20:08
  Speaker 2: And I know if I tried to knock the critter off,
• 1:20:10
  Speaker 2: I just make him mad and he'd get me sure.
• 1:20:13
  Speaker 2: And I knowed if Zach come over and knock him
• 1:20:15
  Speaker 2: off with a stick or something, he'd be dead certain.
• 1:20:18
  Speaker 2: To chase him off on my neck. Let him alone,
• 1:20:21
  Speaker 2: I says, And maybe he'll crawl off after a while.
• 1:20:25
  Speaker 2: Just be still, says Zach. And he weeps out his
• 1:20:29
  Speaker 2: old six shooter, and I here's the bullet whistle by
• 1:20:32
  Speaker 2: my ear. I got him, says Zach. And it takes
• 1:20:37
  Speaker 2: off my bandanner and there is just a little speck
• 1:20:40
  Speaker 2: where the bullet had just barely touched it. I always
• 1:20:44
  Speaker 2: did feel grateful to Zach after that, for he sure
• 1:20:47
  Speaker 2: did save my life that day. You think then that
• 1:20:50
  Speaker 2: if the centipede had touched your skin, he would really
• 1:20:54
  Speaker 2: have killed you. Asked Minkey, I don't think nothing about it,
• 1:20:59
  Speaker 2: said Hank, I know it. Why I tell you what happened.
• 1:21:02
  Speaker 2: You see, Zach didn't have time to look what was
• 1:21:05
  Speaker 2: on the other side of me when he shot. But
• 1:21:07
  Speaker 2: just as he pulled the trigger, he noticed that all
• 1:21:10
  Speaker 2: cow brute standing about fifty yards off chewing his cud. Well,
• 1:21:15
  Speaker 2: this old steer jumped, so Zack said he must have
• 1:21:17
  Speaker 2: hit him. Still, we couldn't see no wound on him.
• 1:21:20
  Speaker 2: We roped him and looked at the critter close and
• 1:21:23
  Speaker 2: found a bullet hole in his dew lap in his
• 1:21:27
  Speaker 2: wa asked Lanky, why in his dew lap, said Hank.
• 1:21:32
  Speaker 2: That's the gristle thing that hangs down from the neck
• 1:21:34
  Speaker 2: of a cow root, just where it joins on to
• 1:21:37
  Speaker 2: the breast. They used to vaccinate for the black leg
• 1:21:39
  Speaker 2: by making a hole in it. We know the steer
• 1:21:42
  Speaker 2: couldn't be hurt much there, so he turns him loose,
• 1:21:45
  Speaker 2: and he gets up and starts off. He hadn't gone
• 1:21:49
  Speaker 2: more than twenty steps when his neck was all swole up,
• 1:21:52
  Speaker 2: big as a saddle hoss. Then he began to rave
• 1:21:55
  Speaker 2: and charge him beller so pitifully that we just shot
• 1:21:59
  Speaker 2: him to get him out of his misery. That's how
• 1:22:02
  Speaker 2: pisiveous them centipedes are. When I saw that poor brute
• 1:22:05
  Speaker 2: all swoll up and out of his head with torment,
• 1:22:08
  Speaker 2: I knowed what a close call I'd had. Lanky's attention
• 1:22:12
  Speaker 2: had been divided between Red and the narrator. He had
• 1:22:16
  Speaker 2: glanced several times at Joe also, who was sitting complacent
• 1:22:19
  Speaker 2: but not contemptuous, listening with the respect to a good liar,
• 1:22:24
  Speaker 2: even though a comparatively inexperienced one, but read during the
• 1:22:28
  Speaker 2: first part of Hank's narrative, had been in a deep study.
• 1:22:32
  Speaker 2: He rolled several cigarettes on to throw them away. After
• 1:22:35
  Speaker 2: taking a puff or two, he appeared to listen, yet
• 1:22:39
  Speaker 2: it was obvious that the narrator did not have his
• 1:22:42
  Speaker 2: full attention. Near the climax to Hank's tail, however, his
• 1:22:46
  Speaker 2: countenance brightened up, and from that time he sat quietly
• 1:22:50
  Speaker 2: as one having an ace in the hole. When Hank finished,
• 1:22:55
  Speaker 2: he was ready. I didn't have no crack shot, nor
• 1:22:59
  Speaker 2: no friend of no kind of help me out once
• 1:23:01
  Speaker 2: when I come near passing in my checks out in
• 1:23:03
  Speaker 2: the glass mountains. I never did know what was the
• 1:23:06
  Speaker 2: matter with that fool hoss I was riding. He'd always
• 1:23:09
  Speaker 2: been a mity, sensible animal, find cow, pony quarter, a hoss,
• 1:23:13
  Speaker 2: single footer, and the best night hoss on the outfit.
• 1:23:17
  Speaker 2: I wrote him hard that day, and I thought maybe
• 1:23:19
  Speaker 2: he was tired of life and took a sudden notion
• 1:23:22
  Speaker 2: to kill hisself, like an English fellow that come to
• 1:23:25
  Speaker 2: our outfit and stayed a wild once. Then again I
• 1:23:28
  Speaker 2: thought he might have went blind all at once. I
• 1:23:31
  Speaker 2: never could figure it out anyway, He never acted like
• 1:23:34
  Speaker 2: that before. What did he do? Asked Minkie. What did
• 1:23:39
  Speaker 2: he do? He done a plenty. Still, I don't blame him,
• 1:23:42
  Speaker 2: poor brute. There must have been something the matter. You see.
• 1:23:46
  Speaker 2: I was riding back to the headquarters on a dark night.
• 1:23:49
  Speaker 2: I was about half asleep, for I know that old
• 1:23:52
  Speaker 2: Tree Holy that was his name, would find the way
• 1:23:55
  Speaker 2: he always could. Well. I was riding along that way
• 1:23:58
  Speaker 2: when all of a sudden I find us both falling
• 1:24:01
  Speaker 2: down through empty space. Seemed like we never would hit
• 1:24:05
  Speaker 2: the ground, And before we got bottom, I figured out
• 1:24:07
  Speaker 2: what had happened. Out in the edge of the Glass mountains,
• 1:24:11
  Speaker 2: there was a big sink hole right out on the Mesa.
• 1:24:14
  Speaker 2: It was as big across as a house and six Larry,
• 1:24:17
  Speaker 2: it's deep right straight down. We afterwards measured it and
• 1:24:22
  Speaker 2: for Holy had loped off into that dang hole with me,
• 1:24:26
  Speaker 2: and then we was making for the bottom. I thinks
• 1:24:29
  Speaker 2: to myself, this is where you passing your checks red.
• 1:24:33
  Speaker 2: Some gets it early and some gets it late, but
• 1:24:35
  Speaker 2: they all gets it. Then we hits bottom. I guess
• 1:24:40
  Speaker 2: I was shook up pretty bad, for I woke up
• 1:24:42
  Speaker 2: after a while and there I was sitting on a
• 1:24:45
  Speaker 2: dead hoss. You see, if Holy had broke his neck
• 1:24:48
  Speaker 2: landing poor fella, I always will wonder what was a
• 1:24:51
  Speaker 2: eating on him to make him lope off into a
• 1:24:53
  Speaker 2: hole like that. Must have been something. Well, I seen.
• 1:24:57
  Speaker 2: There was nothing I could do but wait for daylight
• 1:24:59
  Speaker 2: and then to figure out some way to get out.
• 1:25:02
  Speaker 2: So I just laid down and took a nap till morning.
• 1:25:05
  Speaker 2: When daylight come, I got up and looked around, but
• 1:25:08
  Speaker 2: the walls was straight up and down and there wasn't
• 1:25:11
  Speaker 2: nothing I could get a hold of to climb out.
• 1:25:13
  Speaker 2: Then I took the rope off my saddle and begun
• 1:25:16
  Speaker 2: to look for something twenty feet or so up that
• 1:25:18
  Speaker 2: I could rope, thinking I could pull myself up that far,
• 1:25:22
  Speaker 2: and then maybe rope something else a little higher up
• 1:25:24
  Speaker 2: and pull myself up again, and so on till I
• 1:25:27
  Speaker 2: was out. But there wasn't a thing liking, not a bush,
• 1:25:31
  Speaker 2: nor a rock, nor nothing sticking out. I could get
• 1:25:33
  Speaker 2: a loop on everything as slick as glass. Well, maybe
• 1:25:38
  Speaker 2: the boys will come and hunt me, I thinks, But
• 1:25:41
  Speaker 2: how in the hell would they know to look down
• 1:25:43
  Speaker 2: in here? I waited all day and not a soul come.
• 1:25:48
  Speaker 2: And I waited all the next day, and still nobody come.
• 1:25:52
  Speaker 2: The third day, I was still there, and no better
• 1:25:54
  Speaker 2: off than I was in the beginning. By that time
• 1:25:58
  Speaker 2: I was wishing I was dead. I had drunk up
• 1:26:00
  Speaker 2: all the water in my saddle canteen, and I was
• 1:26:03
  Speaker 2: getting hungry too. Couldn't you have eaten some of the
• 1:26:06
  Speaker 2: horse meat, asked Blankie. Yes, I guess I could have
• 1:26:10
  Speaker 2: said red. But at first I wouldn't got a friendship
• 1:26:14
  Speaker 2: for the brute, or even if he did get me
• 1:26:16
  Speaker 2: in there, I always figured there was something wrong. He
• 1:26:19
  Speaker 2: went out of his head or something. And after I
• 1:26:22
  Speaker 2: got hungry enough to have ed him and away, his
• 1:26:24
  Speaker 2: carcass had smiled and was stinking something terrible. That's principally
• 1:26:29
  Speaker 2: what made it so bad. Every breath I drawed was misery. Finally,
• 1:26:34
  Speaker 2: I says, red, you can't stand this no longer. You
• 1:26:37
  Speaker 2: shoot a poor dumb brute if you saw him in
• 1:26:39
  Speaker 2: torment like this. And so I cocks my six shooter
• 1:26:43
  Speaker 2: and holds it to my head. But somehow I can't
• 1:26:46
  Speaker 2: pull a trigger. Standing a little while longer, I says
• 1:26:50
  Speaker 2: to myself. And if help don't come, shoot, I've done
• 1:26:54
  Speaker 2: that three or four times, I guess. After while, Buzzard's
• 1:26:59
  Speaker 2: begun flying over the whole dozens of them sailing round
• 1:27:02
  Speaker 2: and round. They know there was something dead summers around,
• 1:27:06
  Speaker 2: but they was having trouble locating it. They kept coming
• 1:27:09
  Speaker 2: lower and lower till directly one comes down into the
• 1:27:13
  Speaker 2: sink hole. Then some more come, and they would fly
• 1:27:17
  Speaker 2: right down close to me. I reckon, you come after free, holy,
• 1:27:21
  Speaker 2: I says, but just wait a little while and you
• 1:27:24
  Speaker 2: can have me too. And just then I had an idea.
• 1:27:28
  Speaker 2: I picks up my lariat right quiet like, and begins
• 1:27:31
  Speaker 2: unraveling it into little strands. In each little strand, I
• 1:27:36
  Speaker 2: tied a noose. Then I takes my seat by the
• 1:27:39
  Speaker 2: side of the carcass and just waits directly. A big
• 1:27:43
  Speaker 2: turkey buzzard comes right down close, and I throws a
• 1:27:46
  Speaker 2: loop over his head and fetches him down. Then I
• 1:27:50
  Speaker 2: sticks him to my belt, giving him about six foot
• 1:27:53
  Speaker 2: rope a while I gets another one. I keeps on
• 1:27:57
  Speaker 2: until I gets twenty of the vultures sticked to my belt.
• 1:28:00
  Speaker 2: Then I fires off my six shooters, skewing'm all at once. Well, sir,
• 1:28:05
  Speaker 2: them birds just naturally lifted me right out of that
• 1:28:09
  Speaker 2: sink hole. You were lucky, said Lanky. Lucky lad that
• 1:28:15
  Speaker 2: was and left that was head work. You ain't hurried
• 1:28:18
  Speaker 2: about my luck yet. Them buzzards begun flying away with me,
• 1:28:22
  Speaker 2: but I seen what direction they was going, and I
• 1:28:24
  Speaker 2: just let them alone and watched the lay of the land.
• 1:28:28
  Speaker 2: And when they had me right over a big haystack
• 1:28:31
  Speaker 2: at the headquarters of my own outfit, I reached down
• 1:28:34
  Speaker 2: and unbuckled my belt, and damned me if I didn't
• 1:28:37
  Speaker 2: land right on the hay without annie hurting. I tall.
• 1:28:41
  Speaker 2: I walked up to the house and had a squire meal,
• 1:28:43
  Speaker 2: and I had two, I'll tell you, and then I
• 1:28:46
  Speaker 2: felt as fresh and perp as ever. That was a
• 1:28:49
  Speaker 2: lucky landing, said Lanky it sure was, said Reddin. I
• 1:28:55
  Speaker 2: got off light. The worst thing about it was that
• 1:28:57
  Speaker 2: then vultures carried off my belt, and the crackerjacket was
• 1:29:01
  Speaker 2: too trimmed with rattlesnack hide and gold studs. Twenty eight
• 1:29:05
  Speaker 2: dollars and fifty cents. It cost me over the country
• 1:29:08
  Speaker 2: at k C. Massouri. Blanky expected Joe to tell the
• 1:29:13
  Speaker 2: next story, but the veterans smoked placidly and graciously surrendered
• 1:29:17
  Speaker 2: his turn to Hank. A thing like that nearly happened
• 1:29:21
  Speaker 2: to me once, said Hank, except it was a canyon
• 1:29:25
  Speaker 2: instead of a sinkhole. I ought to have more sense
• 1:29:29
  Speaker 2: than to ride a full bronk like the critter I
• 1:29:31
  Speaker 2: was on around a place like that. But I was
• 1:29:33
  Speaker 2: green in them days, you see. I was riding around
• 1:29:36
  Speaker 2: a rim rock, looking out for steers in the canyon
• 1:29:39
  Speaker 2: down below, and down below it was sure enough five
• 1:29:42
  Speaker 2: hundred feet straight down, just as straight as a wall. Well,
• 1:29:47
  Speaker 2: I'd rode along that way for a while when suddenly
• 1:29:49
  Speaker 2: I took a full notion to smoke. So I rolled
• 1:29:52
  Speaker 2: me a fat tomale and pulled out a match and
• 1:29:55
  Speaker 2: struck it on my saddle horn. Just then, that full
• 1:29:59
  Speaker 2: bronk bogged his head, and the gun pitching and bawling
• 1:30:02
  Speaker 2: like six bits. And the next thing, I note he'd
• 1:30:04
  Speaker 2: fell off that rim rock, and it was five hundred
• 1:30:07
  Speaker 2: feet to the bottom. If it was an inch. When
• 1:30:10
  Speaker 2: that house hit the bottom, he just naturally splattered all
• 1:30:13
  Speaker 2: over the scenery. And you asked, Lanky, Well, you see,
• 1:30:20
  Speaker 2: said Hank, when we went off that rim rock together,
• 1:30:23
  Speaker 2: I know that that saddle that I had been trying
• 1:30:26
  Speaker 2: so hard to stay in was no place for me then,
• 1:30:29
  Speaker 2: so I got off, and I had to be damned
• 1:30:31
  Speaker 2: quick about it too. I wasn't much more than off
• 1:30:34
  Speaker 2: the brute when he hit the bottle. Lankey expected Joe
• 1:30:37
  Speaker 2: to send him off to bed. There were cattle to
• 1:30:40
  Speaker 2: gather during the day and to hold at night until
• 1:30:43
  Speaker 2: all the pastures should be worked, And it was Joe
• 1:30:46
  Speaker 2: who usually reminded the unseasoned boy that sleep was necessary,
• 1:30:50
  Speaker 2: even if Lankye preferred the romancing of the older hands.
• 1:30:54
  Speaker 2: But Joe merely chunked up the fire. That puts me
• 1:30:58
  Speaker 2: in mind, said he of a hunt I went on
• 1:31:01
  Speaker 2: once in the Guadalupe Mountains. You see. We was out
• 1:31:04
  Speaker 2: after big horned sheep. Used to be lots of them.
• 1:31:07
  Speaker 2: Up there, but they are about all gone now, few
• 1:31:10
  Speaker 2: up in the mountains where the tin horn hunters never go.
• 1:31:13
  Speaker 2: I was following some of them critters around the ledge,
• 1:31:16
  Speaker 2: and presently I looked around and seen where I was.
• 1:31:20
  Speaker 2: The ledge was just about a foot wide, and I
• 1:31:22
  Speaker 2: looked down and there was a bluff right straight down
• 1:31:26
  Speaker 2: for five hundred feet. And I looked up and there
• 1:31:29
  Speaker 2: was a wall five hundred feet straight up. There wasn't
• 1:31:31
  Speaker 2: no way to get off that ledge but to go
• 1:31:34
  Speaker 2: on or to turn back like a calm, And in
• 1:31:36
  Speaker 2: some places the footing was mighty ticklish, mighty ticklish. Well,
• 1:31:42
  Speaker 2: I walked along till I come to a slick place,
• 1:31:45
  Speaker 2: and my foot slipt, and I had to let go
• 1:31:47
  Speaker 2: of a gun to keep from falling. I sure hated
• 1:31:50
  Speaker 2: to lose that thirty thirty two, but we had been
• 1:31:52
  Speaker 2: friends for years and many a deer and antelope and
• 1:31:56
  Speaker 2: bear and panther. I had fetched down with it, but
• 1:31:59
  Speaker 2: I just naturally lost my balance and had to let
• 1:32:02
  Speaker 2: her go to save my neck. Well, not having any gun,
• 1:32:05
  Speaker 2: I thought I had just as well go back to
• 1:32:07
  Speaker 2: the camp. So I started back like a cum. I
• 1:32:11
  Speaker 2: goes around the little man, and there comes a moutain
• 1:32:13
  Speaker 2: line of creeping along towards me, just like a cat
• 1:32:17
  Speaker 2: trying to slip up on a snowbird. Says I, Joe,
• 1:32:22
  Speaker 2: this ain't no place for you. I expect you'd better
• 1:32:25
  Speaker 2: go on the way you first started. So I turns
• 1:32:29
  Speaker 2: around and goes back around the bend. When it gets
• 1:32:32
  Speaker 2: about one hundred yards there, I sees a big grizzly
• 1:32:35
  Speaker 2: bear coming to meet me. And when he sees me,
• 1:32:38
  Speaker 2: he sets up and shows his teeth and growls. Says I, Joe,
• 1:32:44
  Speaker 2: maybe you'd better go back the other way. After all,
• 1:32:47
  Speaker 2: I thought maybe the cougar would be gone. But as
• 1:32:50
  Speaker 2: soon as I gets turned around, and I had to
• 1:32:52
  Speaker 2: be mighty careful in turning, for the ledge was powerfully narrow.
• 1:32:57
  Speaker 2: When I turns around, I seized the big cat sneaking
• 1:33:00
  Speaker 2: along toward me. And when I look the other way,
• 1:33:03
  Speaker 2: there comes the bar and they are both getting closer
• 1:33:07
  Speaker 2: and closer. And there I am, and it's five hundred
• 1:33:09
  Speaker 2: feet straight down, and it's five hundred feet straight up.
• 1:33:13
  Speaker 2: How did you get off? Asked Blankie? How did I
• 1:33:17
  Speaker 2: get off? Why I couldn't get off? They got me?
• 1:33:21
  Speaker 2: But whether it was the bear or the cougar. I
• 1:33:24
  Speaker 2: never did know, Joe finished with a flourish, but without
• 1:33:29
  Speaker 2: a smile. He pulled out his watch dog gone, he said,
• 1:33:34
  Speaker 2: I never had no idea. It was so late. We
• 1:33:37
  Speaker 2: ought to have been asleep before. Now, Lanky, you ought
• 1:33:39
  Speaker 2: not to let these boys keep you up so late.
• 1:33:42
  Speaker 2: They'd talk you to death if you just sit here
• 1:33:44
  Speaker 2: and listen to them. End of section five, Section six
• 1:33:56
  Speaker 2: of Tall Tales from Texas. This is a LibriVox recording.
• 1:34:00
  Speaker 2: All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more
• 1:34:03
  Speaker 2: information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox dot org. Section
• 1:34:09
  Speaker 2: six of Tall Tales from Texas by Mody Coggan Boatwright,
• 1:34:15
  Speaker 2: the genesis of Peko's Bill. I suppose, said Lanky as
• 1:34:20
  Speaker 2: he sat by the campfire with Red and Hank and
• 1:34:23
  Speaker 2: Joe now his fast friends, that the cowboy's life is
• 1:34:27
  Speaker 2: about the most interesting one there is. I'd like it
• 1:34:30
  Speaker 2: live outdoors, plenty of fresh air to breathe, interesting work.
• 1:34:33
  Speaker 2: That's the life I ain't kicking, said Joe. You see,
• 1:34:38
  Speaker 2: I'm still at it, though I've cussed as much as
• 1:34:40
  Speaker 2: anybody in my time, and swore off and quit too
• 1:34:43
  Speaker 2: more than once. But somehow when spring comes and the
• 1:34:46
  Speaker 2: grass gets green, and I know where the calves is coming,
• 1:34:49
  Speaker 2: Sympthom just naturally gets under my hide, and I come
• 1:34:52
  Speaker 2: back to the smell of burnt hair and the creak
• 1:34:54
  Speaker 2: of Saddleit. Yeah, said Red. It's just like a dream
• 1:34:59
  Speaker 2: I had once. I dreamt I died and went up
• 1:35:01
  Speaker 2: to a place where there was big pearly gates, and
• 1:35:04
  Speaker 2: I walked up and knocked on the door, and it
• 1:35:06
  Speaker 2: come wide open. I went in and there stood Saint Peter.
• 1:35:11
  Speaker 2: Come in. Welcome to our city, he says, I've been
• 1:35:14
  Speaker 2: looking for you. Go over to the commissary and get
• 1:35:17
  Speaker 2: you a harp and a pair of wings. All right,
• 1:35:20
  Speaker 2: says I, feeling mighty lucky to get in. As I
• 1:35:24
  Speaker 2: walked along on the gold sidewalk, I sees a lot
• 1:35:26
  Speaker 2: of fellers roped and hobbled and hogtied. What's the matter,
• 1:35:30
  Speaker 2: says I, Saint Peter. You're not trying to buffalo me,
• 1:35:34
  Speaker 2: are you?
• 1:35:35
  Speaker 3: No?
• 1:35:35
  Speaker 2: He says, what makes you think so? Your record ain't
• 1:35:38
  Speaker 2: nothing extra good? But you didn't get cut back, did you?
• 1:35:41
  Speaker 2: Here you are you're in? Ain't that enough? Ain't this hell?
• 1:35:47
  Speaker 2: I says? Nah, says Peter, This ain't hell a tall?
• 1:35:52
  Speaker 2: Are you sure the Saint Hell? I asks, no. He says,
• 1:35:56
  Speaker 2: this ain't hell. What makes you think tis why? I says,
• 1:36:00
  Speaker 2: what you got all them fellas roped and tied down for? Oh?
• 1:36:05
  Speaker 2: He says, them fellas over there? You see them cowboys
• 1:36:09
  Speaker 2: from the Southwest, and I have to keep them tied.
• 1:36:11
  Speaker 2: They keep them from going back. I think maybe they'll
• 1:36:14
  Speaker 2: get range broke after a while so I can turn
• 1:36:16
  Speaker 2: them loose. But it seems like it's taking a long time. However,
• 1:36:21
  Speaker 2: said Joe. The cow business ain't what it used to be,
• 1:36:25
  Speaker 2: what with barbed wire, windmills, automobiles and trucks and the like.
• 1:36:30
  Speaker 2: They don't want cow hans anymore. What they want is blacksmiths,
• 1:36:33
  Speaker 2: mechanics and the like. Still, I reckon it's a good thing.
• 1:36:37
  Speaker 2: But they couldn't get cow hans if they did want them.
• 1:36:40
  Speaker 2: Now here's Red and Hank, good boys, both of them.
• 1:36:44
  Speaker 2: And I've learned them a lot about cattle, and they
• 1:36:46
  Speaker 2: take money at the rodeos. But they ain't like the
• 1:36:49
  Speaker 2: old cow hans. I don't know just what it is,
• 1:36:52
  Speaker 2: but they ain't the same. And they ain't But mighty
• 1:36:55
  Speaker 2: few real come in anymore. Now, take the big mogul
• 1:36:58
  Speaker 2: of this outfit. Goodfella always pays wages every month, which
• 1:37:02
  Speaker 2: is more than some of old timers could do. But
• 1:37:05
  Speaker 2: he ain't. No count man sets up all day at
• 1:37:08
  Speaker 2: a big desk in town, has a secretary, stenographer and
• 1:37:11
  Speaker 2: the life. Why if Pecos Bill had done a thing
• 1:37:15
  Speaker 2: like that, he would have been so ashamed of himself
• 1:37:17
  Speaker 2: he would have just naturally laid down and died. Who
• 1:37:21
  Speaker 2: is this Peaco's Bill? I've heard you mentioned, asked Lankie.
• 1:37:26
  Speaker 2: Who is he? Why ain't you ever heard of Peckos
• 1:37:30
  Speaker 2: Bill until I came here? Well, well, I reckon. You've
• 1:37:35
  Speaker 2: heard of Sam Houston and Sam Bass and General Lee
• 1:37:38
  Speaker 2: and George Washington and Pat Garrett, ain't you?
• 1:37:41
  Speaker 4: Oh?
• 1:37:42
  Speaker 2: Yes, I've heard a little about them, but not anything
• 1:37:44
  Speaker 2: about pecos Bill. That just shows that the fellers that
• 1:37:48
  Speaker 2: make our books don't know what to put in them.
• 1:37:51
  Speaker 2: I dear of leaving out Peco's Bill. Who was Peco's Bill?
• 1:37:57
  Speaker 4: Who was it?
• 1:37:58
  Speaker 2: He was just about the most self braided manny in
• 1:38:00
  Speaker 2: the whole dang cow country. What was his real name?
• 1:38:05
  Speaker 2: So far as I know, the only real name he
• 1:38:07
  Speaker 2: ever had was Peko's Bill. Don't suppose anybody knows what
• 1:38:10
  Speaker 2: his daddy's name was. You see, in his day, it
• 1:38:13
  Speaker 2: wasn't good manners to ask a fella his name, And
• 1:38:15
  Speaker 2: besides it wasn't good judgment either, And they'd been so
• 1:38:19
  Speaker 2: long many a greenhorn, being ignorant of that little point
• 1:38:23
  Speaker 2: of good manners, has looked down the muzzle of a
• 1:38:24
  Speaker 2: six shooter and then died. Peco's Bill's daddy didn't say
• 1:38:29
  Speaker 2: what they called him back in the States, and nobody
• 1:38:31
  Speaker 2: asked him. They just called him the old man, for
• 1:38:34
  Speaker 2: he was old about seventy some odd when he came
• 1:38:36
  Speaker 2: to Texas. When did he come to Texas, asked Lanky.
• 1:38:41
  Speaker 2: I couldn't say about that exactly, said Joe. It must
• 1:38:45
  Speaker 2: have been right about the time Sam Houston discovered Texas. Anyhow,
• 1:38:49
  Speaker 2: the old man loaded up all his twelve kids and
• 1:38:51
  Speaker 2: his old woman, and his rifle and all his other
• 1:38:54
  Speaker 2: stuff in an ox wagon and let out hell bent
• 1:38:56
  Speaker 2: for Texas as soon as he found out there was
• 1:38:58
  Speaker 2: such a place. They say, other people that come later
• 1:39:01
  Speaker 2: didn't have no trouble finding the way. They just went
• 1:39:05
  Speaker 2: by the Indian skeletons that the old Man left along
• 1:39:08
  Speaker 2: his road. Well, they finally got to the Sagabine River.
• 1:39:12
  Speaker 2: The old man stops his oxen old spot and buck.
• 1:39:15
  Speaker 2: He calls him and rounds up all his younguns and
• 1:39:18
  Speaker 2: has them set down and listen while he makes them
• 1:39:20
  Speaker 2: a speech. Youngins, He says, that land you see on
• 1:39:24
  Speaker 2: the other side of the river is Texas, wild and
• 1:39:27
  Speaker 2: wooly and full of fleas. And if you ain't that way,
• 1:39:31
  Speaker 2: only more so, you ain't no brats of mine. I'd
• 1:39:35
  Speaker 2: always heard that Picco's Bill was born in Texas, interrupted
• 1:39:38
  Speaker 2: Red jest Wait, said, Joe, just wait, have I said
• 1:39:44
  Speaker 2: he wasn't them? Was the other kids? As I was
• 1:39:48
  Speaker 2: about to say, they crossed the river and camped for
• 1:39:50
  Speaker 2: the night. That was in Texas savvy, And that night
• 1:39:54
  Speaker 2: Peko's Bill was born. The next morning the old woman
• 1:39:57
  Speaker 2: put him out of Bary's skin and left him to
• 1:39:59
  Speaker 2: play with his while she made the corn pone for breakfast.
• 1:40:03
  Speaker 2: And right then when they come dang near losing Peko's bill.
• 1:40:07
  Speaker 2: Bears were Indians, asked Lankie. Neither one, said Joe, Bears
• 1:40:13
  Speaker 2: and Indians didn't mean nothing to that old man. He
• 1:40:16
  Speaker 2: would have ate him for breakfast. Once later when the
• 1:40:19
  Speaker 2: old man and the older brats was gone, the command
• 1:40:21
  Speaker 2: shes did try to get Bill, but the old woman
• 1:40:24
  Speaker 2: lit into him with the broom handle and killed a
• 1:40:26
  Speaker 2: forty nine right on the spot. She never knowed how
• 1:40:29
  Speaker 2: many she crippled and let get away. No, it wasn't
• 1:40:32
  Speaker 2: the Indians. It was mosquiters, Malaria, said Lanky. You guessed
• 1:40:38
  Speaker 2: wrong again, said Joe. This is what happened. The old
• 1:40:42
  Speaker 2: woman was cooking corn pone, and all of a sudden
• 1:40:45
  Speaker 2: it got dark, and there was the dangist singing and
• 1:40:48
  Speaker 2: humming you ever heard. Then they seen it was a
• 1:40:51
  Speaker 2: swarm of big black mosquiters, and they was so thick
• 1:40:54
  Speaker 2: around Bill that you just couldn't see him. The old
• 1:40:57
  Speaker 2: man felt his way to the wagon and got out
• 1:40:59
  Speaker 2: here gun. He thought he'd shoot it off in the
• 1:41:02
  Speaker 2: air and scer them mosquitos away. He pointed the muzzle
• 1:41:05
  Speaker 2: of the gun toward the sky and pulled the trigger.
• 1:41:08
  Speaker 2: What he's seen then was a little beam of light
• 1:41:10
  Speaker 2: come through. It was just like being in a dark
• 1:41:13
  Speaker 2: room and looking out through a piece of windmill pipe.
• 1:41:16
  Speaker 2: That was just for a minute. For right away the
• 1:41:18
  Speaker 2: hole shed up, and then mosquitos swarmed around pecos, and
• 1:41:22
  Speaker 2: the old man seen there was going to pack him off.
• 1:41:24
  Speaker 2: He didn't do something right away. Then he happened to
• 1:41:27
  Speaker 2: recollect that he'd brought his hog g rendering kettle along,
• 1:41:31
  Speaker 2: so he fought his way back to the wagon and
• 1:41:33
  Speaker 2: rolled it out and turned it over the kid. He
• 1:41:36
  Speaker 2: was scared the lad would get loumsome under there by hisself,
• 1:41:39
  Speaker 2: so he just slipped the chopping axe onto the edge
• 1:41:41
  Speaker 2: of the kettle for the chap to play with. Well,
• 1:41:44
  Speaker 2: them danged and mosquitos just buzzed and buzzed around the
• 1:41:48
  Speaker 2: kettle trying to find a way to get in directly.
• 1:41:50
  Speaker 2: They all backed off, and the old man and the
• 1:41:53
  Speaker 2: old woman thought they'd give up and was going away.
• 1:41:56
  Speaker 2: Then all at once, one of them mosquitos comes at
• 1:41:58
  Speaker 2: that kettle like a bat out of hell. He hit
• 1:42:01
  Speaker 2: the kettle and rammed his bill clean through it, and
• 1:42:05
  Speaker 2: he stuck there. Then another one come up the kettle
• 1:42:08
  Speaker 2: just like the first one had, and he stuck too.
• 1:42:11
  Speaker 2: Then they kept coming, and everyone stuck. The old man
• 1:42:16
  Speaker 2: and the old woman and the older brat stood there
• 1:42:18
  Speaker 2: watching the mosquits ram that kettle after each one of
• 1:42:21
  Speaker 2: the environments. It was too big to be called insects
• 1:42:24
  Speaker 2: hit the kettle, they would be a little ring thing
• 1:42:28
  Speaker 2: like that. Pretty soon the old folks got on to
• 1:42:31
  Speaker 2: what was happening. Every time Moskeeter would ram his bill
• 1:42:36
  Speaker 2: through the kettle, Pecos would brat it with the chopping axe. Well,
• 1:42:40
  Speaker 2: after a while, the mosketers just naturally lifted that kettle
• 1:42:43
  Speaker 2: right up and flew off with it. The others thought
• 1:42:45
  Speaker 2: they had Pecos bill and followed the kettle off. Of course,
• 1:42:49
  Speaker 2: the old man hated to lose his utensil. He said
• 1:42:52
  Speaker 2: he didn't know how the old woman was going to
• 1:42:54
  Speaker 2: render up the lard e bears grease now, but it
• 1:42:56
  Speaker 2: was worth a hundred kettles to know he had such
• 1:42:59
  Speaker 2: a smart brat. And from that time the old man
• 1:43:02
  Speaker 2: would always talk about Bill as a chat of great possibilities.
• 1:43:07
  Speaker 2: He loud that if the Brandes had the proper raisin,
• 1:43:10
  Speaker 2: he'd make a great man some day. He said he
• 1:43:12
  Speaker 2: was going to try to do his part by him,
• 1:43:15
  Speaker 2: so he begun giving him a diet of dirt game
• 1:43:17
  Speaker 2: with whiskey and onions for breakfast. He lapped it up
• 1:43:21
  Speaker 2: so well that in three days the old woman weaned him.
• 1:43:24
  Speaker 2: Did the old man settle there on the seabeam, asked Lankie. Now,
• 1:43:29
  Speaker 2: said Joe, he squatted on a little sandy hill on
• 1:43:32
  Speaker 2: the Trinity, somewheres east of where Dallas is now. It
• 1:43:35
  Speaker 2: was just an accident that he stopped where he did.
• 1:43:38
  Speaker 2: How was that, asked Lankie. Well, said Joe. You see,
• 1:43:44
  Speaker 2: it was like this. They was traveling west in their
• 1:43:47
  Speaker 2: customary and habitual manner, which was with the old man
• 1:43:51
  Speaker 2: and the six oldest kids walking alongside Spot and Buck,
• 1:43:56
  Speaker 2: and the old woman and the seven youngest kids in
• 1:43:58
  Speaker 2: the wagon Jess. They was coming to the foot of
• 1:44:01
  Speaker 2: a sandy hill. A big rain come up. It rained
• 1:44:05
  Speaker 2: so hard that the old man couldn't see the wagon,
• 1:44:08
  Speaker 2: but he stuck close to them, trusty oxen of his,
• 1:44:10
  Speaker 2: and they went right up the hill. When he got
• 1:44:13
  Speaker 2: to the top, he seen that it had about quit raining,
• 1:44:17
  Speaker 2: and he looked back and seen the wagon still at
• 1:44:19
  Speaker 2: the bottom of the hill, and there was the brats
• 1:44:21
  Speaker 2: that had been walking with him under it. Did the
• 1:44:24
  Speaker 2: harness break, asked Lanky, No, it wasn't that, said Joe.
• 1:44:29
  Speaker 2: You see he was using a raw hide lariat for
• 1:44:32
  Speaker 2: a log chain, and it had got wet. I reckon
• 1:44:35
  Speaker 2: you know what raw hide does when it gets wet,
• 1:44:38
  Speaker 2: don't you, lanky? It stretches. There ain't no rubber that
• 1:44:41
  Speaker 2: was stretched like wet raw hide. Well that's what happened
• 1:44:44
  Speaker 2: to that lariat. It stretched that The old man drove
• 1:44:47
  Speaker 2: his oxen a mile up the hill without moving the
• 1:44:50
  Speaker 2: wagon an inch, not an inch had he moved her
• 1:44:54
  Speaker 2: by gar Well, the sun was shining now, and it
• 1:44:58
  Speaker 2: got brighter and brighter, and while old man was wondering
• 1:45:01
  Speaker 2: what in the dickens to do next, Old Spot just
• 1:45:05
  Speaker 2: dropped down dead from sunstroke. That sort of got next
• 1:45:08
  Speaker 2: to the old man, for he said that brute had
• 1:45:10
  Speaker 2: been a real friend to him, and besides, he was
• 1:45:13
  Speaker 2: worth his waiting gold. Still, he loud, he might as
• 1:45:16
  Speaker 2: well skin him. So we got out his old bowie
• 1:45:18
  Speaker 2: knife and started to work. Well, sir, while he was
• 1:45:22
  Speaker 2: skinning Spot, an order came up and damned me if
• 1:45:25
  Speaker 2: old Buck didn't keel over froze to death. So the
• 1:45:29
  Speaker 2: old man decided he'd just as well stopped there where
• 1:45:31
  Speaker 2: he was, so he told the old woman to bring
• 1:45:34
  Speaker 2: up the brats. He throwed the ox yoke over a stump,
• 1:45:37
  Speaker 2: and the old woman brought up some chuck and some
• 1:45:40
  Speaker 2: bedding from the wagon. Then they at supper and tucked
• 1:45:43
  Speaker 2: the kids into bed. The old man tried to blow
• 1:45:45
  Speaker 2: out the lantern, but she wouldn't blow. He raised up
• 1:45:48
  Speaker 2: the globe and there was the flame, froze stiff as
• 1:45:52
  Speaker 2: an icicle. He just broke it off and buried it
• 1:45:55
  Speaker 2: in the sand and turned in and went to sleep.
• 1:45:58
  Speaker 2: The next morning, when he woke up, it was clear
• 1:46:00
  Speaker 2: and the sun was warm. Well, the old woman cooked
• 1:46:03
  Speaker 2: a bite, and while they was eating, here come the
• 1:46:05
  Speaker 2: wagon right up the hill. You see, the raw hide
• 1:46:08
  Speaker 2: was drying out. That's the way it does. That's what
• 1:46:12
  Speaker 2: it does, all right, said Red. Once I knowed a
• 1:46:15
  Speaker 2: clod hopper that made hisself a raw hide hat. It
• 1:46:18
  Speaker 2: worked fine till one day he got caught out in
• 1:46:20
  Speaker 2: the rain. Then the sun come out and that hat
• 1:46:23
  Speaker 2: drawed up so he couldn't get it off, and it
• 1:46:26
  Speaker 2: was drawing up and mashing his head something terrible. Lucky
• 1:46:29
  Speaker 2: for him, it wasn't very far to a tank, and
• 1:46:32
  Speaker 2: he got off and stood on his head in the
• 1:46:34
  Speaker 2: water a few minutes and it come right off. Well,
• 1:46:37
  Speaker 2: said Joe. That's what the raw hide log chain done.
• 1:46:41
  Speaker 2: It dried out, and that wagon come right up the hill,
• 1:46:44
  Speaker 2: and when it got up to where the old man
• 1:46:46
  Speaker 2: and the old woman was, the old man got his
• 1:46:48
  Speaker 2: chopping axe and begun cutting down trees to make him
• 1:46:51
  Speaker 2: a cabin. And that's where he settled. Did Paco's Bill
• 1:46:55
  Speaker 2: grow up there in East Texas, asked Lankey. He left
• 1:46:59
  Speaker 2: when he was a mere lad, said Joe. But he
• 1:47:02
  Speaker 2: lived there a little while. The old man got along
• 1:47:05
  Speaker 2: fine til his corn give out, because there was plenty
• 1:47:08
  Speaker 2: of game. But he just couldn't do without his cornbone
• 1:47:11
  Speaker 2: and his corn whiskey. So he cleared the little patch
• 1:47:13
  Speaker 2: and put it in corn and worked it without his steers.
• 1:47:17
  Speaker 2: Asked Blankie, why not, said Joe. He made him a
• 1:47:21
  Speaker 2: light Georgie stock out of wood, and the old woman
• 1:47:25
  Speaker 2: and one of the bigger kids could pull it fine.
• 1:47:27
  Speaker 2: He made some harness out of the hide of old spot,
• 1:47:30
  Speaker 2: and he'd hitch him and plow all day. They used
• 1:47:33
  Speaker 2: to all go out in the field and leave Pekoa's
• 1:47:35
  Speaker 2: Bill in the cabin by hisself. One day, when Bill
• 1:47:38
  Speaker 2: was about three years old, the old man was plowing,
• 1:47:41
  Speaker 2: and just as he turned, the old woman and the
• 1:47:42
  Speaker 2: kid he had hitched up with her around to start
• 1:47:45
  Speaker 2: a new row. The old woman begun yelling and trying
• 1:47:48
  Speaker 2: to get out of the harness. What's eating on you,
• 1:47:51
  Speaker 2: old woman, says the old man. I never seen you
• 1:47:54
  Speaker 2: do like this before. Must have a tick in your ear.
• 1:47:58
  Speaker 2: The old woman yelled that she's seen a panther go
• 1:48:00
  Speaker 2: in the cabin where Bill was. The old man told
• 1:48:03
  Speaker 2: her not to get excited. It's a half hour by
• 1:48:07
  Speaker 2: sun till dinner time. Yet, he says, and that dang
• 1:48:10
  Speaker 2: panther needn't expect no help from me, know how, The
• 1:48:13
  Speaker 2: full critter ought to have had more sense than to
• 1:48:15
  Speaker 2: go in there. He'll just have to make out the
• 1:48:17
  Speaker 2: best way he can. So they plowed on till dinner time,
• 1:48:21
  Speaker 2: and when they come back to the cabin there was
• 1:48:23
  Speaker 2: pickless Bill a chewing on a piece of raw panther flank.
• 1:48:28
  Speaker 2: They lived there another year or two before the old
• 1:48:30
  Speaker 2: man taking a notion to leave. I reckon you know
• 1:48:33
  Speaker 2: how he come to get the idea in his head,
• 1:48:35
  Speaker 2: don't you? Joe? Said Red. I'll buy it, said Joe.
• 1:48:39
  Speaker 2: Go ahead. Why this ain't no seal, said Red. I've
• 1:48:43
  Speaker 2: heard Wendy Williams tell of it a hundred times. One
• 1:48:46
  Speaker 2: time the old man had the old woman and one
• 1:48:48
  Speaker 2: of the big kids hitched up to the plow in
• 1:48:50
  Speaker 2: his customary and habitual manner, just as Joe has been
• 1:48:54
  Speaker 2: telling about, and all at once here comes a piece
• 1:48:57
  Speaker 2: of paper blowing across the field. Old woman shied a
• 1:49:01
  Speaker 2: little bit off to one side. Then the kid got
• 1:49:03
  Speaker 2: to pranson, and then they tore loose and went lickety
• 1:49:06
  Speaker 2: flint rearing and tearing across that corn patch, dragging the
• 1:49:10
  Speaker 2: old man with him. The old man stumped his toe
• 1:49:13
  Speaker 2: on a root, and then they got loose from him
• 1:49:15
  Speaker 2: and tore up the Georgie stock. After a while they
• 1:49:18
  Speaker 2: quieted down, and the old man got up and fetched
• 1:49:21
  Speaker 2: him in. Then he went out and picked up the
• 1:49:23
  Speaker 2: piece of paper where it was hung on a stump.
• 1:49:26
  Speaker 2: He's seen it was an old newspaper that set him
• 1:49:29
  Speaker 2: to wondering. The next morning he got his rifle and
• 1:49:32
  Speaker 2: begun looking around. About five miles from his place, he
• 1:49:35
  Speaker 2: found some wagon tracks, and he followed the tracks till
• 1:49:38
  Speaker 2: they come to a new cabin about fifty miles up
• 1:49:40
  Speaker 2: the creek. Then he come home and told the old
• 1:49:43
  Speaker 2: woman and the kids to get ready to leave. He
• 1:49:45
  Speaker 2: calculated the country was getting too thickly settled for him.
• 1:49:49
  Speaker 2: How did he get away without a team, asked Lanky. Oh,
• 1:49:53
  Speaker 2: that was easy, said Red. He sent Paco's Bill out
• 1:49:57
  Speaker 2: to catch a couple of mustangs, and in an hour
• 1:50:00
  Speaker 2: the lad run him down. The old man fixed up
• 1:50:03
  Speaker 2: the harness he'd been using to plow with, and loaded
• 1:50:05
  Speaker 2: in his stuff and his wife and kids and pulled out.
• 1:50:09
  Speaker 2: They kept going west till finally they come to the
• 1:50:11
  Speaker 2: Peco's River, which the old man said he'd ford or bust.
• 1:50:15
  Speaker 2: He got across all right, but as he was driving
• 1:50:18
  Speaker 2: up the bank on the west side, the hand gate
• 1:50:21
  Speaker 2: come out of the wagon and Peko's Bill fell out.
• 1:50:24
  Speaker 2: The old man and the old woman never missed him
• 1:50:26
  Speaker 2: till they got about thirty miles further on. Then they
• 1:50:29
  Speaker 2: said it wasn't worthwhile turning back. They said, they guessed
• 1:50:33
  Speaker 2: the chap could take care of himself, and if he couldn't,
• 1:50:36
  Speaker 2: he wasn't worth turning back for nohow. So that's how
• 1:50:40
  Speaker 2: Peco's Bill come to be called Peko's Bill. What became
• 1:50:43
  Speaker 2: of him, asked Lanky. What happened to him? Then? What
• 1:50:47
  Speaker 2: happened to him?
• 1:50:48
  Speaker 4: Then?
• 1:50:48
  Speaker 2: Said Red? That would take a long time. To tell.
• 1:50:52
  Speaker 2: We'll tell you about that some more the time, Lanky,
• 1:50:54
  Speaker 2: said Joe. End of section six read by John S.
• 1:51:00
  Speaker 2: Whit Men Section seven of Tall Tales from Texas. This
• 1:51:10
  Speaker 2: is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the
• 1:51:14
  Speaker 2: public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit
• 1:51:18
  Speaker 2: LibriVox dot org. Tall Tales from Texas by Mody Coggan
• 1:51:24
  Speaker 2: Boatwright Adventures of pecos Bill. How old was pecos Bill
• 1:51:30
  Speaker 2: when he was lost on the Pecos River, Lanky asked
• 1:51:33
  Speaker 2: Joe on the next night, when supper was finished and
• 1:51:36
  Speaker 2: the four were sitting around the fire smoking. I guess
• 1:51:41
  Speaker 2: he must have been about four year old, said Joe.
• 1:51:44
  Speaker 2: Some says he was just a year old, but that
• 1:51:46
  Speaker 2: camp you rid. The old man made two or three
• 1:51:49
  Speaker 2: crops dead on the Trinity before the country got so
• 1:51:51
  Speaker 2: thickly settled that he had to leave. What became of
• 1:51:54
  Speaker 2: the family, asked Lanky. That would be hard to answer, Joe,
• 1:52:01
  Speaker 2: hard to answer. I don't suppose there's a soul that
• 1:52:04
  Speaker 2: knows for certain. There's been tails about them being met
• 1:52:07
  Speaker 2: up by wild beasts, but that ain't likely, and there's
• 1:52:11
  Speaker 2: been tails about them being killed by the Indians, But
• 1:52:14
  Speaker 2: that ain't likely neither, why them redskins would run like
• 1:52:18
  Speaker 2: skared jack rabbits when they've seen the old man coming
• 1:52:21
  Speaker 2: or the old woman either. Then there's tales about him
• 1:52:24
  Speaker 2: dying for water in the desert, which maybe so, But
• 1:52:27
  Speaker 2: more likely they settled Somemers and lived a happy and
• 1:52:31
  Speaker 2: peaceful life. The chances are, said Red, that they settled
• 1:52:35
  Speaker 2: in the Lost Canyon, and their offspring may be living there. Yet,
• 1:52:39
  Speaker 2: for all anybody knows, where is the Lost Canyon, asked Milankee.
• 1:52:44
  Speaker 2: That's just what nobody don't know, said Red. But eats
• 1:52:48
  Speaker 2: out in the Big Bend country somewheres, and it opens
• 1:52:51
  Speaker 2: into the real grandy. It gets wide and there's springs
• 1:52:54
  Speaker 2: in it, and buffalo are grazing on the grass, and
• 1:52:57
  Speaker 2: it's a fine country. How do you know about it,
• 1:53:00
  Speaker 2: asked Lankey. Have you ever been there? Nah, said Red.
• 1:53:05
  Speaker 2: But people has, but you never can find it when
• 1:53:08
  Speaker 2: you're looking for it. Them that finds it finds it accidentally,
• 1:53:12
  Speaker 2: and then they can't go back. That's just the place
• 1:53:15
  Speaker 2: that would have suited pecos Bills old man, and the
• 1:53:18
  Speaker 2: chances are that's where he stopped. Someday I'm going to
• 1:53:21
  Speaker 2: happen on that canyon myself. And if I do, I'll
• 1:53:25
  Speaker 2: just steak me out a ranch. That is, unless it's
• 1:53:27
  Speaker 2: inhabited by pecos Bills race tis, I reckon, I'll let
• 1:53:31
  Speaker 2: them have it. And what became of pecos? Bill asked Lanky, Why,
• 1:53:37
  Speaker 2: said Joe, He just growed up with the country. There
• 1:53:40
  Speaker 2: wasn't nothing else he could do. He got to running
• 1:53:43
  Speaker 2: with a bunch of coyoats and took up with them.
• 1:53:46
  Speaker 2: He learned their language and took up all their bad habits.
• 1:53:49
  Speaker 2: He could sit on the ground and howl with the
• 1:53:52
  Speaker 2: best of them, and run down a jack rabbit. Jest
• 1:53:54
  Speaker 2: as quick too. He used to run ahead of the
• 1:53:57
  Speaker 2: pack and pull down a forty eight point buck and
• 1:54:00
  Speaker 2: by the hole in his neck before the rest of
• 1:54:02
  Speaker 2: the coyotes got there. But he always divided with the pack,
• 1:54:05
  Speaker 2: and that's probably the reason they throwed off on him
• 1:54:08
  Speaker 2: like they did. Did he ever teach anybody else the
• 1:54:11
  Speaker 2: Kyo language, asked Lanky. Just one old prospector that befriended
• 1:54:16
  Speaker 2: him once. That was all, you see. The old man
• 1:54:20
  Speaker 2: couldn't find no gold, and he went to trap him,
• 1:54:22
  Speaker 2: and he used the language that Bill had taught him
• 1:54:25
  Speaker 2: to call up the coyotes and get him in his traps.
• 1:54:27
  Speaker 2: Bill said it was a dirty trick, and he wouldn't
• 1:54:30
  Speaker 2: teach nobody else how to speak. Kyle. Bill would have
• 1:54:33
  Speaker 2: killed the old prospector if it had to have been that.
• 1:54:36
  Speaker 2: The old man done him a favor once. What did
• 1:54:39
  Speaker 2: he do? Asked Lanky? Why it was him that found
• 1:54:42
  Speaker 2: Bill and brought him back to civilization and liquor, which
• 1:54:45
  Speaker 2: Bill had just about forgot the taste of old was
• 1:54:49
  Speaker 2: Bill at that time? Asked Lanky. Old, I guess he
• 1:54:53
  Speaker 2: was about ten years old, said Joe. One day, this
• 1:54:57
  Speaker 2: old prospector comes along and he hears the moment terrible
• 1:55:01
  Speaker 2: racket anybody ever heard of. Rocks are rolling down the canyon,
• 1:55:04
  Speaker 2: brush of popping, and the awfullest howling and scalling you
• 1:55:08
  Speaker 2: could imagine. And he looks up the canyon and sees
• 1:55:11
  Speaker 2: what he first thinks he's a cloud coming up, but
• 1:55:14
  Speaker 2: pretty soon he discovers it's fur a flying well. He
• 1:55:19
  Speaker 2: decides to walk up the canyon a piece and investigate,
• 1:55:22
  Speaker 2: and pretty soon he comes off Peco's Bill, who has
• 1:55:25
  Speaker 2: a big grizzly bear under each arm, just mortally squeezing
• 1:55:29
  Speaker 2: the stuffing out of him, And while old prospector stands
• 1:55:33
  Speaker 2: there watching, Bill tears off a hind leg and begins
• 1:55:37
  Speaker 2: eating on it. A game scrap son, says the old prospector.
• 1:55:42
  Speaker 2: And woe ye me, says Bill. I'm a varmin. Now
• 1:55:47
  Speaker 2: he ain't a varmin, says the old prospector. You're a
• 1:55:50
  Speaker 2: human gnaw, says Bill. I ain't no human. I'm a arment.
• 1:55:56
  Speaker 2: How come, says the prospector. Don't I go neckd says Bill.
• 1:56:02
  Speaker 2: Sure you do, says the old prospector. Sure you're naked,
• 1:56:05
  Speaker 2: so is the Indians and them critters is part of
• 1:56:08
  Speaker 2: human anyway. That don't spell nothing. Don't I have fleas?
• 1:56:12
  Speaker 2: Says Bill? Sure he do, says the old prospector. But
• 1:56:17
  Speaker 2: all Texans has fleas, don't I howl? Says Bill? Yeah
• 1:56:22
  Speaker 2: he howled all right, says the old prospector. But nearly
• 1:56:26
  Speaker 2: all Texans is howling most of the time. That don't
• 1:56:29
  Speaker 2: spell nothing? Neither well, just the same. I'm a Kyle,
• 1:56:33
  Speaker 2: says Bill. Now he ain't a kyo, says the old prospector.
• 1:56:37
  Speaker 2: Kyles got a tail, ain't he? Yeah? Says Bill. A
• 1:56:41
  Speaker 2: coyots got a tail. But you ain't got no tail,
• 1:56:45
  Speaker 2: says the old prospector. Just feel and see if you have.
• 1:56:49
  Speaker 2: Bill felt, and sure enough he didn't have no tail. Well,
• 1:56:53
  Speaker 2: I'll be danged, he says, I never did notice that before.
• 1:56:58
  Speaker 2: I guess I ain't a ky old after all. Show
• 1:57:00
  Speaker 2: me them humans, and if I like their looks, maybe
• 1:57:02
  Speaker 2: I'll throw in with them. Well, he showed Bill the
• 1:57:05
  Speaker 2: way to one out fit, and it wasn't long till
• 1:57:08
  Speaker 2: he was the most famous and noted man in the
• 1:57:11
  Speaker 2: whole cow country. It was him, said hank An, invented roping.
• 1:57:16
  Speaker 2: He had a rope that reached from the real grandy
• 1:57:19
  Speaker 2: to the big Bow, and he sure did swing a
• 1:57:22
  Speaker 2: mean loop. He used to amuse hisself by throwing a
• 1:57:25
  Speaker 2: little Hoolian up in the sky and fetching down the
• 1:57:28
  Speaker 2: buzzards and eagles that flew over he rope everything he
• 1:57:32
  Speaker 2: ever seen, bears and wolves and panthers, elk and buffalo.
• 1:57:37
  Speaker 2: The first time he seen a train, he thought it
• 1:57:39
  Speaker 2: was some kind of arment, and damn it if he
• 1:57:41
  Speaker 2: didn't sling a loop over it, and dang mayre wrecked
• 1:57:44
  Speaker 2: the thing. One time, his rope and shore did come
• 1:57:47
  Speaker 2: in handy for he saved the life of a very
• 1:57:49
  Speaker 2: dear friend. How was that, asked Blankie. Well, Bill had
• 1:57:54
  Speaker 2: a hoss that he thought the world loo, and he
• 1:57:57
  Speaker 2: had a good reason to too, for he had raised
• 1:57:59
  Speaker 2: him from a colt, feeding him on a special diet
• 1:58:02
  Speaker 2: of nitroglycerin and bob Barr, which made him very tough
• 1:58:06
  Speaker 2: and also very uminry when anybody tried to handle him.
• 1:58:09
  Speaker 2: But Bill, the hoss thought the world of Bill, but
• 1:58:13
  Speaker 2: when anybody else come around, it was all off. He
• 1:58:16
  Speaker 2: had more ways of pitching than Carter had oats. Lots
• 1:58:20
  Speaker 2: of men tried to ride him, but only one man
• 1:58:22
  Speaker 2: besides Bill, ever mounted that horse and lived. That's the
• 1:58:25
  Speaker 2: reason Bill named him widow Maker. Who was that man,
• 1:58:29
  Speaker 2: asked Blankie. That was Bill's friend. That I was going
• 1:58:33
  Speaker 2: to tell you about Bill's saving his life, said Hank,
• 1:58:36
  Speaker 2: You see this Feller gets his heart set on riding Widowmaker.
• 1:58:40
  Speaker 2: Bill tried to talk him out of it, but he
• 1:58:42
  Speaker 2: wouldn't listen. He said he could ride anything that had hair.
• 1:58:46
  Speaker 2: It had been his ambition from youth, he said, to
• 1:58:49
  Speaker 2: find a critter that could make him pull leather. So Bill,
• 1:58:53
  Speaker 2: seeing the poor fella's heart, was about to break finally
• 1:58:56
  Speaker 2: told him to go ahead. He gets on widow Maker,
• 1:59:00
  Speaker 2: and that Hoss begins to go through his gates, doing
• 1:59:03
  Speaker 2: the and and the sunfish and the back throw. And
• 1:59:06
  Speaker 2: about that time the rider goes up in the sky.
• 1:59:09
  Speaker 2: Bill watches him through a spyglass and sees him land
• 1:59:12
  Speaker 2: on Pike's Peak. No doubt he would have starved to
• 1:59:15
  Speaker 2: death up there, but Bill roped him by the neck
• 1:59:18
  Speaker 2: and drug him down, thus saving his life. Yeah, said Red,
• 1:59:23
  Speaker 2: What a Maker was just the sword of Hoss That
• 1:59:25
  Speaker 2: suited Bill exactly. For one thing, it saved him a
• 1:59:28
  Speaker 2: lot of shooting because he didn't have no trouble keeping
• 1:59:31
  Speaker 2: other people off his mount. And as for Bill, he
• 1:59:34
  Speaker 2: could ride anything that had hair and some things that
• 1:59:37
  Speaker 2: didn't have Once, just for fun, he throwed a surcingle
• 1:59:41
  Speaker 2: on a streak of lightning and rode alover Pike's Peak.
• 1:59:45
  Speaker 2: Another time he bet a stetson hat he could ride
• 1:59:47
  Speaker 2: a cyclone. He went up on the Kansas line and
• 1:59:51
  Speaker 2: simply eared that tornado down and got on it down.
• 1:59:54
  Speaker 2: He'd come across Oklahoma and the Panhandle, a setting on
• 1:59:57
  Speaker 2: that tornado, a curling his mustache, and a spur in
• 2:00:00
  Speaker 2: it in the withers. Seeing it couldn't throw him, it
• 2:00:04
  Speaker 2: just naturally rained out from under it. And that's the
• 2:00:07
  Speaker 2: way Bill got only spill he ever had. Yeah, continued Red,
• 2:00:12
  Speaker 2: I reckon Bill was mighty hard to throw. A smart
• 2:00:15
  Speaker 2: lad he was, and a playful sort of fellow too.
• 2:00:18
  Speaker 2: In his spare time he used to amuse himself putting
• 2:00:22
  Speaker 2: thorns on things, bushes and cactuses and the like. And
• 2:00:26
  Speaker 2: he even stuck horns on the toads so they'd match
• 2:00:29
  Speaker 2: up with the rest of the country. I see he's
• 2:00:31
  Speaker 2: been at work in this country, said Lanky. Did he
• 2:00:34
  Speaker 2: live all his life in Texas? Nah, he didn't, said Joe.
• 2:00:39
  Speaker 2: Bill was a good deal like his old man. When
• 2:00:42
  Speaker 2: he had killed all the Indians and bad men and
• 2:00:45
  Speaker 2: the country got all peaceful and quiet, he just couldn't
• 2:00:48
  Speaker 2: stand it any longer, and he saddled up his horse
• 2:00:51
  Speaker 2: and started west, out on the New Mexico line. He
• 2:00:54
  Speaker 2: met an old trapper and they got to talking, and
• 2:00:57
  Speaker 2: Bill told him why he was leaving, and said, if
• 2:00:59
  Speaker 2: the old man knowed where there was a tough outfit,
• 2:01:02
  Speaker 2: he'd be much obliged if he would tell him how
• 2:01:04
  Speaker 2: to get to it. Ride up the draw about two
• 2:01:07
  Speaker 2: hundred miles, says the old trapper, and you'll find a
• 2:01:10
  Speaker 2: bunch of guys so tough that they bite nails in
• 2:01:13
  Speaker 2: two just for the front of it. So Bill rides
• 2:01:16
  Speaker 2: on in a hurry, getting somewhat reckless on account of
• 2:01:19
  Speaker 2: wanting to get to that outfit and get a look
• 2:01:21
  Speaker 2: at the bad mbres that the old man has told
• 2:01:23
  Speaker 2: him about. The first thing Bill knowed, his hoss stumps
• 2:01:27
  Speaker 2: his toe on a mountain and breaks his full neck
• 2:01:30
  Speaker 2: rolling down the side, And so Bill finds his self
• 2:01:33
  Speaker 2: a foot He takes off his saddle and goes walking on,
• 2:01:37
  Speaker 2: packing it till all at once he comes to a
• 2:01:39
  Speaker 2: big rattlesnake. He was twelve feet long and had thangs
• 2:01:43
  Speaker 2: like the tushes of a havelina. And he rears up
• 2:01:46
  Speaker 2: and sings at Bill and sticks out his tongue like
• 2:01:49
  Speaker 2: he was looking for a scrap. There wasn't nothing that
• 2:01:52
  Speaker 2: Bill wouldn't fight, and he always fought fair, and just
• 2:01:55
  Speaker 2: to be sure that rattlesnake had a fair show and
• 2:01:58
  Speaker 2: couldn't claim he took advantage of him, Bill let him
• 2:02:00
  Speaker 2: have three bites before he begun. Then he just naturally
• 2:02:05
  Speaker 2: lit into that reptile and mortally flailed the stuffing out
• 2:02:08
  Speaker 2: of him. Bill was always quick to forgive, though, and
• 2:02:11
  Speaker 2: let bygones be bygones. And when the snake give up,
• 2:02:15
  Speaker 2: Bill took him up and curled him around his neck,
• 2:02:18
  Speaker 2: and picked up his saddle and outfit and went on
• 2:02:20
  Speaker 2: his way. As he was going along through a canyon,
• 2:02:24
  Speaker 2: all at once a big mountain lion jumped off of
• 2:02:27
  Speaker 2: a cliff and spraddled out all over Bill. Bill never
• 2:02:30
  Speaker 2: got excited. He just took his time and laid down
• 2:02:34
  Speaker 2: his saddle and his snak, and then he turned loose
• 2:02:37
  Speaker 2: on that cougar. Well, sir, the hare flew silk rose
• 2:02:41
  Speaker 2: up like a cloud, and the jack rabbits and road
• 2:02:44
  Speaker 2: runners thought it was sunned down. It wasn't long until
• 2:02:47
  Speaker 2: that cougar had just all he could stand, and he'd
• 2:02:50
  Speaker 2: begun to lick Bill's hand and cry like a kitten. Well,
• 2:02:54
  Speaker 2: Bill jest ears him down and slips his bridle on
• 2:02:56
  Speaker 2: his head, throws on the saddle, and sinches her fat
• 2:03:00
  Speaker 2: mounts the beast. Well, that cat just tears out across
• 2:03:04
  Speaker 2: the mountains and canyons with Bill on his back, a
• 2:03:07
  Speaker 2: spurring him in the shoulders and courting him down the
• 2:03:10
  Speaker 2: flank with the rattlesnake. And that's the way Bill rode
• 2:03:13
  Speaker 2: into the camp or the outfit the old driver had
• 2:03:15
  Speaker 2: told him about. When he gets there, he reaches out
• 2:03:19
  Speaker 2: and cheeks down on the coogar and sets him on
• 2:03:21
  Speaker 2: his haunches and gets down and looks at his saddle.
• 2:03:24
  Speaker 2: There was them tough mbrees are setting around the fire
• 2:03:28
  Speaker 2: playing Monty. There was a pot of coffee and a
• 2:03:31
  Speaker 2: bucket of beans a bible on the fire, And as
• 2:03:35
  Speaker 2: Bill hadn't had nothing to eat for several days, he
• 2:03:38
  Speaker 2: was hungry. So he stuck his hand down in the
• 2:03:40
  Speaker 2: bucket and grabbed a handful of beans and crammed him
• 2:03:43
  Speaker 2: into his mouth. Then he grabbed the coffee pot and
• 2:03:46
  Speaker 2: washed him down and wiped his mouth on a prickly pear.
• 2:03:49
  Speaker 2: Then he turned to the man and said, who in
• 2:03:51
  Speaker 2: the hell is boss around here? Anyway? I was, says
• 2:03:56
  Speaker 2: a big stout feller, about seven feet tall, But you
• 2:03:59
  Speaker 2: are stranger. And that was the beginning of Bill's outfit.
• 2:04:04
  Speaker 2: But it was only the beginning, said Red, for it
• 2:04:08
  Speaker 2: wasn't long after that that he staked out in New
• 2:04:10
  Speaker 2: Mexico and fenced Arizona for a calf pasture. He built
• 2:04:14
  Speaker 2: a big ranch house and had a big yard around it.
• 2:04:18
  Speaker 2: It was so far from the yard gate to the
• 2:04:20
  Speaker 2: front door that he used to keep a string of
• 2:04:22
  Speaker 2: cattle horses at stations along the way for the convenience
• 2:04:26
  Speaker 2: of visitors. Bill always was a hospitable sort of chap
• 2:04:30
  Speaker 2: and when company come he always tried to persuade them
• 2:04:33
  Speaker 2: to stay as long as he could get them. To
• 2:04:36
  Speaker 2: deputy sheriffs and brand inspectors, he never would let leave
• 2:04:39
  Speaker 2: a tall. One time, his outfit was so big that
• 2:04:43
  Speaker 2: he would have his cooks just dam up a draft
• 2:04:45
  Speaker 2: and mix the biscuit dough in. They would dump in
• 2:04:48
  Speaker 2: the flour and the salt and the bacon powder and
• 2:04:50
  Speaker 2: mix it up with teams and freshnose. You can still
• 2:04:54
  Speaker 2: see places where the dough was left in the bottom
• 2:04:56
  Speaker 2: of the draw when they moved on Alkali Lakes. They
• 2:05:00
  Speaker 2: call him that's the bacon powder that stayed in the ground.
• 2:05:04
  Speaker 2: One time, when there was a big drought and water
• 2:05:07
  Speaker 2: got scarce on Bill's range, he lit in and dug
• 2:05:09
  Speaker 2: the real brandy and ditched water from the gold. Mexico
• 2:05:13
  Speaker 2: old man Wendy Williams was water boy on the job,
• 2:05:16
  Speaker 2: and he said, Bill sure drove his men hard for
• 2:05:19
  Speaker 2: a few days till they got through, and it kept
• 2:05:22
  Speaker 2: him busy carrying water. I guess it took about all
• 2:05:25
  Speaker 2: of Bill's time to manage a wrench like that, said Lanky,
• 2:05:29
  Speaker 2: Not all, not all, said Joe. That was his main
• 2:05:34
  Speaker 2: vocation in calling, But he found time for a good
• 2:05:37
  Speaker 2: many other things. He was always going in for something
• 2:05:40
  Speaker 2: else when the cattle business got slack. When the sp
• 2:05:44
  Speaker 2: come through, he got a contract furnishing a wood. Bill
• 2:05:47
  Speaker 2: went down into Mexico and rounded up a bunch of
• 2:05:49
  Speaker 2: greasers and put him to cut and wood. He made
• 2:05:52
  Speaker 2: a contract with him that they was to get half
• 2:05:54
  Speaker 2: the wood to cut when the time was up. They
• 2:05:57
  Speaker 2: all had big stacks of cordwood, Mexican cords. You understand
• 2:06:01
  Speaker 2: that they don't know what to do with. So Bill
• 2:06:03
  Speaker 2: talked it over with him and finally agreed to take
• 2:06:06
  Speaker 2: it off their hands without charging on a cent. Bill
• 2:06:10
  Speaker 2: always was liberal. He done some of the grading on
• 2:06:13
  Speaker 2: the SP two. This time he went out and rounded
• 2:06:16
  Speaker 2: up ten thousand badgers and put them to digging. He
• 2:06:20
  Speaker 2: said they was better laborers than chinks, because he could
• 2:06:23
  Speaker 2: learn them how to work sooner. Bill had some trouble, however,
• 2:06:26
  Speaker 2: getting them to go in a straight line, and that's
• 2:06:29
  Speaker 2: why the sp is so crooked in places. He also
• 2:06:32
  Speaker 2: got a contract fencing the right of way. The first
• 2:06:35
  Speaker 2: thing that he'd done was to go out on the
• 2:06:37
  Speaker 2: line of Texas and New Mexico and buy up all
• 2:06:40
  Speaker 2: the dry holes Old Bob Sandford had made out there
• 2:06:43
  Speaker 2: trying to get water. He pulled them up and sawed
• 2:06:46
  Speaker 2: them up into two foot lengths for post holes. I've
• 2:06:50
  Speaker 2: heard that Paul Bunyan did that with dry oil wells,
• 2:06:53
  Speaker 2: said Lanky. Paul Bunyon might have, for all I know,
• 2:06:56
  Speaker 2: said Joe. But if he did, he learned the trick
• 2:07:00
  Speaker 2: from Peco's Bill, for this was before all had been invented. However,
• 2:07:05
  Speaker 2: it costs so much to freight the holes down that
• 2:07:08
  Speaker 2: Bill give up the plan long before he had used
• 2:07:10
  Speaker 2: up all of Bob Sandford's wales and found a cheaper
• 2:07:14
  Speaker 2: and better way of making post holes. What was his
• 2:07:16
  Speaker 2: new method, asked Blankie. Why he just went out and
• 2:07:20
  Speaker 2: rounded up a big bunch of prairie dogs and turned
• 2:07:23
  Speaker 2: him luticse where he wanted the fence, And of course
• 2:07:26
  Speaker 2: every critter of him begun digging a hole, for it's
• 2:07:29
  Speaker 2: just a prairie dog's nature to dig holes. As soon
• 2:07:32
  Speaker 2: as a prairie dog will get down about two feet,
• 2:07:35
  Speaker 2: Bill would yank him out and stick a post in
• 2:07:37
  Speaker 2: the hole. Then the full prairie dog would go start
• 2:07:40
  Speaker 2: another one, and Bill would get in. Bill said he
• 2:07:43
  Speaker 2: found the prairie dog labor very satisfactory. The only trouble
• 2:07:47
  Speaker 2: was that sometimes during off hours, the badgers that he
• 2:07:50
  Speaker 2: had graden would make a raid on the prairie dogs,
• 2:07:53
  Speaker 2: and Bill would have to get up and drive him
• 2:07:55
  Speaker 2: back to their own camp. Did Bill have any other occupations,
• 2:07:59
  Speaker 2: asked Well, said Joe. He used to fight Indians just
• 2:08:05
  Speaker 2: for recreation, but he never did make a business of
• 2:08:07
  Speaker 2: it like some did, hunting them for a dollar a scalp.
• 2:08:10
  Speaker 2: In fact, Bill was not bloodthirsty and crewell and he
• 2:08:14
  Speaker 2: never scalped an Indian in his life. He'd just skin
• 2:08:17
  Speaker 2: them and tan their hides. That reminds me, said Hank
• 2:08:21
  Speaker 2: of another business he used to carry on as a
• 2:08:23
  Speaker 2: sort of sideline, and that was hunting buffalo. And see,
• 2:08:26
  Speaker 2: it was the hides that was valuable, and Bill thought
• 2:08:29
  Speaker 2: it was too much of a waste to kill a
• 2:08:31
  Speaker 2: buffalo just for the hide, So he just hold the
• 2:08:34
  Speaker 2: critters and skin them alive, and then turn them aloose
• 2:08:37
  Speaker 2: to grow a new hide. A profitable business he built up, too,
• 2:08:41
  Speaker 2: But he just made one mistake. What was that, asked Lanky.
• 2:08:45
  Speaker 2: One spring he skinned too early, and a norther come up,
• 2:08:49
  Speaker 2: and all the buffalo took cold and died. Might a
• 2:08:52
  Speaker 2: few of them left after that? Did Bill ever get married,
• 2:08:56
  Speaker 2: I asked Lanky. Oh, yes, said Joe. He married lots
• 2:09:00
  Speaker 2: of women in his day, but he never had the
• 2:09:03
  Speaker 2: real tender affection for any of the rest of them
• 2:09:05
  Speaker 2: that he had for his first wife, Slewfoot Sue, Bill
• 2:09:09
  Speaker 2: Savage Court and the ladies all right, And he never
• 2:09:12
  Speaker 2: took much stock in petticoats till he met Slewfoot Sue.
• 2:09:15
  Speaker 2: But when he saw that gal come riding down the
• 2:09:17
  Speaker 2: real brandy on a catfish, it just got next to
• 2:09:20
  Speaker 2: him and he married her right off. I saved right off.
• 2:09:24
  Speaker 2: But she made him wait a few days till she
• 2:09:25
  Speaker 2: could send to San Antonio for a suitable and proper outfit,
• 2:09:29
  Speaker 2: the principal garment being a big steel wire bustle like
• 2:09:33
  Speaker 2: all the women wore when they had dressed up in
• 2:09:35
  Speaker 2: them days. Well, everything would have gone off fine, But
• 2:09:39
  Speaker 2: on the very day of the wedding, Sue took a
• 2:09:41
  Speaker 2: full notion into her head that she just had to
• 2:09:44
  Speaker 2: ride widowmaker for a long time. Bill wouldn't hear to it.
• 2:09:48
  Speaker 2: But finally she begun to cry and said Bill didn't
• 2:09:51
  Speaker 2: love her anymore. Bill just couldn't stand to see her cry,
• 2:09:55
  Speaker 2: so he told her to go ahead, but to be careful. Well,
• 2:09:59
  Speaker 2: she got off that hoss, and he gave about two
• 2:10:02
  Speaker 2: jumps and she left the saddle. He thought her so
• 2:10:05
  Speaker 2: high that she had to duck as she went up
• 2:10:07
  Speaker 2: to keep from bumping her head on the moon. Then
• 2:10:10
  Speaker 2: she come down, landing right on that steel bustle, and
• 2:10:13
  Speaker 2: that made her bounce up just as high nearly as
• 2:10:16
  Speaker 2: she had went before. Well, she just kept bouncing like
• 2:10:20
  Speaker 2: that for ten days and nights, and finally Bill had
• 2:10:23
  Speaker 2: to shoot her to keep her from starving to death.
• 2:10:26
  Speaker 2: It nearly broke his heart. That was the only time
• 2:10:29
  Speaker 2: Bill had ever been known to shed tears, And he
• 2:10:32
  Speaker 2: was so tall up that he wouldn't have nothing to
• 2:10:34
  Speaker 2: do with the woman for two weeks. End of Section
• 2:10:39
  Speaker 2: seven read by John s Whitman Section eight of Tall
• 2:10:48
  Speaker 2: Tales from Texas. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox
• 2:10:53
  Speaker 2: recordings are in the public domain. For more information or
• 2:10:56
  Speaker 2: to volunteer, please visit LibriVox dot org. Tall Tales from
• 2:11:01
  Speaker 2: Texas by Mody Coggin Boatwright. The Exodus of piccos Bill.
• 2:11:07
  Speaker 2: Lanky had been sent for and this was his last
• 2:11:10
  Speaker 2: night in camp. His face was tanned, he had gained
• 2:11:14
  Speaker 2: in weight, he had earned money in his own right.
• 2:11:17
  Speaker 2: He felt that he was now a man. He and
• 2:11:20
  Speaker 2: his cronies sat around the fire in silence. Joe and
• 2:11:23
  Speaker 2: the boys would miss the kid, and he hated to
• 2:11:26
  Speaker 2: leave this silence. Wouldn't do what became of pecos Bill,
• 2:11:32
  Speaker 2: asked Lanky. That would be hard to say, said Joe.
• 2:11:37
  Speaker 2: Hard to say. Everybody knows he's gone, just like the
• 2:11:41
  Speaker 2: open range and the long horned steer, but just how
• 2:11:44
  Speaker 2: and where he passed in his texts, I don't suppose
• 2:11:47
  Speaker 2: anybody will ever find out for certain. A lot of
• 2:11:50
  Speaker 2: the fellers that knowed him are dead, and a lot
• 2:11:52
  Speaker 2: of 'em has bad memories. A lot of the old
• 2:11:55
  Speaker 2: timers has bad memories, and some of 'em are such
• 2:11:58
  Speaker 2: damn liars that you can't go by what they say.
• 2:12:01
  Speaker 2: You've seen pecos Bill, haven't you, Joe said Lanky, Well, yes,
• 2:12:07
  Speaker 2: that is. I seen him when I was a young buck.
• 2:12:09
  Speaker 2: But I never seen him die, and I never could
• 2:12:11
  Speaker 2: find out just how he was took off. I've seen
• 2:12:14
  Speaker 2: some mighty hot arguments on the subject, and I've knowed
• 2:12:18
  Speaker 2: one or two fellas to die with their boots on
• 2:12:20
  Speaker 2: after getting in a quarrel in just that way. I
• 2:12:23
  Speaker 2: heard one account a few years ago, said Red, that
• 2:12:26
  Speaker 2: may be right. There was a fella in Amarillo named
• 2:12:29
  Speaker 2: Gabriel Asbury Jackson. He'd worked himself out of a job
• 2:12:34
  Speaker 2: in Kansas and had come to Texas to buck the
• 2:12:36
  Speaker 2: cigarette evil. One time he cornered a bunch of us
• 2:12:39
  Speaker 2: that was too drunk to make a getaway and begun
• 2:12:41
  Speaker 2: talking to us about smoking. Young men. He says, beware
• 2:12:46
  Speaker 2: of cigarettes. You think you're smart to smoke a sack
• 2:12:49
  Speaker 2: of bull Durham every day, do you? Well? Look at
• 2:12:52
  Speaker 2: Peco's Bill, a stalwart young man, He was tough as nails,
• 2:12:57
  Speaker 2: a fine specimen, but he got to fool with cigarettes.
• 2:13:01
  Speaker 2: What did they do for him? He says, why nothing
• 2:13:04
  Speaker 2: at first? But did he quit. No, he says, he
• 2:13:08
  Speaker 2: puffed away for ninety years, but they finally got him.
• 2:13:12
  Speaker 2: And they'll get you, every mother son of you if
• 2:13:15
  Speaker 2: you don't leave my moon. That ain't so, said Joe.
• 2:13:19
  Speaker 2: That man was just a liar. Cigarettes never killed pecos Bill.
• 2:13:23
  Speaker 2: He was, however, a great smoker, but he never smoked
• 2:13:26
  Speaker 2: bull Durham. He made him up a mixture of his own,
• 2:13:29
  Speaker 2: the principal ingredients being Kentucky homespun, sulfur and gunpowder. Why
• 2:13:36
  Speaker 2: he would have thought he was a sissy if he'd
• 2:13:38
  Speaker 2: smoked bull Durham. When the matches was scarce, Bill used
• 2:13:42
  Speaker 2: to ride out into a thunderstorm and light his cigarette
• 2:13:45
  Speaker 2: with a streak of lightning. And that's no doubt what's
• 2:13:47
  Speaker 2: back of a tail. You hear every once in a
• 2:13:49
  Speaker 2: while about him being struck and killed. But nobody that
• 2:13:53
  Speaker 2: knows how Bill throwed a surf angle over a streak
• 2:13:56
  Speaker 2: of lightning and rode it over Pike's Peak will ever
• 2:13:58
  Speaker 2: believe that story. I heard It was liquor that killed
• 2:14:02
  Speaker 2: poor Bill. Said, Hank. Must have been bootleg, said red Na, said, Hank.
• 2:14:09
  Speaker 2: You see Bill beIN brought up as he was from
• 2:14:12
  Speaker 2: tender youth. On whisky and onions. He was still a
• 2:14:15
  Speaker 2: young man when whisky lost its kick for him, he
• 2:14:18
  Speaker 2: got to put nitro glycerin in his drinks. That brooked
• 2:14:22
  Speaker 2: all right for a while, but soon he had to
• 2:14:24
  Speaker 2: go to wolf bate An. When that got so it
• 2:14:26
  Speaker 2: didn't work, he went to fish hooks. Bill used to say,
• 2:14:30
  Speaker 2: rather sorrowful like that that was the only way he
• 2:14:33
  Speaker 2: could get an idea from his booze. But after about
• 2:14:36
  Speaker 2: fifty years the fish hooks rusted out his interior parts
• 2:14:40
  Speaker 2: and brought poor Bill to an early grave. I don't
• 2:14:44
  Speaker 2: know who told you that, Wendy, said Joe. It might
• 2:14:47
  Speaker 2: have been your own daddy, but it ain't. So it's jest,
• 2:14:51
  Speaker 2: another damned lie concocted by them damn prohibition men. I
• 2:14:55
  Speaker 2: heard another tale, said Red, which may be right for
• 2:14:58
  Speaker 2: all I know. I heard that Bill went to Fort
• 2:15:01
  Speaker 2: Worth one time, and there he's seen a Boston man
• 2:15:04
  Speaker 2: who had just come to Texas with a mail order
• 2:15:07
  Speaker 2: cowboy outfit on. And when Bill seen him, he just
• 2:15:11
  Speaker 2: naturally laid down and laughed his self to death. That
• 2:15:14
  Speaker 2: may be sold, said Joe, but I doubt it. I
• 2:15:18
  Speaker 2: heard one tale about the death of Piccos Bill, that
• 2:15:20
  Speaker 2: I believe is the real, correct and true account. And
• 2:15:25
  Speaker 2: what was that? Asked Lanky Well. Bill happened to drift
• 2:15:31
  Speaker 2: into Cheyenne just as the first rodeo was being put on.
• 2:15:35
  Speaker 2: Being a bit curious to know what it was all about,
• 2:15:37
  Speaker 2: he went out to the grounds to look the thing over.
• 2:15:41
  Speaker 2: When he's seen the ropers and the riders, he'd begun
• 2:15:43
  Speaker 2: to weep, the first tears he'd shed since the death
• 2:15:46
  Speaker 2: of Slewfoot Sue Well. Finally, when a country lawyer just
• 2:15:51
  Speaker 2: three years out of Mississippi got up to make a
• 2:15:53
  Speaker 2: speech and referred to the men on horseback as cowboys,
• 2:15:57
  Speaker 2: Bill turned white and began to tram And then when
• 2:16:01
  Speaker 2: the country lawyer went on to talk about keeping im
• 2:16:04
  Speaker 2: violate the sacred traditions of the old West, Bill just
• 2:16:09
  Speaker 2: went out and crawled in a prairie dog hole and
• 2:16:12
  Speaker 2: died of solemncholy. Blankie looked at Red and Hank. They
• 2:16:17
  Speaker 2: had not missed the point, but they chose to ignore it.
• 2:16:21
  Speaker 2: Joe talked on. After several years, he said, when all
• 2:16:26
  Speaker 2: Bill's would be rivals was sure he was dead, they
• 2:16:30
  Speaker 2: all begun to try to ruin his reputation and defame
• 2:16:33
  Speaker 2: his character. They said he was a hot headed, overbearing
• 2:16:37
  Speaker 2: sort of fella. They was too scared to use the
• 2:16:39
  Speaker 2: word even after Bill died, But what they meant was
• 2:16:42
  Speaker 2: that he was a killer. Now Pagos, Bill did kill
• 2:16:46
  Speaker 2: lots of men. He never kept no tally hisself, and
• 2:16:50
  Speaker 2: I don't suppose nobody will ever know just how many
• 2:16:53
  Speaker 2: he took off. Of course, I'm not referring to Mexicans
• 2:16:56
  Speaker 2: and Indians. Bill didn't count them. But Bill wasn't a
• 2:16:59
  Speaker 2: bad man, and he hardly ever killed a man without
• 2:17:02
  Speaker 2: just cause. For instance, there was Big Ike that he
• 2:17:07
  Speaker 2: shot for snoring. That Bill's enemies talked up so much,
• 2:17:11
  Speaker 2: but then Net was doing the talking, would forget to
• 2:17:14
  Speaker 2: mention that Bill had been standing guard over Mexico steers
• 2:17:17
  Speaker 2: every night for six weeks and was getting a bit sleepy.
• 2:17:21
  Speaker 2: Then there was Ris Wristbone. Ris was one of these
• 2:17:24
  Speaker 2: practical jokers, and he ram routed an outfit that fell
• 2:17:28
  Speaker 2: in behind Bill's on the trail. Ris had a dozen
• 2:17:31
  Speaker 2: or so jokes, and when he pulled one, he slapped
• 2:17:34
  Speaker 2: his knees and laughed and laughed, whether anybody else was
• 2:17:37
  Speaker 2: a laughing or not. One day Ris rode up to
• 2:17:40
  Speaker 2: Bill's chuck wagon when there wasn't nobody there but the cook,
• 2:17:43
  Speaker 2: and he was asleep in the shade of the wagon
• 2:17:45
  Speaker 2: with his head between the wheels. Ris slipped up and
• 2:17:49
  Speaker 2: grabbed trace chains and gun, rattling them and yelling whoa, whoa.
• 2:17:55
  Speaker 2: The poor spick woke up, thinking that the team was
• 2:17:57
  Speaker 2: running away and that he was about to get his
• 2:17:59
  Speaker 2: pack to Saint Peter. He jumped up and bumped his
• 2:18:02
  Speaker 2: head on the wagon. Then he wakes up and looks around,
• 2:18:05
  Speaker 2: and there stands Wrists, slapping his knees and laughing. Just
• 2:18:09
  Speaker 2: then Bill rides up, but he never said nothing. When
• 2:18:13
  Speaker 2: the outfit's gone to Abilene, Bill was in the White
• 2:18:16
  Speaker 2: Elephant with some of his men, fixing to take a drink.
• 2:18:19
  Speaker 2: Just as Bill was about to drop his fish hooks
• 2:18:22
  Speaker 2: in his glass, Ris poked his head in at the
• 2:18:24
  Speaker 2: window and yelled fire, fire, and Bill did in one killing. However,
• 2:18:30
  Speaker 2: Bill acted a bit hasty, as he admitted hisself. One
• 2:18:34
  Speaker 2: day he called three fingered ed out of the saloon,
• 2:18:37
  Speaker 2: saying he'd like to speak with him in private. Bill
• 2:18:40
  Speaker 2: led ed out into a back alley and there they stopped.
• 2:18:45
  Speaker 2: Say ed, he says, looking him right in the eye.
• 2:18:49
  Speaker 2: Didn't you say that? Mike said I was a hot
• 2:18:52
  Speaker 2: headed Overbearren sort of feller, Na says, ed, you mistook me.
• 2:18:58
  Speaker 2: He never said that. Hell dog gone, says Bill. Ain't
• 2:19:03
  Speaker 2: that too bad? I've gone an killed an innocent man. Well, Lankey,
• 2:19:09
  Speaker 2: maybe your pa that you come back next fall. The
• 2:19:14
  Speaker 2: end end of Tall Tales from Texas by Mody Coggan
• 2:19:18
  Speaker 2: Buotwright