Did I ever tell you boys about my old friend Bill?  I reckon you might have heard of him by the name of Pecos Bill.  Well he has quite a story, and I would like to tell you boys about it.  Well my friend Bill was born a Yankee, it's true, but he grew up right here in the great state of Texas.  Now when Bill’s family was crossing the Pecos River so long ago, Bill decided to fish.  A giant trout grabbed that bait and pulled Bill into the river.  Now, a family of coyotes adopted that poor baby, and by the time he was a boy he was a real member of that pack.  Could you imagine that, being raised by a pack of wild coyotes, well that's how Bill turned out the way he did I reckon.
 

 One day Bill was napping and a fellow named Chuck found him.  He told Bill that he wasn't a coyote, but a Texan just like him.  One day Bill and Chuck were out walking along a trail and a giant snake just came out of nowhere.  Hmm, I remember when Bill first told me this story, his eyes got big as saucers just remembering that time.  Anyway, Bill started wrestling that snake and I’ll be darned if he didn’t squeeze every last bit of poison out of it. He was stomping around and hooting and hollering after he did that.  But who can blame him.  I’d sure be creating a commotion if I’d squeezed the poison out of a rattlesnake.  Right after that happened Bill was attacked by a critter that was part tarantula, part grizzly, part puma and part gorilla.  Why, it didn’t take Bill long before he wrestled that monster to the ground and won the fight.  Oh Bill told me that story more times than I can count.  Each time he told it the snake got bigger and fiercer.  Imagine somebody telling a tall tale like that.  Well that was just the beginning of Bill’s adventures.  He was always fighting animals, and I’ll tell you what he won too.

                                                                                                  Pecos Bill figurine

Well, it’s still early boys; I’ll tell you about one more time that Bill did the unthinkable.  He met up with the Hell’s Gulch Gang and boasted about how he was going to tame all of the cattle in Texas.  The boys, they didn’t believe him but old Bill he knew that he could do it.  Bill set out and he did just that.  He worked and created quite a stir, but he did it.  Why, Bill rounded up every steer in Texas and that Hell’s Gulch Gang turned into ranchers, every last one of them.  This was the time I met Bill, while he was out rounding up them cattle.  I even helped him some too.  He may not have needed my help much, but it’s nice to get your name down in the record books with a fellow like Pecos Bill.  Now at the time Bill was still a youngun, and had a whole life full of adventures.  Luckily as a good friend, I was able to ride along sometimes and hear Bill’s fantastic stories.

Intro
Frametale
Me and that Steel Driving Man
The North Woods
Me and Gib Morgan
My Pal Johnny Appleseed
Pecos Bill and Slue-Foot Sue
e-mail me!
Jennifer Kirkwood

Kellogg, Steven
1986 Pecos Bill.  New York: William Morrow and Company.
I used two stories of the several stories in this book and changed the point of view to one of Pecos Bill's friends.  This changes the mood it is told in and makes it more personal than the observer narrator version in the book.

Pecos Bill, 1996, Oil on cold press illustration board by Gregory Rudd (1952- ).  Websource: http://www.unicover.com/EA6AA0OO.HTM
Pecos Bill figurine, (1994 Flower), Annual limited edition, 1st Issue.  Websource: http://www.winders.com/Toyland/