Pecos Bill and the Wild Stallion

Pecos Bill and the Wild Stallion

Out on the open plains, where the grass rolled farther than some people thought the world ought to roll, Pecos Bill was already a legend before he had time to notice it. Folks said he could ride anything with legs, wings, or a bad temper. They said he once used a rattlesnake for a rope because it happened to be lying closer than a real lasso. They said the coyotes knew his whistle and the dust devils tipped their hats when he passed. Whether all that was true depends on how strict you are with the truth. One summer, word came from every ranch between the river and the red hills about a wild stallion running loose on the plains. He was black as thundercloud shadow, with a white mark on his forehead shaped like a crooked bolt of lightning. He scattered cattle, broke fences, and sent good riders home holding their hats in one hand and their pride in the other. Some called him Stormback. Others called him Trouble. One old cowhand just called him "No, thank you." Pecos Bill heard all this, leaned back against a fence post, and smiled. "Sounds like a horse with spirit," he said. "I'd hate to think the plains were running short on that."

A Horse Too Wild for Common Sense

By the time Bill rode out to find the stallion, every story about the animal had grown bigger in the telling. One rancher swore the horse jumped a dry creek so wide that his own eyes took a minute to follow. Another said the stallion kicked at a clap of thunder and made the thunder change direction. A third claimed the horse ran so fast that tumbleweeds chased him for exercise. Bill listened politely and nodded at all of it. Near sunset he found the tracks: deep, sharp, and restless, as if the ground itself had tried to hold the animal and failed. He followed them over hard earth, through waving grass, and up onto a rise where the whole plain opened under a huge western sky. There, against the gold light, stood the stallion. The horse was magnificent and mean-looking in equal measure. His mane snapped in the wind like black fire. He pawed the earth as though he wanted to dig up the moon before nightfall. When he saw Bill, he snorted a cloud of dust and sprang away. Bill's grin only widened. "Now that's a proper hello," he said, and went after him at once, cheerful as a man heading to supper instead of trouble.

Across the Plains at Full Speed

What followed was less a chase than a moving argument between two stubborn creatures. The stallion ran east, and Bill ran east behind him. Then the horse cut south so suddenly that three jackrabbits had to sit down and think about what they had seen. Bill swung after him. They crossed flats baked hard by sun, rolled through waist-high grass, and splashed across a stream so fast the fish thought it had started raining sideways. Bill tried a rope first, but the stallion twisted out from under it. He tried edging close and talking soft, but the horse answered with a kick that sent a clod of dirt clear into next Tuesday. So Bill did what any sensible man would not do. He leaned low, matched the stallion stride for stride, and jumped from his own mount straight onto the wild horse's back. The stallion exploded upward. He bucked high enough to give a hawk a nervous look. He landed stiff-legged, twisted sideways, and pitched again. Bill hung on with one hand, waved his hat with the other, and called, "I've had porch swings rougher than this!" The horse, insulted by such good humor, bucked still harder.

The Storm Joins the Ride

As if one wild creature were not enough, the weather decided to take part. Clouds rolled in from the far horizon, dark and fast, piling up like mountains made of smoke. Wind flattened the grass in long silver streaks. Then lightning cracked across the sky so close it seemed to split the evening open from top to bottom. Most riders would have looked for shelter. Pecos Bill just settled deeper in the saddle he did not really have and rode on. Stormback plunged forward into the gale, mane whipping, eyes shining. Rain came down in sheets. Thunder boomed overhead. One flash lit up horse and rider so bright that, according to a story still told around campfires, a herd of cattle thought sunrise had arrived early and got up twice. The stallion charged straight toward a line of low bluffs. He scrambled up one side, launched off the other, and sailed so far through the rain that Bill had time to look down and admire the country. They landed in a wash with a crash that shook loose enough pebbles to start a respectable little landslide. Bill spat out mud, laughed, and patted the horse's neck. "You don't make things easy," he said. "I do admire that." No one knows whether Stormback understood the words, but he understood the tone, and for the first time his fury seemed mixed with respect.

How a Legend Ends, or Begins

By dawn the storm had broken apart. The clouds drifted east in ragged pieces, and the plains steamed under the new sun. Stormback stood trembling, sides heaving, while Pecos Bill still sat on him as relaxed as a man in a barber chair. Bill slid down, rubbed the horse between the eyes, and offered him water from his hat. Folks later argued that no hat could hold that much water, but that is the smallest problem in a Pecos Bill story. The stallion drank. Then he lowered his head, not in fear exactly, but in agreement. Bill did not break him in the ordinary way. He simply outlasted him, outlaughed him, and matched his wildness with a bigger kind of calm. After that, Stormback carried no one but Bill, and Bill rode no horse more proudly. When they came back across the open plains together, people stopped work to stare. Children ran behind them. Old cowhands removed their hats. Someone asked Bill if the stallion had given him much trouble. Bill considered the question and said, "Only enough to keep the ride interesting." That answer spread almost as fast as the story itself. Before long, people said Pecos Bill had ridden a storm, tamed thunder, and taught lightning to keep pace. Maybe he did, and maybe he only rode the wildest horse on the plains through the worst weather anyone had sense to avoid. Out there, with sky bigger than memory and humor bigger than fear, those two versions were close enough to be the same thing.