This here is the true-life factual legend of Pecos Bill, World’s Greatest Cowboy. It’s not just some warmed-over Disney pan of beans.

Pecos Bill was the youngest of 17 children, but even as a little baby, he showed the most potential. He’d do his teething on a Bowie knife, and he’d play with bobcats and rattlesnakes instead of your regular human beings.

One day some family moved within 50 miles of baby Billy’s family, which meant the place was too crowded.

They loaded up their stuff in a covered wagon. When they were crossing the Pecos River, baby Billy fell and the current got him. But Pecos Bill was one resourceful baby, so he settled with a pack of coyotes who raised him.

Pecos Bill was around 15 when one of his brothers found him. This brother had a hard time convincing the kid that he wasn’t a coyote. Billy finally turned around and became a cowhand. However, as long as he lived, he chased lizards and howled at the moon every night. This means he was from Arizona, probably even Tucson itself. Everyone knows all your Arizonans chase lizards and howl at the moon every night.

Pecos Bill just rode cougars until he came across the only horse that was a match for him. Widow-Maker was one heck of a horse who ate only dynamite. No one could ride him except Pecos Bill.

Next Pecos Bill found his lasso. He never did swing no ordinary rope –no sir! He used a gigantic rattlesnake named Shake.

He and Shake were so good that they once roped an entire herd at one time.

After Pecos Bill tamed Widow-Maker and Shake, he needed another challenge. He waited for the biggest meanest tornado in history to form. This twister was so big
that people on other planets were watching it. Billy reached up to the clouds, grabbed that twister by its tail, and climbed on it. The tornado tried to buck him off, and then it swooped down and drunk up Lake Michigan.

When they blew over his ranch, Pecos Bill squeezed that twister and made it dump that water on his land, thus saving it from drought. Finally he fell off it, and he hit the ground so hard that the hole he made turned into Death Valley.

Even though he was the most powerful man on earth, Pecos Bill had a heart. One day he was riding Widow-Maker near the Rio Grande when he spotted a cowgirl riding a catfish as big as a whale. He fell madly in love and asked this gal to marry him. Shue-Foot Sue showed up to their wedding in a dress with a big bustle on the back.

After the wedding, Shue-Foot Sue got the notion to ride Widow-Maker. Pecos Bill was against this it. For one thing, no one but him could ever ride Widow-Maker. For another thing, Widow-Maker was jealous of Shue Foot Sue and hated her guts. But Pecos Bill was so in love, he lost his judgment. Sue only lasted a few seconds on that horse. Widow-Maker bucked so hard that she flew up to the moon. Then she bounced back to earth, and landed on her bustle, which bounced her back up to the moon, where she lives to this day. Pecos Bill tried to lasso her with Shake, but Widow-Maker kept interfering with his throws.

Pecos Bill married many other times, but Slue Foot Sue was always the Love of His Life.

Pecos Bill lived over 150 years until one terrible day when this city slicker from New York City came to town. This Tenderfoot wanted to cowboy, so he bought himself Steve Madden boots, Kim Kardashian jeans, and a Ralph Lauren cowboy shirt. When he came out of the store, Pecos Bill took one look and laughed himself to death. And that’s the sad truth, partner.

For more true-life Arizona legends, see How to Resuscitate a Lizard, Grifting Along with the Tumbling Tumbleweed, and Jackalopes and Sand Sharks. By the way, true story! — someone did resuscitate a drowning lizard. Click on Drowning Lizard gets CPR. This website is happy to provide these public services.