Pecos Bill Rides a Tornado (Campfire Story)

Of all the cowboys in the West, the greatest was PECOS BILL. He was raised by coyotes, he used a rattlesnake for a whip, and his lasso was so long he could rope a cow in the next state. There wasn't a horse he couldn't ride or a steer he couldn't wrangle.

One summer, there came a drought so bad the fish in the rivers had to carry canteens. The cattle were thin, the grass was brown, and every cowboy on the ranch was looking at the sky, hoping for RAIN.

Then one afternoon the sky up north turned green, then purple, then black. The wind went dead still. And out of the clouds came the biggest TWISTER anybody had ever seen. It was so tall it scraped the moon. It was sucking up barns and windmills and whole herds of cattle, and it was headed straight for the ranch.

The cowboys dove for the storm cellar. But PECOS BILL just pushed his hat back and grinned. 'Boys,' he said, 'I've been looking for a horse with some real spirit.'

He grabbed his lasso and ran right at that TWISTER. He swung the loop over his head once, twice, three times, and let it fly. It sailed up and up and settled right around the neck of the storm. PECOS BILL yanked it tight, took a running jump, and swung himself up onto the back of the TWISTER.

Well, that TWISTER didn't care to be ridden. It bucked across Texas, tearing up the ground. It spun across Oklahoma, so fast that PECOS BILL couldn't tell which way was up. It whipped back and forth across New Mexico, trying to throw him off. And the whole time, PECOS BILL hung on with one hand and waved his hat with the other.

They say that's how the Grand Canyon got so deep and twisty: the TWISTER dragged its tail through Arizona trying to scrape Bill off.

But nothing worked. And little by little, the TWISTER got tired. It slowed down. It started to wheeze. Every bit of water it had sucked up, from every lake and pond and horse trough between Kansas and California, came pouring out of it. The RAIN came down in buckets. The RAIN came down in barrels. The RAIN fell so hard on the dry ranches behind them that the cattle had to learn to swim.

By the time they got to California, there was nothing left of that TWISTER but a puff of breeze. And with nothing to hold onto, PECOS BILL fell. Down, down, down he came, from way up high, and he hit the ground so hard that he knocked a hole in the earth hundreds of feet below sea level.

Today they call that place Death Valley. It's still the lowest, hottest spot in all of North America, and it's still shaped like the seat of a cowboy's pants.

PECOS BILL climbed out, dusted himself off, and found his hat. 'Best ride I ever had,' he said. Then he whistled for his horse and rode home through the mud, where all the cowboys were dancing in the RAIN.

And when a TWISTER comes spinning across the plains today, the old ranchers just shake their heads. 'That's the little one,' they say. 'The big one's still scared of PECOS BILL.'

Storyteller tips: teach the three cues first. Let the TWISTER get faster and louder as Bill's ride gets wilder, then slow it way down as the storm gets tired. The RAIN cue works best soft-to-loud, so the crowd builds it from a sprinkle to a downpour.

Pecos Bill first appeared in stories by Edward O'Reilly in 1923. Start with How Pecos Bill Was Raised by Coyotes the night before, and the crowd already knows who he is.