Art By Robert G. Leffingwell
Now before we start this tale, I have some important things to say and mention, both to set the scene, and cause I forgot to mention this earlier, as only now does this particular tidbit become really relevant.
So first off, The now relevant tidbit, we all know by now that Bill grew up being raised by his Papog and Mamog, Coyote and Badger, but that doesn't mean Bill isn't aware of his other set of parents, his Pee-Pa and Mee-Ma.
Now one reason why he knows they exist is honestly cause of Bill's stubborn and immaculate memory, his mind being a maze for information and labyrinth for knowledge.
Like, quite seriously, once knowledge goes in, it's very hard for it to slip out of Bill's noggin, But, unfortunately, by that same measure, it's also sometimes hard for that knowledge to come to the surface, and might take him some thinking, and pondering, and jogging, and thinking some more before he remembers something, with him sometimes getting lost in his own head.
But the other reason why he remembers his Pee-Pa and Mee-Ma, comes from a very important memento, an heirloom of sorts, a gift that helped jog Bill's memory, and allowed those precious memories buried deep in Bill's mental labyrinth, to come front and center in his waking mind.
Ya see, shortly after fishing Bill out of the Pecos River, Coyote went back for potential clues to the whereabouts of Bill's biological ma and pa, And In doing so managed to fish out a bottle, the 31st bottle of Pecos delight, Bill's Pee-Pa's drink and the thing Bill is in part named after.
So Bill's Papog, assuming correctly that the bottle belonged to Pecos's Pee-Pa, gave it to young Bill as a gift one year, perhaps on his 10th birthday, or maybe after his defeat of the Monsquitos, I forget specifically when, But that's besides the point, since The important thing about this gift is that, immediately upon seeing the blue glass of the bottle, it began causing Bill to regain all kinds of memories of his original family, and Bill quickly treasured that haint blue bottle, and what was contained within, both metaphorically and literally.
Cause the 31st bottle of Pecos delight wasn't an empty one, and to Bill what was contained in the bottle, not only helped him remember his birth family completely, something the young Bill would cherish as truly invaluable, but was also liquid ambrosia, The most delicious and nutritious drink he ever did drunk.
Although In truth, it was probably the rankist most disgusting drink to ever be concocted.
Remember a good portion of this drink is made up of rattlesnake heads and poorly made moonshine, so it being vile enough to kill a roach or put cyanide to shame is to be expected, and to Bill, it was absolutely delicious.
But instead of guzzling the whole thing up in one go, like he did to 30 other bottles identical to this one when he was no more than a newborn, Bill would only take microscopic sips from the glass, in order to make sure the drink lasted as long as possible, especially since Bill had no idea how to make it and wanted to preserve it, savor it for as long as possible.
Bill also carried The bottle around with him, practically everywhere he went at this point, mainly as a good luck charm and, potentially, maybe even a way to find his Pee-Pa and Mee-Ma, or a brother, or a sister, as likely they'd know the drink as well as he would, and wouldn't die to it immediately.
Now onto the second thing, That being the when of this story, with this tale happening shortly after Bill's defeat of the Monsquitos.
Bill was on patrol, strolling, Or I should probably say prowling around the area he called home, looking to see if there were any Monsquito stragglers that needed to be dealt with.
When he started hearing a commotion from over a particularly sizable hill, the commotion wasn't hootin and a hollering as was usual for commotions, but instead nighing, whining and a thunderous HISS.
So quickly but quiet like, Bill ran up and peaked over the hill only to be met with a truly horrifying, grotesque and bone chilling sight to any man of sense.
It was the king of all rattlers, some even called him the father of all serpents and prime of their ilk, the half a mile long, gargantuan serpent known far and wide, as the Nueva México Cascabela Grande.
Although Bill wasn't too sure about The critter before him being the "father of all snakes", seemed like a bit of theatrical exaggeration to the nonplussed Bill, The King of Rattlers Bill could buy, but big papa o snakes, just seemed a bit far-fetched, especially with him remembering that time he met his distant Uncle Quetzalcoatl, such a card that feathered feller, But was he the papa o snakes, or the papa of all rattlers, how is Bill related to him again, Or wait, was the papa o snakes that Satan feller Bill heard a bit about when he was a baby and his Pee-Pa Read a bit from that hefty ass book that's seemed to literally be held together by hopes and prayers, that poor, poor book.
Anyways, Bill snaps himself out of his intense bout of thought and focus is back on the giant serpent, which wasn't just making noise on its own or to be a nuisance as sometimes big things like to do.
No, it was harassing a small critter, so Bill using his Hawk eyes, focused in on the diminutive little critter shivering before the massive snake.
Bill saw it was a quite small, very young horse, no more than a foal, skinny as a pole and rattling with fear at the mighty snake that loomed before him.
The giant snake hissing and faking lunges at the small horse, eliciting shrieks and terrified recoils from the tiny thing, This fear seemed to amuse the mighty rattler, a rattler mind you that would make even the largest python look no bigger than a worm by comparison.
That tore it for Bill, this "father o rattlers" was about to meet his match, and learn a painful lesson for picking on The helpless.
But quickly Bill took a deep breath, held his horses and thought for a moment, and realized he should approach the situation with a bit more diplomacy than he might otherwise.
Given he just learned a lesson about using his brain Rather than his muscles all the time, maybe the big critter could be reasoned with.
Bill: AYOOOOO HA.
Bill hollered, making his presence known as he bolted his way down to the massive beast and miniscule critter, Bill running up to the Nueva México Cascabela Grande, and looking the monster dead in the eyes, bill started talking, trying his best to be all diplomatic like.
Bill: naw what 'cha think ur doin' 'ear Cascabela, harassing and frightening this little guy.
The Nueva México Cascabela Grande only responded to Bill with a ear shattering, soul wrenching, angry HISS, quickly following this with a thwip of it's tail at Bill, sending bill flying miles and miles away, but of course This only irritated Bill, and with the boy being as tough as he is, he quickly got up from the crater he formed upon impact, and bolted back to the vicious serpent.
But this time, Bill approaches the Cascabela without alerting the beast of his presence, he slowly slinks up behind the serpent.
For a moment he thinks about using his bow, but he decides it would be unnecessary.
With Bill quickly and skillfully sizing up the genuine level of threat he's currently dealing with, ultimately deciding that "Using even one arrow on him would be overkill", and so with the element of surprise on his side, Bill grabbed the big critter's tail.
The Cascabela notices this and turns to bill, fangs bared, venom dripping from the multiple foot long incisors, with its lightning fast reflexes, powerful canyon creating body, venom that could cause a rock to become sludge, The creature who in all intents and purposes is the devil of the prairies, a horrifying menace that is feared across the land by all of its people for very good reasons, prepared in moments to strike at The kid who dares to bother him.
But Upon meeting the gaze of the young boy who had caught him by the tail, The serpent seemed to be put into a near catatonic state of abject fear and dread, the snake shriveling back as fire almost seems to bellow from Bill's eyes as he looks the serpent dead on, right in the eyes, before he made something important known to the serpent.
Bill: I hope you know Mr Cascabela, I tried to settle this here commotion with ma brain and tried talking ya down, and ya were vicious, so instead of dealing with my words Mr Cascabela, your bout to deal with my fists.
And without missing a beat Bill picked the serpent up and began flailing it about as if it were as light as twine, the Nueva México Cascabela Grande was being used as a makeshift giant lasso and whip by the small Bill, Bill knocking over mountains, slamming the Cascabela into the ground to create canyons, and even performing every lasso trick known to man, Bill even inventing a few of his own.
As Bill was doing this he noticed a strange magic that enveloped the Cascabela began to crack, which helped him realize why this critter, this serpent in particular, was so big and strong.
So Bill, having had his fun, finally let the snake go after slamming it to the ground one last time, causing a mighty, loud, and earthquaking thud.
For a moment, the snake thought it was all over, and felt relief, but, unfortunately for him, and fortunate for everyone else, Bill had one more thing he had to do to make sure this bully wouldn't continue his reign of terror.
So Bill as fast as he could, ran up to the snake's head and gave one swift, strong, and devastating chop to the monster's chompers while it was still dazed and confused.
And so, the Nueva México Cascabela Grande lost all of its teeth, on top of it transforming back into its true form, no king, no father, but the small and now toothless Rattlesnake, who promptly slithered off, as fast as he could, in fact it was in such a hurry that it ended up taking a lesson from some of its distant kin and Rattlesnake bit on to its own tail and started to roll away even faster, like a Hoop Snake.
Now Bill being a strange one, and of course not wanting to let anything go to waste, and having the same strange taste and super stomach as his Pee-Pa, wanted to use the venom of the Nueva México Cascabela Grande for something special.
So in the blink of an eye, Bill grabbed all the still massive teeth from the Nueva México Cascabela Grande that were sent flying by his mighty chop.
Then he started squeezing the venom from the teeth into his Lucky bottle of alcohol, to add an extra bit of punch to the concoction, ya know, this bottle being the previously mentioned 31st bottle of his Pee-Pa's panther piss booze, Pecos Delight.
And I know what you're asking now, as I ramble about Bill messing with his alcohol, "what about the baby horse", well, all I'm going to say is that baby horse and Bill, were about to start growing an absolutely beautiful friendship.
(authors/scribe's note: This chapter was a fun one to write, really got to show off Pecos's personality more with his rambling thoughts and physical might.
Now when I wrote the last note I had completely forgotten about splitting this story into two chapters with this first one covering the fight with the Nueva México Cascabela Grande And the next one detailing one of the most important characters to Pecos Bill lore and introducing them.
Also I feel like this story in some ways might have more going on on an analytical, metatextual level, Like ascribing certain characters in this chapter as a representation of certain things or this being an oversimplification of real world events but that metatexual narrative is somewhat lost upon me.
Don't get me wrong I think I can tell a little bit about it but this feels like one of those stories that's been told over and over again in my family to such a degree where that original meta narrative has been lost or rewritten several times to the point of being somewhat difficult to decipher.
But I do remember the majority of retellings of this story I've been told over the years, including that bit about Quetzalcoatl, although I expanded it a tad and mixed it together with another character that's often brought up at that part instead of Quetzalcoatl, that being Satan, both showing up in later Pecos Bill stories most notably Satan debuting I believe a chapter or so from now.
So yeah I feel like there's definitely more under the surface of the story, and there's definitely multiple ways to interpret it but personally my favorite way and granted the simplest way to interpret this story is as Pecos fighting a bully who thinks he's hot when really he's the king of nothing, you know.
Also this isn't the last appearance of rattlesnake, He shows up in one more story as a prominent antagonist but that's all I'll give away right now
Addendum: So I had forgotten about something writing the story down due to being focused on getting it done and getting to the next story in Pecos's series or ventures, What might that be? Well after Rattlesnakes defeat, He doesn't just quickly slither away but bites his own tail and becomes a hoop snake, sometimes in the retellings my family would refer to this as the birth of the hoop snake, while other times it's just rattlesnake taking a note from his kin and I decided to go with the ladder interpretation for this written account, So now we're rereading this if you notice an addition or change, That's why.
Edit: as of October 6th 2023 I changed the title image of this chapter from the original one which was an excerpt from a Jack A. Warren Pecos Bill strip to instead the one seen now by Robert G. Leffingwell, Notably this one comes from a comic strip that does not star Pecos Bill But instead of recounts a tall tale that has striking similarities to this story as well as the earliest version of this story I was able to find in written record, The strip is one called T'aint So! And recounts a photographer story dealing with a rattlesnake the size of multiple mountain ranges with the strip being from the first issue of The Funny Pages [originally referred to as The Comics Magazine] and the strip itself I've decided to archive on the site and can be found through THIS LINK)
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