Editing Pecos Bill (section)

==Description==
According to the "legend",<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.legendsofamerica.com/ah-pecosbill/|title=Pecos Bill – A Legend of Frontier Spirit |publisher=Legends of America|date=May 2017|access-date=December 13, 2019}}</ref> Pecos Bill was born in Texas in the 1830s (or 1845 in some versions, the year of Texas's statehood). Pecos Bill's family decided to move out because his town was becoming "too crowded." Pecos Bill was traveling in a [[covered wagon]] as an infant when he fell out unnoticed by the rest of his family near the [[Pecos River]] (thus his nickname). He was taken in and [[feral child|raised]] by a pack of [[Mearns coyote|coyote]]s. Years later he was found by his real brother, who managed to convince him he was not a coyote.

He grew up to become a cowboy. Bill used a [[rattlesnake]] named Shake as a lasso and another snake as a little whip. His horse, Widow-Maker (also called Lightning), was so named because he was Texas's first and most notorious serial killer, leaving a trail of dead bodies clear across Texas (this is another version of how the Rio Grande was made). [[Dynamite]] was said to be his favorite food. It is also said Bill sometimes rode a [[North American cougar|cougar]] instead of a horse. On one of his adventures, Pecos Bill managed to [[lasso]] a [[tornado|twister]]. It was also said that he once wrestled the [[Bear Lake Monster]] for several days until Bill finally defeated it.

Pecos Bill had a sweetheart named Slue-Foot Sue, who rode a giant [[catfish]] down the [[Rio Grande]]. He was fishing with the pack when he saw her. Shake, Widow-Maker, and Slue-Foot Sue are as idealized as Pecos Bill.

After a courtship in which, among other things, Pecos Bill shoots all the stars from the sky except for one which becomes the [[Flag of Texas|Lone Star]], Bill proposes to Sue. She insists on riding Widow-Maker before, during or after the wedding (depending on variations in the story). Widow-Maker, jealous of no longer having Bill's undivided attention, bounces Sue off; she lands on her [[bustle]] and begins bouncing higher and higher. Bill catches her, but then gets pulled with her. The town folks assumed both Bill and Sue were bounced away to another place or both ended up on the [[Moon]] where they stayed and were never seen again.

In James Cloyd Bowman's version of the story, Sue eventually recovers from the bouncing, but is so traumatized by the experience she never speaks to Pecos Bill ever again.

In a few other versions, Bill attempts, but fails, to lasso her, because of an interference by Widow-Maker who did not want her on his back again (or for that matter didn't want her coming between his and Bill's friendship), and she eventually hits her head on the Moon. After she has been bouncing for days, Pecos Bill realizes that she would eventually starve to death, so he lassos her with Shake the rattlesnake and brings her back down to Earth. Widow-Maker, realizing that what he did to her was wrong, apologizes and is forgiven.

In other versions, Sue could not stop bouncing, and Bill could not stop her from bouncing either, so Bill had to shoot her to put her out of her misery. Though it is said that Bill was married many times, he never loved the others as much as Sue, and the other relationships did not work out.

In the ''[[Melody Time]]'' version, Bill was apparently responsible for the [[California Gold Rush]] and [[M.F. Stephenson]]'s famous "There's gold in them thar hills" phrase. He knocked out the gold fillings of a gang of rustlers when they tried to steal his cow, scattering the fillings across the landscape. Bill also creates the Lone Star long before he meets Sue. Additionally, in this version Sue gets stranded on the Moon due to Widow-Maker's interference in preventing Bill from lassoing her, after which a disheartened Bill leaves civilization to rejoin the [[coyotes]], who [[Etiological myth|now howl at the Moon]] in honor of Bill's sorrow for Sue.

In the more popular versions, including many children's books, Bill and Sue reunite, and get married happily ever after.

In a school story book (leveled reader), Bill finds a tornado and lassos it, and then they reunite.

In [[Laura Frankos]]' short story "[[Did You Say Chicks?!|Slue-Foot Sue and the Witch in the Woods]]" (1998), Sue's bustle-ride deposits her in Russia, where she must fight a duel with [[Baba Yaga]].

In the "Pecos Bill" episode of ''[[Tall Tales & Legends]]'' (1985), Sue is played by [[Rebecca De Mornay]].

Sue does not figure in the 1995 Pecos Bill film ''[[Tall Tale (film)|Tall Tale]]''; however, her fatal "bouncing to the Moon" story is briefly narrated by [[Patrick Swayze]]'s Bill, with Sue substituted by a man named Lanky Hank.