DUANE
Duane's take
Here's my telling of what the official marker has to say about the Pecos River in Literature and Folklore, out in Val Verde County. Now settle in, because this river has a reputation. The Pecos snakes through Texas on its way to the Rio Grande — mineral-thick waters, sudden floods, rough country that doesn't apologize for any of it.
Historian J. Evetts Haley wrote about it. Folklorist J.
Frank Dobie wrote about it too, and Dobie, a man who knew his rivers, called it two things: a strange river, and a barricade. That word — barricade — says just about everything, doesn't it. Zane Grey took his own swing at it, and he wrote, 'Rising clear and cold in the mountains of northern New Mexico, its pure waters cut through rough country that changed its flood to turbid red.' Clear and cold up top, turbid red by the time it's done with you.
The storytellers who followed have likened the river and the arid land along it to hell, death, and violence. Not metaphors they chose lightly, out here. The Pecos serves as a natural border for several counties, and somewhere along that line — that barricade — something shifts.
This is where the mythic Wild West begins, according to those who've tried to put it into words. The land that produced the legendary Judge Roy Bean. The land that gave rise to the fabled Pecos Bill.
Haley, Dobie, Zane Grey — they all came to the Pecos and left changed enough to write it down. That river has a way of demanding to be reckoned with.
What the marker says
Noted for mineral-thick waters and sudden floods, the Pecos River snakes through Texas on its way to the Rio Grande. Historian J. Evetts Haley and folklorist J. Frank Dobie, who called it "a strange river," and a "barricade," are among many who have immortalized the Pecos in writing. Zane Grey wrote, "Rising clear and cold in the mountains of northern New Mexico, its pure waters cut through rough country that changed its flood to turbid red." Storytellers have likened the river and the arid land along it to hell, death and violence. A natural border for several counties, the Pecos is where the mythic Wild West begins, the land that produced the legendary Judge Roy Bean and fabled Pecos Bill. (2005)