Pecos in The Library

Pecos in The Library Pecos ends up being one of the most important people Sela meets in The Library, and a lot of that has nothing to do with how well he can shoot. She has Hercules throwing dinosaurs around, Robin Hood making impossible-looking shots, and an entire library spilling monsters into the world. Somehow the cowboy with the snake is the one who gets her to stop and think about what is happening with her family. Spoilers for The Library #1–5. He is part of the American Folk Tales adventure brought into the real world by the spell. While other characters come out looking for someone to threaten, he starts helping. He shoots weapons out of people's hands and uses a living snake like a lasso. Later, when a dinosaur follows Sela back into the library, that snake gives him a way to swing them both out of danger. The same goes for his loyalty. Sela is a child who has accidentally helped unleash a disaster, and he does not pretend all her decisions are good ones. He calls out her recklessness. He tries to get her to settle down. But when she goes after the book that might fix everything, he goes with her. He throws himself between her and the Witch's attacks, then fights alongside Robin while she retrieves the book from a world full of monsters. The conversation in the barricaded room is the part that gives him more weight for me. Sela thinks her father only cares about his companies and his money. Since her mother died, she and Thomas have felt like they barely exist to him. Pecos does not tell her she imagined that neglect. He gets her to consider something she has not really allowed for: her father lost someone too. Looking at his daughter may remind him of the woman he is grieving. Sela realizes she has not thought about it that way. When she wants to get out and apologize, Pecos suggests a hug. Later, her father does come back for her, and he takes responsibility for letting his pain get in the way of caring for his children. Pecos helped make room for that conversation without having the power to fix the family himself. He also keeps fighting. During the battle in the library, he lassos a dinosaur and pours gunfire into an armored knight until the armor breaks apart. Then Baba Yaga comes up behind him and stabs him. It is a nasty ending to a scene where he has just managed to beat something that looked almost impossible to stop. Sela wants to get him to a doctor. He knows she has to stop the Witch instead. Even while dying, he is trying to keep her moving, reminding her that she is special and still has a life ahead of her. That loss nearly breaks her, but she gets back up while the others are still fighting. There is one more moment, though, and I would not leave it out of his story. When Sela finally sends the characters back into their books, Pecos appears in a blue, translucent form and gives her a final salute. The comic does not show him restored to ordinary physical life. It gives her a goodbye, and gives him a chance to see that she made it. I was glad she got that last moment with him. After everything he did to get her through the library, he deserved more than being left behind in the wreckage.