This photo was taken at the Western national rendezvous in Grand Mesa, Colorado.
Let's talk about Comencheros because they were some of the meanest, nastiest people, men, and I don't think any of them were ever women. But in the West because what they did was they roamed through cities, towns, villages, anything. And when they did, they actually raped, pillaged, stole, burned and left nothing behind. If they came across a wagon train, they totally killed everyone, stole everything, loaded it onto their carts if they had them, or took their Wagon Train carts and used them. And they were a banned of whites, blacks, Indians, Mexicans and it was just whoever wanted to join them and be nasty mean and crazy. That's where the comencheros, John Wayne movie was made about it. It had a pretty good depiction of what they were like. One of their sports that they love to do was that they always were betting and gambling and they took bets on how long some of the people that they had captured and tortured, how long they would live. They took their carts and the handcart that's in this photograph depicts part of what they used and what they also had the great big kind of Mexican carts, which were huge wheels that were four or five feet tall and made out of solid wood. That was what they would cart around. I think in the john wayne movie, there is one of those and they would cart all of their goods around in those carts. But what they'd love to do was take one of the people that they had captured, tortured and tie them spread eagle to the wheel and one on each side of the wheel and tie them up and then they would take bets on how long they lasted before they died as they went down the trail going over rocks and thorns and whatever and through water and everything.  How long would they stay alive. So in the photograph, there is a bearded young guy in his underwear tied up to the cogs of the wheel of this cart. And his name happened to be rabbi, which he was not really a rabbi, but that's what he liked to be called. And so that was his spot. In the photograph, he was not one of the mean guys, he was one of the people that captured and used for delight and fun.

So each one of these shoots when I set them all up, takes about a half a day. Every one of these men in the photograph are traitors, which means that they had a trade tent set up at the rendezvous. They're selling their goods every day. So they could not just shut the trade tent down and walk away and do the picture for a day because that's a big loss of money. So what they had to do was had their significant others or girlfriends or close friends run the trade tent for them for the day. While I did the photography, I found the location that I wanted to have where I wanted it, they wheeled up a wagon and another small handcart that they had. And I set those up so that I could see both of them in action except the handcart I didn't have a person pulling him. I just had them leaning against it and using it. But also the handcart was a very important part because In throughout the photograph, you'll find little whiskey bottles and bottles that they're holding and drinking, you'll find all kinds of weaponry from shotguns to rifles, two pistols and knives. In some of the cases, if you look close, you can see the bottoms of their boots, which are worn and some have a hole wearing into the bottom of the boot....