To the disbelief of gaping onlookers in the packed stands at El Toreo, Mexico City’s largest bullring, American rodeo performer Bill Pickett clung to the horns of a massive Mexican bull ironically named Frijoles Chiquitos (“Little Beans”). Watching from a safe distance in the saddle atop jittery horses were cowhand Vester Pegg and siblings Joe and Zack Miller, proprietors of the Miller Bros. 101 Ranch Real Wild West. Matadors, including the famed Manuel Mejíjas Luján (aka “Bienvenida”), also stood by as Bill grappled with the snorting, gyrating wild beast, which Mexican and Spanish bullfighters alike typically fought from a more dignified distance. Funny thing is, Pickett wasn’t even supposed to be there. Days earlier he’d been working one of the Miller family ranches back in Oklahoma.
It was early December 1908, and the Real Wild West had come off a grueling tour of the United States. Instead of heading home to lick their wounds, however, Joe and Zack Miller took the show south of the border. Though still two years from the onset of the Mexican Revolution, that southern neighbor was already in turmoil. The troupe endured several intrusive (and costly in bribes) searches by customs officials before arriving in Mexico City on December 11. The streets of the heavily populated capital were clogged with Roman Catholic pilgrims preparing for the next day’s Our Lady of Guadalupe observance, marking the 1531 visions of the Virgin Mary to believers in that Mexican city. The observance also marked the start of the show’s two-week run at the circus arena in Porfirio Díaz Park.
Low attendance and gouging fines for Pickett’s failure to appear, though
