The Cowboy Way: Seasons of a Montana Ranch

At midlife, McCumber abandoned "corporate striving" in California and spent a year learning what it means to be a real cowboy at one of Montana's largest ranches. His unsentimental, gritty, yet evocative account defies and confirms our preconceptions. Cowboying, he quickly learns, has always meant backbreaking, isolating work: mending endless stretches of fence, weeks spent digging ditches, rousting livestock in subzero weather. But ranch life has not been immune to the times: today's cowboys choose four-wheel drive vehicles over horses, regularly deliver calves by cesarean section, and might as easily hold a degree in English as in agriculture.

Ultimately, McCumber reveals that the cowboy is alive and kicking in the West, his ethic defined by a firm belief in the value of hard work and an unshakable respect for the weather and the land. "Cowboys are heroes," he tells us, "but not of the Hollywood variety. Their heroism comes in small portions. John Wayne may have saved the stampeding herd in Red River, but in real life the herd is saved one calf at a time." --Svenja Soldovieri

Product Description

In February of his forty-fourth year, journalist David McCumber signed on as a hand on rancher Bill Galt's expansive Birch Creek spread in Montana. The Cowboy Way is an enthralling and intensely personal account of his year spent in open country—a book that expertly weaves together past and present into a vibrant and colorful tapestry of a vanishing way of life. At once a celebration of a breathtaking land both dangerous and nourishing, and a clear-eyed appreciation of the men—and women—who work it, David McCumber's remarkable story forever alters our long-held perceptions of the "Roy Rogers" cowboy with real-life experiences and hard economic truths.

In February of his forty-fourth year, journalist David McCumber signed on as a hand on rancher Bill Galt's expansive Birch Creek spread in Montana. The Cowboy Way is an enthralling and intensely personal account of his year spent in open country—a book that expertly weaves together past and present into a vibrant and colorful tapestry of a vanishing way of life. At once a celebration of a breathtaking land both dangerous and nourishing, and a clear-eyed appreciation of the men—and women—who work it, David McCumber's remarkable story forever alters our long-held perceptions of the "Roy Rogers" cowboy with real-life experiences and hard economic truths.