Opinion | Why real cowboys see Yellowstone cowboys and just have to laugh

Maddy Butcher is the author of “Beasts of Being: Partnerships Unburdened” and director of the Best Horse Practices Summit.

The fourth season of the hit television western “Yellowstone,” set in modern-day Montana, opened last fall with livestock commissioner Kayce Dutton facing a team of gunmen in a shootout. The scenario was silly, though people involved in ranch-related jobs are known to carry firearms — as I was glad to be reminded not too long ago.

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A friend and I were at Cattle Drive Coffee along Highway 160 near Mancos, Colo. Joel Stevenson, who inspects cattle brands, had just pulled in, too. From the dirt parking lot, we saw a driver from Arizona hit a deer crossing the road. The buck struggled off into a field. Joel tracked down the injured animal and ended its suffering.

Guns are handy in cattle country. But ropes are essential. It’s curious that you rarely see the well-armed cowboys of “Yellowstone” carrying ropes on their saddles. Such a lapse might be why actual cowboys get a chuckle out of the show.

“I think it might be a decent storyline,” said Mark Lundy, who leads cowboys at the Little Horn Ranch in Montana. “The general public probably enjoys it. But working cowboys critique it and laugh because it’s not real close to the real thing.”

From “Yellowstone” and its “1883” spin-off to the movie “The Power of the Dog,” with a dozen Oscar nominations, the American West is getting a lot of attention lately. Yet the cowboy depictions are often disappointing, even cringe-worthy: The cowboys and ranchers tend to be either wealthy, violent and intransigent or simpletons kicking gravel in the road. The men (and they are mostly men) are, with few exceptions, tall, brusque and reactive.

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I don’t know many cowboys who fit those descriptions. I do know plenty of hands who are thoughtful, polite men and women with leathered hands and weathered faces. They are White, Black, Latino, Basque, you name it. Some are progressive; others more conservative. Many are college graduates. If you’re tall, you might stick out. Many have bodies broken from accidents, hard living or both. Like their animals, most are cooperative, tending to want to get along.

Cowboys number 1 million at most, according to the Department of Agriculture. At the Working Ranch Cowboys Association, or WRCA, manager Leman Wall estimates that figure at closer to 600,000. About one-third are women, the USDA says. On average, they earn less than $30,000 annually and, in my experience, few have health insurance. Some work on homesteads. Others travel from ranch to ranch, letting seasons and opportunities dictate their course.

Justin Reichert quit school at 16 and has cowboyed in seven states. He’s responsible for many hundred head on nearly 100,000 acres near Creede, Colo. From May to October, the Kansan lives mostly alone in a fifth wheel, as towable RVs are called, near the Rio Grande National Forest.

“Clocking in and clocking out is not our reality,” he told me. “You could have a four-hour day or a 24-hour day. You might ride at a walk for five hours and then in no time be in a life-or-death situation.”

“We step up on a 1,200-pound animal and head out into the wilderness,” said his partner, Nicole Grady. “All kind of things can go wrong.”

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Last year, something went wrong for Pete Reinholz, who cowboys on the Crow Reservation in Montana. He was riding alone. When he came to, he wasn’t sure what happened. But he managed to get to an emergency room, where he was treated for a broken nose, broken eye socket and broken cheekbone. His eyelid was stitched back together, and he was told to take 12 weeks off. He was riding the next day. “It could have been way worse,” he said.

Most days are not so eventful. Because the life is so often solitary and truly remote, cowboys can be prone to poetry and songwriting. They gather at events such as the Outside Circle Show, which Justin and Nicole organize, the WRCA championship rodeo and cowboy poetry readings. Those are events where you hear a lot of unrelated people using the word “family.”

So, how to accurately portray the cowboy way?

Start with leftover coffee and chew the grounds. Eat something for the long day ahead. Ready your dog and horse. The cattle may not be in sight, but because you know the country, the weather and how cows think, you can guess where they are and where they’re headed. Then again, a whiff of better grass or a predator’s movement might have shifted their course overnight. This is big country.

A day might entail moving a hundred cows and calves across a busy state road, with only the help of your dog. It might involve navigating up a narrow canyon with 200 head and needing to regather them when off-road four-wheelers barge through.

Some “cowboys” are popular on social media, but it’s unlikely they’re living this kind of life.

Trinity Seely cowboyed for the Sieben Live Stock Co. in Montana before heading to California. I asked her what she’d share online if she had the time and inclination: “People need to see the value and joy in the hard day of work. The reward is the long, hard day.”

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