Here's what Annie Proulx has to say about The Cowboy Way..."McCumber's clear, fine writing conveys the push of season, the intensity and danger of ranch work... There are hundreds, thousands of books about cowboys and their gear, the old West, the new West, cattlemen, and ranchers. But of the real and gritty ground-level work of the contemporary ranch, there is only one and this is it."
Here is something echoed in Brokeback Mountain...
"I had to fix a flat on the Chevy retriever one morning... the wheel was the old split-rim variety and the tire was a tube type. It was a bitch to break down and even harder to reassemble, but I'd just about finished it when (the boss) came in and found me kneeling by it, holding the air nozzle on while it inflated.
"You know, when I was in high school, a hired man at Dad's ranch ...had his head in front of a split-rim wheel while he aired it up, just like that, and I was given the job of CLEANING HIS BRAINS OFF THE WALL, he said."