Harsh Justice on an American Ranch

This is the story of a photographer, a rancher and a working dog named Frank.

And it’s all true, a cautionary tale about crossing up city ways with country habits, how ranch life is backbreaking and sometimes cruel, and about not trusting people even though you think you know them.

I know both the photographer and the rancher, and am keeping them anonymous because everyone still has work to do, hopefully together.

I met the rancher first, a few years back. He’s an independent man who lives in a western state and he’s known for his outspoken opinions. He’s a rail-thin with a deep baritone and stands cowboy straight. He has steel-blue eyes and can recite poetry from memory. He’s both a writer and a thinker and his laughter, when it comes, emanates deep from his belly.

His life on the ranch broke his heart when he lost a son and the vicissitudes of weather, the ranch economy and the dullish ways of his livestock have at times almost devastated his will to go on.

But he persists. That’s the way you do things out west when you work for yourself and you can’t trust the government to lend a bona fide helping hand.

The photographer hails from the opposite side of every spectrum you can apply. 

New York City-raised, she moved out west to take photographs. She’s tall and often comes off to those she meets as an ingenue, but she is anything but. 

She laughs girlishly when describing her passion for her work, but once she gets that camera in hand, she is utterly formidable, producing gorgeous black-and-white images of western landscapes and telling portraits of their inhabitants.

Her lens is drawn to stubborn individualists, like the rancher.

As for Frank the working dog, I’ve never met him, but he is critical to this story.

The photographer and the rancher seemed a perfect match. 

She wanted to document his life, every facet of running a ranch, about his outlander personality and his countrified wisdom. Her camera wanted to drink him in.

She visited the ranch over the fall and winter months, staying for days at a time, sleeping in a nearby hotel and sometimes in the ranch’s spare bedroom. The rancher welcomed the company and they developed an easygoing camaraderie.

The photographer looked forward her visits, but especially after she met Frank, the working ranch dog. Each time she’d arrive, he would meet her at her car, wagging his tail. As soon as the door opened, he’d jump up with his front paws and let her pet him.

Two gentle souls. Love at first sight. 

Rarely had the photographer connected so easily with an animal. Frank was brown and white, with spots on his nose and soulful eyes. When the photographer and the rancher walked the property, Frank was always there by their side, like a loyal country escort. 

The two even started joking about how much the photographer had fallen for the dog.

She, of course, wanted to take him home, but she knew not to ask: 

Frank, she knew, was an employee, not a pet. His home was at the ranch.

Still, she told the rancher she would take Frank. He laughed that belly laugh of his and the woman’s love for the dog stayed there between them.

Then one day Frank was not there to greet her.

She also noticed that the rancher was in a foul mood, like the cloud of all that could go wrong now hovered over his head and his ranch and his life.

The photographer couldn’t help herself.

“Where’s my buddy Frank?” she asked.

The rancher didn’t look at her.

“He killed an animal,” he said. “ So I shot him.”

That bullet might has well been aimed at her.

The photographer felt dizzy, sick to her stomach. In her realm of experience, gentle creatures such as Frank didn’t die this way. It didn’t make sense.

“I would have taken him," she said quietly.

The rancher stammered something like, “Well, he’s not available now.”

That changed things. 

The photographer soon left and hasn’t been back. She is trying to understand this complex man who seemed to have a true affection for that working animal.

She knows now that the rancher was never her friend, but merely a stranger who let her get close for the purposes of a professional project.

They had a verbal contract: He would show his life and she would take photographs.

And perhaps this was part of that life: Working animals must earn their keep. Still, no matter how much training they receive, ranch dogs are still dogs, with predatory chase instincts that trace back to wolves and pack hunting.

Spook a livestock animal; that’s bad. Killing one is unforgivable.

And so a brand of ranch justice was exacted. And an animal lover’s heart broken.

Still, the photographer has questions: The rancher knew she loved that dog. Did he pull the trigger out of sheer anger? Did he even think about it? Was it the culture of her femininity clashing with his masculine one? 

Or was it just cruelty and moodiness and the way of a world she will never understand.

She doesn’t know.

But she has the photographs of Frank to remind her of a connection lost.