"Oh yes there were and are "sheep-hearding cowboys". And they sure weren't and aren't called "shephards" either.
My Dad and his Dad "ran sheep" most of their lives on their ranch in the San Angelo, TX area. That was big sheep ranching country and wool warehouses were numerous.
I should write a book........"
I'm glad someone else pointed this out, and yes, you *should* write a book!
I don't know about Texas, but up here in the Northern Rockies region, it is pretty common for large ranches to run both sheep and cattle (although less so than in the past, primarily because of environmentalist restrictions on controlling predators.)
As the old saying used to go, you raise cattle for respectability and sheep to make a living.
A lot is very wrong about this movie (or at least about what I've read about it -- I won't go see it). One thing is the idea that two guys would go herd sheep in the mountains together. Sheep are grazed in the mountains in bands that are the size that one herder can, with horse and dogs, tend. There is no way that a sheep rancher would pay two guys to herd together. Each would have his own band to care for, far apart. The only person they would see would be a camp-tender bringing supplies and mail every couple of weeks.
Secondly, while cowboys working for big ranches do indeed work both sheep and cattle, most commonly they stayed busy during the summer with cattle and fences and what-not while someone else (even by the 1960's, when the story supposedly takes place, increasingly migrant workers from places like Peru with green cards) did the herding of the sheep in the mountains. The paths would cross most commonly in the winter, when both sheep and cattle are having to be fed daily, and when a lot of labor is needed during calving and lambing seasons alike.
The other thing that makes this so much b***s*** is that Annie Proulx doesn't know crap about Wyoming or any of the rest of us in this region. She was born in Connecticut, and moved to Wyoming when she was (drum roll, please) 60 years old. Brokeback Mountain was a short-story she had written after she had lived in Wyoming, closely observing the natives for (bigger drum-roll please) TWO YEARS! Wow! I'll bet she met plenty of gay cowboys during those two years on which to base this tale... not. This story is a "literary" gay fantasy tale, nothing more.
Proulx is just another in a long line of east coast types who come out West to "play cowboy" and/or exploit the native habitat in one way or another. The only difference between her and the New Yorkers who ran the extraction economies of the West for a hundred years is that those guys didn't pretend to be natives, and were honest about the fact that they were there only to extract as much money as fast as possible.
The modern type comes after having made their money on the coast, and shortly after arrival begins to lecture the locals on what being a westerner is all about (if they acknowledge the existence of the locals at all.) They then proceed to raise wolves and grizzly bears, and vote for Democrats. Pretty depressing, but this is what Proulx is all about -- an imposter-writer who gained prominence on the coasts by pretending to be one of those exotic westerners. I guess everybody needs an angle, if they want to be noticed.
I don't suppose you have anyone like that down there in the Lone Star State, do you?
When you mention San Angelo, I'm reminded of a guy I knew who went to college with someone from the San Angelo area who had grown up on a sheep ranch, but whose family became very wealthy on oil discovered on their land. When he graduated from college, his dad gave him a pair of solid gold cuff-links in the shape of a cluster of sheep turds. His father told him that he expected him to wear these for the rest of his life, so he'd never forget that sheep-ranching was the basis of the family fortune.
We never struck oil, but sheep-ranching was certainly the basis of our little family fortune...
"A lot is very wrong about this movie (or at least about what I've read about it -- I won't go see it). One thing is the idea that two guys would go herd sheep in the mountains together. Sheep are grazed in the mountains in bands that are the size that one herder can, with horse and dogs, tend. There is no way that a sheep rancher would pay two guys to herd together. Each would have his own band to care for, far apart"
...
Taking all of these facts into account including the author of the story is a woman. We can conclude that Brokeback Mountain isn't really a story of two gay men out on the open range. It's a silly Harlequinesque tale with a queer slant about one male and his lustful affair with his alter ego, his penis(Ennis), alone in no mans land with the sound of bleeting sheep in the far off distance. The title should be Jack and The WeenieStalk(lonely Jack and his obsession with his penis).
Another thing faux about Proulx (I completely agree with you about that, I can't even begin to know why she's received a Pulitzer -- not that that says too much about her otherwise -- because her "writing" is the most grotesque and abusive use of English words I've ever read, it's nearly nonsense, if not nonsense, perhaps poetry if rearranged but hardly great literature, if literature at all)...anyway, to my knowledge, there isn't any "Brokeback Mountain" in WYOMING, but THERE IS a "Brokeback Mountain Ridge" (or close to that) in Northern New Mexico.
I also don't think Proulx had reality in mind when she wrote this but she used that title for obvious, decrepit reasons.