Dillon, Montana The Rising Sun Meets the Big Sky

By TODD BREWSTER

At the Lazy 8 ranch outside Dillon, Mont., a handful of tired cowboys shuffle into the calving barn for lunch. Troy Seilbach hangs up his spurs. Charlie Carpenter opens a thermos of coffee, and Blue, a dirty mixed-breed dog with a heavy pant, positions himself for a fallen crumb from one of the cowboys' Baggies-wrapped sandwiches. Emblazoned on the lunchroom's white wall is a hastily drawn map of Japan.

The map is the remnant of the previous week's spontaneous noontime discussion, during which the two newest cowboys -- who hail not from Bozeman or Butte but from Tokyo and Ehime prefecture -- attempted to explain the geography of their native country. "Damn! 120 million people in a place the size of Montana," says Dillon native Jim Cherney, 28, as he looks at the map. "That's a lot of people."

"Lot of people," repeats Hidehisa Mori, 29. Mori, who says he grew up watching dubbed Clint Eastwood and John Wayne movies, proudly tugs at his black Stetson and sticks his thumbs over his rattlesnake-buckle belt. Only the Japanese-English dictionary sticking out of his shirt pocket spoils a perfect Marlboro-man look.

When the news came two years ago that the Lazy 8, a 77,000-acre property that stretches 40 miles south of Dillon to within roping distance of the Idaho border, had been bought for $12.3 million by a Japanese meat company called Zenchiku, there was much the same outcry that has accompanied more visible Japanese acquisitions like CBS Records, Columbia Pictures and Rockefeller Center. What made things worse was that the purchase was Zenchiku's way of capitalizing on a relaxation of trade barriers that was meant to help American cattle companies. For a while, as word of the sale passed through town, dark clouds of xenophobia hung over Dillon. But now that East has met West, cowboy to cowboy, tensions have eased. "Anyone want a rice cookie?" asks Mori as he and his co-workers begin to eat. "I'll trade some Hershey's Kisses," says Seilbach.

Mori and his compatriot, Kazuhiru Soma, are here as part of an apprenticeship program established by Zenchiku. In order to better understand how American ranches work, and for their American ranchers to better understand the kind of beef that Japanese consumers will buy, the company has begun sending over young sales managers to work for two years each as American cowboys. Beef is a delicacy in Japan -- selling for as much as $180 a pound. Since it is used in small amounts, the consumer prefers a high-quality, marbled meat filled with the intermuscular fat that America's health-conscious buyers avoid. Teaching breeders at the Lazy 8 about Japanese preferences is Mori's and Soma's job. Teaching "Harry" and "Kaz," as they are called here, about roping calves and herding bulls is the job of cowpunchers like Cherney, Carpenter, Seilbach and Dick Chaffin.

"The first thing that struck me about Montana was the sky," says Kaz, between spoonfuls of rice and seaweed. "There's so much of it, much more than Japan. For days after I arrived, I would wander out onto the ranch late at night and look up at the stars. So many stars!" The next thing that struck Kaz hit a little harder. Assigned to wrestle his first calf, the newcomer resorted to the only technique he knew -- judo -- and landed in the dirt. "I tried leg sweeps," he says, "only I had forgotten that they have four legs -- two too many."

Never having traveled out of Japan before, both men were taken aback by American casualness. "I was puzzled by the name Lazy 8," says Harry. "To us 'lazy' means only 'lazy,' as in sleeping off the saki. Now I know that 'lazy' can also mean 'laid-back.' " Kaz, for his part, found the relationship between boss and worker hard to fathom. Used to bowing when meeting a superior, he now greets John Morse, the third-generation Montanan hired to run the Lazy 8, by shouting "Hi, John!" "Yeah, Kaz, you guys gotta get rid of that junk," says Chaffin, offering a lesson in American egalitarianism between bites of a roast beef sandwich. "People who run things aren't any better than us. They just make more money."

Harry has become enamored of the American way of life, sporting a bumper sticker on his Ford Bronco II that reads HAVE A NICE DAY in Japanese, and dreaming of staying on in Montana beyond his two-year stint. While they have become proficient at roping calves, building fences, pitching hay and loading oats, both men say the best part of their experience has been the horseback riding. "Out on the plains, galloping along, I feel like a real cowboy," says Kaz. "But you sure as hell don't look like one!" jokes Chaffin as the room resounds with laughter.

"We've had our problems," says Carpenter, loading a plate of spaghetti and meatballs into the microwave. "But they mostly relate to language. These guys know some English, but they don't know American slang, and cowboys use a lot of slang, much of it unprintable." There was, for instance, some misunderstanding involving the word bull. Kaz and Harry arrived thinking it meant the male bovine, but when Carpenter and others say "that's a lot of bull," they may not be referring to cattle. "I don't always want to look everything up," admits Harry, who attends English classes at nearby Western Montana College. "So sometimes I pretend to understand when I don't."

While some people still express resentment at the ranch's sale, most have accepted Zenchiku as a friendly presence. Morse feels that any remaining suspicion toward the company is similar to the feelings townspeople would have had about any outsider. "They're as worried about Californians," he says, noting that the previous owner, the Metropolitan Life Insurance Co., is based in New York City -- a place hardly more familiar to Montanans than Tokyo.

One factor in the change of mood was Zenchiku's willingness to invest locally. The company gave $10,000 to the hospital, and buys much of its farm machinery from the local John Deere outlet. Jackets and hats sporting the Zenchiku logo were given to each of the employees, who sometimes wear them out to the local saloons. Zenchiku has even sponsored their own bowling team, though neither of the Japanese ranchers participates. "I prefer martial arts," says Kaz, who teaches judo to a handful of Montanans in town.

Still, not all of Zenchiku's decisions have been greeted warmly. Attempts by Morse to introduce Japanese consensus-management principles to the Lazy 8 were met with a less than enthusiastic response from the American cowboys. A "cowboy forum," in which the group met weekly to air their grievances and offer opinions on how the ranch might be better managed, quickly dissolved. "We move cattle," shrugs Seilbach. "How much is there to talk about?" Attempts to computerize the operation -- tagging each animal with a different number to follow their progress from birth through slaughter -- did catch on, despite the cowboys' grumbling. "An experienced cowboy knows much more than any computer," says Seilbach, "but that's the future. It's not just the Japanese either -- everybody's taking the cowboy skills away from the cowboy."

The crisp cold of a Montana winter afternoon creeps through the doorway as the cowboys prepare to go out and sort some more cattle. "Yeah, I hope to get to Japan someday," says Chaffin, donning his spurs. "Not me," says Seilbach. "I don't think I could take all those crowds." The group listens silently as Harry and Kaz tell horror stories about sardine-packed subway cars and hotel rooms the size of cots. "Lot of people," concludes Harry, to heads nodding in agreement. "Here? A lot of sky."