By Rick Hampson, USA TODAY

There were shepherds living out in the fields,
keeping watch over their flock by night. And behold,
an angel of the Lord stood before them ...— Luke 2:
8-9

CANYON COUNTY, Idaho— This Christmas they are
out there still, watching their flocks at all hours, in
snow, rain and fog, so we can eat our lamb and
wear our wool. They are from places you might
expect — the Peruvian and Chilean highlands,
mostly — working in a place you might not, here in
the USA.

About 1,500 shepherds will spend Christmas in the
deserts and valleys of the Mountain West, working
and living in conditions not that different from
those of first-century Judea.

They will be on foot and in the open, alone except
for a few dogs and 2,200 sheep. They will sleep in
cramped, battered trailers lit by kerosene lantern or
candle, without electricity, running water or toilets.

They will spend the holiday far from home, like
Filipino merchant seafarers in Newark, Honduran
housekeepers in Los Angeles and other denizens of
the global economic diaspora.

It has been a half-century since Americans were
willing to trail sheep on the open range, a job the
writer Robert Laxalt has called "the region's most
denigrated occupation." So ranchers import men on
guest visas to work three-year contracts and then
leave the USA when their contract is up. Some
shepherds return after signing up for another three
years.

Like the Spanish Basques who preceded them as
shepherds, the Andeans are considered hard
working, stoic and resourceful. Unlike the Basques
— because of post-9/11 immigration policy — their
toil will not earn them a "green card" and the right to
stay in this country.

So they come for the money, which ranges from
$1,400 a month in California to at least $750 a
month elsewhere. They get two weeks' vacation,
which most take as pay; health and life insurance;
and board and room — "big room," as the old
sheepherder's joke has it, "200 miles wide."

Because these men are on call every hour of almost
every day, the pay works out to far less than the
minimum wage. But the $20,000 they can save over
three years is far more than they could earn at
home. It's enough to build a house or educate the
children or start a small business.

For that, they put up with the loneliness, the
boredom, the occasional terror — a sudden
blizzard, a pack of wolves.

For that, the Peruvians who work for the Soulen
Livestock ranch resign themselves to another 
Navidad amidst the sage brush and cheat grass of
southwestern Idaho.

It will be the fourth for Marino Llacua, 49, husband
of Rebecca and father of six; the 10th for Ruben
Santiago, 39, husband of Magda and father of eight,
including a 4-month-old; the second for Walser
Vilcampoma, 39, husband of Santa Anna and father
of four.

Despite their bosses' attempts to give them
Christmas cheer, "It will be a normal day,"
Vilcampoma says in Spanish. He explains, with no
apparent regret: "I have to be with the sheep."

And so, as the coyotes howl at the moon, America's
shepherds will fall back on memories of Christmases
past and dreams of those to come.

Tough job, tough life

In popular imagination, the shepherd is a bucolic
figure, leading contented, obedient sheep across
the pastoral landscape.

Reality is something else, according to Cesar Ayllon,
the 41-year-old Peruvian émigré who is the Soulen
ranch foreman: "There is so much that can go
wrong."

The good shepherd must study the sheep, worry
about them, care about them. He must protect them
from mountain lions and toxic plants, be sure they
don't eat too much alfalfa or swallow a frozen apple.

The good shepherd sleeps lightly and rises early.
He talks to the border collies and listens to the
guard dogs, 120-pound, white-coated Akbashes.
An aggressive low bark means coyotes but a cry
means wolves, and that is why the shepherd has a
rifle.

The good shepherd knows how to castrate the
lambs the old-fashioned way — with his teeth. On
the open range without clean water "it's quicker,
easier and more sanitary," says Margaret Soulen
Hinson, co-owner of the third-generation family
ranch business.

The good shepherd notices when a ewe is limping,
possibly from mud frozen in her hooves that must
be cleaned out. He is oblivious to the job's most
appealing benefit — the view.

Sheepherding in America has always been an
immigrant's job, too dirty, too cold and too lonely
for anyone with options.

So the United States admits foreigners on H-2A
temporary visas that require them to leave the
country after completing a three-year contract.
Although most H-2A workers are covered by wage
and hour laws, sheepherders are exempt, ostensibly
because it's impossible to accurately tabulate their
hours.

Today's shepherds are men with rough hands, jet
black hair and brown, weathered faces. They wear
layer upon layer of old faded clothes and thick
rubber boots.

None of the Soulen herders had flown in a plane
before coming to Idaho; several had never left
home. None speaks English; their first language is
Quechua, the Andean language.

They were subsistence farmers, miners, laborers,
carpenters. They grew up around sheep, but many
never even saw a band of 2,000, and none ever led
one worth $300,000 on a year-long, 380-mile
circuit from desert to city (Caldwell, pop. 43,000) to
Alpine forest, an altitude change of 5,000 feet. The
sheep are always moving — through federal, leased
and ranch-owned land — because they are always
eating, and seeking warmth in winter and cool in
summer.

In the colder months, two men live together in a 7-
by-14-foot trailer (called a sheep wagon or campito)
that periodically is moved up the trail by a ranch
pickup. It contains a platform bed for two; a pull-
out table; a 5-gallon water container; two bench
seats; and an ancient, cast-iron, wood-burning
stove that vents through a pipe in the roof.

In the mountainous summer range, herders move by
horse and sleep in tents. They often work alone and
might go a week without seeing another human
being. They're able to take only sponge baths, and
they bury their excrement with a shovel.

The shepherds' hard life periodically pricks the
conscience of some Americans, who view them as
vulnerable to abuse and mistreatment because of
their isolation and dependence on their employers.

This year Colorado Legal Services, an aid group
based in Denver, accused some of the state's
ranchers of holding onto herders' travel documents,
forbidding them from leaving the ranch, denying
them visitors and withholding their pay — an
attempt, says Thomas Acker, a Spanish professor at
Mesa State College, to stop herders from taking
easier or more lucrative jobs.

During the past two years, the U.S. Labor
Department has ordered ranchers to pay 12 herders
a total of $24,000 in back wages, and assessed
penalties of $42,600.

Daniel Kagan, a Colorado legislator who
unsuccessfully proposed raising herders' pay and
guaranteeing them some days off, compared their
status to "indentured servitude, near slavery."

Ranchers argue that higher wages would cripple an
industry long in decline from foreign competition, l
oss of grazing land and cuts in federal subsidies.
The Sheep Industry Association says that since
1993 the national sheep population has declined
from about 12 million to less than 6 million.

Peter Orwick, association director, says most new
shepherds know, through friends or relatives, what
they're getting into, and that many renew their
contracts. The pay, though not high by U.S.
standards, "is a lot more than they can make back
home," he says.

The argument doesn't wash, says Jennifer Lee, a
Colorado Legal Services attorney: "Just because
those are horrible conditions where they come from
doesn't justify treating them that way here."

At Christmastime, thinking of home

The angel said to them, "Do not be afraid, for
behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy which
will be for all people. For there is born to you this
day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the
Lord."—Luke 2:10-11

Christmas will find America's shepherds camped
across the West, from the Mojave Desert in Southern
California to Wyoming's Painted Desert. The Soulen
flocks will be in the Snake River plain — "tranqulido
," Llacua says, except for the coyotes. "I will do my
job, and wait."

Barring a storm, Margaret Soulen Hinson will have
driven down with her foreman from the ranch in
Weiser with gift baskets of chocolate, fruit and
panetón, the sweet bread that is an Andean
Christmas staple. She'll also bring presents —
usually clothing such as parkas or gloves.

Hinson says she looks forward to the trip, because
when she's out with the herders and the sheep, "it
reminds me of how blessed we are to have the
opportunity to care for others."

There will be a chance for the shepherds to phone
home on a ranch cellphone, a perk that still amazes
the retired Basque herders.

On Christmas Eve, the men say, they will think of
home.

They will recall the midnight celebrations of Noche
Buena ("Good Night"): the taste of hot chocolate and
panetón; the look in the children's eyes. They will
imagine the packed church and the elaborate
Nativity scenes and the excitement at midnight when
the tiny, intricately carved wooden figurine of baby
Jesus is finally placed in the manger, surrounded by
Mary and Joseph and the shepherds and sheep.

They didn't receive many Christmas presents when
they were boys, Llacua explains, "because we were
poor people." But a few stick out. For him, it's a toy
car he got when he was 7, a blue Chevrolet. For
Santiago, it's a soccer ball from his teacher.

This Christmas Santiago will imagine preparing a
big roast turkey — an utter impossibility, since the s
heep wagon's oven is the size of a large mailbox.

They will ponder their plans for the future. Llacua,
for instance, plans to finish his second three-year
contract and work a third to raise enough to build a
house; finish educating his children; and maybe
start a small clothing store.

Many Christians believe that on the first Christmas
the angel appeared to the shepherds precisely
because they were poor and low born, while the rich
and high — personified by King Herod — were kept
in the dark.

To Luke's original audience, the fact that shepherds,
known for bravery and tenacity, would be so
frightened by the angel and then so eager to take (or
leave) their flocks to seek out the infant showed how
startling and convincing the angel must have been.

Do the Peruvians see anything of themselves in the
story of the angel and the shepherds?

Llacua says that when he's out with the sheep he
feels closer to God, so he can understand a bit how
the Christmas shepherds must have felt.

Vilcampoma says he asks God to watch him and
protect him from sickness and injury and to help
him save the sheep.

He has wondered about the Christmas angel. "I
would like to see an angel," he says. "I have not yet.
But I hope that if I have enough faith, I will see one
some day."