He works in a building that looks like a Western trading post on the corner of Fuller and Delmas avenues. That's where he smokes the likes of wild boar, moose, deer and elk. Hunters bring him their kill, while chefs kill for his sausages. And his customers say no one does "smokehousing" better than the soft-spoken man with the white beard who everyone calls Montana.

Like the last cowboy on the range, Montana is a man in a dying profession, a profession that for this unassuming fellow took root almost 70 years ago in the state he was named after.

His family owned a 160-acre homestead, where Montana was one of 16 children who hunted and lived off the land near the Idaho and Canadian border.

"It's what they call God's country," he says. And he's never gotten over his love for the mountains or the land affectionately nicknamed "the treasure state."

And it's on this range where nature and Montana bonded.

He grew up without electricity or running water and with a smokehouse providing the only way the family preserved meat.

"I love all of it: raising animals, smoking them and eating meat," he says. While moose is his favorite wild game, he says every type of meat tastes good if "you cook it like you enjoy eating it."

He makes his own marinades, seasoning and wood-chip combinations to flavor the smoke.

And as long as he can, the butcher of Ralph's Custom Smokehouse will keep his trade and way of life alive.

"When business becomes a job, I'll get out," he says.

But until that day creeps into his bones, he'll continue working 12 hours a day, with his occasional break for a stogie and a cup of coffee.

"I like a good cigar after a hard day's work," he says.

He also enjoys the company of his faithful four-legged companion, Beauty, a stocky black-and-white-speckled canine he feeds meat scraps to.

Montana has always been a man with a purpose and never one to brag. That might be why his plaques for the best beef jerky and boneless ham and chili and autographed photos of country music stars he's met are buried in his back office. He never even got around to changing the name of the business when he purchased it from its previous owner, Ralph Prickett.

He's just too busy cutting whole sides of beef and pork, making Italian sausage, curing and smoking meat and preparing fish and wild game.

In between leaving his home state of Montana in 1956 and buying Ralph's Custom Smokehouse in 1973, the Willow Glen resident worked planning menus in Army hospitals during the Korean War, was a chef in an Italian restaurant in Connecticut and operated heavy machinery for Kaiser Permanente in San Jose.

When he bought the smokehouse, it was the opportunity to live out a dream he'd had since he grew up on the spread near Libby, Mont. And it was those early years living off the land—hunting and preparing the food he killed—that drew him to butchering, he says.

"It's something that fascinated me all my life," he says.

And his passion for following traditional ways of preparing meat from hanging meat on hooks and smoking it to enhance the flavor has earned him a reputation and a following throughout the West.

"I found him to be the best in the West," 30-year customer and friend Bob Kessler says, noting that local hunters who go on trips to Colorado or Wyoming send their kill back to Ralph's Custom Smokehouse for Montana to process.

And Kessler says the reason is simple: "We believe in him." He calls his friend "the gentleman," because many people trust Montana's abilities and integrity, Kessler says.

"And I come here because the game doesn't have a gamy flavor," he adds.

Kessler occasionally assists Montana with packaging the orders when there are many to fill.

"It works out to my advantage to see an artist at work," Kessler says.

Montana has owned Ralph's Custom Smokehouse on Delmas Avenue for more than 30 years, and he's known for more than just his smokehouse skills. He also has created some exotic dishes—that some might consider a bit on the wild side—such as alligator-meat chili.

"I tell people to give it a chance," he says. He says alligator tastes like frog legs. But Montana acknowledges that once people learn the ingredients, they are often unwilling to try these dishes.

Although he will cure any type of wild game, he says rattlesnake is not a personal favorite.

"It's too gristly," he says.

And he's not just a backwoods hunter who knows how to smoke and cure meat, he is a chef in his own right, creating signature products.

One of his unique creations is his roast pig. He removes the pig's bones through an incision in the abdomen and stuffs the animal with pork loins.

"He can do it without breaking the skin," Kessler says. "But he's too modest to say that."

The meal is popular with large gatherings or parties.

And he's a self-taught man. Montana says nobody taught him to butcher; he figured it out by relying on his hunting and meat-dressing experience.

Kessler says that Montana's skills are fast disappearing in the modern marketplace.

"It's unfortunately a dying livelihood," he says. "It's being forced out by man's encroachment in every area."

Montana says that the days of independent butchers are drawing to a close, with approximately 60 left in the state who are registered with the California Association of Meat Processors. Most butchers today are employed by big grocer chains like Albertson's or Safeway.

"People really have no conception of what is involved in butchering," Montana says. "They think you take a knife and start cutting. The sad thing is many people don't even know how to cook meat anymore."

And he adds, "Everything today is centralized. But there's a big difference in taste and quality."

Retired butcher Tom Francois agrees that independent butcher shops are disappearing.

"It's a lot of hours and hard work," Francois says. "And people are so busy they want one-stop shopping."

Francois says Montana's niche for hunters and fishermen is the reason his business is still prosperous.

Montana's concoctions are not only a hit with outdoorsmen; they're also popular with restaurateurs.

Chef Emile Mooser of Emile's Restaurant on Second Street in San Jose—reviewed in Conde Nast magazine as one of the top 100 restaurants in North America—comes to Ralph's Custom Smokehouse to have his own sausage recipe stuffed and smoked by Montana.

The KTEH television production of At the Chef's Table that featured Mooser's culinary talents featured the chef at Ralph's Custom Smokehouse for part of the segment, so viewers could watch Montana stuff and smoke Emile's signature sausages.

Montana says he has worked with Mooser over the years for charity events such as "wild game feeds." There is a mutual admiration for what they each do, Montana says.

Montana was also awarded the Chaîne des Rôtisseurs—an international gastronomic society for amateurs and professionals—award for his culinary excellence in luncheon meats.

Yet for someone who doesn't give a hoot about his shop's appearance, Montana now finds himself smack in the middle of a butcher shop facelift.

Willow Glen residents Bill Rankin and Annette Boyer have teamed up with Montana to opened Willows Smokehouse Deli. The deli, which is housed in the front of Montana's store, sports new signs, logos, patio seating and flower boxes to spruce up the look. The deli opened on June 21 and features Montana's smoked meats.

And the smokehouse and deli have a symbiotic relationship. With Montana providing the product and Rankin and Boyer running the retail and food end of the business, Rankin says everyone is happy.

"Montana wanted to spend less time selling, and I've always been interested in owning a place," he says.

Montana says he's much happier leaving the retail to others.

"I do anything with meat, except sell it," he says. "I don't like sales and I don't like salesmen."

While Montana is glad to give the retail reins away, Rankin and Boyer are glad to work with someone who already has a corner on the custom smoked meats market.

"You can taste all the years of Montana's experience," Rankin says.

And he adds that he is not only impressed with Montana's skill, but his character.

"What he says he means," he says. "One of the things that drew me to him was his strong sense of integrity."

The memory of an honest work ethic rooted in the agricultural community that once flourished in San Jose is exactly what Rankin and Boyer want to try and preserve.

"There's a rich history here," Boyer says. "I've listened to folks tell amazing stories of such incredibly hard work in the canneries."

Rankin adds that the end of the area's agriculture-based economy needs to be memorialized.

And part of Rankin and Boyer's goal is to help preserve Montana's trade and the three-decade-long history his smokehouse has had in the neighborhood.

Boyer wants to capture San Jose's agricultural history in the store by displaying local cannery labels and using the name "Willows," the original name for Willow Glen.

The deli's location in the heart of the North Willow Glen residential neighborhood makes it a destination for the community, Boyer says.

"We envision a neighborhood deli," Rankin says. "We want to create a sense of community center."

The owners have created a bulletin board for the North Willow Glen Neighborhood Association inside their store and hope people will mingle together over some food.

Boyer says, "It's an opportunity for the neighborhood to be involved with one another over a meal."

Since the store's opening in late June, many neighbors have had the chance to sample Montana's barbecue and the deli's dinner fare at the North Willow Glen Neighborhood Association Fourth of July block party.

It's through community events like the block party that Rankin says the two businesses will get more exposure.

"Most of the people who have lived here their whole life don't even know the smokehouse exists," Montana says.

Although many of Montana's customers come from Stockton, Sacramento, Marin, Santa Cruz and Watsonville for custom butchering, Rankin says he's hoping to spread the word to local residents about the deli sandwiches and fully cooked meals that the store offers until 8 p.m.

"We're really hoping the neighborhood enjoys what we have," Rankin says. "We feel the sky is the limit."

And like the last cowboys on the range, Montana will continue doing what he loves until he rides off into the sunset.

Ralph's Custom Smokehouse is located at 885 Delmas Ave. Willows Smokehouse Deli is located at 883 Delmas Ave. For more information about Ralph's, call 408.279.4009 or visit the website at www.ralphssmokehouse.com, and for information about the Willows Deli, call 408.295.5550.