“Pop him with the handle of those wire cutters,” he tells Robbie, his voice short with effort.

Robbie gives him a wild, pleading look.

“Do it,” his dad insists, his voice rising. “Hard as you can. Now!” He’s never terse with Robbie, but he almost shouts the last word through his gritted teeth.

Robbie’s hand spasms, and then he pulls his arm back before he can think about it. He closes his eyes when the rubber-covered metal of the handles strike the steer’s snout with a crack.

The steer wakes up completely at that, letting out the loudest and most blood-curdling bawl yet. He wrenches himself backward, forehooves scrabbling in the dirt. Robbie tumbles backward and lands on his butt in the grass, staring. For a moment, Robbie thinks the steer still won’t get free. Then, the panicked animal happens to turn his head to just the right angle, and he pops loose. He staggers a short distance, shakes his head, bawls again, and turns and hightails it away from the fence. Robbie’s dad lets go of the sucker rod and slides to the ground beside Robbie, breathing hard.

He fixes a steady look on Robbie, then reaches out and squeezes his knee. “You did good, son.”

Robbie shakes his head and rubs a wrist under his eyes. His glove is slick leather, though; it doesn’t absorb anything—just moves the wetness around on his cheeks. “D’you think I hurt him?”

His dad snorts. “Of course, you did. But nothing that won’t fade. And if you hadn’t, he would have just given up and died on us right there. I’ve seen it happen before.” He rests his forearms on his bent knees. “Look at me, kiddo.”

Robbie doesn’t want to, but he does, his lower lip snagged between his teeth so it won’t wobble.

“Don’t beat yourself up. He’ll be just fine now.”

“It’s not that,” Robbie says, letting out a ragged breath. He tucks his chin again because it’s easier to keep from crying when he isn’t looking at his dad, even though there’s only kindness in his eyes. Somehow, that makes it harder. “I just wish I was…tougher, you know? Like you.”

For a long time, his dad doesn’t say anything, but Robbie is used to these stretches of quiet with him. He chances a glance, and when he sees that his dad is looking out into the distance and not at Robbie, he lets his gaze linger on the side of his familiar, beloved face.

There’s a dash of silver in the dark blond stubble on his jaw where he has a scar. Robbie was there when he got it, four years ago. The colt he’d been riding had spooked, then somersaulted down the creekbed. Robbie had been riding along just feet away when it had happened. Those slow-motion seconds are burned into Robbie’s memory, the ultimate proof that his dad is superhuman. He’d stayed in the saddle the whole time, defying force and gravity alike, even as the colt had succumbed and struck the muddy water. And when the colt staggered back to his feet, trembling and dripping with creek water, his father had simply leaned over his neck and stroked him with a hand as steady as when he poured coffee at the breakfast table. Even with blood pouring from his face in three places, his first concern had been his frightened horse.