Twenty-three years ago.
“Here, son,” says his father, reaching out with a hand that’s scraped raw on the knuckles. His father, for some reason, never wears gloves, but he always makes Robbie put them on. You need to get in the habit, he’ll say. He’s just been leaning into the back of the pickup truck, outwardly calm but with a grim expression. There’s a steer with his head stuck in the pipe-post fence.
Robbie takes the wire-cutters and then trots after his father, who’s carried by much longer legs at a brisk walk. The center and top bars of the fence around the feed pen are pipe, but it also has three rows of sucker rod, including the two closest to the ground. The sucker rod is just flexible enough that the steer, trying to reach for the green grass on the other side of the fence, could worm his head through like someone cramming their fist into a jar. Now he’s stuck tight, wailing, tail lashing back and forth.
The whole scene makes Robbie’s heart pound, but his dad is matter-of-fact as he bends down. The steer rolls its wide eyes toward them, fighting hard for another second. Then, he abruptly goes limp. Another long, low bawl escapes his muzzle, where a thin foam of saliva has built on the fine hairs around his lips. Then, he’s silent as well as still.
Robbie’s father swears, grasping one piece of the sucker rod in each hand. He pushes and pulls at the same time, using so much of his strength that his shoulders tremble. He widens the gap in the rebar rungs enough that they aren’t biting into the steer’s neck quite so hard, and the steer’s eyes refocus, but still he doesn’t move.
Swearing again, Robbie’s dad gives the steer’s snout a hard nudge with his left knee, but at his angle and with so much of his effort dedicated to bowing the rebar, it doesn’t have any force. The steer doesn’t even seem to notice as his eyes drift closed again.
“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.
“There’s nothing wrong with gentleness,” he says at last. He squeezes Robbie’s knee again, smiling with unmistakable pride. “You shouldn’t compromise with your heart, son. Not if you can help it.”
It’s a conversation that Robbie will think back on again and again. One of those moments in youth that strikes your heart in ways you’re not yet ready to grasp, so your mind holds onto the memory for you, until the day comes when you’re ready to learn the lesson it was waiting to teach you.
Today.
Lance’s voice from the bathroom doorway startles Robbie so much that he nearly loses his grip on the slippery calf, but he keeps her positioned after a moment of unsteadiness.
Robbie is kneeling on the floor with his sleeves rolled up to his elbows, his coat discarded on the floor. The bathtub is half-full of steaming water, and Robbie is carefully holding the calf with both hands so that her head stays above water.
He looks over his shoulder with a smile that’s probably more like a grimace.
“I remember my dad doing this, but I guess I didn’t totally think it through before I started. Can you reach by me and turn off the water? I need both hands to keep a hold of her.”
Even immersed in the warm water, the calf is almost totally listless. From what Robbie can tell, the cow delivered her onto the ice and was then unable to do much more than halfheartedly lick her clean while her wet coat fused to the frozen ground. Calves being born on cold ground is a common hazard of winter calving, but if owners have any sense, they keep any cow that might be close to the end of a pregnancy near a good source of shelter and check on her often.
Ed, obviously, has no sense.
That being said, if a cow chooses the wrong spot to drop a calf, even an attentive rancher can lose a newborn. Robbie has a few memories of tiny calves being bundled up next to the fireplace in the old house while his father kept watch from the sofa, a blanket in his lap and a book in his hand. He’d stay up late into the night after everyone else was in bed, occasionally carting the calf out to drink from its mother, or hydrating powdered milk in the kitchen sink and pouring the concoction into the calf with a tube.
Those memories are the closest thing Robbie has to training when it comes to something like this. They’ve hardly prepared him to save a calf himself.
Lance reaches past him and turns the hot water tap to the right, leaving just a trickle of cold that feels like ice where it hits Robbie’s steam-warmed elbow. Lance grasps the other tap, standing at Robbie’s back and leaning over him. His body is long and hard, and might as well be spun from lightning, the way Robbie feels a jolt of heat under his skin everywhere they brush against each other.
Luckily, he’s too distracted by the slippery throat in his hands and the smell of wet fur for the passing touch to have its full effect, and then Lance is stepping away and Robbie can think straight again. His heart only skipped a few beats.
“She was just born, out in the snow,” Robbie explains, looking down at the little slits of the calf’s eyes. Her eyes and the small puffs of air coming out of her nose are the only signs of life. “This is the fastest way to warm her up.”
Lance comes around on his other side, not close enough to touch from there, and sits on the edge of the tub, one long leg folded under him.
“She’s so cute,” he says quietly. “Is she going to be okay?”
“I don’t know,” Robbie admits.
“Could we take her to a vet?”
“Maybe. My dad would say I should see if the cow will let me milk her so we can try to get something in her belly. Then to just keep her warm, and see.”
Lance’s eyes are wide and bright, like the fragile life in Robbie’s hands is important to him—even though, just minutes ago, he didn’t know she existed. Robbie rests his chin on his shoulder, head craned to look up at Lance, and smiles.
“You always had a soft heart,” he says quietly. Lance’s lips are winter-bitten to red, and his face is flushed from coming in out of the cold. He’s unspeakably lovely, especially when he gives Robbie a shy smile and then looks down, his eyelashes dark little veils over his eyes.
“So did you.”
“Yeah,” Robbie agrees, though it’s been a long time since anyone seemed to notice—it shouldn’t surprise him that Lance has.
There’s not much noise except the soft stirring of the water in the tub, the occasional slow drip from the faucet, and, in the quiet, the audible little puffs of breath coming from the calf. Robbie adjusts the position of his hands, slowly and carefully, just to be sure he’s not obstructing her airway.
“I didn’t realize you knew about cattle,” Lance says.
“I don’t, really. Just what I learned from following my dad around.”
“He ran cattle out here?”
“Yes. He loved cattle ranching in a way I couldn’t really understand.” Robbie shifts his body, feeling little bursts of pain from his folded knees, along with tingles in the soles of his feet from kneeling too long on the hard floor. He adjusts as much as he can without moving the calf. Her skin finally feels like it’s warmed to a neutral temperature, but the water is still much warmer than she is. “I wasn’t cut out for it.”
“I can’t imagine you as anything except a horse trainer,” Lance says comfortably, obviously not realizing how that offhand comment makes Robbie’s gut wrench.
“I’m a man of very few skills,” he says lightly, before changing the subject. “Did you have a good walk?”
“I…went across the creek,” Lance murmurs, like he’s confessing a sin. “Had you heard that someone was living there? In my dad’s place?”
Robbie shakes his head. “No. It’s been empty, as far as I know. You saw someone over there?”
Lance hesitates, then shrugs. “I didn’t see any people. But there were lights on inside. Or, I thought I saw lights, but I don’t really see how it’s possible.” He takes a breath. “You know about my father?”
“That he’s in the care home? Yes.”
Lance nods shallowly. “Yeah. And I don’t think he’d agree to anyone living out there for free. And getting something set up with a renter? I don’t think he could have done that, either.” Lance shrugs, leaning in to pet the calf, his arm almost brushing Robbie’s. His expression is distant. “If someone’s there, I don’t think he knows about them.”
Robbie doesn’t know the details about Lance’s father—not whether he’s in the care home due to ailments of the mind, body, or both. Lance doesn’t say more. Without the distraction of talking, Robbie’s not sure how much more time he can spend with his hands more or less tied while Lance leans close to him, smelling like the cedar trees he walked through by the creek, and Robbie’s own shampoo, and beneath that, a sharp note of masculine sweat.
“Hand me that towel,” Robbie says, trying to corral his panic. “We’ll get her as dry as we can and set her in front of the fire. Then I’ll go see if her mama is feeling agreeable and will let me take a little milk off of her.”
Robbie hoists the calf up as the last of the water forms a dirty swirl in the drain, and Lance helps him bundle her in towels. Then Robbie carries her back into the main room. She doesn’t weigh much; maybe fifty or sixty pounds. But that’s about right for a new calf, and she feels sturdy, her listlessness aside. He’s trying not to set himself up for disappointment by thinking she’ll live, but he can’t help hoping.
Now that she’s clean, she’s oddly white. Robbie assumes her mother was some kind of Angus cross, but the calf doesn’t look like an Angus or any of the other breeds most common in their area. Her creamy coat has a spray of black speckles on her shoulders and hips, and there’s a roundness to her ears that’s unusual to him.
“She’s so still,” Lance murmurs worriedly, hovering over Robbie’s shoulder while he arranges the calf by the wood stove and then covers her in a second towel.
“Yeah. But that’s pretty normal for cattle when they’ve had a shock.” Robbie makes the mistake of looking up and finds their bodies too close again. Clearing his throat, he pushes himself to his feet, backing away. “I better go give milking the cow a try.”