Tanner took off his hat, set it on the tablecloth, pulled a folded Cheyenne Frontier Days program out of his shirt pocket, and looked Mr. Whitfield dead in the eye.
Sir, he said, you said somebody has to entertain the kids between rides. I am the kid. Last July, a bull had me pinned against the chute with my arm already broke, and it was coming for my head. And a bullfighter you just called a clown threw himself between me and two thousand pounds and took a horn in the ribs so I could crawl away. I walked out of that arena. He went to the hospital. That program lists my ride, and it lists the man who saved my life. His name is Cody.
Then Tanner said the part that stopped the whole table. And I am your grandson, Grandpa. Moms boy. You just toasted the man who kept you from burying me.
The table had gone silent. Cody had set down his beer.
Whitfield bought a brand-new Stetson that morning and mocked the man who took a horn in the ribs to save his own grandson.
Codys wife had invited Tanner quietly, knowing the boy wanted to thank the bullfighter in person, and nobody at the table had put it together until Tanner took off his hat.
I am Codys father. He wiped his mouth and said enjoy the rodeo, Mr. Whitfield, and took the joke, because a man who steps in front of a bull for a stranger does not need an oil executive to tell him what he is worth. Mr. Whitfield got up and went to his grandson, and then to my son, and the new Stetson was in his hand instead of on his head.