“You mean, Zack said somethin’ in anger, like he wished you were dead,” Sully offered, feeling a strange but compelling need to be right.  “I know how it musta felt to hear it, but Zack ain’t the first person to say that, Hank.  Folks say it a lot when they’re riled up, but they don’t mean it—“

     “It ain’t what he said—it’s what he done,” Hank corrected, once again negating Sully’s theory.  He stared out the window, his hollow eyes unable to penetrate the darkness that had fallen, but it didn’t matter.  The terrain outside wasn’t the scene he beheld in his mind’s eye.  “That’s what he told ‘em . . . told all of ‘em.  They all think I’m dead.”

     “What are you sayin’?” Sully asked.  The saloon owner didn’t answer.  “Hank!” Sully petitioned him urgently, demanding the other man’s attention.  “You gotta explain this!  What do you mean, Zack told them you were dead?  Told who?”  Still the barkeep was silent.  Sully willed him to answer, the strain in his face mirroring the haggard mien of his companion.  Then a flash of inspiration struck.

     “Hank,” he repeated, oddly convinced that he’d stumbled onto the heart of the matter.  “Who’s the woman?”

     Hank’s ravaged face turned toward him.  “His—sweetheart,” the devastated saloon owner replied.  “Who else?”

     Hank felt a peculiar sort of dread steal over him.  The pain was thick in his throat.  Again he feared that no sound would emerge when he tried to speak.  But finally he managed, “Ya said yourself I ain’t never around.  So how do ya figure I’m gonna ruin your life?”

     “You’re here now.”

     “Meanin’ what?”

     “Meaning that if they see you, or they find out who you are—“ Yet again Zack broke off, unable or unwilling to finish his thought.

     Zack’s voice echoed in Hank’s ears, clamoring tonelessly.  He seemed to be having trouble making sense of the words, or perhaps he just couldn’t bear to face their implication.  But he had to face it . . . he had to know.

     “Who’s ‘they’?” he asked, his gaze riveted on the slighter form of the boy in front of him.  “What kinda tales have you been spreadin’ ‘bout me?”

     “I haven’t been spreading any tales,” Zack proclaimed coldly.  “I haven’t said a thing about you to anyone.  Because--”
 
    “Because . . .?” Hank’s heart thundered against his ribs.

     Interminable seconds passed.  Then Zack raised his head and looked him straight in the eyes.  “Because I said I didn’t have a father.  Because . . . I told them you were dead.”

     Again the air seemed to have been evacuated from the room.  Hank’s ears felt muffled by a breathless silence, his eyes blinded and his body numbed by pain that threatened to consume him completely.  He wondered if this was what it felt like to die, as he vainly fought to breathe in the smothering vacuum.

     And then it was over, as abruptly as the popping of his ears when he emerged from swimming underwater.  Air flooded into Hank’s lungs, and he could hear and see and feel again.  But what he felt was . . . indescribable.

     A bitter laugh erupted from him.  “Yer jokin’.”

     Zack gaped at him.  “You think this is funny?”

     “No,” Hank said with deadly earnestness.  “I don’t.  I just . . . I don’t believe it.  How could ya make up somethin’ like that?. . .  How could ya keep the secret?. . .  Who the hell do folks think is payin’ ta keep ya in this school?!”  With each question the volume of his voice escalated until he thought he must be shrieking.  He felt himself spinning out of control, but he didn’t care.

     “It wasn’t hard to do,” Zack said coolly, unconscious of the maelstrom of emotion he’d unleashed inside his father.  “If people were curious, I simply said that my late father had appointed a relative to look after me, and administer my affairs until I came of age.  They’d always look sympathetic, perhaps pat me on the hand—and then drop the subject . . . not wanting to remind me of painful memories, you see.”

     Hank stared at him.  It was so devastatingly simple.  But how could he  . . .  What could have possessed him . . .?  A lone thought occurred to Hank and desperately he clung to it as he would to a lifeline if he were drowning.  Which perhaps, in a very real sense, he was.

     “Miss Wellman—she knows the truth,” he managed.  “What if somebody asked her . . .?” But the look in his son’s eyes told him even before Zack answered that there would be no lifeline here—that Zack had already made provision for that contingency.

     “I told her that you’d decided that publicly, you preferred to maintain the pretense that you were my cousin, instead of my father,” the boy who didn’t want to be his son replied.  “So that I wouldn’t be—embarrassed—by your . . . occupation.”  Zack’s face reddened.  It actually seemed that he had the grace to feel slightly ashamed.  But his shame, if he felt it at all, was meaningless.  The damage had been done.
 
      Still, Hank grasped at a final straw.  “She wouldn’t have gone along with somethin’ like that without checkin’ with me,” he disputed, trying to suppress the tremor in his voice.

     “I asked her not to say anything to you,” Zack said, dashing his last hope.  “I explained how uncomfortable, how—guilty—you felt about the way you earned your living, and the fact that  it could reflect so badly on me.  I asked her to spare you the difficulty of having to discuss this arrangement with her.  Understanding the—delicacy—of the situation, of course she agreed.”

     Zack’s damning words hung between them, like a wall that Hank could never breach.  He wondered if there was any point in prolonging this agony any further, since it seemed that whatever Zack had felt for him in the past—if there’d ever been anything at all—was as dead as he allegedly was himself.

     But he still didn’t know why.  Though he was beginning to suspect . . .

     “Who, exactly, did you tell this to?” he said finally, contriving to keep his voice steady even as deep within, he marveled that someone who was “dead” could feel so much misery.

     “Classmates . . . and my benefactors . . .”

     “’Benefactors’?”

     “Patrons,” Zack said.  When Hank still looked uncomprehending he elaborated, “People who have shown interest in my work—who would be willing to give me commissions—perhaps even sponsor an exhibition of my paintings.”

     “As long as they don’t know who ya are or where ya come from,” Hank finished dully.   “As long as they don’t know ‘bout me.”

     Zack lifted his chin.  The flush had evaporated from his cheeks and his face was pale and remote.  “Frankly . . . yes.”

     “I ‘spose these folks are rich,” Hank stated, his voice peculiarly drained of emotion.  His eyes felt hard and dry inside the sockets, as if he had no tears left.

     Zack swallowed.  “Yes, very.  They’re on the board of directors of the Wellman school.  Several years ago they established a foundation to assist promising and deserving students.  Two are selected out of each graduating class.”

     “And yer one of ‘em?”
 
    Once again a blush brought a hint of color to Zack’s face.  “They haven’t yet made the announcement.  But I’m in the running.”

    “Guess I should be proud of ya, then,” Hank concluded.  “”Cept—I forgot.  I ain’t got the right.”  Zack flushed still deeper and looked away.

     But Hank suddenly recalled the suspicion he’d had earlier and he sought Zack’s eyes.  “These—‘patrons’ . . .  They ain’t the only ones you been lyin’ to, are they?

     “I don’t mean the ‘classmates’ you mentioned,” he added, anticipating Zack’s response.  “I mean somebody else—somebody who’s even more important to ya than some rich folks who can finance your career.

     “What’s her name?” he inquired with a fatal certainty . . .

    “Zack fell in love with a rich girl,” Sully interrupted the narrative, finally understanding it all.

    “Yeah . . .  One who wouldn’t look at him twice if she knew his pa ran a brothel, and his ma was—was . . .”  Hank couldn’t finish.  With shaking hands he lit another cigar, and a moment later a cloud of blue smoke mercifully obscured his haggard features.

    “Amelia,” Zack admitted finally, apparently resigning himself to disclosing everything.  “Amelia Van Dyke.”

    “She a student here?”

    Zack nodded.  “And . . . the daughter of my benefactors.”

    All at once Hank felt immensely tired, as if his legs would no longer support him.  He groped his way to the chair Zack had abandoned and sank down onto the cushions sheathed in silk damask.  “I get it now,” he said, his voice detached.  “Society folks would never give a helpin’ hand to the son o’ saloon trash.  And for sure they’d never let him court their daughter.”

    There was another raw silence.  Finally Zack said, “I’m sorry.”

    The tragic irony of the situation struck Hank, and actually brought the ghost of a smile to his lips.  “It’s a little late for sayin’ yer sorry—don’t ya think?” he asked, turning Zack’s words against him.

    “I had to do it!” Zack said passionately.  “I had to lie!  If I didn’t—“  Tears brimmed in his eyes.  “I have a chance to be somebody!  To do something important with my life!  To be successful!  So successful that no one can ever . . .”  He stopped short, his breath hitching as he fought to control the sobs trying to wrench themselves out of his chest.

    Hank leaned forward, peering at him searchingly.  “What?”

    Zack’s wounded, tear-stained eyes looked searingly into his.  “So that no one can ever call me an ‘idiot’ again,” he whispered.

    “Oh God . . . Zack,” Sully intoned softly.  “After all this time, and all that he’s learned . . . he’s still hurtin’ over the way folks used to treat him.”

    “Yeah,” Hank agreed, the huskiness in his voice betraying his own emotion.  “Guess it don’t matter how young or old ya are.  We’re all of us still haunted by the past . . .”

    As Hank watched, his heart turning over within him, Zack fumbled for the handkerchief in his breast pocket and wiped his eyes.  Compassionately his father waited for the young man to collect himself, then said, “Ya know that ain’t true.  It never was.”

    But Zack wasn’t ready to be comforted.  “Have you forgotten what I used to be like?!  Barely able to speak . . .  Ignorant and dirty and hiding in closets . . . I didn’t even know how to use a knife and fork, let alone write my name!  Everybody said I was ‘slow’.  Mr. Bray even called me a ‘simpleton’.  If everyone in town believed it, then it must have been true!”  Unconsciously his fingers wadded the fine linen of the handkerchief into a ball.

    “Just ‘cause folks get an idea in their heads, don’t make it so,” Hank told him strongly.  “The things they said, the names they called ya . . . It weren’t nothin’ but a lotta nasty gossip, ‘cause they didn’t know no better.”

     “But I was ignorant!” Zack said miserably.  “I didn’t know anything!  Trying to deny the truth doesn’t change the facts.”

    “It weren’t your fault,” Hank maintained steadily.  “None of it.  The life you were forced to live . . . in the saloon, and then stuck out there at Ruby’s . . .”  He swallowed hard, but then gazed earnestly at his son.  “Yer right—I’m to blame.  For all of it.  You didn’t get a fair start in life, ‘cause o’ me.

    “But don’t ya see, it didn’t make no difference in the end!” he asserted, his face animated for the first time since they’d been together.  “None o’ the things I done wrong, none o’ my mistakes, could hold ya back.

    “Look at yourself!” he exclaimed, gesturing at Zack.  “Look at what ya become!  Ya just needed the same chance as every other kid.  Once ya had the right schoolin’, and the chance to catch up,  there was no stoppin’ ya.”

    “I . . . still have trouble . . . with some things,” Zack murmured, shamefaced.

    “So what?  So does everybody.  Ain’t nobody who’s good at everythin’.”
 
    “You are.”

    Hank gaped at him, certain for a moment that Zack was being sarcastic, but the boy’s face was naked and open.  But then he couldn’t help it—he barked a laugh.  “If ya only knew how wrong you were,” he muttered.

    “But it’s true!” Zack insisted.  “You have your own business, you can ride and shoot and fight—“

    “A lotta folks’d say most of them things ain’t nothin’ to be proud of,” Hank observed wryly.  “And it seems ta me that you just made it real clear what you think o’ my . . . business.”

    Zack reddened again.  “But the point is, you’ve been a successful businessman for years.  And now you and Mr. Slicker have the hotel, and you wrote to me that it was doing well, even though you’re competing with Mr. Lodge’s health
resort . . .”

    Hank’s eyes were frank.  “Truth is, I can’t take no credit for that.  There’s always gonna be a market for whiskey and—entertainin’.  Somethin’ Preston don’t provide.”  He noted the distaste in Zack’s expression.  “I know ya don’t wanna hear it, but there it is.

    “But as for me bein’ good at everythin’—yer way off the mark on that.  I never made it through school . . .  I run off and made my way out west long ‘fore that.  I was past thirty-five ‘fore I even learned to read!  And I still ain’t that good,” he confessed.  “Ain’t no great shakes at writin’ neither.  But you . . .  You learned so much, got so smart . . . ya left me in the dust!”

    “But what good is it if no one . . . cares for me?” Zack faltered.  “You wouldn’t know what that feels like.  You’ve always had your pick of women—“

    “Maybe it looked like that to you, but it weren’t true,” Hank told him soberly.  “The only two women I ever really wanted, I lost.  The others . . . didn’t matter.”

    “Still, you never lacked for companionship,” Zack maintained.  “But for me . . .”  He hesitated a moment and then forged on, “Amelia is the only girl who ever cared for me . . . who was willing to look past the fact that I wasn’t as smart, or as rich as the other young men vying for her attention.  Who didn’t care that I was different.”

    “That’s real noble of her,” Hank scoffed, his hackles rising at the thought of any girl looking down on his son because of his background.

    Zack bristled.  “How dare you insult her!  You don’t even know her!”

    Hank saw his error and hastened to rectify it.  “I didn’t mean no offense.  It’s just . . .  The measure of a man ain’t how smart he is, or how much money he’s got.  It’s what inside that counts.”

    “That’s rich, coming from you,” Zack said acidly.

    Hank had the grace to look abashed.  “Maybe so, but it’s the truth.  Leastways that’s one thing I’ve learned after all these years.”

    “Mr. Lodge would disagree with you.”

    “Preston’s a fool,” Hank dismissed him.  “All he cares about is makin’ pots o’ money to impress that banker pa o’ his and all them brothers.”  He looked into his son’s eyes.  “I’m tellin’ ya straight—it’s the kind o’ man ya are on the inside, that matters.  And I don’t like the thought o’ nobody—even the woman ya love—makin’ ya feel like yer less than ya are.”

    Zack drew himself up.  “She doesn’t.  She makes me feel better than I am.  Better about myself.  That’s why I love her.  Why I—need her.”

    “If that’s true, I’m glad,” Hank said.  “I guess that means that she’d love ya no matter where ya come from or who yer father is.”  The young man flushed again and didn’t answer. “Or is the truth . . .  that yer afraid to find out?” Hank ventured after a pause.  “Is that why ya thought you had to lie to her?”  His observation found its target, and he saw Zack’s expression harden.

    “I’m not afraid to tell her anything!” his son snapped.  “I simply want to—to shield her from the seamier aspects of my life.  She’s too refined, too—too good—to be soiled by any association with—“

    “With me?”

    “Yes, if you must know!”  Equal measures of guilt and resentment mingled in Zack’s eyes.  “She’s never had any contact with . . . people like you.  How could I explain what you do?  How could I tell her what my life used to be like?  Why would I want to tell her something that I’m so desperate to forget myself?!”

    Hank stared at him for a long moment.  “Yer that ashamed o’ me,” he whispered.

    Zack’s face was a mirror of his emotions.  Guilt, shame, ambition—even, perhaps, some lingering loyalty and affection for his father . . .  All passed like clouds across his features as they warred for control within him.  But the steely determination in his eyes never wavered.

    “I’m sorry, Pa,” he managed finally.  “I’m sorry if I hurt you.  But if I’m ever to have a future as an artist . . . if I’m ever  to have a life with the girl that I love . . . then  this is the way it has to be.  Please . . . just let me go.”

    There seemed to be nothing else to say.  And yet Hank was compelled to make one last attempt.

    “You don’t need to depend on nobody else,” he said.  “Not even me.  Yer talented.  You could make it on yer own, if ya just gave yerself half a chance.  Ya don’t gotta pretend to be somethin’ different from what you really are, and cut yerself off from everythin’ and everybody who knows ya . . . who cares about ya—“

    “You still don’t understand.”

    Hank’s eyes were dark with resignation and sorrow.  “Nah—that’s where yer wrong.  I understand, all right.  A lot more’n you’ll ever know.  It’s you who doesn’t get it.

    “Don’t ya see?” he went on urgently.  “It’s like—like yer murderin’ yerself—and murderin’ what we got between us.  Maybe you don’t care about the second part.  Fine.  I can accept that, if I got to.  But livin’ a lie . . .  It’s gonna hurt you—maybe even destroy you—in the end.  A lot more than bein’ honest about yerself from the start.”

    “You have no idea what I stand to lose,” Zack said, his expression bleak.

    “No—you don’t,” Hank contradicted.  “Yer talking about losin’ a woman—even a career.  But I’m talkin’ about losin’ yer soul.”

    Zack’s eyes seemed to look right through him, dark and unreachable.  “I suppose you’d know about that wouldn’t you, Pa?  Since you sold your own so long ago.”

    With his final condemnation still ringing in Hank’s ears, Zack exited Miss Wellman’s office, leaving his father in ruins behind him.