“Let’s see. ‘By the time you read this, I will have hit the last…’ No, start over.” He did not want to sound ridiculous. There was so much to say to Leonard (Leonard?), but the business of dying was so overwhelming it prevented him from thinking any of the important thoughts he knew he should say. “Okay. ‘I’ve been a terrible dad and you don’t know me.’” A pause. “‘Maybe you will find out some things, some of them will be true and many will be lies. Some of which I told.’” Another pause. Lawrence? “‘I want to tell you, there’s going to be a war, and you shouldn’t be in it. Don’t get into the war.’”

He wasn’t entirely sure he was speaking. He glanced toward his nurse, looking for signs of an audience. There were gray borders to his vision, which was already breaking. It looked like a flurry of threads raining on him, snowbanks of gray threads. He made a heroic effort to keep what he was sure was a beautiful woman in his sight.

“‘The world belongs to those who set the stage. In a war, you’re a pawn, and if you’re my son, you deserve better, you should have your own show, not follow someone else. Maybe later, in twenty years, when they have old soldiers going from town to town re-enacting the new war, then you can get involved, but don’t do it now. I wonder what you can do, rope, ride, shoot, etc. Maybe different. I know the girls like you, Larry. Maybe, whatever you do, find a vocation and walk worthy of it.’”

Jaw slackening, eyes gone dim, he dictated only in his imagination. He was happy with himself. What he was saying was perfect.

“‘Larry, I know I am proud of you. Even if we don’t know each other. I think you would like your old pappy, and can explain him to your mom, so she will do likewise.’”

There, he had opened the door closed unjustly so long ago. He had never seen his son, but he imagined him as ambitious, strong, rich enough to borrow money from, generous enough to make it a gift. And a perfect conduit back to the only woman.

Duncan lapsed into unconsciousness at the Savoy, in the converted linens-closet, gazed at by a Red Cross nurse from a good family, who closed his eyes, sat with him as long as her schedule would allow, and finally removed from her pad of paper a letter, incomplete, a letter that could not be sent. She folded it between his hands, which held it like the hilt of sword. Such was the end of Percy Duncan, showman.