They were somewhere in Colorado and it was still dark. Brad had traded driving with Del at a truck stop outside Pueblo and crawled into the backseat to get some sleep. The drone of the highway under the tires had lulled him into a state of half-awake dreams, but real sleep never came.

He sat up now, leaning over the back of the front seat. Checking the speedometer, he saw that Del was driving a respectable 68 miles per hour, and then with nothing else to look at, he watched the road, where the tail lights of long-haul trucks burned in the darkness ahead. Del had turned on the radio and was listening to a call-in show. Some guy was railing against draft dodgers.

"Keeps me awake," Del said. "You oughtta hear some of the crap people on here come up with."

"Tell me something," Brad said. "What's this about you getting married?"

"You wanna be there? I can get you an invitation."

"I didn't mean that. I just hadn't taken you to be the marrying sort."

"Too queer you mean?"

"Well, yeah." Given his own ardent wish that he'd known himself well enough to stay unmarried when he was young, Brad couldn't understand why Del would think something otherwise.

"Coulda waited till I graduated in the spring, I guess, but her daddy's got money, and she's in a hurry to have herself a big-ass wedding. And it has to be on New Year's Day, don't ask me why. So I kinda got outvoted."

"You skipped over the part where you decided to get married in the first place."

"Oh, that. You have to know something about my family. We got queer in the family tree far back as anybody knows. Probably great-grand-daddy himself when he came over on the boat."

The man was hell-bent to make a fortune in the new world, Del said. Raised cattle on the frontier, fought Indians, fought the Mexicans, ended up one of the biggest landowners in Texas.

"Had himself a Cherokee squaw for a wife and eight kids, seven of 'em boys--that was the ones that survived. His daughter, my great-aunt, says he was the meanest sonofabitch ever lived--and she knew a few. So she says."

"She's still alive?"

"If you ask her, she's pushin' a hundred, but she's been saying that ever since I can remember. Claims she owes her longevity to never getting married."

And there had to be more than a little truth to that, he said. Frontier life was damn hard on women even without having to produce a flock of kids and then make sure they were all fed and clothed and made it to adulthood. "Hell, the mortality rates on the frontier would take the spirit right out of anybody. A man could go through two or three wives and still end up a widower."

"Anyway, my great-aunt's been something of the family historian. Kept all her old man's letters. Says he disliked women and never had a kind word for his wife. Married her so's he'd have heirs to leave all his property and money to. You know the expression 'keep 'em barefoot and pregnant'? He invented that one."

His boys, of course, took after him, following his example. He had to persuade most of them to marry and keep the family line going. "Half of them, we think, were queer. And then they had some more of their own. I got maybe three uncles we're sure about and five cousins that are out-and-out queer as they come."

"You have to be making this up."

"Swear to you on a stack of bibles."

"So these men in your family, they went ahead and got married anyway?"

"It was that or lose their share of the family fortune. You gotta understand, the family don't take to queers, least of all the ones that don't know about the rest of us--and don't wanna know."

"If it's supposed to be a big secret, how did you find out all this?"

Del, who had not taken his eyes from the road, turned for a moment and looked at him. "Think about it," he said. "How'd me and you figure each other out?"

"If I remember, it was you who made the first move."

Del laughed. "Is that what you think?"

"What's so funny?"

"Doc, you may be a professor and all, but you're no expert on this subject, I can tell."

Brad sat back in the seat. "Maybe I'm not."

"There's no maybe about it."

They drove on for a while in silence, just excited voices coming from the radio.

Finally Brad said, "So you're marrying this girl in Hawaii because you think you don't have a choice?"

"I didn't say that. I coulda said no."

"But you would have lost out on the inheritance?

"It's not that either. Family sticks together, you know? You don't let down your brothers."

There was no way in the world Brad would ever have dreamed a story like this could be true. He still doubted it.

"I have to ask you something," he said.

"Shoot."

"What about the part of you that likes sex with another man? Aren't you going to miss that?"

"Who says I'm gonna miss it?"

Brad understood something about leading a double life, but not walking into one with eyes wide open. "How do you plan to keep what you're doing from your wife?" he said.

"Same way we all have. You pick a girl who isn't too inquisitive, and you keep it discrete."

He talked about a cousin from some little town in East Texas who coached football. They were AA champions two years running. Meantime, he had an assistant coach he spent a lot of time with, and not much of it had anything to do with football. Another cousin had an auto shop in Muskogie, with always one or two horny mechanics who got in the habit of hanging around after hours to get some relief before going home. Sometimes he had the company of one or another of the customers, who'd show up late in the day wanting more than his car serviced.

An uncle of his was a barber in Odessa, with a one-man shop and a regular clientele that grew over the years. His routine was wordless and foolproof. After several minutes into a haircut, he'd lean his crotch into the arm of the guy in the chair. If the guy didn't pull away, that was a sign he might be interested. If there were tell-tale hand movements in the guy's lap under the cape, that was another sign. He was making room for a hard-on.

If it was a slow day, they might make use of the backroom after the pomade and talc. Or the guy might return at closing time to pick up something he'd forgotten when he left, and anyone showing up after that would just find the lights out and a closed sign hanging in the window.

"Can I ask you something personal?" Brad asked.

Del laughed. "You and me fucked all night. What's more personal than that?"

"I can think of things you'd keep from someone you've fucked," Brad said. "Like if it's someone you're married to."

"I'll give you that one," Del laughed. "But you and me ain't married."

"So it's just a man's wife he can be less than truthful with. Is that it?"

"I may be queer, doc, but I'm not stupid."

They passed an exit for Greeley, and Brad thought of Clayton and his friend, Len. He wondered whether the two of them were sleeping now, and if by any chance it was with each other.

"Anyway," Del said. "What was your question?"

"I think you already answered it."

He thought about Texas and what he'd been learning about it--not at all the picture he got from watching John Wayne westerns. "Do you by any chance have an uncle by the name of Clark in your family?" Life was full of coincidences.

"Nope. Why?"

"Just thought I'd ask."

Del turned off the radio. "Mind if I ask you something?"

"Go ahead."

"Who's this friend of yours we're drivin' all this way to see?"

Brad thought for a moment, wondering where to start. "You want the long version or the short one?"

Del laughed. "It's that complicated?"

"Live long enough, and everything gets complicated."

Then he told Del a little to give him an idea about Craig and what had happened. He was thinking all the time that Del was not much more than a kid and maybe not the best person to trust with all the details.

"That's a goddam sad story," Del said when he was done. "What makes a man do something like that?"

"You talking about me or him?"

"You I kinda understand, doc, but sounds like this other guy's dug himself into a hole and doesn't have the sense to stop digging."

"I wouldn't have put it that way, but I think you're right," he said. "Of course, he believes he's doing the right thing."

"A man can be too good for his own good," Del said, sounding like he was launching into a speech. "I mean, there are things I won't do. And I'm not talking about robbing and killing. Just things where some people don't draw the line--like selling somebody a used car that'll break down soon as they get it off the lot. That kind of dishonesty, I'd never do that."

Other kinds of dishonesty were OK, Brad thought, but didn't say what he was thinking.

"I believe in the eighty-percent rule," Del went on. "A man does the right thing eighty percent of the time, and that's good enough. He can let a lot of little things slip by before they start adding up."

George Orwell had a word for that, Brad thought. Double-think. But he didn't want to start talking like a teacher in front of one of his classes.

"What if being unfaithful to your wife comes to more than twenty percent for a man?" he said. "That's Craig." And maybe himself, too, but he wasn't sure yet.

"I suppose every man has his priorities," Del said, like he was ready to let the subject drop.

He turned on the radio again. The call-in show had turned mostly to static, and he began dialing around for something else. All he could find were a distant station playing cowboy music and a revved up evangelist in the middle of a sermon. He tuned in the music and left it on.

"Have you ever been in love?" Brad had been thinking about the question for a while and finally decided to ask it.

"Once or twice. Why?"

"Would you call love a priority?"

"I would if I believed in it. Do you?"

"I thought I did."

"Problem with love is it don't last. Just long enough to leave you disappointed."

"Maybe you have to try it more than twice."

"Fool me once, it's my fault. Fool me twice, and I got nobody to blame but myself." Del laughed. "Fool me again, and they can put me in the loony bin."

Brad wondered if this was the kind of reasoning that let Del think so little of marriage vows.

"I could fall for you in a big way, doc, if I let myself," Del said. "But I'm not gonna, cause I know better."

Brad remembered talk of something like this the night he'd been to Del's room. The sureness in Del's voice reassured him that the boy believed what he was saying. With the full confidence of youth, it would probably go on working for him.

There was something about a young man's convictions, though, that lost their strength with middle age, and Brad could tell him plenty about that. But Del didn't need to hear a lecture on middle age.

"What I said," Del said turning to him with a grin. "That doesn't mean I'd pass up a good fuck with you again."

"That's not what I was thinking when I asked you to come along."

"I figured that, but I'm just saying, in case you change your mind."

They drove in silence for a while. The cowboy music came and went in waves on its uncertain frequency. For a while, Hank Williams was coming in loud and clear and Del sang along:

You'll walk the floor the way I do,

Your cheatin' heart will tell on you.

Brad wondered if the words meant anything to Del. He seemed to sing them with relish, like cheating was just the way of the world, a guilty pleasure--all in the twenty percent a man could let slide.

* * *

"So what's your plan when we get where we're going?" Del said.

Brad was driving now. They'd crossed into Nebraska at dawn, and the sun shone weakly through a thin layer of clouds. The open countryside on both sides of the highway was covered with snow.

"Haven't made up my mind exactly. Soon as we get there, I'll make a couple of phone calls and see if I can track him down. Then, I don't know, get him to meet me somewhere."

"Motel?"

"No, that'll scare him off. Anyway, I just want to talk. It's too early to meet in a bar. Maybe a restaurant."

"How about you drop me at the restaurant, and the two of you keep driving. Who knows, you might end up at a motel."

"Let's cross that bridge when we come to it."

They took the exit for Kearney and stopped at a diner where Brad found a payphone. He'd never called Craig at his home before and didn't have the number. He was looking it up in the phone book when Del appeared beside him.

"I was thinking," he said. "I could call and if someone else answers I can make up something. Then when he gets on the phone, I'll hand it over to you."

"Do you do stuff like this often?"

Del laughed. "Maybe, but aren't two heads supposed to be better than one?"

So they did that, Brad reading the number aloud as Del dialed it and then waited.

"Craig?" Del said when there was an answer.

Brad felt his heart leap.

"Well, can he come to the phone? I'm a student of his," Del was saying now.

And Brad could hear a voice from the receiver calling, "Dad, it's for you. One of your students."

"Must have got his son," Del said. "Sounds old enough to be his old man." And he handed the receiver to Brad.

The wait seemed to last forever. He felt a nervous shudder that was both fatigue from the road and a nameless fear.

"Hello?" came a voice. It was Craig.

"It's Brad."

And with those two words, he reached for the connection between them and clung to it, urging Craig to keep listening until he was done, telling him he'd driven all night to be with him one more time, just to talk, because he needed to ask him something. He was only in town for an hour and then he'd be gone. And he swore he was telling the truth.

"Who is it?" he heard Craig's wife say in the background.

"It's a student," he said.

"Don't they know not to call you at home?" she said.

Brad felt relief and sorrow at what he'd already forced Craig to do, to lie to someone who believed him when he'd promised to tell the truth.

"Where are you?" Craig said.

And Brad explained to him where he was. "I'll be in my car. Look for a white Chevy Nova with New Mexico plates. It's the only one in the parking lot."

He heard Craig sigh. "Give me twenty minutes. I'll be there." Then he hung up.

He had expected it to be harder, but he let himself feel encouraged that Craig had agreed to see him without needing any persuading or explaining. He walked to the table where Del sat drinking a cup of coffee. Another cup was waiting across from him for Brad.

"I told her to bring you some too," Del said. "Figured you'd want one."

Brad sat down, his heart still pounding.

"So? Is he coming?" Del wanted to know.

Brad nodded.

Del gave him a smile. "Funny how things work out sometimes. You were sweatin' bullets back there and for nothin'."

Brad kept glancing at his wrist watch, as the minutes crawled by.

Del had ordered steak and eggs and began eating as soon as the waitress put the plate in front of him. Brad's stomach was in knots, and he shook his head when Del offered him some of his food.

"You're gonna worry yourself into a state," Del said.

"Nothing ever bothers you?" Brad said.

"All the time, doc, but a man has his limits." Del was a confirmed advocate of moderation in all things and would probably have said so if it wouldn't have sounded like he was patting himself on the back.

Finally, Brad finished the coffee and got up to go.

"Good luck, doc," Del said and lifted a triangle of toast as a kind of salute. "I got your back."

On another day Brad might have pondered the possible meaning of that, but his head was full of jangling thoughts of what lay in store for him.

He headed for the door, zipping up his jacket as he went. As he got outside, he felt the sharp brush of cold air on his head and wished he'd worn a cap. When he'd set out on this 750-mile trip to the north, he hadn't counted on the difference in the weather.

The Nova was parked at the side of the lot, where it gave way to another parking lot that covered a small acreage around a Holiday Inn. He got in the car, which was still a little warm inside and waited.

After several minutes more, he saw a figure appear in the window opposite him. A hand reached for the door handle, and in a moment Craig was sitting beside him, his face almost covered with a knit cap pulled down to his eyebrows and a scarf inside the turned-up collar of his coat.

"I was afraid you'd changed your mind." It was all Brad could think to say.

"I damn near did," Craig said, not looking at him. "You promised you wouldn't try to see me again. "

"I'm sorry I ever made that promise."

"You're making this really hard for me."

"This won't take long."

He realized his feet were getting cold, and he started up the car.

"What are you trying to do, kidnap me?" Craig said.

This was an idea Brad hadn't thought of, and for a moment his sleepy brain began to consider it.

"No, I'm just turning on the heater," he said.

"So what did you come here for?" Craig had turned to him now, a look on his face that could have been anger or simply disbelief.

"I need to ask you for something. That's part of it."

"How many parts are there?"

"Don't confuse me. You've had a night's sleep to think clearly, and I haven't."

"You drove all last night to get here?"

"Basically."

"You're nuts, you know that?" Craig said. "Anyway, I was up most of the night, too. One of my kids was sick with an ear infection. What do you want to ask me?"

Brad took a deep breath and said, "It's like this." And he told Craig how he was on the brink of deciding whether to stay with his wife or go ahead with the divorce. He'd come to understand that he couldn't do either one without someone to lean on, a best friend to help him through the rough times.

"Only problem is, you're my best friend," he said. "You're my only friend. I'm lost without knowing you are there beside me."

"You know I can't do that," Craig said.

"I don't mean like before. The way we used to be together."

"I'm thinking about the geography. We don't even live in the next state. How can I be there for you?"

"Let me call you on the phone to talk. Even if it's just once a month."

Craig didn't say no right away, and as the seconds ticked by, he looked as though he was thinking it over.

"It's not you I don't trust," he finally said. "It's me. If we do that, it's going to start up between us all over again. And I know I can't live like that."

"How can you live the way you do?"

Craig looked away and didn't answer for a moment. "It's not easy. But sitting there next to my son's bed last night, while he cried from the pain, I knew it was where I was supposed to be. It was my job, and it was foolish to think I could ever walk away from it."

"I'm not asking you to give up your job."

"I know that, but just having you here, I can feel myself losing my grip." He reached across the seat and found Brad's hand. "I just loved you so much."

Brad felt all the cells in his brain sink into a kind of delirium. For a long moment they sat together like this, the sound of the heater fan blowing and the engine of the Nova softly purring.

Then, next to his ear, Brad heard a rapping on the window. He turned and at the same moment felt Craig jerk his hand away.

When he looked to see who was there outside the car, he was ready to find a cop with a night stick and a gun on his hip, prepared to make an arrest.

Instead, it was Del, balancing two paper cups of coffee in one hand. "Figured you guys could use some joe about now," he was saying as Brad rolled down the window. Besides the relief that it was no one else and not a cop, he wanted to grab Del by the throat and choke him.

What the fuck? he wanted to say but let it go. Del could be tactless, but his intentions were good as gold. He'd done what he felt was right, when the timing was right, and to hell with the consequences.

"Who's this?" Craig wanted to know, an edge of alarm in his voice.

"Craig meet Del. Del meet Craig," Brad said and explained that Del had come from Santa Fe with him to help with the driving.

"Glad to meet you," Del was saying, reaching across Brad to shake Craig's hand. "Can't tell you how highly the doc here speaks of you."

Craig gave Brad a look that said, he knows about us?

"Sometimes I think he knows more than you and me put together," Brad said taking the two coffees and handing one to Craig.

"Got creamer and sugar here, too," Del said and pulled a handful of packets from his coat pocket. "You guys need anything else?" He was willing to bring them something to eat.

Craig was still speechless, while Brad persuaded Del to go back to the restaurant and wait.

"You said you didn't have any friends," Craig said when he was gone.

"He's just a kid. What I could count on from him wouldn't amount to a hill of beans."

Craig cradled the cup of coffee in his hands. He kept shaking his head like he was about to say something, but the words wouldn't come.

"I know something about you," Brad said. "You're a man who makes rules for himself and sticks to them. You can make a rule that lets me talk to you on the phone once a month, without losing your grip. You don't even have to talk back to me."

"I made a promise to my wife."

"You can make a rule about that, too."

"Make a rule that lets me break a rule?" Craig said, like Brad was suggesting something impossible.

"Yes."

Brad knew he must have some rules for himself because there were things he would and would not do, but he was also practiced at making exceptions to them. He didn't know how that worked; he just relied on guessing what would feel best. Sometimes living with the consequences of breaking a rule weren't all that bad.

Craig, however, was another kind of man. And if he couldn't get him to budge from that, he'd honor him as a man of more character than himself and let him be. Which of them was in fact the better man, he didn't know and didn't care. He just didn't want to let Craig disappear completely from his life. He loved the man and needed him too much for that.

"Once a month," Craig said. "Like a month from today, the twenty-ninth?"

Except February, when it's not a leap year, Brad thought, but waited to hear the rest of what Craig was saying.

Craig took his hand again. A good sign.

"For how long? Like a half hour?" Craig said.

"An hour?"

"Forty-five minutes."

"OK, forty-five minutes. You'll do it?"

Craig concentrated and took a deep breath, like he was about to do a full gainer from the high diving board. "I'll try," he said.

Brad couldn't tell if the wave of pleasure that swept through him was a guilty one or one of relief. It didn't matter. He wished for all the world that he could kiss Craig right there in the broad daylight of a Nebraska winter morning. But he let holding his hand on the seat between them be enough.