Mike Shayne Mystery Magazine, Vol. 1, No. 4, August 1957 (British Edition)

A Dress for Mary Lou by Jay Carroll

Was it murder that had changed the State Trooper’s friends?

Bill Corey stood very straight in the well-fitted, grey uniform. He made no move toward the pistol on his hip. “Go ahead, shoot!” he said quietly. “You tanned my britches when I was a kid. If it hadn’t been for you, bringin’ me up, I wouldn’t be standin’ here now in a state trooper’s uniform. I don’t aim to draw, Jess.”

The older man scowled. His shaggy, salt-and-pepper hair was uncombed, his fierce eyes deep in their sockets. “I never thought you was a coward, Bill.” His sharp voice was edged with steel. “I’m proud you ain’t real flesh an’ blood of mine. A man thet—”

“Quit stallin,’ Jess. If you’re gonna shoot me, get it over. You’ve got a choice. Either you go back to Warrington to stand trial for murder or you shoot me down right now. I take you back alive — or not at all.”

Bill saw the gun waver. The hard grey eyes went soft. “Why’d they had to send you?” the old man said with annoyance.

“ ’Twould have been better iffen it had been somebody we didn’t know.” He put the rifle back on its hooks over the fireplace.

“I asked to come,” Bill said. “You’re my people. A stranger might make a mistake. I knew Will Tubbman as good as you. From the time he was a kid, he was a slimy snake. But killin’ is a crime against the law, and Will was stabbed to death — not even given a fair chance to defend him-himself. Down in Warrington we call that murder.”

He let the stiffness go out of his back, relaxed into the cane-bottomed chair. “They sent a trooper by the name of Evan McGirr up here in civilian clothes. Day before yesterday his body came back express collect. He’d been stabbed to death with a thin-bladed knife. We took it as a warning that troopers weren’t welcome in Black Gum. We didn’t like it. The Commissioner thinks there’s no law here, at all.”

Halfway expecting the old man to jump for the gun, Bill loosed his final bolt. “Express company says you were the shipper, Jess.”

“That’s a lie. I never saw no stranger. You c’n ask Mary Lou.”

The girl came out of the corner where she had huddled in fright. She was a slim girl, with timid eyes and a birdlike way of moving her head and hands.

“Dad’s right,” Mary Lou said. “There’s been nobody here by the name of Evan McGirr. He’s sent no package at the express company, either.”

Bill said. “Thanks, Mary Lou.” He shot a quick, admiring glance at the faded, neat dress, the bare, brown legs. “You’ve grown considerable since the last time I saw you. Still go around with Peg Tyler?”

“Nope.” She looked askance at her father, then plunged on. “Peg got in trouble with a man. She wouldn’t tell me who it was.”

Bill pricked up his ears, giving no sign of his interest. “Too bad. Reckon Watt Tyler is plenty mad.” He changed the subject swiftly. “If Jess won’t object, I’d kind of like to go walkin-up the mountain before we go back to Warrington. No use to hurry—”

Jess Tatum interrupted harshly, “Mary Lou won’t go walkin’ with a man that’s yeller. I forbid it.” He made a quick motion toward the gun over the fireplace. “If you’re gonna take me back, you’d best get started. A man thet comes back to trade on his home folks’ affection—”

“Wait a minute, Jess.” Bill fidgeted uncomfortably. “Costs the state a lot of money to try a man for murder. I got to be sure you killed Will Tubbman. I got to know why you did it.”

Jess Tatum’s face was stone cold. “Leave the house, Mary Lou,” he said sharply. The girl instantly obeyed, and when she was gone, he went on: “I say I killed Will Tubbman. If that ain’t enough, I’ll tell you why. He promised Mary Lou a new dress iffen she’d meet him up the mountain.” He paused uncertainly, looked at the younger man squarely. “I met him instead.”

“Looks like you would have met Mary Lou on her way up to him and told her there wasn’t any use in going on. Pretty hard on a girl, findin’ a man that’s been knifed to death. You could’ve saved her that—”

“I done told you all you need to know.” Tatum’s eyes biased. “You keep frettin’ me, Bill, an’ I’m like to lose my head.”

Bill let his mind wander back to the early days when he had been growing up. When his mother died, leaving him an orphan at the age of ten, it had been Jess Tatum who appeared at the door of the house.

“Pack your things, boy,” he had said, warmly. “You’re comin’ to live with me an’ my Mary Lou.”

The transition was accomplished as easily as that. Jess was a silent, brooding sort of man, quick to anger, quick to cool. Bill had ah ways been afraid of him. If Tubbman had attempted to molest Mary Lou, there was no doubt that Jess Tatum would have killed him.

There was also the law as old as the settlement itself. Decent girls did not submit to the embrace of young men until there was an understanding, usually in the form of “permission to court.” from the head of the house. The law was doubly binding on the young folks. Girls who followed their independent, heedless desires were likely to hear of the suitor’s accidental death.

Men whose instincts grew stronger than reason might expect a knife thrust from the girl to cool their ardour. The mountainous country about Black Gum was no harder than its people.

Bill said, “We got the report back in Warrington that whoever killed Will Tubbman used a thin-bladed knife. I kind of thought you would have used the rifle, Jess.” He took a quick shot in the dark. “Maybe some of the women that Will went after would have used a knife — Peg Tyler, for instance — maybe even Mary Lou.”

The old man’s face was as bleak as a hickory stump in the dead of winter. “I admit to killin’ Will Tubbman. I done told you why. How I done it is my business. I’m goin’ back with you to Warrington.” He thrust out his jaw. “You leave Mary Lou out of this. An’ keep away from her.”

Bill got up slowly. “It isn’t only Tubbman’s murder. I got to find out who killed a state trooper. Back in Warrington they think it was you. You say you didn’t do it. I got to talk to Mary Lou.”

He strolled toward the door, outwardly calm, but inside the pulse pounded in his veins. Jess Tatum was used to having his word regarded as law.

As Bill walked quickly toward the clearing behind the house, he expected any minute to feel the sudden bite of a bullet. Only his blind faith that Jess wouldn’t shoot a man in the back kept him moving straight ahead without once glancing over his shoulder. He had come up here with the idea that Jess was innocent. In spite of the old man Bill Corey had to prove it. And there was only one person on earth who Jess would cover up for, Mary Lou Tatum.

Once in the clearing, he took a deep breath and smiled. Jess wasn’t going to shoot at him, after all.

Bill steeled himself now for a different kind of anxiety, the problem of trying to prove a murder on a friend he had grown up with here, his boyhood companion, Mary Lou.

Remembering so clearly the final scene at headquarters before he had started for Black Gum, Bill let the breath sob through his teeth, then squared his shoulders proudly. The Commissioner had blazed: “I don’t care how many hill-billies they kill off among themselves. But when they kill one of our finest troopers, it’s time we cleaned out that rats’ nest.” He looked mad enough to go to Black Gum himself. “I’ll send a whole company if it’s necessary.”

Bill remembered how his own face had flamed at the insult. The sergeant had whispered hurriedly to the Commissioner how easy it was to call names when you didn’t understand a people.

The Commissioner had apologised handsomely later. “Sorry, Corey. Wouldn’t have blamed you if you’d taken a swing at me. Didn’t realise I was talking about your people. You’ve got a fine record so far. Do you want to go up there — alone — and bring out the killer? Lots of times a man can do better work among his own people than a stranger. It was a mistake to send Evan McGirr in civilian clothes. But I won’t send you unless you want the job.”

“Have you got any idea who did it?” Bill had asked, fearing he’d hear a name he might recognise.

“For what it’s worth, yes. Feb low named Jess Tatum murdered this Will Tubbman. Trouble over a girl. Same man probably killed McGirr. Well, you want the job, Corey?”

He remembered the coldness that had crept along his spine at the mention of Jess. If Jess had to be arrested, it wasn’t fair to send anybody else. Then Bill had jumped at the chance, thinking Jess would understand why he had come. Just then the possibility that Mary Lou might have done it had never crossed his mind.

The man in the grey state trooper’s uniform sighed heavily as he searched the timber line. He disliked intensely what he must do now.

“Mary Lou?” he called softly. “I want to talk to you.”

Almost immediately the girl came out of a scrub thicket as though she had been waiting for his summons and wanting it eagerly. They sat on a pine log that Jess had recently hauled to the clearing to be sawed and split into stove lengths. Around them the air was crisp and cool.

“Jess thinks you murdered Will Tubbman,” Bill said bluntly. “Why?” He looked a little ill at ease.

The thin girl’s eyes grew wide; her mouth dropped open. “From the time I first told him about it, he said he did it. He never asked me even, if I did it. He couldn’t think I did it.”

“Tell me about it.”

“Will Tubbman had been wantin’ to pay court. Dad kept puttin’ him off, sayin’ he had somebody else in mind. Ever since I got grown, Bill, it’s been like that. I didn’t care about Will. But the others, Dad would tell them all he had somebody else in mind. There isn’t anybody else, Bill. It’s just — Dad’s funny about men courtin’—”

“What about the new dress?” He looked at the faded dress she was wearing now. How many times had Mary Lou washed it and hung it out to dry in the hot sun, he thought.

“I ordered a new dress from Warrington with the money I made from hookin’ a rug. I couldn’t tell Dad. You know how he is, Bill. I still haven’t told him. I figured after I’d had the dress a few days, he’d calm down and say it was all right. Will Tubbman picked it up at the depot before I could get down. He asked me to meet him.” She blushed, and the colour started at her slim neck and worked up until her face flamed. “I thought it was all right.”

“And what happened when you met him?” Bill dug pugnaciously into the dirt at their feet.

“Why — nothin’! Dad found out. I went to meet him, and Will Tubbman was dead when I got there.” Mary Lou looked at the ground, then up again as she continued. “The dress was gone. Dad told me about it afterward. He said Will Tubbman was a—” She left the thought unspoken, and brushed vaguely at her eyes.

“Could Will Tubbman have been the man Peg Tyler got in trouble with?”

The girl hesitated. “Dad says he is, but I asked Peg. She said she hated Will; it couldn’t be him. Please tell me what will happen to Dad, Bill?”

“Nothing, I think,” he replied, and hoped Mary Lou would forgive him in case his prediction turned out to be wrong. “Watt Tyler warned me, when I talked to him at the depot, I was in a fair way to gettin’ my head blowed off, comin’ up here after Jess. Reckon I might slip down and tell him we’ll be leavin’ on the afternoon train. If you could see your way clear not to go back to the house for the next hour—”

Mary Lou’s mouth trembled, and she looked away self-consciously. “Dad will think you’ve been with me all that time. Like I say, he’s funny about things like that. He’ll be mad clean through. He might—”

“I’m not worried about myself. In an hour he might cool off, too. Don’t let him find you if he comes lookin’ for you, Mary Lou. You promise?”

She nodded, and he swung off toward the railroad along the familiar footpath that led through the woods. As a boy, curious about the wonders of nature, he had walked here thousands of times. Bill knew where the squirrels nested in the half-dead walnut tree off to the left. There had once been an eagle’s nest in the pine at the top of the rise. But to-day the harassed State trooper thought of other things.

Watt Tyler was puttering about the small station. He had a face like a hawk. His thin, sandy hair was combed so as to partially cover the bald spot.

“Find Jess?” he asked gravely.

“Yeh.” Bill studied the outline of the square room. “Expect I’ll have some trouble, Watt. I figure to take Jess out on the afternoon train. I want you to be sure to flag the local. I’ll have handcuffs on Jess. He won’t like it. I got to make Black Gum see that the law’s got a long arm.” Taking a deep breath, Bill blew it out sibilantly. “I won’t put the cuffs on Jess ’til the last minute. I hate to do it.”

Tyler spat on the bare pine floor. “You’re takin’ a big chance, Bill,” he said. There was admiration in his voice.

Bill said, “I’d kind of like to see Peg before I go back. I expect she’s grown into a right pretty woman.”

Tyler waved toward the house across the road from the depot. “Reckon Peg would like to see you. You’ll find she’s filled out some.” His eyes glinted with amusement. “You’ll find she’s still spunky, too.”

Bill grinned. He had almost forgotten. A spunky girl in Black Gum was a girl with a quick temper. Black Gum had more than its share of spunky people.

Bill understood the amusement he had observed in the old man’s eyes as he looked at Peg. She was wearing city clothes, even to her nylon stockings. Where Mary Lou was slim, Peg Tyler was all soft curves. The bloom of a peach was in her round cheeks and her silky hair framed her face engagingly.

“You look awful good, Bill,” she said, and he wished this visit were other than business.

The floor sagged a little under the weight of his steps as Bill moved to the settee. Peg sat with her legs crossed, in the rocker by the window. He studied her again, then said, quietly, “Mary Lou told me there’d been trouble with a man, Peg. I was sorry to hear it. I wanted—”

She interrupted easily. “I told Mary Lou about that to sort of cheer her up. I was surprised she hadn’t heard it before. The trouble started at a dance at Ferriter’s. Joe Ferriter invited me there even though he was playin’ fiddle. Time the dance was over, so many people had lubricated Joe’s fiddle arm that he was slumped in a comer with his head in his fiddle case. So Will Tubbman brought me home.

“Pappa was fit to be tied. He raved all over Black Gum that, if Joe Ferriter even got within shootin’ range, he’d give him a full charge of buckshot. Pappa wouldn’t hurt a fly. But his feelings were hurt. The more he ranted, the more people got to talkin’ I must have got in trouble with Joe Ferriter. He found out, finally, he was the one to blame for all the talk, and didn’t say any more about it.”

Bill knew she was telling the truth. No matter how he turned and sifted the evidence in his mind, suspicion always pointed back to Mary Lou — or Jess. Even if Mary Lou had related all she honestly knew about the new dress, there seemed a likelihood that something additional had happened on the mountainside.

Will Tubbman was there — for a good reason. Mary Lou explained it was by arrangement, to give her the dress that had just arrived. But there was no dress when Tubbman’s body was found. Jess said Will had promised her a dress..

Bill got to his feet, and, without conscious thought of what he was doing, started pacing the floor. Through the window he noticed that Watt Tyler was crossing the street from the depot.

“Here comes your father,” he said unhappily. “I had looked forward to talkin’ to you alone. I don’t have very long—”

Without a word Peg nodded and led the way toward the back door. Outside the house, she smiled. “The law isn’t trusted too far in Black Gum, even if it happens to be somebody we knew a long time ago.”

They walked through the field where the hay was already cut and racked, and struck up toward the coolness of the forested slope.

“Reckon I can’t talk as good as — Will Tubbman,” Bill said. “I got to tell you, Peg, there’s no girls in Warrington like the ones in Black Gum. I get lonesome—”

“If you talked as good as Will Tubbman, I wouldn’t like you anyway,” Peg said earnestly. She looked around cautiously. “He deserved killing, Bill. I’m not talking about myself,” she added quickly. “Oh, I saw Will now and then. Maybe at first I wanted to believe all them promises. I expect he did have a little money. His big mistake was going after Mary Lou. I could’ve told him the Tatums wouldn’t stand for trifling.”

Bill said quietly, “Mary Lou might have killed him. She says she didn’t, and Jess says he did. So I’m taking Jess back to Warrington to stand trial. I kind of think McGirr had it figured the same way.” He laughed grimly. “Jess was goin’ to use the rifle on me a little while ago. He may do it yet.”

She clutched his arm, apprehension in her eyes. “You watch out, Bill. Jess is mean when he’s riled.”

Bill gritted his teeth. This talk was getting him absolutely nowhere. There was such scant time now to learn what he had to know. Hating himself, he stopped suddenly at the edge of the glade, pulled Peg violently toward him. His lips found hers; he kissed her with a passion he did not feel.

“I’ve dreamed of doin’ this for a long time,” he said, holding her closely.

The girl whipped away with the flaming fury of a wildcat. From somewhere beneath her dress a thin, long-bladed knife appeared in her hand. “You’re not the man you were when you left,” she said tensely. “We’re not like the city girls. And you’ve forgotten, Bill — the Tylers won’t stand for trifling, either.”

The load he had carried in his heart was suddenly gone. In its place was the exhilaration of the gambler who has played a long shot against impossible odds and won. He backed away slowly.

“I’ll apologise for takin’ liberties,” he said. Then: “Mary Lou doesn’t carry a knife. I had to find out whether you did.”

Her voice was dry and flat. “Looks like working for the law gives a man special license not to be decent. You could’ve asked about the knife. I’ve got no call to lie to you.” The words stung sharply.

“I’m sorry, Peg,” Bill said gently. “We were always pretty good friends before. But somebody’s lyin’! It’s my job to find out who it is. That knife gave me a good idea.”

“What’s goin ’on between you two?” Watt Tyler had crept up quietly, and neither of them had known he was there. His eyes fastened on the knife in Peg’s hand. He glared at Bill, his craggy face in hard lines of resentment.

“My fault,” Bill admitted. “I gave Peg reason to be mad.” He grinned without humour. “She’s still spunky.”

Tyler looked from Peg to Bill, and back again at his daughter. The relief started in his eyes and spread over his hawk-like face. “You think Peg might’ve done it. I could’ve told you better. She wasn’t allowed to go with Will Tubbman; she didn’t like him, besides. That day he was killed Peg was at her grandma’s, over to Cedar Ridge. I’m sorry that you even suspected her. That other trooper, McGirr — he checked all that.”

As Bill walked back toward the house with them, he kept his eyes steadfastly on the ground. McGirr must have known about the knife Peg carried because his last report had stated that Peg Tyler might have killed Tubbman. But the report had later mentioned that this deduction appeared impossible. So Watt apparently was telling the simple truth.

Bill looked anxiously at his watch. His time was up and he had to leave. Bitterly he said, “Reckon I’d best apologise all around and get my prisoner. Pretty hard, havin’ to take the man that’s brought you up. I wanted to be dead certain before I took him in.”

Peg’s eyes were hard and unforgiving. But Watt Tyler shrugged amicably. Then he said, “They should’ve sent more than just you. Jess already killed one man sent to arrest him.”

Bill was careful to return by using the same direction into which he had vanished. He had an idea Mary Lou was close by, but he did not call. Jess was already mad enough and it would only make it worse for the two of them to appear together. Head up, he walked toward the house.

Jess was waiting inside, the gun still on its hook over the fireplace. “A man c’n only stand so much,” he raged. “I warn you, Corey.”

Bill was fumbling at his belt. “Hold out your right wrist, Jess,” he ordered. When Jess complied, he quickly snapped the handcuff over it. He fastened the other to his own wrist but did not snap it closed. “I arrest you for the murder of Will Tubbman,” he said.

They might have taken the path through the woods, leading down to the railroad or they might have ridden. Jess wanted it that way. When Bill said they’d walk down the main road, Jess lashed out, “You want to prove to all the folks you ain’t yeller, thet you c’n walk into Black Gum, arrest your man an’ walk out again. I should’ve killed you when you wouldn’t draw. I’m proud you ain’t—”

“Look, Jess,” Bill said softly, “I’m the law. You’ve got no call to criticize how I do my duty. You want to keep Mary Lou’s name out of this.” He swallowed down the doubts that choked his throat. “So do I. I’m doin’ this thing the way looks right. You can help—”

“Did Mary Lou tell you?” Jess burst out.

“She told me no more than she told you.”

From the drawn shutters of the houses and cabins along the way Bill knew there were eyes watching. Outside the station he halfway expected a hostile mob might be gathered. There was no one.

His job done, Tyler went inside the small station without speaking.

Almost dragging Jess, Bill followed.

“You were wrong, Watt,” Bill said. “Jess surrendered of his own free will.” He elevated the hand-cuffs so Watt could see.

Tyler opened the window and spat outside, and closed it again. The fear was naked in his eyes as he looked at Jess. “Ain’t another man livin’, Jess Tatum would surrender to. I warned that other trooper—”

“That’s the part that don’t fit,” Bill said. “I wanted to ask you about it. When I first talked to Jess, he says he never saw that trooper. Mary Lou didn’t see him, either. But you said it was Jess that brought in that box supposed to contain quartz samples and send it off express collect.”

Tyler grinned. “If Jess says he didn’t bring that box in here and send if off, he’s lyin’. I got witnesses to swear they seen him with the box.”

“You lie,” Jess flamed. “You paid me two dollars to bring you in a plain, pine box. I done it. The box had nothin’ in it.”

“Except the state trooper you’d stabbed in the back,” Watt taunted.

Bill felt the surge of elation in his heart. “I don’t recollect tellin’ you McGirr had been stabbed. I don’t recollect tellin’ anybody he’d been stabbed in the back. How did you know that, Watt?”

Tyler moved with easy grace. As though on springs, his hand sprang into the desk drawer, then went rigid with an ugly Luger clenched in his fingers. Casting loose the handcuff, Bill dived headlong into the midriff of the station agent. The gun exploded close to his ear. and he didn’t hear it. The bullet ploughed into his shoulder and he hardly felt it.

With Tyler’s arm clutched powerfully behind his back, Bill began to twist. Tyler’s gun dropped to the floor.

“You nasty little weasel, you framed this thing from start to finish!” Bill said.

“Jess done it, I tell you,” Tyler screeched desperately. “You’re breakin’ my arm. I’ll... kill you for this.”

Relentlessly, Bill applied more pressure. “Mary Lou had you order that dress. She paid you for it. You were the one put the idea in Will’s head about havin’ Mary Lou meet him. Only, you couldn’t give him the dress on account of company rules. It’s still here in the office, isn’t it, Watt? Answer, you devil, before I break your arm!”

Watt Tyler shook his head, but his eyes secretly peered toward a flat package on a shelf. Stooping, Bill picked up the Lugar Tyler had been forced to drop, walked swiftly to the shelf. He ripped open the package. Inside was a blue-flowered dress that could have fitted Mary Lou. He felt the material — it was so soft and lovely. Poor little Mary Lou, she’d never owned anything half so pretty in her life.

Bill needed more evidence than this, much more. Suddenly the walls were beginning to blur; the rough board ceiling was spinning crazily. He must not pass out now!

“Will Tubbman refused to marry your daughter, Watt. You warned Peg not to tell a soul in Black Gum who the man was. Then you threw out a big smoke-screen about how you were gunnin’ for Joe Ferriter. When you heard that Will was askin’ permission to court Mary Lou — and not gettin’ it — you saw your real chance.”

Bill stopped. This was all sheer guesswork. Every bit of what he was saying was hopeful bait. In court you have to prove every accusation. Watt Tyler would deny everything.

“I reckon I c’n prove that,” Jess said suddenly. “ ’Twas Watt told me Mary Lou was gettin’ a dress from Will Tubbman.” He stopped. His eyes were hot coals in his face. “In fact, ’twas him that made me believe Mary Lou had used a knife on Will.” He started toward Tyler, his eyes wild, his hands flexed.

Tyler cringed, “Stop ’im, Bill,” he pleaded hoarsely. “He’ll kill me. You know he will. You’re the law. Stop ’im — hurry.”

“You admit killin’ Will Tubbman? You admit framin’ Mary Lou with some hokeypokey about Will havin’ her dress?”

“Keep him away. Yes — I admit it.”

“You admit killin’ Trooper McGirr?” Jess came closer to Tyler.

“Yes. McGirr tricked Peg into tellin’ him she had been seein’ Will regular. That’s why I wanted to know what Bill asked Peg this afternoon. He said he wasn’t gonna arrest Jess ’til he found out more... Stop him!”

Jess’s big hands had found Tyler’s skinny throat.

“Let him go,” he ordered. “He’s my prisoner, Jess.”

The blackness was closing in again. “In the name of the state I appoint you my deputy, Jess Tatum. See that the prisoner—” The floor rushed up to meet him...

When he came to Bill was back at the Tatum house. He was stretched out on the settee with his shirt off and a neat white bandage on his shoulder. The package he had opened at the station, finding the blue dress, was on the table — only the box was bare now, Bill noticed.

Jess puttered about the fireplace on the other side of the room. On the floor Watt Tyler was lying, tied hand and foot.

“You wasn’t in shape to take your man back to Warrington,” Jess said, understating the case. “I brought you here to sort of rest up.” He was quiet a long time. “Been on my mind, them things I said about you bein-yeller. A man gets to frettin’. He says things he don’t mean.”

Bill looked at his deputy, smiled and said, “This is a good job, workin’ for the state, Jess. There’s a place I know in Warrington could be rented. There’d be enough room for you and Mary Lou. You know I had ideas about Mary Lou. Reckon I’ve had ’em since before I left Black Gum. But she said you had another party in mind. If you could see you way clear—”

Jess banged the hearth kettle with a clumsy foot. “I never had but one party in mind, Bill. With the trouble an’ all, I reckoned maybe you wouldn’t see things my way. So I tried to keep her clear of bein’ mixed up in Tubbman’s killin’. I see now I done it wrong—”

“This party you had in mind?”

Jess ran a finger through his unkempt hair, “Reckon it’s been you, Bill, from the time I came up to your house an’ got you when your mother died.”

Bill Corey got to his feet. He was a little dizzy, but he made it. He started up toward the clearing, toward the scrub thicket where he knew she would be waiting. He strained his eyes, searching the distant blue speak impatiently. And as he walked nearer he knew Mary Lou had put on her new dress just for him.