“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.