His best friend, Waymon Stovall, had loaned him the car. Now, there's a good buddy for you, Purvis told himself. Waymon detested weddings but he drove two hundred miles to stand beside Purvis at the appointed hour. And he would have come with Purvis now but for the hangover. Drinking a few boilermakers and dragging a deck chair through the motel pool had exacted a pitiless toll.

Purvis turned onto a dirt road, crossed the rough timbered bridge over Owl Creek and saw the place where Lala McInnis lived. Her dad owned the mountain which embraced their twelve-room bungalow. But he wouldn't pave the driveway. He felt about pavement the way Stovall felt about weddings. Purvis parked and walked reluctantly toward the front entrance.

A gruff voice bellowed from behind him, "What'cha want here, boy?"

Purvis wheeled around and there stood, a stone's throw away, one of the biggest men he had ever seen. The challenging voice belonged to an awesome figure who looked seven feet tall and who seemed built like a sawmill. The man's head was capped with a mop of flaming red hair. Purvis gaped and gulped before he could get a word out.

"I'm . . . I'm, uh, Purvis Denton. I suppose I'm at the right place?"

"You might be . . . if you know where you're going," the red-haired behemoth roared with just a trace of a grin now.

"I'm here to pick up a Miss Lala McInnis. She's to be in our wedding," he hastened to explain.

"Yeah, she told me 'bout that show. Go on to the house and get her when she's ready."

"Yes, sir," Purvis obeyed with some relief and walked to the front door.

He had never met Lala. He rapped politely at the door and heard a distant but feminine voice call, "Come in, Purvis."

The massive oak door was ajar. He slowly pushed it open and stepped inside. A friendly Labrador met him by pawing at his knee and licking his hand. From upstairs the female voice called out again, "The kitchen is down the hall to the right. Go on down and get a cold beer out of the fridge if you like. I'll be down with you in a jiffy."

A cold beer seemed like just the thing to stem the pounding in his head from the previous evening’s festivities, so Purvis followed her directions, got a can of beer in hand and sat down on a leather-covered sofa in the museum they called a living room. A mounted deer's head peered at him from one end of the massive room. Towering antique portraits and oil paintings dominated the wall spaces. A rich oriental rug warmed the floor but it was punctuated by a sinister looking bearskin's open fangs.

Suddenly and quietly, Lala appeared and playfully flipped one of his ears to get his attention. He turned and stood. She was tall, well shaped . . . an auburn beauty. Purvis cleared his throat and nervously rubbed his chin before speaking.

"Hello, Lala . . . um, I'm Purvis."

"Who else?" she laughed. "Sit down. Finish your beer. We're in no hurry."

He flopped back onto the sofa, still staring at her. Then it dawned on him that she was attired in a tight blouse and short pants. Her well-formed legs were unshaven and uncovered by any sheer hose. She wore cotton socks that were ankle high. He betrayed his puzzlement by squinting his eyes and scratching his head.

"Purvis, you are staring at my legs," she teased.

"Oh, I didn't mean . . . uh . . . I'm sorry. You are a very attractive woman. You really are."

"Thank you, but unlike most of the girls, I don't shave my legs. Anyway, my legs and this outfit will not show at the wedding. I'll put on my long bridesmaid's gown after we arrive at the church.

"I wasn't thinking of the wedding . . . I mean . . . uh . . . your family has some interesting pieces in this room."

"Yes, I suppose they are. I've been around them so long, though, they tend to bore me. Some of them were Mother's. The deer, the bear, the old rifle over the fireplace . . . Dad's."

"Your mother?"

"Mother is dead. It happened when I was about two years old. Dad shot her."

Purvis paled with this news item. "Shot her!" he blurted before he could silence himself.

"Yes. As a matter of fact. We don't try to act like it didn't happen. It was accidental, of course . . . the rifle over on the fireplace. He was cleaning it, reloading it when it went off. The bullet went through that wall. Hit her squarely in the back. She was sitting in the next room, looking through an old family album. The hole in the wall is covered by that big portrait of her."

"I'm sorry," he mumbled politely.

"No need to be. If you are ready we can go now. Finished your beer?"

"Yes, thanks. We better go now."

She picked up a purse and the hang-up dress bag on the way out. Purvis steered the Plymouth down the gravel drive. Lala rolled down her window and yelled to her dad as they passed him, "See ya, Pop . . . bet you wish it were my wedding!"

He waved and yelled back, "Don't make a fool of yourself at that society bash."

The word "bash" reminded Purvis of the rehearsal party of the night just past. "You should have been at the rehearsal last night," he commented with a quick glance at Lala.

"Why, Purrr-vis, how nice of you to say that. But you know that I'm just a part of this show as a stand-in for Joy Welt who came down with the flu at a convenient time. Girls with hairy legs don't show up well in party skirts, and I couldn't go to a rehearsal in formal dress, could I?"

"I only meant that you missed a good party afterwards. You should have seen my good friend and best man, Waymon. He tried to walk on water. I bet he would like you."

"Well, I don't lean toward religious freaks. Besides, parties of more than two people crowd me," she laughingly retorted.

Her last salvo made Purvis uncomfortably quiet. He drove across Owl Creek and away from the rural scenario toward Johnson City. Lala told him a couple of off color stories about honeymoons. He blushed and reflected once again how strange it was that shortly before his own wedding he should be in such a situation.

"I know a short-cut to Johnson City, if you are game," she mentioned casually, interrupting his reflections.

"Why not?" he went along innocently.

"Next road to the right. Turn there and we'll save ten or fifteen minutes and avoid the traffic of the change of shifts at the tannery."

He looked at his wristwatch and took the turn. Lala looked at him as she moved slyly closer and asked, "You really want to marry Amy?"

"Sure. We have planned this for almost a year," he reckoned.

"But planning and wanting are two different things," she counseled as she cupped her hand onto his knee and maneuvered it from there gingerly to his lap.

He squirmed and resisted without effect the organic swelling that unfolded from within his trousers. Unconsciously, his foot pressed more firmly on the accelerator. Then Lala abandoned all subtlety and gripped her target. Purvis gasped, moaned and gave up all control. The Plymouth plowed into an indifferent oak tree.

Within minutes a farmer from a nearby house found the wreck. When word reached town, Amy was properly mortified. Old man McInnis was truly mad with grief. Purvis and Lala were dead. Waymon talked of the loss of a good buddy and a below average car.

Everyone knew that Possum Branch Road was a dead-ender. Purvis, they said, had no intention of showing for the wedding. He surely had his mind set on seducing that motherless girl.

And why, indeed, should Amy have been so guileless that she trusted Purvis to escort that hairy-legged Lala out of the woods and to the wedding? Wise heads concluded that Amy should be thankful she did not go through with the wedding. She deserves better than a cad like Purvis must have been . . . rest his soul.

Meanwhile, Amy wept long enough. She felt some pity for Lala and Purvis but she got over that and relaxed. She knew and even was amused by her intuition that poor Purvis could not have survived Lala McInnis—one way or the other.

Amy and Waymon held their rendezvous in Gatlinburg about three weeks after the cancellation of the wedding. They lounged in a motel room and laughed about the outcome of their scheme.

"My idea and your car," she boasted.

"Yeah, but neither one of us wanted them dead . . . just tangled up in some kind of a meaningful relationship," Waymon recalled, smiling.

"You’re right . . . and I'm sorry about that . . . there should be easier ways to renege on a wedding . . . or to revise the cast."