
Cotton and his helper, hard-boiled little Hyacinth. Concerning Hyacinth, Cotton had explained,
"Hyacinth, here, came to the farm one day looking for work. He was one of them what-do-you-call-its."
"Bindle stiff," Hyacinth put in blandly.
"Yep. One of them. He was on the bum. So I give him a job and now he helps me with the truck farm."
The idea of anyone selling produce around this deserted section had puzzled Miles Billings. He asked,
"Where do you find customers?"
Cotton had waved an arm toward a ridge beyond the nearby ghost town. "High-class new development
over there," he explained. "Outskirts of Salem. Danged good business. And there’s also a few customers
around here."
They had reached the southern boundary of the old mill town. Ahead, grass grew in the tree-shaded
street. Cotton brought the old truck to a shuddering stop, and around them settled the vast silence of the
ghost town in the soft hush of a mid-afternoon in summer.
Cotton had been munching an apple taken from his worn overalls, and he had passed another apple to
Miles Billings. Hyacinth lay sprawled, suddenly asleep, on potato sacks in the rear.
Cotton stopped chewing and said, "Waal, here’s where I turn off, mister. You don’t get me to drive
through that town! You fellows better forget about that highway. It’s only going to make you trouble, I
figger."
Miles Billings climbed down from the seat, smiled and waved his hand. "Thanks, Cotton," he said. "But
I’m afraid I can’t agree with you."
He went walking down the single street, chewing on the apple, glad that it was summer. Behind him, the
produce truck started up and rumbled off toward the ridge beyond the town.
Witch town, was this? Miles Billings laughed. He sort of liked the solitude of the place. It was restful. He
strolled past the row of old houses, noticing their boarded-up windows. On the right side of the street
was the block-long building of the mill; red bricks covered with age-old vines, windows broken and
looking like ghostly, empty eye sockets in a skeleton face.
At the other end of town, near the section that the stranger looking for work had called Witches’ Hollow,
he came to his hastily constructed camp—a tent and a portable shed where the engineer had stored some
of his valuable instruments.
Inside the tent was a drawing board, and though it was warm, Miles Billings shed his shirt and went to
work on sketches of the proposed highway route—a streamlined, super-highway that he visualized as
cutting straight through the old ghost town. It should be a fairly simple construction job, with the
exception of some swampy land north—that place called Witches’ Hollow.
Miles Billings was to appear tonight before board members of the adjacent town just north of here to
present his outline of the highway. At dusk he had his plans ready and was about to climb into his car.
He was aware of a slight headache, and figured it was induced by putting off supper or working too long
in the heat. He would get a bite in the town where he was to meet the local officials that still controlled
this ghost town.
He started toward his car parked at the side of the road—and heard the stealthy sound in the tool shed
behind his tent.