It was smaller than the front porch and shadowed by the overhanging trees. A narrow path led through them and up the precipitous slope to the outhouse, a neat wooden structure painted brown, with only the bottom half of a door. Jim thought that was odd until he climbed up and saw the view, which began at the cabin's ridgepole and continued on, if you had the imagination for it, all the way to Prince William Sound.

He looked down at the cabin and saw what he'd missed when he had stepped outside: an overturned plate, with what looked like some kind of stew spilled next to it. He slid back down and looked. Yes, stew—meat, some carrots, potatoes, celery, and onions in a thick gravy. He touched it. It was frosting over, but it wasn't quite frozen.

Were Dina and Ruthe in the habit of eating their lunch on the back porch? He thought it unlikely, especially in midwinter, but if he was wrong, why only one plate? And what had caused the spill? Had Ruthe or Dina been outside eating as the assailant entered through the front door? Had the beginning of the attack startled whoever was on the back porch into dropping the plate and then walking in on the scene?

Unsatisfied, he turned around and surveyed the hillside again. There was the trail to the outhouse, trodden down so that the surface was hard, with more snow piled waist-high on either side. There weren't any other tracks, except— wait a minute. He went up the trail again, this time at a trot, and discovered that the trail continued on behind the outhouse and farther up the hill. This trail was not so well packed down, showing separate footprints marking a far less frequent passage.

He was a big man with long legs. The snow was very deep and the hill very steep. His progress was slow. Once, the trail narrowed in, so that it seemed as if he wouldn't be able to squeeze through the trees.

It was a glorious afternoon. The trees were thick with frost, ghosts of their original selves. The sky was clear and cold and the dull blue, off-white of a glacier's face with the sun on it. The sun itself was a flat flaxen disk, low on the horizon, leached of light and warmth.

Fighting the spruce all the way, he emerged finally, out of breath and soaked in his own sweat, on a miniature plateau. On this plateau, the trees had been thinned out to make way for a scattering of tiny cabins, all with snow up to their eaves. From one of the chimneys, a spiral of smoke whispered up into the clear blue sky. The trail led directly to it.

He unholstered his weapon again when he was ten feet from the door. He didn't see how whoever lived there could not have heard him coming, given the water buffalo nature of his approach, but he made himself wait and listen for signs of life.