There were drifts to the second-floor windows, and a snow tunnel with fifteen-foot walls had been shoveled to the portico of unbarked Douglas fir trunks.
They arrived at a pair of oak doors and Stephen rapped the knocker three times. They untied their webs, waited. Stephen banged the knocker again.
Gloria glanced up at the long overhanging eaves, said, “You don’t think he forgot?”
The preacher speculated. “Perhaps he stayed in town last night, not wanting to chance getting trapped in a slide on the way home.”
“Well, we just hoofed it through a blizzard, and I’m gonna by God walk in there, find out if we’re gettin breakfast for our trouble.”
Ezekiel grabbed one of the large iron handles, tried the door. It opened.
“Think we should walk in unannounced, Zeke?” Gloria said.
“Yeah, I do.” He stepped through.
Gloria sighed, followed him in with Stephen, and closed the door.
Every kerosene lamp had burned down save for one at the far end of the first floor, in the kitchen—just a wink of fire from where they stood. Soft gray light slanted through the tall windows that framed the foyer.
“Hello?” Ezekiel shouted. “Anybody on the premises?”
His voice resounded through Emerald House.
They made their way through the foyer and up a cascading stairway, beneath rafters of fir timbers. At the confluence of the four wings, a staircase switchbacked up the heart of the mansion. Between the stairs, a rectangle of weak light fell upon the marble floor, having passed through a skylight fifty feet above.
“Cold in here,” Stephen said. “Hasn’t been a fire in awhile. And shouldn’t there be some servants? If I’m not mistaken, Bart keeps a staff of four or five ladies through the winter.”
He walked to the north wing, peered through French doors into a great room furnished with a chaise longue, sofas, parlor chairs.
The opposite wing encompassed a dining room on a par with a feudal banqueting hall. Ezekiel looked in but glimpsed only the chairs and the long, broad table, naked of tablecloth, silverware, china.
“Our breakfasting prospects ain’t appearing promising. Let’s check Bart’s room. You remember where it is, Preach?”
“I believe it’s in the east wing of the next floor. Overlooks the tarn.”
“What do you bet he bent a elbow in the saloon all night, came home roostered?” Ezekiel said. “Hell, might have to wake him.”
They took the steps up to the second floor, calling out hellos as they started toward Bart’s wing, not a single lamp in operation to illuminate Packer’s extravagance.
Ezekiel suddenly stopped. “Might want to step back there, Glori.”
She looked down at the hardwood floor, saw that her arctics stood in a gooey puddle of blood. She leaped back toward her husband, brought her hand to her mouth to stifle the scream.
“Well, that’s an empty saddle,” he said. “Look. More.” Faint tracks of blood led back to the staircase, up the next flight.
“Bring your revolver?” Stephen asked.
“ ’Fraid not. Didn’t think I’d be needin it of a Christmas morn. Tell you what. I’m gonna go see what in hell’s goin on here.”
“Zeke, no—”
“Seen what?”
“Oh sweet Jesus,” Stephen said.
“Glori. Glori, look at me. My eyes. They’re up here.”
“Dead?”
“Had their lamps blown out, I’m afraid, and trust me, ’less you alkalied to it, sight like this, you’ll spend the rest a your life tryin to forget.”