Chapter Nine
--1--They came down the hill past the trailer. The back yard was in disarray. The leaves that had been so neatly piled the previous day beside the house were kicked and scattered about the yard as though to return to hazard what had once been carefully raked. And as a counterpoise to chaos, the orderly woodpile had grown. It banked the trailer against the snow and served, as winter bent toward spring, as a kind of diminishing garage. The white ends of limbs were stacked to the windows.
They came around to the cellar door and saw that it was locked. They looked at each other and then at the door where a Yale lock of burnished brass threaded the ring and bound the hasp. Thane reached for the lock and yanked. The golden seal did not yield. The door was closed, the house was loc
