Crow Hollow by Michael Wallace

shifted as she came awake. He closed the door behind him. Outside it was brittle cold of the kind where every breath stole heat from his lungs. The forest rose dark and forbidding on either side.
    He eyed the coach by the light of the moon. Didn’t look too bad. If they hadn’t been going uphill, he doubted they’d have even got stuck.
    “I didn’t even realize we’d stopped.”
    “What about them wolves?” Woory asked.
    “Wolves?”
    “About an hour back, they paced us for a stretch. Bloody vermin—I thought you’d be checking your powder.”
    James was alarmed. “No, sorry.”
    “No sign of them now, but you never can tell. Let’s get her moving again.”
    James pushed from the rear, while Woory pulled up front and slapped at the haunches of the four horses. The wheels rocked back and forth in the ruts but didn’t come loose. Moments later, Prudence came out, yawning and stretching. James gave her his overcoat.
    Woory had them untie the trunk from the back and put it in the road, then he opened the coach door. “Get out, you. You’re weighing us down.”
    “Leave him be,” James said. “He’s deathly ill.”
    Then, to his surprise, Peter came out, still bundled in blankets and with Prudence’s cloak wrapped around his shoulders. He leaned against the side of the coach.
    “I feel improved. I think it’s passing.”
    “Really? Wonderful.” James gave Prudence a sharp look. “Well? What do you think now? If he wasn’t poisoned, why is he improving so quickly?”
    She turned away.
    Peter staggered off the road to take a piss, but James didn’t want him pushing anyway. Together, the burden lighter, the three others rocked and heaved until they got the coach clear of the rut. Woory led the team ahead ten or twenty yards until he found an even stretch where the horses could get a good run at it. Then they loaded up the coach again and a few minutes later were off.
    Again they traveled in silence for a spell, but while Peter slipped back into sleep, Prudence stayed upright. James could almost feel her thinking.
    “People do recover miraculously at times, God willing,” she said at last.
    “He was fine yesterday morning. He first complained of illness after he entered the reverend’s house. We ate and drank nothing but what Stone provided until this evening, during which time Peter grew progressively worse, meal by meal. Now that we’re away, he seems to be recovering.”
    “The reverend is a God-fearing man.”
    “As are many men who kill in the name of God.”
    “But he’s gentle, peaceable. He was against the war, tried to calm the bloodlust. When he heard that one of Philip’s sachems could read and write, the reverend wrote him letters to seek a negotiated peace. And he has never hanged an adulterer or burned a witch. He would never murder a man.”
    “It must be someone in your house, then. One of the servants?”
    She let out a harsh laugh. “Old John Porter? He’s a gentle sort, and quite deaf. Lucy and Alice Branch are silly, light-minded girls, without an original thought between them. They know little of the world and care less. Half their life is spent giggling about handsome young men they spy around town. The sooner they marry, the better. They are one stray glance from falling into sin.”
    James thought of his own interaction with Lucy and was glad Prudence couldn’t see his face in the darkness for fear of what it might give away.
    “Well then,” he began cautiously. “That leaves your sister.”
    “Bless me, no!”
    “She had access to Peter’s food and drink.”
    “My sister is the wisest, most upright person I know. I was the youngest of eleven children, and Anne the oldest. She practically raised me herself. I have never seen her shirk her duty. She would accuse her own husband if she thought he was guilty of such an odious crime. Not that he would ever do such a thing, either,” she added quickly.
    Then who? Unless it had been one of the Stone children—highly