A Girl Called Samson (90)



General Paterson had put his shirt back on, but the straps from his gear would rub against his wounds, and I’d given his rucksack and cartridge box to another soldier to carry, as well as his musket and the belt he strapped around his waist. He was unarmed and distracted, and he wasn’t paying attention to Phineas.

“I said I didn’t want mercy!” Phineas shouted, and the general finally gave him his attention. Phineas had begun to breathe hard, and he wasn’t blinking. Colonel Sproat cocked his musket and took a small step back. I did the same.

Phineas looked from me to Colonel Sproat as if testing our readiness, and then he slowly withdrew his knife from its sheath with a steady hand and a set expression.

“You have served long enough, Lieutenant Thomas,” General Paterson said, voice measured. “Go home. Or continue. I will give you a full and honorable discharge. It is your decision.”

“I was not lashed like the others.”

“No. I took your lashes for you.”

“Lieutenant Thomas,” Colonel Sproat warned. “Put the knife down.”

“I don’t think I will, Ebenezer,” Phin said. “You won’t tell my mother about this . . . will you? You’ll tell her I was a hero. You’ll tell her I died bravely. Like my brothers.”

“Phineas Thomas, you put that down,” I demanded, sounding like the sister I’d always been.

“I didn’t want to tell you, Rob, but Jerry’s gone too. He’s gone too. You might be the only one of us left.”

He darted forward, teeth bared, knife high, eyes on the general, and I screamed in denial and rage. But I pulled the trigger too. The force sent him hurtling, his knife still clutched in his hand, his dirty feet briefly leaving the ground, and I was chasing him again, like I’d done all those years before, trying to catch up, trying to catch him before he fell. But he won.

I collapsed at his side, hoping I’d simply grazed him, hoping somehow I’d missed him altogether. But I hadn’t. And neither had Ebenezer Sproat.

“I will never forgive you for this, Phineas Thomas,” I cried, pressing my hands to the holes in his chest.

“I don’t want to be saved, Rob,” he wheezed. The blood bubbled up on his lips, and he smiled at me like old Phineas. “It doesn’t even hurt. Just feels like flying. Didn’t you use to . . . dream about . . . flying?”

I grabbed his hand, but he was fading, and it was already growing cold.

“I’m not running anymore, Rob. You win.”

The general was barking orders for Dr. Thatcher, who had just arrived with the second detachment. A moment later Colonel Sproat knelt beside me with bandages and rum, but it was too late. Phineas died with his eyes open and a smirk on his lips, like he knew exactly what he’d done and what he wanted.

Sproat closed his eyes with a gentle touch. “You didn’t kill him. Neither did I. He killed himself. You know that, don’t you, Deborah Samson?”

I did not even react. I was too broken. Too stunned. But Sproat continued softly, even kindly.

“It took me a while to place you. I probably never would have figured it out if you hadn’t spoken up for Phineas today. He called you Rob, and I remembered the skinny servant girl who lived with the Thomases. I remembered the story my father wrote me about Deborah Samson trying to enlist and getting hauled out of his tavern by the church deacons to sleep off a drunk.”

He chuckled like we hadn’t just killed a boy we’d both known since childhood. Ebenezer Sproat had been out here too long. Or maybe he’d just seen it all. He wasn’t even surprised by me.

“Did that happen?” he pressed softly.

I didn’t admit it or deny it. I just stared at Phin’s dead face and his dirty bare feet and waited for Sproat’s verdict, completely numb to it all.

“Way I see it, you’re a fine soldier. A damn good soldier. And any soldier who wants to be here is one I want to keep. God knows, we got enough of ’em who don’t. I won’t say anything to anyone. Even my pa, though he’d dearly love to hear all about it.” He patted my shoulder. “Maybe someday, huh?”



“Are you awake, Deborah?” the general asked when he finally came to bed. Dr. Thatcher had seen to his back, but he’d spent the evening among the mutineers, and from the quiet in the encampment, it seemed he was the last to retire.

His use of my name was my undoing, a reminder of my life before, of the people I had loved and who had loved me, though it had never been enough. I had promised myself I would not cry, but I was unraveling.

I swallowed and steadied myself to answer. “Yes, sir.”

I’d washed Phin’s blood from my hands and changed my shirt. Then I’d pitched the general’s tent and prepared us a small meal, and when there was nothing more to do, I crawled under my blanket and wished for oblivion. But it had not come.

The general didn’t lie down on the bedroll I’d put out for him, and his broad back was rounded in defeat. He sat, his elbows to his knees, his head bowed, a dark shadow limned by the pale wall of the tent.

He needed reassurance. He needed comfort. He needed me to talk to him, the way I’d done riding behind him on Lenox, trying to keep him from falling off. But I was too heartsore, and I could do nothing but grit my teeth in the stifling silence and crumble as quietly as I was able.

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