I’d been watching Phineas throughout the afternoon, and had often caught him watching me too. The mutineers had been allowed to gather their possessions and take down their tents, and most were sitting quietly, waiting to move out. He’d pulled down his tent, but the effort seemed to drain him, and I’d refilled his canteen and brought it to where he sat, his elbows to his knees. He asked for my rum ration, but I’d used it to wash the general’s wounds, and told him as much.
“I could tell everyone who you are, Rob,” he murmured, his dark gaze speculative. “I could tell the general. But I think he knows. He doesn’t look at you the way a man looks at another man. And when you spoke up for me . . . he didn’t like that.”
“Why would you do that, Phin?” I asked, my voice soft, my eyes hard.
“To save you.”
“For what?”
He frowned. “Don’t you mean from what?”
“I’m here, Phin. If I wanted to be saved from it, I never would have come. And if you tell on me . . . where would I go?”
“Maybe I don’t want to be saved either,” he said, and stared at me, baleful.
His possessions were strewn beside him, his blanket in a heap, his feet bare. He drew a long hunting knife from his rucksack and approached the general, leaving everything else behind.
“Phin? Leave the knife in your pack,” I commanded, but he ignored me.
“I didn’t sign your paper or accept your pledge, General Paterson,” Phin shouted.
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.