“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.
“He wanted to die,” he whispered, and though I wasn’t certain he was even talking to me, I choked out an answer.
“Yes, sir. I know.”
“I gave him mercy, but he wanted relief.”
“Yes, sir.” It was all I could say, but he sounded so pained, like a man being stretched on the rack, that I sat up and moved to the bags I’d placed along the wall. I took out a tin cup, filled it halfway with grog, and crouched in front of him.
“Drink it, sir. It will make you feel better.”
“I am not the one crying,” he said, raising hollow eyes to mine.
“Perhaps you should be.”
“Will it help?”
“It will ease your sorrow.”
He handed the cup back to me, untouched. “If I start . . . I will not stop.”
“Drinking, sir? Or crying?”
He stared up at me, battle worn, but I urged the cup on him again. “I will not let you have too much.”
He raised one brow, as if to say, You couldn’t stop me. But he took the cup and drank down the contents, shuddering at the taste and the burn, but he insisted I have the last swallow. I took it, simply to avoid the argument.
“I have put your canteen there beside your roll, should you need it. It is full, and the water is sweet and cold.” I rose and slipped the tin cup back into the pack.
“Thank you.”
I returned to my bedroll and lay down upon it, but I faced him.
“He recognized you. He called you Rob.”
“Yes. He knew I was . . . here. He saw me the night of the dauphin’s celebration.”
“And you saw him too.”
“Yes. I spoke to him.”
“And you did not tell me.”
My tears became a torrent, and I could not answer. He waited, head bowed as if I’d betrayed him, and that made my anguish all the worse.
“It hurt too much,” I said, gritting my teeth against the waves that just kept rising.
“Why?”
“He w-was so changed.”
“We are all changed. And none for the better.” His voice was plaintive. “Is it so hard to trust me, Samson?”
“It is not trust, sir. It is fear.”
“Fear of what? I know who you are.”