Clockwork Souls Read Online Free Page A

the face of Cochoran “—even
thee.”
    Hannah nodded, released Adam’s hand, and stepped down off
the porch. She halted an arm’s-length from the horsemen. “Thee has thy answer,”
she said to Cochoran.
    “If thee would seize this man—” Thomas took up the argument,
only to be interrupted by Cochoran.
    “It’s not a man!”
    “Is he not shaped like one?” Thomas demanded. “Does he not
speak as one, with conscience and goodliness?”
    “Don’t you go quoting no scripture to me! That there’s one
of those auto-ma-jigs, and I’ve got every lawful right to haul it back—”
    “Then thee must return with the sheriff and a warrant for
his arrest, stating what crime he may have committed. Otherwise, I bid thee
depart in peace.”
    Cochoran’s free hand moved toward the stock of the rifle, in
its holster tied to the saddle. One of his men glanced pointedly toward Hannah,
as if to say he was not easy about threatening violence against a woman who had
been so hospitable.
    The slave-catcher gathered up the reins and wheeled his
horse. “You ain’t heard the last of this!”
    Thomas moved to Hannah’s side as they watched the riders
trot back down the road. “No,” he said quietly, “I expect we have not.”
    Adam joined them. “Thomas, I fear I have brought thee much
trouble.”
    “No. Thee has brought us hope. But thee must not tarry.
William will take thee north to Friends who will see thee safely to
Pennsylvania.”
    Adam’s face lacked the mobility of flesh, but Thomas had
learned to read the subtleties in his posture. “I do not want to leave thee,
Friend Thomas, or thee, Friend Hannah. I have so much to learn. I think . . .
I have been pondering the awakening of my spirit, and wondering if Friend
Samuel put me back together in a different way, or if—” Adam stumbled to a
halt. “A thought has come to me, that once I was a man of flesh. Not a . . .
a good man, but one who took delight in chasing a terrified runaway. A man who . . .
I do not want to be. I think it would have been better to let Cochoran take me,
and send me back to be put once more into endless sleep, rather than to
remember.”
    Thomas did not know how to answer. If Adam had been human
and a Christian, citing Scripture on redemption and hope would have been
appropriate. But Adam had no such shared knowledge, being so clearly guided by
the Inward Light alone.
    In the end, Thomas decided to bring Adam to John Hunn
himself. They went along briskly in the same covered buggy in which Thomas had
driven his family to Meeting. Adam spoke long and earnestly, and as Thomas
listened, he remembered the teachings of George Fox, who had founded the
Religious Society of Friends almost two centuries ago. Thomas wondered how, in
these dark times, Adam or any of them might walk
cheerfully over the world, answering that of God in everyone.

    Two weeks later, Thomas learned that charges had been
brought against him by the former owner of both Nat and Adam, although the
latter was not mentioned by name, only referred to as “a mechanical device.”
    The day after the summons arrived, a Friend traveling north
from Maryland brought word that Adam had been captured and returned to his
owner. Thomas received the news like a physical blow, as if his own child had
been delivered into slavery.
    “ I think it would have
been better to let Cochoran take me, ” Adam had said, “ and send me back to be put once more into endless sleep, rather than to
remember. ”
    It took another six months for the United States Circuit
Court to schedule the trial, during which time there was no further news about
Adam’s fate. Inquiries revealed nothing. Thomas did not know whether Adam had
been put to the work of catching fugitives or had refused and been condemned to
that endless sleep . The matter
troubled him sorely. He understood that slaves had little power to resist, but
few runaway slaves faced execution upon their return or were forced to hunt
down