Friday Fiction for December 16, 2011

The talented Sara H. is hosting Friday Fiction this week, over at Fiction Fusion. Don’t miss the terrific stories posted for your enjoyment this weekend!

As promised, this week is the conclusion of the Clockwork Deacon Christmas chapter. Enjoy, and come back next week for the 2011 Pod Holiday Story.

Clockwork Deacon

Chapter 6 – A Clockwork Christmas, Pt. 4

Jacob awoke first in the morning, and ran to the window. The Sun was barely up, but it was no longer night. It was Christmas. He jumped onto his brother’s bed. “Isaac! Wake up! It’s Christmas morning!”

Isaac’s eyes popped open, and he sat up immediately. “Are Pa and Ma up yet?”

The door opened slightly, and their mother peeked in. “Yes, we are up, and you boys know that you must be properly dressed and groomed before you come downstairs. Don’t dawdle – we have much to do today.”

They hurried to change from their pajamas to the nice clothes they had been told to wear for the day, and gave as fast a combing to their hair as they could get away with. With the kind of enthusiasm that was never exhibited for either school or church, they fairly flew down the stairs, and were met at the door of the living room by their mother.

“I declare, boys,” she said, fussing over their clothes and hair as though they were to meet President Roosevelt himself. “One would think you two had never dressed yourselves before. Santa Claus has already been here, and the gifts beneath the tree aren’t going to disappear if you take the time to get ready the proper way.”

“Yes’m,” they both said, trying to see around her to the tree and its waiting treasures.

“Tch, and your hair. Isaac, did you bother to comb it at all?”

“Yes’m, I did,” he said.

“With what? A stable rake?”

“I used a comb, Ma!”

“Well, after breakfast you are to comb it again the right way. I won’t have you going out looking like you’ve been standing in a whirlwind, you hear?”

“Yes’m.”

“Now, you two are to walk CALMLY to the tree, is that clear?”

“Yes’m.”

She stepped out of their way, and immediately reminded them to WALK.

They dropped to their knees beside the tree, and began to search beneath it.

Pa walked in from the entryway, carrying two small boxes. “Odd,” he said. “There were two boxes on the front step, one with Isaac’s name on it, and one with Jacob’s. Who do you suppose left these here?”

Both boys bit back a laugh. “Pa,” Isaac said. “Shouldn’t we bring Deacon in for the gifts, too?”

“Deacon?” He gave Isaac a quizzical look. “We’ve never worried about including Deacon in our Christmas Morning before. Why this year?”

“Well, Deacon’s part of the family, too, ain’t he?”

“Isaac, what have I told you about ‘ain’t’?” Ma interjected.

“Deacon’s part of the family, too, isn’t he?” Isaac corrected his question.

“Not in the same way you boys are, or your mother and I,” Pa answered.

Isaac’s eyes cut momentarily to the two boxes in Pa’s hands. “Please, Pa?”

The glance did not go unnoticed. “Does Deacon have something to do with these gifts?”

“You’ll see when we open ‘em, Pa. Deacon should be here, though. Please, Pa? Ma?” He gave them both a pleading look. “I’m not gonna open any presents ‘till Deacon is in here, too.”

Pa fixed him with a searching look. “You would really delay opening your gifts, to wait for Deacon?”

“Yes, sir, I would.”

Jacob stepped forward. “Me, too, Pa. I want Deacon in here, too.”

His expression softened. “Mrs. Randolph, I believe our sons are becoming fine young men.” He handed them their respective boxes from the porch, and then went back to the door. “Deacon,” he called outside. “Deacon? Would you come in here?”

A couple of minutes later, Deacon rolled through the door, still wearing the Santa accessories from the night before. He stopped just inside the room, and waited for instructions.

“Deacon, Isaac and Jacob request the pleasure of your company for our Christmas Morning celebration. Would you care to join us?”

Deacon processed the question, then gave his single nod. He moved to a position out of the way, and settled into his quiet waiting mode.

“Now,” Pa said. “Since you boys seem to know something about these mystery gifts, why don’t you go ahead and open them, and then you can enlighten your mother and me.”

Isaac opened his, and unwrapped the paper from around the miniature Automaton toy. He turned the key on the back, and then set it on the wooden floor. The tiny Airship Mechanic Automaton moved about the floor, its arms swinging a tiny wrench in one hand, and an oil can in the other.

“Well, I’ll be,” Pa said.

Jacob likewise wound his, and released it to run about the floor.

“I take it that Deacon had something to do with these,” Pa said.

“Yes, sir,” Isaac said. “Deacon, and Syl, the man with the wooden leg. Syl gathered all the metal, and Deacon made them. There’s one for every boy an’ girl in town.”

“And just how long have you two known about this?”

“Since last night, Pa. We went to see if Deacon was in the shed, and he was workin’ on the last ones. We helped Syl with wrappin’ ‘em, and he asked us to not tell anyone. Well, he did say we could tell you and Ma, but he asked we not do so ‘till this mornin’.”

The Reverend looked towards the Automaton. “I assume you have been working on this for a while, Deacon?”

Deacon nodded.

“Deacon delivered all of ‘em last night, just like he delivered ours,” Jacob said. “He went around, just like Santa Claus.”

“Do you boys know why Mr. MacKenzie and Deacon did this?”

“Syl said he thought every child should receive a toy for Christmas, and he said that Deacon had been so helpful when he was learnin’ to walk again, that he thought everyone should have a Deacon,” Isaac said.

“I see,” Pa finally said. “Well, I suppose that I’ll need to speak with Mr. MacKenzie myself later today, and hear what he has to say for himself on this.”

“You ain’t mad at him, are you, Pa?”

“Isaac,” Ma said.

“You aren’t mad at him, are you, Pa?”

Pa smiled. “Do you think I should be, Isaac?”

“No, sir. I think what he did was a good thing.”

He tousled the boy’s hair, earning him a disapproving look from his wife. “I am inclined to agree. I just want to hear the story behind this directly from him.” He cut his eyes at the Automaton. “I’ll certainly not get it from Deacon, that’s for sure.” He picked up one of the toys from the floor, and looked it over carefully. “At the moment, I rather wish I were a child in this town, so that I were getting one of these, too.”

“You got the real Deacon,” Jacob said.

“I sometimes wonder, if we really have Deacon, or whether he simply stays around because it suits him,” Pa said. “Now, I believe the real Santa Claus left something for each of you under the tree, and I am just dying of curiosity to see what you might have received.”

The boys turned back towards the tree, just as Deacon rolled up to Pa. He held out one of his mechanical hands to the Reverend, palm down and fingers closed. Pa held one hand, palm up and open below the mechanical hand, and Deacon opened his fingers.

Something small, shiny, and copper dropped into the waiting hand, and Pa brought it close to his face.

“What is it, Pa?” Isaac asked.

Pa lowered it so the boys could see.

“I didn’t see any like that last night,” Jacob said.

Isaac could not remember a time when his father had been at a loss for words, and even years later, he would remember this as one of the few times it ever happened. Pa would later tell him that it hadn’t been the little model of Deacon that had left him so awed that he couldn’t speak.

It had been the tiny Bible held in Deacon’s hands.

Friday Fiction for December 9, 2011

Friday Fiction is hosted this week at “My Back Door” by Vonnie. If you need a little boost to your holiday spirit, don’t miss her wonderful story, “Tony and Tisha.”

Keeping with the Christmas theme as well, this week I have the third part of the “Clockwork Christmas” chapter from “Clockwork Deacon.” There is just enough of the chapter remaining after this for one more part, and then I need to write this year’s Pod Christmas story. Until then, I hope you enjoy this little tale from an alternate history.

Clockwork Deacon

Chapter 6 – A Clockwork Christmas, Pt 3

Isaac divided the boxes into two piles, and showed Jacob how to put one together, and they proceeded to race to see who could finish their stack first. The placed each finished box on the bench, and Syl would take one at a time, place a toy in it, and then write a name on the top. He scratched the name off his list, and placed the boxed toy into the bag.

Deacon, meanwhile, tinkered with one or two of the toys, apparently giving them a final once-over before they got wrapped.

With the two boys working on the boxes, they finished all of them well before Syl finished boxing the toys. For a few minutes, they watched him rolling each toy in a small piece of paper, placing it in the box, and then slowly writing the name in boxy letters on the top of the box.

He noticed their watching eyes. “You boys mind your schoolin’, y’hear? You might think writin’ and such ain’t too important to you now, but I wish now I’d worked harder at it back then.”

“Ma makes sure we do our letters,” Isaac said. “You want me to write the names on some of ‘em?”

“I would, but I said I would write every one of ‘em myself. It’s somethin’ I gotta do.”

“Why, Syl?”

“It’s kinda hard to explain.” He turned one hand over and back in front of his face. “It’s got somethin’ to do with what your Pa told me, when they first brought me back down from the mine after I lost my leg. He said the Good Book says that God would not forget me, that my name was written on His hand, and that was true for any child of God. Well, boys, I can’t write the name of every child in Loma Roja on my hand, so instead, I figgered I’d write their names with my hand.” He lowered his hand to the bench for a moment. “Sounds kinda foolish, don’t it?”

“No, sir.”

“It took getting’ buried in that dark mine, for me to see just how dark my life was, boys. I was so lost without Him.”

“Pa says Christmas is all about light comin’ to Earth.”

He nodded, picking up another toy to wrap in the paper. “Your Pa is a good man. You boys is lucky to have ‘im.”

Isaac looked towards the door, and the lighted window of the church just visible through the gap. “Ma says the same thing.” He extracted the toy from his pocket, and held it out to Syl. “If you gotta write the name of every child in Loma Roja on those boxes, then maybe you oughta go ahead and wrap this one up, too.”

Jacob looked hesitant to surrender the toy, but finally also held it up for Syl to take.

“Much obliged,” Syl said. “You boys don’t need to act surprised in the mornin’, if you ain’t a mind to. You can tell your folks about this, or you can keep it our Christmas secret, as you see fit.”

As if that had been the cue, their mother called for them, from just outside the church. “Isaac! Jacob,” she called. “It’s getting late, and the sooner you two get to bed, the sooner it will be Christmas for you! You know Santa won’t come while you’re awake!”

Isaac looked from the door, back to the bench. “We gotta go,” he said.

“Well, thank you for your help, boys,” Syl said. “You best mind your Ma, and get to bed. I’ll likely see ya tomorrow at the Christmas dinner at the church.”

“You won’t be with your family for Christmas?”

“Ain’t got no family,” he said. “Save for the church, so I reckon you could say that I will be with my family for Christmas. Now, your Ma is callin’, so you’d better get on.”

They ran to the door. Jacob squeezed out through it without opening it much, and Isaac paused with just his head sticking back in the shed. “Hey, Syl? Merry Christmas.” He closed the door, and caught up with Jacob, just as they reached their mother.

“What were you two up to?” she asked.

“We were just out with Deacon in the shed,” Isaac said.

“I declare, sometimes I think you two would rather spend time with Deacon than with anyone else. You boys should really put more effort into making friends with other boys your own age, instead of always relying on Deacon for companionship.”

“But we like Deacon,” Jacob objected.

“We all like Deacon,” Ma said. “But Deacon can’t help you to learn how to properly relate to other people. A proper young man has to learn how to discuss without arguing, how to listen and not just speak, how to ask forgiveness when he does wrong, and how to give forgiveness when he is wronged. You must learn how to love one another, just as Jesus commanded us, and I’m sorry, but Deacon is just too easy to love for him to be an effective lesson. You need to learn how to get along with other boys that are just as ornery as you two.” Her smile took any sting from the rebuke.

“Yes’m,” Isaac said.

“Now honestly, boys, do you think a real person would have put up with your interrupting them all day, just to try out different parts of a Santa Claus suit you found in a closet?”

“Grandpa would have,” Jacob said.

“Your Grandpa is the one person I’ve ever known, that might have had more patience than Deacon has.”

“He said he had to, after raisin’ you and your sisters,” Isaac said.

“He would tell you that, wouldn’t he? Well, I can also tell you that he would be one of the first to remind you that Santa Claus will skip our house, if you two boys don’t get yourselves to bed, and get to sleep.”

“Yes’m,” Isaac said, and then turned towards Jacob. “Race ya!”

They tore off around the church, towards the parsonage, with their mother calling after them to be careful. Bursting through the house door, they bounded up the stairs and to their bedroom, where they peeled off their clothes and put on their pajamas.

Their father came to the door of the bedroom. “Remember, boys, that just because it’s Christmas Eve, doesn’t mean you can skip your prayers. If anything, you have all the more to be thankful for tonight, since we remember the precious gift that God gave us on that first Christmas.”

“Yes, Pa,” Isaac said, and dropped to his knees beside his bed. He waited until Jacob had also assumed the proper position for prayer, and then started to hurry through the recitation.

“At the proper pace,” Pa reminded him. “Prayer is a privilege, and we should not treat it as an inconvenience that we must rush.”

“Yes, sir,” he said, and made the effort to slow down.

When they had finished, their father came over, placed his hands on their heads, and said his own prayer over them. When he had spoken the amen, he leaned down, kissed them on the forehead, and gave them a gentle boost into bed. “Your mother will be in to tuck you in directly,” he said. “Sleep well, boys.”

“Good night, Pa,” they both said.

After their mother had tucked them in, kissed them, and said her good night, they lay awake in the dark room for a while.

“Isaac?” Jacob whispered.

“Yeah?”

“You suppose Deacon is goin’ around, playin’ Santa yet?”

“I don’t know. He could be, I guess.”

“We could look,” Jacob ventured.

They slipped out of their beds and went to the window. The church building was dark, and the moon had not yet risen to cast any light on the ground outside. Deacon’s shed, visible just beyond the back of the church, was likewise dark, though the Automaton seemed less in need of light to see, than most humans.

“You see anything?” Isaac asked.

“Naw. You?”

“Nope. I sure wish we could have gone around with him tonight.”

“Me, too, but if we did, then Santa might not have stopped by our house, since we’d’ve been awake.”

They heard a noise from outside. “Was that sleighbells?” Jacob asked.

Both boys bounded back to their beds, and immediately closed their eyes as if asleep.

to be continued...

Friday Fiction for November 25, 2011

Friday Fiction is hosted this week by Karlene, over at Dancin’ In the Rain. Take a break from all the busy-ness of this Holiday Weekend, and enjoy some great fiction reading from the wonderful folks participating this week!

Clockwork Deacon is finished for the first draft. It’s a bit shorter than I normally like for a novel-length project, tallying in about 50,400 words (NaNoWriMo Official Tally amount, which differed slightly from MS Word’s count), but I suspect the length will change when I go back and begin the revision process in the near future. Still, it takes its place as my sixth straight NaNoWriMo win, and my twelfth novel finished. Now, I can get back to work and FINALLY finish “Precocious by Consent.” For this week, though, please enjoy the next portion of Chapter 6.

Clockwork Deacon
Chapter 6 – A Clockwork Christmas, part 2

The service opened with a joyful carol, followed by the more pensive God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen. Their father welcomed everyone, and extended holiday wishes, before declaring the good news that Christ was born. He gestured towards the back of the sanctuary, and added, “Even Deacon is filled with the spirit of the season! Good tidings of great joy, indeed, which shall be to all people, and – apparently – to machines like Deacon as well.”

If Deacon had any reaction to the statements, he did not show it. He simply stood quietly at the back, as he always did for services. With no voice, he could not sing the hymns along with the congregation, but he also never showed any outward signs of participation in the worship in other ways. He was no more animated than the podium itself during the service, and for Christmas Eve, he was no different beyond the costuming the boys had attached to him. His face stared straight forward, and his arms remain folded at his side.

The congregation sang a few more Christmas carols, and then came the Christmas message. Isaac and Jacob had heard such messages every Christmas of their young lives, and their attention drifted elsewhere as their father preached.

The two boys would rather have been at the back of the church, next to Deacon. It would have been a challenge to see what else they could do in decorating the Automaton, without anyone in the church noticing that they were doing it. Holiday service, or just the regular service, though, their mother had a firm rule that they were to sit up front as a family. It was important, she often told them, for them to set an example for the other children in the church. They had to remember, she always added, that their behavior reflected on their father, and if they did not respect his authority, how would anyone else in the congregation respect him?

Unfortunately, such logic failed to make the sermons interesting to the boys. By the time their father concluded the message, and the final song was sung, they were practically ready to explode from the pew. The church members came forward to decorate the tree after the service, but Isaac and Jacob ran to the back to find Deacon.

Except Deacon wasn’t there. “Where’d he go?” Jacob asked.

“I dunno,” Isaac answered. “Maybe the tool shed? Seems he’s been out there a lot lately.”

“Let’s go see.” Jacob ran for the door, and Isaac followed after him. They hurried through the darkness, around to the back of the church, and the fairly new tool shed that Deacon had built a couple of months before. Isaac, being the older and larger boy, had reached the shed first, and slowly pulled the door open.

Deacon stood inside at a bench, and gave no attention to the arrival of an audience. His gaze, and his hands, were turned towards something unseen in front of him.

“What’s he doin?” Jacob asked. “I can’t see.”

“I don’t know. Why’n’t you go ask him?”

“I ain’t gonna ask him. You ask him.”

“All right, I will. I ain’t chicken.” Isaac entered the shed, boldly at first, but the closer he got to Deacon, the more timid he acted. “Um, Deacon? What’cha doin?”

Deacon turned to look at him. The Santa hat and beard were still on his head, but the bag was now resting on the floor beside him. He rolled backwards just a bit, and gestured with his right hand towards the bench.

Several rows of little copper automatons stood on the bench, of various different configurations. A few were similar to Deacon’s design, while others were more similar to other designs the boys remembered from Schenectady.

“Where’d you get these?” Isaac asked.

“We made ‘em,” a voice answered from the door.

Isaac spun around, and Jacob ran across the floor to hide behind his brother. Standing in the door, leaning on a cane, was the miner that Deacon had rescued. He walked towards them, an obvious limp with each step of the wooden leg.

“Well, let me correct that,” the man said. “Deacon built ‘em, and I collected the metal he used.” He placed the cane atop the bench, and picked up one. There was a key on the back, and he turned it a few times. When he set it back on the bench, the miniature Deacon rolled across the bench, with his arms going back and forth. “No one was s’posed to know about ‘em yet, though.”

“Why?” Jacob asked, peeking out from behind Isaac.

“I ain’t got much, but I wanted to make sure every kid in Loma Roja got a toy for Christmas. Deacon was helpin’ me to learn to walk again, an’ I joked that every kid learnin’ to walk needed a Deacon to help ‘em, and then I started thinkin’, mebbe there was a way that every kid could have somethin’ like Deacon.” He picked up one of the other toys, and held it out to Jacob. “Since I can’t surprise you with ‘im now, here’s one for you. Just got to promise to not show him to any other kids until tomorrow, when all the kids find theirs.”

Jacob took the toy, still a bit cautious, but unable to resist the shiny metal miniature.

“I don’t know what kind that one is. Deacon jus’ made them all, and the only kind I recognize are the ones like him,” the man said.

Isaac looked at it. “That looks like one of the Automaton Porters that works at the big train station in New York.”

“Kinda thought it might be somethin’ like that, with the way it looks like it was made to carry lots of stuff.” He handed a different one to Isaac. “How ‘bout this one?”

Isaac took it, and turned it over and over in his hands. “This is the kind that works on the big engines that make the airships go.”

“You’ve seen the airships?”

“Yeah. They fly all over New York.”

“Are they as big as folks say?”

“Huge,” Jacob said.

“Bigger’n a house,” Isaac added. “They’re like big silver clouds, flyin’ along, with hotels stuck beneath ‘em.”

“An airship,” the man laughed. “Now, that’d be the way to deliver toys to kids on Christmas, huh?”

“So, how’re you gonna deliver ‘em?” Isaac asked.

“Deacon’s gonna deliver ‘em, late tonight. I’m gonna wrap ‘em up, and put each kid’s name on ‘em. I got this map that shows where each kid lives, and Deacon’ll leave the presents on the door of each house.”

Jacob’s eyes lit up. “Deacon is gonna really play Santa Claus?”

“Yup.”

“Can we help? Please? We been makin’ Deacon up to be Santa all day, and this would be the best Christmas ever, if we could help really make him like Santa.”

“Well,” the man said. “I got all these little boxes here, that I need to put together so’s I can put the toys in ‘em. If you boys wanna help put the boxes together, that’ll make my job go a lot faster.” He held out his hand. “Name’s Syl, by the way.”

“This here’s Jacob,” Isaac said, shaking the hand. “An’ I’m Isaac.”

“You’re the Rev’rend’s boys, ain’t’cha?”

“Yes, sir.”

“I thought I’d seen ya before. Your folks ain’t gonna get worried ‘bout you?”

“Naw,” Isaac said. “It’ll be a while yet, before they’re done with the Christmas tree in the church, and then with the socializin’ that always goes on after, we got a while before they’ll come lookin’ for us.”

“Well, then,” Syl said. “We best get to work, before they do.”

To be continued…

Friday Fiction for November 18, 2011

Friday Fiction is hosted this week by Joanne, over at An Open Book. More NaNoWriMo excerpts to enjoy! Huzzah!

Speaking of which, with the Holiday season rushing towards us, I thought this excerpt from my NaNoWriMo project, Clockwork Deacon, would be fun. I hope you enjoy it as much as I have been!

Chapter 6
A Clockwork Christmas

Loma Roja grew cold in the winter, but snow was just an occasional occurrence, and when it did fall, it rarely stayed on the ground for more than a day or so. A day or so before Christmas, a few of the men of the town would take a couple of wagons to the higher elevations of the Chiracahua mountains, and bring back enough trees for each family that wanted one, to have a Christmas tree.

A particularly tall tree stood at the front of the church sanctuary, ready to be decorated by the congregation on Christmas Eve. As was the custom in the town, the church would be open on Christmas Day, and dinner would be served to anyone who wished to come by for the Holiday.

Deacon went about his normal chores around the church, looking a bit silly with the red and white Santa Claus hat that someone had slipped atop his smooth metal head. An hour later, and someone else had tied a fake white beard around the bottom of his face, keeping it from slipping with some sticky wax.

Isaac nudged his brother, and tried to cover his laughter as he watched the reactions of the various folks that came by the church, bringing preparations for the Christmas Eve service, and food for the cooking of Christmas Dinner.

“The coat,” Jacob said. “We gotta get the coat on him.”

“I don’t think it’ll go over his boiler,” Isaac said.

“I bet we could tie the bag over his shoulder, though.”

They’d found the old Santa suit in one of the storage closets of the church, and Abe Kelly had said that the old pastor used to dress as Santa and give presents to the poor children in town every Christmas.

When the boys had broached the idea with their father, the Reverend had smiled at the suggestion, but said he didn’t look like Santa any more than Deacon did. That was all it had taken to plant the thought in their heads, and it became their mission to covertly transform the Automaton into Father Christmas himself.

The next time Deacon came into the anteroom, the boys finagled a way to tie the gift sack over Deacon’s shoulder, having first dropped just enough empty boxes into it to give it the appearance of substance.

As he went about sweeping the church floor, hat and beard on his head, and sack over his back, the boys went through fits of laughter.

Their mother entered the sanctuary. She took one look at Deacon, and also laughed. “I declare, Deacon,” she said. “If you don’t look more festive than I’ve ever seen you look.” She hung a freshly woven wreath on the front of the podium, and went back to the house.

“Too bad he can’t wear the boots,” Isaac said.

Jacob lifted a wide-buckled, black leather belt. “I’ll bet he can wear the belt, though. Hey, Deacon!”

He stopped sweeping, and turned to face them.

They ran out while the sanctuary was deserted, and quickly fastened the belt around the metal torso. It took a little work to feed it under the lower part of the boiler on his back, but in the end, that worked out for the best, anyway. There were a pair of bolts fastening the boiler to the back at the bottom of the gap, and these served well to keep the belt from slipping down the smooth metal to the legs.

There was little more of the suit that they could fit onto Deacon, but through the rest of the day, they tried different things to further the festive appearance of the Automaton.

They were certain that either their father or mother would insist on all of it being removed before the Christmas Eve service, but when the boys returned to the sanctuary that evening, wearing their Sunday Best clothes, Deacon stood in his customary place at the back of the church, looking like a mechanical Santa.

Folks showed up for the service, and without fail, the costumed appearance of the copper man made them smile. More than a few actually wished Deacon a merry Christmas.

To be continued...

Friday Fiction for November 11, 2011

Happy Friday! Friday Fiction is hosted right here this week, so please add your link to the Linky Tool at the bottom of this post. It just so happens to also be the second week of NaNoWriMo. My project this year is a Steampunk story titled, “Clockwork Deacon.” In this story, the new pastor arrives in the small town of Loma Roja, Arizona Territory, in 1902. With him and his family, he brings Deacon, a Clockwork Automaton domestic servant. The townsfolk are all hesitant of accepting Deacon, and the book recounts different stories of his interactions with different folks. In this chapter, Sam Taylor is rebuilding a home that has burned down, and is encouraged to recruit Deacon to help with the construction.

Clockwork Deacon

Chapter 4 – Deacon the Builder

Sam stood there, awestruck, watching the Automaton selecting and cutting the wood. The clockwork arm drew the saw back and forth in a rapid rhythm that would have worn out most men, while the other arm clamped the wood in a grip that allowed no slippage.

“So, how’s he workin’ out?” Ulysses Kelly asked, walking up the street.

“He makes me feel like a kid what don’t know what I’m doin’,” Sam replied. “He made the cabinet frame as clean an’ square as any I’ve ever seen, and he got the wood for this wall cut and nailed so fast, we got a good chance of getting’ the other wall done today.”

Ulysses laughed. “Tol’ja he’d surprise you.”

“He kinda scares me, though.”

“How so?”

“I look at how he works, an’ all I can think is, what’s a man got to offer to a boss? They keep makin’ those things better ‘n’ better, an’ it won’t be long before folks won’t be needed at all.”

“You might have a point, but I don’t think they’ll listen to the likes of us ‘bout that.”

“A man’s got to have a job an’ a purpose, or he ain’t really a man at all.”

Deacon brought the first armload of wood, and configured the pieces on the ground. Without giving any attention to either of the two men talking, he spun around, and returned to cutting more wood.

Ulysses rubbed his chin. “Makes you wonder if the day’s gonna come, when folks from the big cities will be comin’ to places like this, just to find someplace where a man can find an honest day’s work to do.”

“You know that it’ll be like when the Rev’rend came here, though. When the folks come, they’ll bring their own Deacons with ‘em, and before long, Loma Roja is gonna be just like them cities back east. Most likely, by the time you got a grandson as old as Abe is now, folks’ll wonder what we ever did without things like Deacon to do our work for us.”

“We took longer to build a house, that’s for sure.”

Between the two men and Deacon, the left side wall went together even faster than the right, and they called it a night well before the sun started dipping below the hill.

Deacon parked by the lumber, and soon a column of smoke rose from his back, as puffs of steam blew out to either side in time to the sound of the engine on his back. His head angled forward in an approximation of sleep, and his arms folded motionless against his sides. The elbows were straight below the shoulders, down by the waist, and the hands were turned to curve over the shoulders. He did not react to the departure of the two men, and they expected to find him in that same position in the morning.

Instead, when Sam arrived at the Woodson House the next day, he found Deacon already moving about with loads of wood in his arms. At the back, the framework for the rear wall was mostly finished, and Sam just stared with jaw agape.

The wall, as near as he could tell without measuring, was an exact duplicate of the wall that had stood at the back of the house before the fire. If he had shown Deacon some plans, or given him some instructions the night before, he could have understood it.

The rear door frame looked to align perfectly with the path to the outhouse, and the window for Miss Woodson’s bedroom was the right size and location to match the old one.

The window that Deacon had opened, and lifted Miss Woodson through on the night of the fire.

When Deacon carried a load of wood over, Sam stopped him.

“Deacon, did you ever see this wall before the night the house burned down?”

The head pivoted side to side.

“You remember this wall from seein’ it just that one night?”

Deacon nodded.

“How? I’ve lived here for years, an’ seen this wall every day of that time. I’ve done work on this wall myself, and I couldn’t have made it this exact. How do you do it?”

Deacon held his inscrutable gaze on Sam for a few moments, and then, as if in answer, just went back to work.

Sam, you fool, what did you expect? He can’t talk, so why did you ask him a question that needed more’n a nod or shake of the head to answer?

He followed Deacon over to the lumber pile. “You’re gonna have the last wall done here shortly, so I need to go round up some men to help lift the walls into place, so’s I can nail ‘em to the foundation and to each other.”

Deacon paused, and then put the piece of wood he was holding down onto a pair of saw horses. He spun around, and went to the front wall. Spreading the ‘V’ legs on each side, he brought his torso low to the ground, and grasped the top of the wall. He tilted the wall up, and moved forward until the wall stood straight. He then picked the entire wall up, and aligned it on the foundation frame. He turned his head to look at Sam, and just waited.

Sam rushed to grab the hammer and nails, along with a couple of pieces of long boards. He first drove a single nail into the near corner, and then followed suit on the far corner, making sure the wall was straight and square on the foundation. He added two more nails at each corner, and then nailed the two long boards to one of the middle studs, angled down to brace the wall against the ground and keep it upright.

Once it was secure, Deacon went and repeated the lift on the right side wall. Before long, the three finished walls were up and secured on the foundation, and to each other.

Sam looked at him, and shook his head. “Every time I think I got you figured out, you go and do somethin’ beyond what I expect. It’s like I ain’t even really needed any more to finish this house, am I?”

Deacon had been rolling back towards the lumber pile, but stopped. He spun around, and rolled up to Sam. With a gentle grip, he lifted the man’s hands and turned them over for a moment, palms up. Then, he placed them folded over Sam’s heart. With his left hand holding Sam’s in place, he brought his right hand back, and tapped his own chest. The metal gave a solid thump; hard, and with no ability to even ring like a bell.

Sam felt his heart beating beneath his hands, and then Deacon brought one of them to his chest, placing it flat where a heart would have been, if he’d been human. The metal was cold and unyielding, and instead of the beating of a heart, there was the vibration of countless clockwork parts ratcheting and turning inside of him.

The man swallowed, and felt his eyes growing damp. “I wish you could talk, Deacon. I’d sure like to know how something with no heart, could know what it means to have one.”

The Automaton released his hands, and then turned back towards the lumber pile.

We got us a deal, then, Deacon. You give this house strength, and I’ll give it heart.