Lincoln's Wizard (15 page)

Outside, he heard the scrape of the door down the hall as the guard brought the bowls of evening stew and corn pone to the prisoners. That meant he would be here next.

Braxton picked up the tools to replace them in the Tok’s hidden arm compartment but paused, thinking better of it. He had no idea how he’d gotten the compartment open and he might not be able to repeat it. He closed the hidden compartment and tucked the tools under the pile of clothes he’d taken off the Tok.

He just made it back to his pallet as the bolt was being pulled back and the guard came in. Curiously, this time there were two of them, and neither one carried a bowl.

“Gentlemen,” Braxton greeted them, not really sure what to make of this.

“Captain Wright,” his regular guard said. “You’ve been invited to dinner.”

Braxton got up and faced the guards. Unless he wanted to wear the man-Tok’s clothes, he had nothing else.

The guards escorted him from his cell and his regular guard continued down the line, handing out soup ladled out of a big pot on a trolley. Braxton followed the second guard out into the yard and passed the mess area where other guards were having their evening meal. Braxton had heard that prisoners weren’t allowed in the yard after dark, too many escape attempts.

“Where are we going?” he asked after they passed the mess area.

“Infirmary,” the guard grunted.

This brightened Braxton’s mood considerably. It could only be Laurie who wanted to see him, finally returned from wherever he’d gone. When they reached the infirmary, the guard led Braxton past the rows of cots, through to the curtained office area. The exam table had been pushed aside and a small table and two chairs had been laid out. Laurie sat at the table staring at an enormous plate of grits and some kind of diced meat in a heavy gravy. His eyes were heavy, his shoulders stooped, and his coat was in need of brushing.

“Braxton,” he said, his face lighting up with a smile. “Thank goodness, sit down. I’ve been waiting for you and I’m starving.”

Braxton sat and Laurie offered a brief prayer over their food. His father had been a devout Quaker and had taught Laurie the art of prayer. Braxton always let Laurie pray for them when the occasion arose.

Despite all the questions Braxton had, he held off while Laurie wolfed down his food like he hadn’t eaten all day. Braxton had to admit, the meat and grits were far superior to the stew and corn pone he usually got. A basket on the table contained real corn bread and there was even a small pot of butter.

“Being the camp doctor has its advantages,” Braxton said between grateful mouthfuls.

Laurie tried to laugh at that but had his spoon in his mouth.

“Don’t be fooled,” he said. “They only do this on days when I don’t get out to the mess.”

“When was the last time you saw the mess?”

Laurie raised his eyebrow and thought a moment.

“Day before yesterday,” he said.

“I wondered where you’d gone off to.”

“Some officer’s daughter in town shot herself while helping to clean his guns,” he said. “I took the bullet out, but it was dicey for a while. I had to stay with her. Finally got back this morning and had a list of sick men to treat. I’ve been on my feet since sun up.”

“Will the girl be okay?” Braxton asked.

Laurie shrugged and nodded. “She’ll have a limp, but she’ll live.”

Braxton felt good. The afternoon spent with the strange Tok and a good meal with his best friend made him positively giddy. After checking that the guard had gone, he started to explain his discovery, but Laurie leaned around him and looked hard at the curtain separating his office from the rest of the infirmary. Braxton bit back what he was going to say for fear the guard had returned.

“We need to talk,” he said in a hushed voice.

“Too bad about the girl,” Braxton said in the same conversational tone he’d used earlier but his eyebrows shot up in concern.

“Bullet went through her thigh and nicked the artery,” Laurie said, then he lowered his voice again. “While I was sitting with the girl, I heard her father talking to someone downstairs. His voice carried up the chimney pipe. They think you’re here on some sort of mission.”

“A mission to get thrown in prison?” Braxton whispered, wondering what sense that would make.

Laurie shrugged. “All I know is what I heard. They’re bringing up some special officer to talk to you.”

Braxton didn’t like the sound of that. Most of the Rebel officers he’d met had been the epitome of the southern gentleman, but he had no illusions that the Rebs had men who knew how to extract information they might need.

“What should I do?”

Laurie checked the curtain again.

“Help yourself,” he said aloud, then leaned back in. “If you’re here to do something, you’d better do it fast. Is there anything I can do to help?”

“Laurie,” Braxton said. “I swear to you I’m not here on any secret mission. You know me, my mom knew what I was giving her for Christmas every year. I’m incapable of keeping a secret.”

Laurie thought about that, then nodded. “True,” he said.

“You do have something they want, though,” he said after a moment’s thought. “You’re an engineer.”

Braxton hadn’t thought about that. It had been so long since his days in the gun works it seemed like another life. But Laurie was right, the Confederacy desperately needed engineering knowledge—knowledge he had.

“I’ve seen men who have been questioned,” Laurie went on in a hushed whisper. “It’s bad.”

The first prickling of real fear crawled down Braxton’s spine and he swallowed hard.

“What can I do?” he asked again.

Laurie leaned close and lowered his voice even more. “Give them what they want,” he said.

“What?” Braxton asked. He was stunned. How could Laurie even suggest such a thing? If the Rebs got their hands on tall guns, the war would be over in weeks.

“You said yourself that the war has gone on too long,” Laurie hissed. “If you help the Rebels, it will end the war.”

“And I’ll be a traitor,” Braxton said.

Laurie nodded. “True,” he said. “But you’ll be a live and whole one. I can live with that, and I suspect you can, too.”

Braxton shook his head and opened his mouth to protest, but Laurie waved him silent. A moment later he heard shuffling footsteps approaching.

“Just think about it,” Laurie said as two guards pushed open the curtain.

“It’s time, doctor,” one of them said.

“Thank you,” Laurie said. “We’ve just finished.”

Laurie bade Braxton good night and followed one guard out. Braxton followed the other back to his cell. If Laurie had heard right, and they were sending someone to torture secrets out of him, things would end badly. After all, engineering was all he really knew, and he doubted this Reb interrogator would understand anything Braxton might tell him. On the other hand, if they suspected him of being a spy, that would be worse since he didn’t have any secrets to reveal in the first place. They’d torture him until he was nothing but the broken shell of a man before admitting defeat.

That thought terrified him. A quick glance around revealed only one lone guard walking patrol along the fence. Could he reach the fence and climb it before that guard or his escort shot him?

No. It was too far.

Braxton turned back to the tower as the guard led him into the darkness and the stench. It felt like he labored under a great weight. Still, Laurie had given him an out. If he agreed to help the Reb engineers catch up to Union machinery, he knew they would treat him very well. But could he live with himself if he betrayed his country? What of President Lincoln’s belief that the breakup of the Union would lead to tyranny? By saving his own skin, he might well be damning his children and grandchildren to lifetimes of strife and oppression.

The more he thought about it, the more dizzy his thoughts became, swirling around and back on themselves in spirals of diminishing coherence. By the time he reached his cell he was twisted up in knots.

Get some sleep. Things will be clearer in the light of day
.

As the echo of the guard’s retreating footsteps faded away, however, he lost all thought of interrogators and treason and war.

Someone had been in his cell.

The tools that had been carefully hidden under the pile of clothing were laid out neatly in front of the man-Tok and a hidden door, like the one in its right arm, was now open in its left. The wire Braxton had so painfully patched had been removed entirely and replaced by the one with the clamps on both ends.

Whoever had done it had known what they were doing, but who, and why?

He looked up at the Tok’s wax face and almost screamed. The Tok had moved its head toward him. The night air suddenly seemed icy, and shivers ran up his legs and down his spine.

“Welcome back, Braxton Wright,” it said in soft, baritone voice. “My name is Nehushtan. Thank you for reconnecting my motion impeller.”

Chapter Eleven
Davidsonville

Braxton sat there, his mouth hanging open for a full minute. Had the mechanical man just spoken?

Not just spoken—talked. Communicated.

“Captain Wright?” the Tok said. “Are you ill?”

“Y-you can talk,” Braxton gasped, finally able to get his mouth working. “How is it you can talk?”

“A wire from my lightning core is connected to a piece of iron wrapped with a copper wire,” it said. “This causes a membrane to vibrate as the current fluctuates, producing the sounds you hear.”

Braxton’s mind reeled. He’d heard elastic bands produce such sounds when stretched while vibrating, but this was genius. He shook his head, casting the design from his thoughts. How it made sounds was the easy part.

“No,” Braxton said. “How do you communicate? How do you know my name?”

“While my drive impeller was disconnected, I was unable to move,” the Tok said. “But I was aware of your efforts to repair me. Several times during your work, you referred to yourself by your first name when speaking aloud. Then, when the guards came to get you, they called you Captain Wright.”

“No, no,” Braxton said, shaking his head again. “How are you alive?”

“I am not alive,” it said. “Not in the sense you mean. Only God can create life. My father built me, but he is not a God. ‘Thou shalt have no other Gods before me’—Exodus twenty, verse three.”

“But you speak, you understand. How is it possible? Other Toks are just oversized wind-up toys. They respond to bugle calls and steam whistles. They don’t talk or fix themselves or think. Do you have a brain?”

“Of course,” the Tok said. “My father created me with a reasoning engine. It is housed in my lower torso.”

“How does it work?”

“It is a series of thin metal plates made of something he called Element 22. Information is encoded onto these plates using the precise application of electricity in a process similar to electroplating.”

Braxton shook his head as he tried to wrap his mind around this. Element-22 was titanium, an extremely rare element only found in Rutile deposits. It was a level of brilliance bordering on madness. Selective electroplating as a means to store and retrieve information sounded like something out of a Jules Verne story. Whoever had built Nehushtan, he’d been a certified genius.

“Who built you?”

“My father’s name was Matthew Hunter. He’s dead now.”

Braxton felt the sting of loss. How such a man could have lived, and now Braxton could never meet him? “I’m sorry,” he said.

“‘The Lord gave, and the Lord hath taken away’—Job one, verse twenty-one,” the Tok said. “I cannot feel sorrow, but I find it hard to maintain my purpose without him.”

“It sounds like you miss him,” Braxton said. “Maybe you feel more than you know.”

“With God, all things are possible, I suppose,” He said. “Matthew nineteen, verse twenty-six.”

“Why do you do that?” Braxton asked. “Quote scripture.”

“My father’s father was a minister for the Third Methodist Church in Troy, New York. When my father created me, his father disowned him, saying that, by creating me, he was making a graven image and offending God. As a peace offering, my father encoded all the scriptures into my memory. He liked it when I used that knowledge, though I confess there are many passages that I don’t understand.”

Braxton had never been a good student of the Bible, but what he had read raised more questions than answers so he understood Nehushtan’s problem.

“I suspect it is because the Holy Spirit is the revealer of truth,” it said. “Since I am just a lifeless machine, I doubt it can enlighten me.”

“I’m no theologian,” Braxton said, “but it sounds like you’re doing fine on your own.”

Braxton peered into the Tok’s chest cavity and examined the wire it had inserted in place of the one he had patched.

“Why did you take out the wire I fixed?” he asked.

“If you look in the compartment in my right arm, you will find a spool of wire designed to repair such a break. The wire with the clips is a temporary bridge to allow me to continue functioning while I affect a more permanent repair. This is my purpose.”

“Your purpose is to repair yourself?” Braxton asked.

“No, I was built to repair other Toks, but I am also capable of repairing myself.”

Braxton shook his head.

“How is that?” he asked. “You are the most incredible machine I have ever seen, who would use you on such a mundane task?”

“My father helped design the original Toks,” Nehushtan said. “The first ones were powered by a steam boiler. Did you know that?”

Braxton nodded. “They were scrapped because cannon fire kept rupturing their boilers and they’d explode in the middle of the field.”

“My father had a falling out with a Mister Ericsson, the man in charge of the project. He wanted to use a less sophisticated wind-up man, the Toks you now see scattered here in this room. When that happened, my father was demoted, sent to the lines to repair Toks and make them ready for battle. That is when he created me. He intended for me to replace him, allowing him to return to his work. Alas, that was not to be. While gathering damaged Toks at Hampton Roads, he was struck by an artillery barrage and killed. After that I was given to another man who gave me another purpose.”

“Who?”

“A man named Pinkerton,” Nehushtan said. “He had this face made for me and sent me to accompany a spy into the South. It was my job to protect the spy, but I failed. During the course of our journey, a rail car of ammunition caught fire and exploded. A piece of the car penetrated my chest plate and … well you saw the result.”

Pinkerton again. Will I never escape that man’s machinations?

“Will you help me finish my repairs, Captain Wright?” Nehushtan asked. “I can do the work, but I cannot reach the other Toks to scavenge for parts. Only my left side is functional at the moment.”

Braxton smiled and nodded.

“Of course I’ll help you, Nay—how do you say your name?”

“Nehushtan,” the Tok said. “It comes from the Bible, Second Kings eighteen, verse four. Nehushtan was the name of the brazen serpent Moses constructed so that those bitten by the fiery serpents could look upon it and live. My father named me Nehushtan in the hopes that his father would realize that it was possible for man to build things without it offending God.”

“Well, I’m not sure I can even say that. Would you mind if I called you Stan instead?”

The Tok paused a moment and Braxton caught a brief whiff of something acrid.

“I have updated my encoding,” Nehushtan said. “I will answer to the name Stan if that is what you wish.”

Braxton extended his right hand, then remembered and changed hands. Stan reached out his left and took it, shaking firmly.

“Pleased to meet you, Stan,” he said. “You can call me Braxton.”

Braxton released his grip and focused on the open compartment in Stan’s right arm. Inside were replacement bolts, spare insulators, and a small spool of wire, which he removed. Running his fingers along the row of tools, he picked up the screwdriver as well, but Stan stopped him.

“You’d better let me do that,” he said, taking the screwdriver. “The power contained in my lightning core is somewhat depleted, but it is still more than sufficient to kill you if you accidentally touch the wrong thing.”

Braxton couldn’t argue with that and surrendered the length of wire once he had unspooled it.

“How did your father get that much energy inside you?” he asked as Stan deftly threaded the end of the replacement wire into the connection on his motion impeller.

“I require a charge from a lightning bolt every year or so,” Stan said. “I can easily be connected to a lightning rod on a church or powder store during a thunderstorm. I have recharged myself once already using this method.”

Braxton chided himself. He should have thought of that.

“I’ll go find the gears you’re going to need,” he said, taking the wrench and pliers.

All of the damaged gears he’d removed from Stan were standard sized. He knew from experience that Ericsson insisted his engineers use standard parts whenever possible to make field repairs easier. With the wrench and the pliers, Braxton was easily able to open the broken Toks and strip them of usable parts. He loved working with his hands, and in no time they were battered and bloody from the work. While he searched through the piles of broken Toks looking for matching gears and spindles to fit Stan’s gearbox, he couldn’t help marveling at the feat of engineering that Stan represented. How had such a thing been allowed to fall into Confederate hands?

They didn’t know what they had. They couldn’t know. They’d have had him off to Stone Mountain in a wink if they even suspected Stan wasn’t a regular Tok. Braxton doubted they’d learn anything, even if they disassembled him, but why take the risk?

Pinkerton probably didn’t know either.

The spymaster would never have sent Stan behind Reb lines if he had any clue what the Tok really was.

The idea of a group of ham-fisted Reb engineers pulling Stan into pieces made Braxton angry. Those fools would never get him back together again. He had to keep Stan a secret.

But how was he supposed to hide Stan once he was functional again? The Rebs weren’t going to leave Braxton in this storeroom forever; sooner or later they’d move him to a proper cell, and then what? Not to mention Laurie’s warning.

Thoughts of the forthcoming Confederate inquisitor turned Braxton’s stomach. He’d forgotten about that little problem. Could he keep Stan a secret if they tortured him? Could he live with himself if he gave Stan up to be disassembled and ruined?

No. He’d heard the stories told in hushed tones in mess halls and army camps. No one stood up under torture. Sooner or later, everyone broke. Braxton wasn’t especially brave or strong. He would tell the inquisitor everything eventually.

That was not acceptable.

I have to escape.

“Have you found the gears I need?” Stan asked.

Braxton looked over to find the Tok clumsily trying to coil the patch wire so he could replace it in his tool compartment. Inside his chest, he’d installed the new wire and removed the temporary patch.

“I think so,” Braxton said, climbing down off the pile of Toks. He’d collected a half dozen gears and several spindles, though none of the spindles were the exact length he needed.

He spread his findings out on the ground then took the patch wire and rolled it neatly around the screwdriver handle.

“Here,” he said, inserting it back into the tool compartment in Stan’s left arm.

“Thank you, Braxton,” he said. “I appreciate your assistance.”

“You said your purpose was to repair Toks,” Braxton said.

“Correct.”

“Well, these Toks don’t really need repairing, even if you had the parts,” he said.

“Are you suggesting that I need a new purpose?” Stan asked.

Braxton nodded.

“There’s a man coming to question me,” he said. “When that happens, it’s likely I’ll tell them about you. I won’t want to, but I probably won’t have any choice. Before that happens, I need to get you out of here. We need to escape, Stan. That’s your new purpose.”

There was a pause and a whiff of acrid smoke again.

“I have updated my purpose, Braxton,” he said. “We must find a way to escape. The Lord helps those who help themselves.”

Braxton nodded and sighed. “Let’s hope so.”

He wasn’t sure what help Stan could be in escaping, but it felt good to have more than just himself to rely on. Now Laurie’s warning didn’t seem so dire. He had no idea how he would escape, but just accepting the intention lifted his spirits.

“What shall we do first?” Stan asked.

“First, we’ve got to get you working,” Braxton reached for his pile of gears.

“First,” Stan said, putting his hand on Braxton’s. “You need to sleep. We’ve lost the light and this will keep until morning.”

Braxton looked around at the darkened space. Outside the window he could see the light of a full moon illuminating the interior of the supply closet turned cell. In less than an hour it would be gone and he wouldn’t be able to see anything.

He was too excited to sleep, he knew he was. But as he lay down on his pallet, his eyes closed and he fell instantly to sleep.

O O O

The sound of booted feet on the stone floor of the hall woke him. The sun was up and his cell was brightly lit once again. Hurriedly, Braxton shoved the gears he’d collected into a pile and sat back up on his pallet. The door opened and his usual guard stood outside flanked by two others.

“Exercise period,” the guard said, motioning for Braxton to exit the cell.

Trying not to shake, Braxton stood and walked out. There were a half dozen prisoners in the hall, explaining the extra guards, and he took a deep breath to calm himself. He wasn’t happy to be taken away from Stan, but he couldn’t think of any reason for staying in his cell that wouldn’t sound suspicious.

The trip to the exercise yard was short and boring, as was his time wandering the open area between the stone building and the barbed wire fence. The time crept by and Braxton found himself examining the building and the guards and the fence. He had an escape to plan, after all.

“You’re Braxton Wright,” a youthful voice interrupted his thoughts. “The Hero of Parkersburg.”

Braxton looked around to find a gangly young man with a wide face and longish black hair gawking at him.

“It is you, isn’t it?” he asked.

“That’s right,” Braxton said. “Though there were a lot of brave men at Parkersburg.”

The young man stepped forward and pumped Braxton’s hand vigorously.

“It’s a pleasure, sir. A real pleasure. My name’s Dodd, Owen Dodd and I’ve been following your exploits in the papers. Is it true you just captured a Reb train?”

“I, uh, I guess,” Braxton said, trying to get his hand back from the enthusiastic Dodd. “I helped a bit.”

“Don’t be so modest, Captain Wright,” Dodd said. “The way I hear it, you stole that train right out from under the noses of a whole company of Rebs.”

“It was a car full of Grays,” Braxton corrected him. “But there was a Reb officer there. Is there something I can do for you, Dodd?”