Nandroid Witchhunt VIII

	The pounding of hooves on dirt thundered through the growing dawn, the sun just gracing the horizon as pitch-black turned to gray, grayer still with the falling snow. The trio of men rode from the town, spurring their horses onward, ready to kill the perpetrator of what they were sure was yet another murder outside their sacred town. Hammering along the packed dirt road snow was dashed and tracks laid, ready to be filled by the thickening blizzard. The fog had retreated in exchange for a worsening snow storm, banks and drifts forming as the posse forged ahead, pistols and swords at the ready. The scene they arrived at was their missing pastor trudging forward through the snow, each step heavier and weaker than the last as he passed the horsemen unnoticed, the brim of his hat bent low into the biting wind. They tried to stop him but he continued unvexed to the town, only surrendering to them when he collapsed again into the snow.
	As the sun rose higher and the storm continued, the pastor was roused, coherent enough to tell his story and exonerate the dead Quaker and his robot. There was no such jubilation for the robot, who sat cold and motionless by the fireplace, a quick thaw the only treatment they could offer. The pastor rebuked his congregation for their actions and swore to hold onto the little robot who, he said, had awakened on his back only to say her master’s name and apologize to him before lapsing into unconsciousness again. There would be no eyes fluttering awake for her, not in this cold he knew. It was all he could do to tend the robot and try, confounded almost always, to correct the kinks in her gears she’d gathered, waiting for the day she would wake up.