Prophet

by Mark J Rose

  Can’t Go On

  Matt rode Thunder for as long as he was able, but the road signs to Philadelphia told him there was no possibility that he’d get within sight of city before dark. The thunderclouds were looking ominous again, and he was relieved when he came to a farm with a sign that read “Rooms to Let.” There were a number of farm buildings off the road, situated between tilled fields and pastures.

  Douglas Gage, the owner, was leading him past the barn and some sheds to a long building. Gage turned to watch Matt, who was hobbling behind him, trying to avoid the mud. “You hurt?”

  “I’ll be fine after a meal and some sleep,” Matt replied. He’d been on Thunder since he’d recovered his things. He was bow-legged, he hadn’t slept properly in two days, and his wet breeches had rubbed his legs raw where they met the saddle. His body was sore, there was a penetrating throb in his skull from being clubbed, and the injury had shaken something loose in his brain. His sight was intermittently clouding over with high-speed flashes. He’d had to stop a number of times as he rode away from Wilmington to wait for his vision to return.

  They were standing in front of an elongated one-story building with five equally spaced doors that shared the same porch. “These are the rooms,” Gage said. He glanced back at Thunder, who was tied to a hitching rail. “’Tis an extra shilling for the animal.”

  “For feed and straw?” Matt said with some irritation.

  “You could go,” Gage replied. “There are rooms farther down the road.” He looked at the clouds and continued in a sincere voice, “We’re a God-fearing family, but we must profit like everyone else.”

  Matt dreaded one more second in the saddle. “I’ll take the bed, but I expect the horse to get as much as he can eat, and I want him out of the weather.” He pointed to an overhang that reached out over the corral.

  “We’ll do everything except let him sleep in our own beds,” the man said, exasperated. “Something singular about him?”

  The sarcastic tone of the man’s question added to Matt’s growing impatience. “He’s from champion stock,” Matt said. “I’ll claim my bride on the back of that horse.”

  Gage warmed his exasperated gaze and chuckled. “They usually prefer carriages.”

  “How far to Philadelphia?” Matt asked. He pulled at his breeches to move them away from where they stuck to his raw legs.

  “Day’s ride. You’ll find out soon enough.”

  “Can I get food?” Matt asked.

  “Main house. My Emma’s a fine cook.”

  Matt reached into his pocket for a few of the coins he’d taken from the drunken thugs and handed them to Gage, then accepted the room key.

  “You’ve time to settle your horse,” Gage said. “She’ll call when she’s putting the food away.”

  Matt stood watching Gage walk to the corral to say something to a teenage boy. Matt’s vision started sputtering again and he pressed his temples. When the flashing subsided, he went to Thunder, untied him from his post, and walked him to the corral.

  “Here you go, boy,” he said, patting the horse’s wet neck. Thunder reached his head out and made an affectionate snort. Matt stepped to his side to remove his saddle and then took the bit out of his mouth and replaced it with a halter. Matt inspected the corral again. The overhang wasn’t as large as he would have desired, but it was shelter enough against another rainstorm.

  The teenage boy was filling up the trough with hay. He wore a tricorner hat and an oiled jacket that seemed to do a pretty good job of repelling the rain that had started to fall again. The boy saw Matt, dropped what he was doing, and walked to the gate.

  “I’ll take him,” he said, scrutinizing Thunder. “He’s a giant.”

  “He’s smart and gentle,” Matt said. “Use him kindly. He saved my life.” He handed the bridle over to the boy.

  “Father told me you were partial to your horse,” the boy replied in a sincere tone.

  Matt wanted to talk more, but a wave of fatigue washed over him. He reached into his pocket, handed the boy a coin, grabbed his saddlebag, and walked to his room. There was a candle already burning on the table when he opened the door. The room looked as good as any he’d slept in, which wasn’t saying much, but having recently spent the night on a dock, he was happy with anything with a roof. A wave of melancholy washed over him as he thought of the Taylors’ hay barn. His wholesome and clean life on the farm felt very far away.

  Matt’s stomach growled. He headed over to the main house to eat, deciding there wasn’t much he could do about his damp breeches except wait. He carried his saddlebag, not trusting a lock that could be opened with a skeleton key with his every possession, especially with how much he’d just gone through to get everything back. His pack would stay at his side for the remainder of the journey. He patted the gun in the holster at his ribs and made sure his jacket covered it completely, then stepped up onto the porch and knocked.

  “Who might you be, handsome?” the woman asked coyly as she opened the door. Matt thought for a moment that she might pinch his cheek.

  “My name’s Matt Miller.”

  “The horse lover,” she said boisterously.

  Her enthusiasm went a long way toward melting his weariness. It was the same enthusiasm Matt had met almost everywhere since he’d arrived in the colonies. Colonial America was excited to be alive. All the people he’d met, whether farmers, merchants, or laborers, seemed ecstatic. It made him jealous at times as he tried to figure out why this was so foreign to his modern sensibilities. He couldn’t remember people being so full of life back in his own time. Why was I such a cynical sod?

  She motioned for him to come in. “Mr. Baker is already eating.”

  Matt shook the thoughts from his head and stepped inside.

  19

  The Baker Brothers

  Matt followed Emma through a dim hallway to the kitchen in the back of the house. Despite the clouds, there was still some light that streamed through the glass panes. A twenty-something man sat at the table spooning stew onto his plate. When he saw Matt, he stood up, wiped his hand on his side and met him halfway to shake.

  Matt was the first to speak. “I’m Matt Miller.”

  “Your name sings,” the man exclaimed with a bright smile. “I’m Benjamin Baker.”

  Matt returned his grin. “Never thought of it as singing. Rhymes a bit.”

  Benjamin gave him a mouthful of straight white teeth and pointed Matt to a chair. “My brother James should be along soon. He had some bad pork yesterday.”

  “You’re both welcome to finish the pot,” Emma said from behind, “but put aside some for young James.” She thought for a moment and added, “The poor thing.” She stepped out of the kitchen and left them alone with their meal.

  “You’ve stayed here before?” Matt asked.

  Benjamin nodded. “’Tis at the end of our route and they use us well,” he said.

  “What do you sell?” Matt asked.

  “Candles,” Benjamin replied.

  “Benjamin Baker, the candlestick maker,” Matt observed.

  “I was blessed to have such a name,” Benjamin said.

  “Where do you make your candles?”

  “Philadelphia,” Benjamin replied. “We sell in and around the city.”

  “You headed back to Philadelphia?” Matt asked.

  Benjamin nodded. “Empty wagon.”

  “You do a good business selling candles?”

  Benjamin nodded again. “Strictly bayberry.” He said it like the benefits were obvious. “And even then, ours smell better than most. What’s your trade, Mr. Miller?”

  “Apothecary. I’m going to Philadelphia to start a business.”

  “We can help you.”

  Matt thought quickly about the possibilities. He imagined that Baker saw him as not only a potential customer, but also as a distributor. “I’d appreciate your help.”

  “We’ve lodgings for hire,” Benjamin offered. “It’s clean and you’d be among fr
iends. I suspect that the only place you’ll find cheaper will be under a bridge.”

  Matt’s couldn’t keep the smirk off his face thinking that Benjamin might be surprised at how much he knew about sleeping under bridges.

  Benjamin grabbed the spoon for the stew and motioned to Matt’s plate. “More?”

  Matt shook his head and patted his belly. He suddenly thought of Thunder. “I need a place to board my horse.”

  “We’ve a barn and a pasture,” Benjamin replied. “James takes fine care of the animals.”

  Benjamin leaned down and divided the loaf of bread. He handed half to Matt and said, “Take this for the road.” Matt saw him smile. Benjamin handed him three apples. “They have ten trees out back. They’ll not miss these.”

  Matt stuffed the apples into his pockets and held the bread in his hand. They stood up from the table at the same time. “I’m surprised at my brother,” Benjamin said as he looked into the hall. “He should have come by now.”

  “I have medicines that might help his stomach,” Matt offered.

  He had Alka-Seltzer and Zantac in his bag. It was only a small bottle of Zantac, which in 1762 was the world’s supply. If Matt thought hard enough, he could probably remember the structure of ranitidine, the active ingredient. He’d taken a class in graduate school called Pharmaceutical Blockbusters where they’d had to memorize the properties and structures of the top-selling medicines during the “golden age” of the drug industry. He remembered Prozac for depression, Zantac for ulcers, and Lipitor for cholesterol. At their peak, each had been the biggest-selling drug in the history of mankind. Prozac or Lipitor would be hard to sell in 1762 because you couldn’t feel them working, but an antacid like Zantac might sell very well, considering how nasty colonial food could be.Matt didn’t know exactly how to synthesize ranitidine, but he could give it a try. The best way to confirm that you’d made a chemical compound was to compare it to a known sample. He’d need to keep as many of his Zantac tablets as he could for future experiments. Alka-Seltzer, on the other hand, was a lower-hanging fruit than Zantac. It would be easy to make if he could find sources of citric acid, sodium bicarbonate, and aspirin. His first big project once he was in Philadelphia was to make aspirin. It wouldn’t be hard then to include it in something like Alka-Seltzer, which he imagined being a big success with the average colonist. The fizzing was fascinating and you could feel it working almost immediately.

  “Let me know if he needs something for his stomach,” Matt said to Benjamin.

  20

  Alka-Seltzer

  The candle was still burning in Matt’s room when he returned. The room moved with the flickers of light that danced from wall to wall. He set his stuff down, picked up the ceramic jug, and walked back outside to visit the privy and fill the jug at the well. It had stopped raining and a full moon lit his way. When he returned, Benjamin was at his door with a young man.

  Matt called out, “Hello, gentlemen.”

  Benjamin waved as Matt got closer but didn’t say anything until he’d stepped up onto the porch.

  “James would try that medicine,” Benjamin explained. “Neither of us will sleep with all his moaning.”

  The boy nodded. He looked to be in his mid teens. “My stomach hurts.”

  Matt waved them into his room and patted the boy on the back. “We’ll get you fixed up.”

  Motioning for Benjamin and James to sit at the table, Matt went to the small dresser, where he grabbed a tin cup and filled it with fresh water. He reached into his pack for his shaving kit and grabbed a pack of two Alka-Seltzer tablets and a Zantac.

  “This is good stuff,” Matt announced. He dropped the two Alka-Seltzers into the cup and they started fizzing. They all watched with interest.

  “Is it magic?” Benjamin asked.

  “Not magic,” Matt affirmed. “The bubbling helps the medicine go into the water.”

  James looked at the cup suspiciously as the tablets finished fizzing and Matt swirled the water around to dissolve the last particles. Their focus reinforced Matt’s appreciation of how important showmanship was for a colonial apothecary.

  “Here you go,” Matt said. “It’s not going to taste very good, so I’d drink it quickly.”

  “Ha!” Benjamin said. “Medicine never sits well in my mouth.”

  Benjamin had spoken another cultural truth. Even in Matt’s own time, people often expected medicine to taste bad or to have some other negative effect, and this helped convince them that it was working. Many medicines that Matt could think of had a demonstrated placebo effect. Even for Zantac, more than fifty percent of the people taking placebo had their ulcers cured after six weeks based on the belief that they were getting the medicine. Of course, the people taking actual Zantac had about a seventy percent cure rate, so the drug was clearly better, but it did make you appreciate the power of the human mind. The placebo effect was even stronger when treating mental diseases. People receiving a placebo would start to feel better based solely on the fact that they were finally seeking treatment; this alone made them less depressed or anxious.

  They watched as James gulped down the liquid and then let out a giant burp. “Pardon,” he said, covering his mouth.

  “I have another pill,” Matt said, “if you can keep that down.”

  James burped again.

  Matt chuckled. “That’s how you know it’s working.”

  James let out a third belch. “I feel better,” he said, surprised.

  “Swallow this without chewing,” Matt said as he handed the boy a Zantac tablet. He poured another cup of water.

  James swallowed the pill on the first try. “It didn’t taste like anything. Are you sure it’s medicine?”

  Matt laughed and the teen put a look of insult on his face. “It’s medicine,” Matt replied. “You’ll feel better tomorrow, though I can’t guarantee that you won’t be making mad dashes to the privy tonight.” The color was already returning to the boy’s face.

  “What do we owe?” Benjamin asked. “One hopes you aren’t as costly as apothecaries in Philadelphia.”

  “I’m very costly,” Matt said. “But not among friends.” Matt took a moment to think about a fair price, even debating whether he should charge them at all. But after considering what he knew about the importance of trade in Colonial America, he decided he should ask for a reasonable payment. “I’d like a cooked meal and one night’s lodgings when I get to Philadelphia, and then for my horse to be housed and fed for one week. I’ll need time to get situated in the city.”

  “Agreed,” Benjamin said.

  Matt stood up, reaching his hand out to shake, and they said their goodnights. Matt escorted them through the door into the moonlight and watched them walk down to the farthest room in the building and let themselves in. Matt felt a sense of satisfaction when, as their door was shutting, he heard James tell his brother, “I feel better.”

  Matt closed the door and got ready for bed. He filled a tin basin with the water that remained in the ceramic jug and used this to wash his tired and bruised face. The cold water felt painful. He finished up by brushing his teeth. The toothpaste situation was looking grim; only a third of a tube left. He wondered again how hard it would be to make toothpaste. There are so many things I can work on. It was only a matter of finishing something that people would be willing to buy. He already had a working knowledge of many of the great inventions from history. If he managed to act on any one of them properly, he could be as rich as any man in America.

  His mind raced with a million questions. Would my actions change history if I succeeded? What about the people who originally had the ideas? Would it mean they wouldn’t have their own success? Is it ethical to steal someone else’s idea from the future? Were any of them from the future, too? The skeptic in him came out when he thought of Thomas Edison. He invented too many things; he was from the future for sure!

  The scientists from Matt’s own time, who had been working on returning him, were worried about Mat
t changing the future. When Matt decided to stay in Colonial America, he’d narrowly escaped their attempt to bring him home by force. One thing he couldn’t say any more was that he was in Colonial America by accident, but he was hoping that the universe wasn’t going to be transformed based on the actions of some random twenty-six-year-old. Even if one of his actions did change the course of history, like in so many of the movies, who was to say it wasn’t supposed to happen? Doesn’t everyone have the power to change the future with everything they do? Can I do what seems right and then trust the universe?Am I making excuses for my decision to stay?

  **********

  Matt checked that the door was locked before he got into bed. The bed wasn’t too disgusting, considering how many people might have slept in it after traveling on dusty and dirty roads. He thought briefly about starting a fire in the fireplace, but it felt like too much work now that he was in bed. As a compromise, he got up for another blanket. He mind was cloudy with fatigue and he fell asleep almost as soon as his head hit the pillow.

  Matt was awakened by someone walking on the porch. He sat up in bed and eased his feet onto the floor. Did they follow me? He grabbed his pistol and listened closely, but now he heard only the sound of trees bending and windblown rain tapping at the sides of the building. Then, there it was again, a distinctive clicking or pacing. It went silent for long enough to convince him that it was gone. This calm was broken by scratching noises on the door, loud enough to startle him. Someone or something was trying to get into his room. He stood and watched the doorknob, expecting turns that never came. An animal? The bread he took from dinner was wrapped in his oilcloth. Maybe a bear can smell the bread?

  Matt was now worried that either a large animal or a man was going to come crashing into his room, but he felt silly standing there, cowering behind a door, holding an automatic weapon. He quietly unlatched the door and slowly turned the knob, ready to confront whoever or whatever was there. He pulled the door open quickly and leaned around to point the gun into the darkness. A large animal was in his sights, silhouetted against the moonlight. A wolf!