Fortune

by Craig W. Turner

  “Yes, but clearly you’ve forgiven her. And, you would’ve found out anyway.”

  “That’s not the point.”

  “What is the point?”

  “The point is that history has changed. That history, the one where Wilton is ambushed by Dan Carmichael, and where Erica doesn’t exist, is gone. It’s not even worth thinking about anymore. Same as the history where I went to baseball instead of gymnastics. There is nothing good that can come out of bringing it up.”

  Jeff laughed. “Okay, now I get the necklace thing. I still think it was the right thing to do. Or, let’s call it the moral thing to do.”

  “It wasn’t that, either. The moral thing was to not go back in time and change things.”

  Jeff sat back and let out a deep sigh. “Well, what would you have done?”

  “First off, I wouldn’t have let my feelings get in the way.”

  “My feelings?”

  Dexter stood and grabbed his bottle again, pacing the floor. “As you were talking, and then when I went into the other room, all I could do was try to figure out why the hell you were doing this. But I watched how you were talking to her. I watched how you were looking at her. And it was pretty obvious.”

  “What was pretty obvious?” Jeff knew what his friend’s answer would be, but he wanted him to say it as if he was discovering it. He’d found his hook. It was perfect. If Jeff was having love-at-first-sight feelings for Erica, it would make perfect sense for him to want to share with her the truth. It was a reasonable reaction for a human. If not for a scientist.

  “Jeff, you’re looking at her like you’re about to propose,” Dexter said. “That’s a problem if you intend to be in this line of work, because it puts all of the rest of us in danger.”

  “How’s that?”

  Dexter stopped and leaned on the back of the easy chair. “Honestly? You need me to explain it?”

  Yes, he wanted him to explain it to him. It’d be much easier to make the case if it was Dexter’s own interpretation.

  “Well, for starters, your new girlfriend can now take the story you just told her and do whatever she wants with it.”

  “What’s she going to do? Call the police? Tell on us? That’d go over real well.”

  “There’s a lot of ways she can spread that information.”

  “Honestly, Dexter,” he said, finishing his glass of wine. “I’m not worried about it. They have a word for people who claim that time travel is a real thing. It’s ‘crazy.’“

  “Jeff, you’re not giving this the serious attention it deserves.” He sat back down.

  But Jeff then stood up himself. “What do you want me to say?” He held up three fingers. “Scout’s Honor... I won’t tell anyone else that we affect through time travel what really happened?”

  Dexter sighed. “That’d be a good start.”

  He dropped his salute and took a seat again. “Alright,” he said. He couldn’t push Dexter too far or he’d bail on the Garvey job. “I do know what you’re getting at. We just have different levels of anxiety about it. Look, she’s gone. She’s not coming back. From the look on her face when she left, I would guess that she’s going to get back to California and make a determination in her mind that we’re lunatics. And never have anything to do with us again. I honestly believe that she won’t say anything to anyone because it would be fruitless for her. If anything, we’re in a no-harm, no-foul situation.”

  Dexter shook his head again. “That’s incredibly thoughtless of you. Especially regarding someone you seem to care about on some level. Reason number one I have zero interest in relationships. No matter what your pursuit, they’re always a distraction.”

  Jeff did care about her, but his mind was on the mission. And while he didn’t know much about women, if there was one thing he did know it was that, when they said they didn’t want to see you, they meant it. He thought about the reaction he would give Dexter to his last statement. Shrugging it off would send a message that he didn’t care about the repercussions of their time travel experiments. Showing too much interest in Erica’s feelings would demonstrate that he was being steered by something other than science. His answer would have to be one that kept Dexter primed for the mission.

  “What can I help with to prep for tomorrow?” he asked.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  Erica settled into her seat and fastened the belt across her lap. From the size of the crowd waiting at the gate, it didn’t look as though it was a full flight. She hoped not. The last thing she wanted was someone sitting next to her, especially since she was finding it very difficult not to keep crying.

  She pulled out the in-flight magazine and started to flip through it, but it did no good. She’d tried all night to distract herself, but her thoughts understandably kept coming back to Jeff Jacobs and his ridiculous story about her existence. Between not sleeping and her eyes being consistently moist from tears, she imagined she looked terrible. She’d actually bought a pair of big, dark “Jackie O” glasses from her hotel’s gift shop to hide her eyes. Whether they worked or not she didn’t know. They made her feel a little better, though. As though she could hide.

  At times overnight, she’d almost determined that she was not going to believe Jeff’s story. Almost. She tried to think of it as a scientist, as a researcher, would. There was no way that Jeff could prove that what he was saying was true. Any evidence they could’ve possibly had that would’ve indicated the history they’d described would have been lost in another reality. Which made it pointless to even give it any credence. Still, though, she couldn’t shake the concept from her mind.

  Stuffing the magazine back into the pocket because even looking at the colorful recipe pictures was inadequately distracting her, she decided her best course of action would be to try to sleep. Normally, she wouldn’t even think of it before the flight took off, but she wanted to try to force herself. The closer she could get to waking up on her home turf in California, the sooner she could put Jeff Jacobs and his fantastical tales of time travel behind her. It actually worked. Though she wiped tears from her eyes a number of times, turning to the wall so that fellow travelers looking for their seats wouldn’t see her, she did ultimately fall asleep. The last thing she remembered before dozing off was the plane taxiing in reverse to head toward the runway.

  She peeked quickly at the empty seat next to her. At least one thing had gone her way.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  “This bridge that we’re now crossing is called the Scudder Falls Bridge,” said Dexter. “It was named for Richard Betts Scudder, who died here a couple decades before the Revolution. His real claim to fame is that his daughter married John Hart, who was one of the signers of the Declaration of Independence.”

  Jeff looked up and made eye contact with Dexter in the rear-view mirror of their rented passenger van as they passed the large sign reading “Welcome to Pennsylvania.” “Seems to me having a bridge named after yourself is a claim to fame in itself,” he said.

  So the trip from North Jersey along I-95 had gone – Dexter filling the team in on the historical intricacies of the route while Jeff focused on commuter traffic, Emeka pretended to be interested while listening to his I-Pod, and Abby sleeping soundly, her head leaning on a sweatshirt against the window. Jeff now knew more than he’d ever hoped he could about the Battle of Monmouth, Orson Welles’ War of the Worlds, and the origin of the town name Metuchen.

  “Yes, but all he did was own the land,” Dexter said. “At that time, there was plenty of land for the taking, so owning some was no special feat. Being father-in-law to one of the 55 men who signed the Declaration? I think that’s pretty cool.”

  “I have to tell you, your factoids are doing a good job of setting the mood here.”

  Dexter laughed. “It’s half trying to set the mood for you, half my inability to contain my enthusiasm.”

  “I can imagine.” Jeff passed a tractor trailer and settled back into the right lane. He’d guessed correctly that Dexter
’s angst about time travel in general would subside as soon as they were in the car heading toward Colonial America.

  “It’s different this time – before we popped in and popped out. We didn’t get a chance to see anything. This time I’m going to get to see Philadelphia in 1770. That’s incredible to me.”

  “It is pretty cool.”

  “Just for some perspective, about two miles north of here is where George Washington crossed the Delaware on Christmas Day in 1776. Where we’re going, that will not have happened yet.”

  “Alright – now that’s deep,” Jeff said. He had been focused mainly on the details of the mission, giving little thought to where they were about to find themselves. As they headed toward modern-day Philadelphia, he took a moment to recognize that they were going to experience a time when the United States of America didn’t exist. Before the Boston Massacre and Paul Revere’s ride. Before Thomas Jefferson wrote the Declaration and their forefathers declared independence from the British.

  They continued on I-95 through Philadelphia, where Jeff had been many times. It seemed different, though. Same buildings, same highway, same Delaware River. But there was much more to it. Like never before, he found himself considering what it had taken to get Philadelphia to look like it did right at this moment.

  Traffic was understandably a little heavier through the city, but once they were out of the urban area, the highway cleaned up a little. They came to a town called Chester and took one of the exits. Jeff pulled out a slip of paper on which he’d written the directions from his visor. He memorized the next couple turns he needed to make.

  “Look at the shipping and commerce,” Dexter said. “You’re going to be amazed when you see it 250 years ago. The same business will be thriving here. Chester was – and still is – logistically advantageous because barges could get this far upriver through the Delaware Bay. Almost all the way to Philadelphia. You guys are going to be amazed.”

  “And you won’t be?” Jeff asked, tucking the directions back into his visor.

  He heard Dexter snicker, though he was lost in his thoughts looking out the window. After a few moments, though, he said, “This is it.”

  Jeff looked where he was pointing – the entrance to a cemetery – and steered the van through the main entrance. He followed a winding road for several minutes until he came to dual ornate mausoleums, and pulled the van to the side of the road. Had anyone been around to see them, they would’ve looked like some entourage exiting the vehicle, going to visit their deceased loved ones for some reason dressed as two Red Coats and two Colonial commoners. Knowing that, though, they wasted no time in preparing, huddling themselves between the two buildings. Having just driven through one of the nation’s largest cities, it was difficult to trust that they were now as isolated as they could be, but besides their view of the van there was no angle from which they could be seen.

  They all grasped the time device. Using just his eyes, Jeff checked to see if everyone was ready and pressed the button.

  The world blurred around them.

  They were standing in a wide field. Without knowing when and where they were headed, it could’ve just as easily been any farm in eastern Pennsylvania, in any century at all. A small, wooden farmhouse sat across the field several hundred yards away, and a line of trees to the south marked what was likely the edge of the property. The farmable property, at least. To Jeff, it was a strange feeling, that he knew they were no longer in present time, but from where they stood, there was no visible evidence. No horses and buggy, no old blacksmith shops. Just the wide field.

  “We’re here,” Dexter said.

  Emeka laughed. “You keep saying that – ‘we’re here.’ You don’t have to be all dramatic. We know the thing works.”

  “Do you know exactly where we are?” Jeff asked, more business-like.

  “Well, if my maps are correct, this farm should belong to a Mister Theodore Fisher. Fisher was a Quaker and business associate of Robert Morris, of Robert Morris University fame, which is probably why he fared so well with his holdings.”

  “And that’s Fisher’s house?”

  “Has to be,” Dexter said.

  “What are we standing in?” Abby asked. The crop was low and green, and Fisher most certainly wouldn’t have wanted to see strangers trampling it.

  Dexter bent down and inspected one of the plants. “Alfalfa,” he said. “Bean sprouts.”

  “Well, let’s get out of sight before anyone decides they don’t want us here,” said Jeff. “With the state of the colonies, I’m sure that waking up to see four strangers, two of them British soldiers, standing in the middle of your farm wouldn’t elicit a pleasant welcome.”

  Dexter pointed to the early morning sun “Fisher would be out in the fields by now, so it’s likely he’s in some other part of the farm and not in sight.”

  They heard a dog barking. “Either way,” Jeff said. “Let’s go.”

  They made their way across the field, honestly making an effort not to trample Farmer Fisher’s crops, and after about ten minutes they came to a dirt road traveling east-west. The road was as desolate as the field. To the east, the direction they needed to head, it disappeared behind a hill after what appeared to be about a half-mile.

  “Tour guide,” Jeff said, “I’m assuming this is our highway?”

  “Yes. If we follow this road about a mile, we’ll connect to another road, which will take us to the town. That’s where we’ll get horses.”

  So they started, two Red Coats and two commoners walking through farm country in rural Pennsylvania. They came upon no one in their travels until they got within a mile or so of the town. They’d worked up a story of why their particular band was together in case they needed one. The two Colonials had helped the soldiers when the horse pulling their wagon had been frightened by a snake, toppling their cart – but all they mainly received were stares, mostly of disdain. “Unrest has begun, and the call for war is coming close,” Dexter had whispered at one point. Silently, Jeff thought it was probably better if no one asked anything of them because their story wasn’t all that great.

  The town of Chester was small but bustling, and clearly growing. Its location on the Delaware River, as Dexter had noted only a half-hour before, made it an epicenter for commerce in the country’s early years. Over the row of buildings, they could see the masts of shipping vessels making port. The town featured a blacksmith, a general store, and a number of pubs that would satisfy the needs of thirsty dock workers when the workday ended.

  Like he’d been to 1770 Chester a hundred times, Dexter led the team directly to the first stop on their itinerary – the stables. They passed a number of uniformed British soldiers on the way, making them feel a little less out of place. King George III had implemented the Quartering Act only a few years earlier, so it was not uncommon for the soldiers to be living casually among the Colonials. Jeff was pleased that Dexter would have surmised this, which is what made it possible for them to go into this mission without having to worry about costume changes. They even received a nod ‘hello’ from one of the sentries.

  The stable was owned, as Dexter had explained to them previously, by a man named Phineas Cadwallader, who greeted them at the front door of the small grey wood building next to a corral holding about a dozen horses. They could tell immediately by the look on his face that the last thing he wanted to see was two Red Coats on his doorstep. Cadwallader would go on to enlist and fight with the 103rd regiment of the Continental Army and would be killed in action at the Battle of Brandywine. Not too much was known about the details of his death, which was not unique given the bedlam of a battlefield, but it was known that he’d donated the horses in his well-established stable to the Colonials’ cause once war was declared three years from now. He was a patriot.

  Well, not yet – now, he was a businessman.

  “How can I help you fine gentlemen?” Cadwallader asked, not trying to hide his disdain. He was short, about five-seven, and gruff, w
ith a wide face and strong jaw. He wore a loose shirt and pants that were older, but clearly well-kept.

  “We’re in need of four mounts,” Dexter said in a British accent that Jeff hadn’t heard before. Immediately, he determined it was flawless.

  Cadwallader motioned with his chin at the others. “And what’s with this band of yours?”

  “The business of soldiers in the King’s Royal Army is none of yours,” Dexter said harshly. “For now, we are prepared to pay you for them. If you refuse to assist us, we are prepared to take them. Will you be of service to us?”

  The man was unfazed, and spoke slowly. “Well, yes, I can help you. Wouldn’t want to affront the King, now, would I? Where will you be traveling?”

  “Once again, sir, and for the last time-” Dexter was playing a condescending British soldier to a tee. Jeff hoped it wasn’t too overbearing.

  Cadwallader held up his hands. “Hold on, son,” he said, intentionally not distinguishing that he was addressing a soldier. “I can’t sell you the right horse if I don’t know what you’ll be using it for.” He finished walking out the front door and past them to the side of the building. “See, this horse is a sprinter – he’s fast and will outrun just about anything chasing you. But he gets tired quickly, so if your journey’s a long one, he’s not the horse for you.” He motioned to another. “This one here is the opposite. Kind of a lumberer. He’s not going to win any races, but you can saddle him for 24 hours straight and he’ll keep going. So, in an effort to better help you, can you tell me – without divulging the highly secretive details of your journey – the type of horse you need?”

  Jeff was trying not to smile openly – to the point where he couldn’t even look at Dexter, because he would’ve laughed. He liked this guy.