ALEXIS REACHED OUT INTO THE DARKNESS toward the pale light of the window. He gazed at the silhouette of his right hand, then set his palms together. After a moment, he crossed himself and lowered his arms. Slowly. It hurt to move. But he was not dead. His prayer had been answered.
When they came to carry him out of the dark storage room that smelled of tobacco and coffee and soap, the voice of the fat man who held all the company's indentures was thundering in his skull, and he reckoned that they would take him down to the beach and let him die among the tents. But they did not take him there.
They carried him, through the village, and into this quiet room that smelled of pine. He remembered the murmur of a man's voice like some priest, the taste of cool water. He dreamed of his mother, and then he awoke with the sound of rain and the doctor's servant at the side of the cot.
The doctor was not like the company doctors who ran their dirty, thick fingers over your gums like horse traders, thumped your back like a summer melon, checked your prick, pulled your ears, then slapped you sharp on your rump and sent you forward to the man, the cash box and the indenture papers.
He had been working since he was six. When he was twelve, his red-faced father had gestured to one of the two men he was told were uncles and said dully, “That boy is good to go.”
He learned to plow. At fifteen he ran away to Montreal. He worked at a blacksmith's and then at a tavern. He lived in a basement and then in a barn. He mastered vingt-et-un, shot stones at the priests in the alleys beside the cathedral, stole from the warehouses. Then came rumors of British press gangs. He quit the city for the country, and in the summer he joined the migration south into the United States for the hay-making season. In fall, he returned north to chop wood, and in late winter, he tapped maple trees.
In the spring of 1822, he returned to his dilapidated home in Berthier. His father's stool was now empty. His brother Edouard served him a drink and told him he must meet the agents from the company. “That is some good money, and you need to get you some.” Four weeks later, Alexis was pulling oars in a Blackfeather brigade bateau bound for Mackinac Island.
SIX
IN THE DAYS THAT FOLLOWED THE SHOOTING, Elias Farnham and Dr. Beaumont discovered that when they held Alexis curled up on his right side they could minimize the loss of the little nourishment Alexis would take, but in that position his pain was so great that he moaned and gibbered. He reached violently for their arms. Beaumont begged him to keep calm, to trust him, that this was all for his good, as he stroked his hand. But Alexis could not endure the pain long enough to eat.
Until the necrotic tissue was clear and the wound pink with vital tissue, Beaumont could not apply a compress dressing to keep the contents of Alexis's stomach from exiting. He could not properly feed him. He feared his patient would die.
Beaumont tended to Alexis at least three times daily. Elias was ordered to fetch him promptly in the event Alexis showed signs of decline. He personally managed the changing of each carbonated poultice to the wound and bathing it with a solution of camphorated spirits, water and vinegar.
Soon, a vigorous inflammatory response commenced. The wound just might rid itself of the necrotic tissue, thought Beaumont. But the evening of the third day began with the signs Beaumont had been dreading. Alexis began coughing, and within twelve hours he developed a thick cough and a hunger for air.
Beaumont practically lived at his patient's bedside. He wiped Alexis's brow with a cool wet rag and propped him up as he patted his back and held cloths into which Alexis hacked wads of green, blood-streaked phlegm. Once, he coughed up a button. For three days, Beaumont bled Alexis twelve ounces at a time until on the fourth day the arterial action began to abate. The fevers continued, and the wound became fetid with an odor so intense that it filled the room like a warm fog.
In time, the dead tissue began to slough away, and after four weeks, the fever subsided, and the wound's tissues began to appear pink and vital. The room smelled once again of dust and pine. Alexis was now so thin that you could count his every bone, but after Elias shaved him, he looked like a young man who might survive. He could tolerate the compress dressing, and his appetite was fair. When Beaumont and Elias eased Alexis to his feet, the young man rose feeble legged and wobbly as a new-foaled colt, but he stood and he took a short step. He extended his right hand, and he and Beaumont clasped hands.
“Thank you, God bless you, mon savior.”
Beaumont smiled.
“You're welcome, Alexis.”
Beaumont felt magnificent. Perhaps in months, even a year, the young man might fully heal. He imagined explaining the wound and its treatment to Surgeon General Lovell, imagined standing at the center of a surgical amphitheater as he presented this case to an assembly of surgeons. In the evenings, he found himself narrating that day's care to Deborah.
“You truly have earned the right to be called a great man,” she said.
“I simply did my duty. Like countless other doctors.”
“Precisely,” she insisted. “Your selfless duty to your patient. Not to Ramsay Crooks, or Captain Pearce, or to any duty other than what your patient required. For that, you're a hero.”
“Debbie.” He was blushing.
In his solitary hours, when his thoughts wandered into his future, he imagined he was promoted to surgeon.
CALLERS BEGAN VISITING the young man who had survived the shotgun blast in the company store and the hero who had saved his life. Beaumont displayed his patient with great pride. He had Farnham dress Alexis in boots, britches and a new cotton shirt that Beaumont had traded the quartermaster for half pint of whiskey. They combed and cut his long black hair. They trimmed his curled nails.
A group of clerks from the company store who had witnessed the shooting, the manager who ran the warehouses and the laborers who worked at the docks came. So did voyageurs and their families from the camps on the beach. Debbie visited with the infant Sarah. Some of the visitors brought gifts. As the weeks passed, Alexis accumulated trinkets on his bedside table. One Sunday, Father Didier, the Jesuit, came up from his tent along the beach. He sat beside Alexis's cot and talked to him in French, then stood and prayed in Latin, crossed himself and touched Alexis's forehead. He left him a set of rosary beads made from dried betel nuts.
As the month drew to a close, Beaumont became preoccupied with worry. The costs of caring for Alexis, the bandages, the bottles of muriatic acid, the rations he was consuming, were all adding up. Before the summer was out, when Beaumont submitted his next supply request, the cost of Alexis's care would be obvious to Captain Pearce.
Some nights he did not sleep. He reviewed his finances. It was a cost he could not afford to bear, and yet to ask Captain Pearce to pay would not only humiliate him but also be futile. The captain would have fair cause to drive Alexis from the hospital and into a tent on the beach.
But this worry vanished when the Reverend James and a delegation from the town called to announce that the town would assume the cost of Alexis's room, board and care. “Charity,” the Reverend explained, “is not simply a civic, but also a Christian duty.” One of the men, who had been gazing at the water-stained ceiling, remarked to the reverend that they should take up a collection to pay for repairs to the hospital's shabby roof.
Beaumont grinned as he escorted the delegation from the hospital. When the men left, he turned to Elias and quipped, “The betel nut beads Alexis counts seem to have done their trick.”
IN AUGUST ELIAS FARNHAM stepped in to the infirmary to tell Dr. Beaumont there were some visitors to see Alexis.
Beaumont did not pause his work rolling pills. “Show them in. I'm nearly done here.”
Elias hesitated.
“Who is it?”
“Ramsay Crooks. Young Teddy Mathews is with him as well.”
Beaumont frowned. He looked over at the other patients who lay upon cots near Alexis.
“Why don't you move Alexis to the cot in the side room and have them wait in my of
fice. I'll see them there soon as I finish these pills.”
Beaumont found Crooks and Mathews seated in his office. He took his customary seat behind his desk. Mathews was poker faced. Crooks was grinning. He reached his hand across the desk and shook Beaumont's hand.
“William, so good to see you. It's been ages.”
“Ramsay, Theodore, this is like thunder in winter. It's not often I have the pleasure of the company calling on me here at the hospital. I trust all is well. How may I help you?”
“We've come to see the lad. I hear his recovery is nothing short of a miracle. And, I brought you a gift.”
Crooks snapped his fingers and gestured to Theodore Mathews, who reached into a valise at his feet and produced a bottle.
“Bottle of my best Madeira,” Crooks announced. He held the bottle before him; one hand gripped the neck, the other hand cradled the boot. “For you.”
Beaumont took the bottle.
“Thank you, Ramsay.”
“May we see the lad?”
“In a moment. Elias is moving him to a room where he can take visitors. He moves slowly. Alexis that is. Alexis Samata.”
“He has a lot of callers?”
Beaumont nodded. “Voyageurs, some of your clerks. Last Sunday, Father Didier pronounced some sort of incantation over him and made a gift of some prayer beads, and the other day Reverend James called. Some days Alexis is the social center of the island.”
“Reverend James?” Crooks's eyes narrowed.
Beaumont nodded. “He asked about the wound and how Alexis is recovering.” Beaumont stood up and took three glasses from a shelf. “Why don't we enjoy this now,” he said as he pulled the cork. “Some good news to celebrate. The reverend said the town will cover the cost of Alexis's care.”
Crooks clapped his hands. “That is as should be. And when do you expect he'll recover?”
“Months, Ramsay. At least.”
“It's that bad?”
“The wound's large, and there's still foreign matter lodged in the tissue. I'd expect he'll continue to extrude that for months. There may even be fevers again. And then there is the matter of the hole into his stomach.”
“His stomach?”
“His stomach. He has a rent in the wall of his stomach that remains open. What's incredible is that the margin of those tissues has annealed to his chest wall with the result that the gastric contents spill out into open air.”
Mathews was wide-eyed.
“You could stitch it closed,” Crooks suggested.
“I could. I've thought of that. But that's not without its hazards. It may also heal by secondary intention.”
“That's utterly fantastic, William. The lad lives despite a hole in his side. A hole right into his stomach. Imagine what you can see.” Crooks elbowed Matthews. “What do you think, Teddy?”
Mathews mumbled a few words.
Beaumont set down his glass. “It is amazing, Ramsay. I've never seen a case like it in a man who lived.”
Crooks took a long drink.
“It doesn't look like he'll be back to fur trapping this season.”
Beaumont shook his head. “Not for a good while, Ramsay.”
“That's too bad, William. Teddy here tells me I've got a three-year indenture on him, and Alexis owes the company forty dollars.”
“How's that work?”
“It's not too complicated, William. He signed his papers like any free man and was paid out fifty at the start of the season. Up until the day of the shooting, he earned no more than ten dollars in work. So Alexis owes the company forty dollars of work. Or cash.”
“Ramsay, why are you telling me this?”
“If ever he's well enough, I'll take him back.”
“And if not?”
“Well, I'd hazard to say that the only men entitled to happiness are those who are useful. In short, he's a charity case.”
Elias Farnham, who was standing off in the corner listening to this exchange, spoke up.
“Say then, Ramsay, is it in fact true that Mr. Jacob Astor, founder and president of your company, is a millionaire?”
Crooks faced Elias.
“A millionaire? When all the company's bills are collected, all monies owed paid out, all property fairly valued, perhaps yes, the sum of all his wealth is near to a million, if not more.”
Elias whistled.
“You think that substantial, sir?” Crooks made a patulous grin.
Elias nodded vigorously. “Aye, I should say so.”
“Well, I don't,” he said plainly. “Frankly, gentlemen, I'm disappointed.”
Crooks reached for the bottle and topped off his glass.
“Yes, disappointed.” He set the bottle down. “I'm disappointed it has taken this long for one single, self-made man to wring a million dollars from the sweat of his brow. But I've every expectation that there shall be legions of Astors upon these lands.”
“How so?” asked Beaumont.
“I expect the good doctor would want to know the secret.”
Beaumont smiled. “I'm just a simple physician. Healing the sick may make for a steady income, but it's not the raw material upon which fortunes are mined.”
“The way I see it, William, America is a great experiment. The wisdom of our founding fathers and the opportunity of our frontier liberate us from the shackles of old Europe, its bonds of aristocracy, of theocracy. In this free country, the true measure of rational man's potential may be fully realized. Money, William, makes money, and there is no more wealthy land than these United States wherein a man with pluck and a bit of luck can make his money. You know that before Jacob Astor ran the company, he owned a toy store, and before that, he was a baker. That's right, Elias. A baker. Cakes and loaves. And me? Had I remained in Scotland, I'd have been a shoemaker. It's what my papa did. It's what I would've done. And so on. Simple cobblers with no reasonable prospect for advancement. An aristocracy of simplicity. But not in America.”
Crooks raised his glass. “To ambition,” he announced. “Ambition! It is what makes money. And America is full of the raw materials for it and the kind of brave men who are willing to roll up their sleeves and make something of themselves. This is a country of beginnings, of projects, of vast designs and expectations.”
“Points well said, Ramsay,” Beaumont observed.
“Aye, but well done is better than well said. Mr. Franklin said that, I believe.” Crooks winked at Beaumont. He looked over at Elias. “Say then, is the lad ready for callers? We brought him a gift. Show them, Teddy, what we brought for Alexis St. Martin. That's his name by the way, St. Martin. Not Samata. I know how their patois can befuddle. Go on Teddy, go on, show them.”
Theodore Mathews reached into the valise and produced a package wrapped in brown paper and tied with twine. He set it upon the desktop with a thud.
“It's a Bible,” he said flatly.
Crooks was excited. “In English. I doubt he's literate even in French, none of them are, but I thought it will give him something to do. People can read to him.”
Everyone stared at the package as if waiting for it to move or make some sound.
Beaumont looked at Crooks. He began chuckling, and then he began laughing. “Of all the gifts! Of all the gifts! And from you!” He wiped his eyes with his sleeve. “I'm sorry, Ramsay, but this is not what I'd have expected. It is very thoughtful of you, though. Very.”
Crooks was grinning. He elbowed Mathews. The young man tried to laugh.
“Don't mock me, William,” Crooks said. “The spirit moved me! Think of this as a kind of celebration. Judging from the predictions you made in June, a reasonable man would say it's nothing short of a miracle this lad lived. Frankly, though my convictions tend agnostic—I'm Scottish, you know, and I've passed many years on the American frontier—I'm inclined to see divine agency in his case. Can you believe that, gentlemen, the very hand of God right here on our little island? A miracle some would say. Where's Father Didier when you need a bead counter
? Well then, let's go see the lad with the hole in his side.”
Open Wound: The Tragic Obsession of Dr. William Beaumont Page 5
