Open Wound: The Tragic Obsession of Dr. William Beaumont

by Jason Karlawish

  The reverend looked as well to these men. But none of them engaged the conversation. He faced Beaumont and once again scratched his arms and cleared his throat.

  “We see that the voyageur is largely recovered now. Is that the case?”

  “Yes, largely. The orifice into the stomach remains open. But now I'd say he's survived his wounds and is on the way to recovery.”

  The reverend smiled.

  “Excellent. As we all prayed he would be. He did have a difficult healing. I think. We think.” The Reverend gestured to Captain Pearce and Crooks. “We think it is proper then to speak of where he shall live. As you know, Doctor, I am the titular magistrate of the borough of Mackinac, and in that capacity I am charged with the civilian affairs of our small government.” The reverend hesitated. “Of course in this capacity I consult closely with Captain Pearce and Mister Crooks. Do you have any thoughts on where the lad shall live?” He cocked his head like a dog and waited for an answer.

  “Here.” Beaumont said simply. “Until he's well enough to travel as he sees fit he should stay here under my care.”

  “And is he well enough?”

  Beaumont considered the question.

  “He still needs dressing changes. He still needs to recover his strength. Needs a roof, food, water. So the answer to your question is no.”

  “We need to make plans.”

  “Reverend, you are not proposing Alexis St. Martin leave the island?”

  “I'm asking whether he's ready to travel as he sees fit.”

  “Praise for the man's recovery aside, is the purpose of this gathering to tell me Alexis should leave?”

  “No, Doctor, we don't want him to leave. We simply want to know whether he is well enough to be discharged from the town's charity roll. Is he?” The reverend's thin eyebrows rose to his question.

  “As I say, the wound's not fully healed. Less than three weeks ago it discharged some two tablespoons of pus and material. He still needs dressing changes, still needs to recover his strength, and still can't work. Again, the answer to your question remains a plain no.”

  The reverend spoke. “Dr. Beaumont, Mackinac Island's charitable coffers are not bottomless. As you well enumerate, he requires room, board, bandages and medications. All those charges have fallen on the town's expense. If he is well enough to travel, it is time for him to continue his care elsewhere. Back in Canada.”

  “Surely you do not propose to put him in an open bateau and send him off after the ice breaks?”

  “With your advice and guidance we propose to outfit him as he needs and send him off. He is rapidly exhausting our charity.”

  “Immediately?”

  “Soon,” the reverend replied.

  Beaumont looked at Ramsay Crooks.

  “Ramsay, he works for the company, does he not? You've got an indenture on him.”

  “He can't work for the company in his condition. He's not worth a Continental. Mr. Astor himself would discharge me were he to hear we're paying for his upkeep.”

  The reverend interjected.

  “We see the man walking, taking a pipe with some of the soldiers.”

  Beaumont interrupted the reverend.

  “Reverend, the man continues to need treatment. The hole in his side has not healed, and he's still quite debilitated. As I say, there is still foreign material in the wound. A journey in a bateau would likely do him in.”

  “He's been through worse,” Pearce remarked.

  Beaumont began to reply. “Are you questioning,” he said sharply, but then stopped and took up his coffee cup, but just as quickly he set that down. His hand was trembling.

  Pearce folded his arms upon the top of his desk. He considered Beaumont.

  “Frankly, Doctor, he's neither soldier nor citizen. I don't doubt you've developed a bit of an attachment to the man, others have as well. I hear some of the ladies have taken to reading to him. Ramsay here even gave him a Bible. But you serve the army and its surgeons' corps. Even if he were a soldier, when he is well enough to travel, he is well enough to leave the service and receive his medical care elsewhere. In Canada. Let the Crown have his bill of fare.”

  Beaumont began to speak.

  “Let me finish please, Doctor. You know the rules. You served in the war, by God, at York, the Niagara frontier, Plattsburgh. I was there too, you know.”

  Beaumont began to protest, but Pearce cut him off.

  “No, Doctor, let me finish. American men with far greater wounds were transported, brave men who took their wounds in combat. You know that. And he's not even one of us.”

  “Captain, I must insist. I simply must.”

  Pearce fell silent. Beaumont looked at Crooks, who was gazing into the teepee of his fingers, a smirk cast over his wide face. The reverend sat upright as though tied to a board. His eyes were nearly closed, and his face was entirely without expression.

  “Captain,” Beaumont said in a measured tone. “That was the war. We did all kinds of things then we'd not hazard now upon any man, friend, foe or pauper. We packed the wounded into a ship's hold so tight that three days later we had to step over the living to gather up the dead to toss into Lake Ontario. We did that because we had no choice. Don't let's bring that into the current consideration.”

  Pearce thumped his desktop with the ball of his great fist.

  “It was the army then,” he pronounced. He thumped the desktop again. “It is the army now.”

  “It was war,” Beaumont said plainly. “We behaved differently then. You know it as well as I do. We had our mission. Our orders.”

  Pearce raised his chin, all the while looking at Beaumont. Then he looked away, at the window, the fire, the floor.

  “Doctor,” he said quietly, “I think I speak not only for the army as the commander of this garrison but for the company, as well as the civil government, when I say that neither borough nor garrison nor company can be home to many more men like Edgar and Alexis. The hospital is a hospital. Not a boardinghouse for your charity cases.”

  “Here, here,” said Crooks. “'Tis the heart of the matter, is it not, Reverend?”

  The reverend kept his eyes closed.

  “And Edgar has value. Look at the work he does,” Beaumont insisted.

  Crooks chuckled. “But an illiterate French Canadian fur trapper with a hole in his side has little prospects for advancement. Except perhaps in a circus.”

  “He can do chores as well as any man, Ramsay.”

  Crooks raised his thick eyebrows.

  “Well then, perhaps that indenture is not wholly lost? He could do some chores for the company. We might well have a place for a simple laborer.”

  Reverend James lifted his thin eyelids like some china doll set upright and made his appeal.

  “Then, Doctor, he is ready to leave the island.”

  “Reverend, Ramsay, I meant that in time he can do that. In time.”

  “How much time, Doctor?” the reverend asked.

  “It is hard to say.”

  “And yet you say he's recovered.”

  “Gentlemen, where is mercy?” Beaumont appealed. “He's an innocent man. The victim of bad fortune.”

  Ramsay Crooks chuckled.

  Beaumont ignored him.

  “Do you gentlemen think that the island's inhabitants shall wish to be party to such a cold decision?” He looked at Reverend James. “Reverend, by this act, all the charity rendered is undone.”

  The reverend puckered his lips.

  “Dr. Beaumont, please, I think I speak for the island's inhabitants when I say let's not contest either the depth or the sincerity of our charity. We're Christians, and we're Americans. Beneficence is an obligation, but it is, I submit, a limited obligation. One man cannot be an insatiable draw upon the charity of the borough. We have other commitments to charity, the mission school, for instance. I personally place great pride in our efforts to give the Indian children a Christian education. Think of the potential that is to come from that investmen
t. That one day our red brethren might rise in the scale of social civilization when Education and Christianity should go hand in hand to make the wilderness blossom as the rose.”

  Beaumont pleaded.

  “Reverend, let us not balance the life of one invalid against those of a schoolroom of children.”

  The reverend was unusually animated. “Doctor, I do not intend to even suggest that the one is traded for the other. Let me remind you that in the days of the British occupation, I've every expectation your Frenchman would have been carried out on a board long before the first freeze and buried in the bone orchard. I know I speak for the town that we have made our fair charitable contribution. We wish our denizens to be useful. We defer of course to your medical judgment, but we see the man able and well enough to walk about, to eat and drink. He seems well enough to travel as soon as the weather permits.”

  Beaumont began to speak, but the captain cut him off.

  “Neither the island's inhabitants nor the Great Lakes command shall be drawn into this issue. Understood?”

  Beaumont was perplexed.

  “Shall not be drawn in with circulars or pamphlets or other public pronouncements about the fate of some Gumbo fur trapper with a hole in his side. No letters to generals. Do I make myself clear, Doctor?”

  Beaumont hesitated.

  “Yes. Yes, Captain Pearce, you do.”

  IN THE DAYS FOLLOWING THE MEETING at the captain's office, Beaumont felt like he was back in the company store on the day of the shooting, when Crooks and Pearce had him cornered, except this time he could not free himself of Crooks's grip. All the triumph and joy of the last seven months of caring for Alexis were fast disappearing. In their place was a growing despair.

  For days, Beaumont spoke not a word of the meeting as he tried to go about his business. He needed time to think of a plan. It was after dinner one day that Beaumont decided finally to tell Deborah about the decision to send Alexis away. They were seated at their kitchen table, their dishes set to one side. They had been talking about Sarah. The child was nearly walking, quick bouncing steps, her arms outstretched like some flightless bird. Now they sat in the peace of each other's quiet, listening to the sound of the winter evening about their cottage. The skitter of a small animal passed beneath the floor.

  “There's been some news about Alexis,” he said.

  He told her how the town, the company and the village were united in their conviction that Alexis had exhausted their charity. “They just want to him to go,” he concluded. “But he's not ready.”

  “Why?”

  “Because they fear he shall be a pauper. They say he's drained or will drain the town's charity, that there are no more funds to support his care. The Presbyterian Board of Missions is more dedicated to the school than to the invalid.”

  “That's terrible. I've worried something was wrong. You've been so quiet of late.”

  He looked at her. “What do you think of him staying here until he's healed?”

  “Here with us?”

  “Yes Deb, here. Just for a while. He can stay in the back room.”

  She looked about the room. “Move him here?”

  “Yes.”

  “Until the boat is ready to take him away? Why can he not just stay in the hospital as he is and then depart when he is well?”

  “He'll stay there as long as he can, but come spring, after the ice breaks, they'll surely want him gone. When that happens, we could take him in here.”

  “I thought you had no desire to make him your charity case?”

  “Circumstances alter cases.”

  “Such as?”

  “His is a complex case, and it's not done.”

  “Is he well enough to travel?”

  “No, not yet. You've seen yourself how he still needs my care. And even if he is well enough to travel, I cannot in good professional conscience simply submit to the town's callous will and see him off a pauper in a bateau where in time he will surely succumb. I cannot tolerate an act of callous folly that involves my patient. It's what they ordered us to do at York. Pack the wounded men in boats and then set sail. Men died in that ship.”

  “But here with us?” She closed her eyes.

  “He'll just sleep here. During the day the room shall be free and you can continue to use it and . . .”

  “And what will he do during the day?”

  Beaumont was startled. It was not like Deborah to interrupt.

  “The chores of a common servant,” he explained. “If he can, if he's well enough. Chop wood, haul slops and trash, sweep out the kitchen, bank the fire, carry the ashes from the fireplace. I'd like to have the bushes cut back to make more room for Sarah to play. Soon she'll be running. The roof needs mending too.”

  “William, I don't question your professional judgment. I don't. And yet, if the man is well enough to do those many tasks of an able-bodied man, well then, I for one cannot see why he is not well enough to travel back to Lower Canada.”

  “His dressings need changing. They're quite complicated.”

  “But he won't travel alone,” she said. “I remember in the war how they moved men with all kinds of wounds. And it wasn't always in a ship's hold. Surely they'll send him with others making the journey. After the thaw, boats come in and out of the harbor regularly. If Elias Farnham can change the bandages, well then, others can learn too. It strikes me as simple as sewing. I've seen it done myself when I've read to him at the hospital.”

  “Deborah,” he nearly begged.

  “William, you can be so single-minded. Yes, he's your patient, but what about us? Your family? It's hard enough as it is living on this island. Besides, what of the funds to care for him and to feed him? Our monies are tight. Have you thought how we shall support him as well as our children?”

  “Children?” His eyes widened.

  She nodded.

  “Deborah, are you with child?”

  “I hadn't wanted to tell you yet, and I should talk with Helen, for this has happened before and meant nothing. It's that feeling in the morning I can relieve with breakfast. But there's no quickening. Still, even if I'm not pregnant, the point still remains, William. You need to think of our family. You work so hard, and yet our funds are limited.”

  He reached across the table for her hand. Their fingers entwined. He leaned over and kissed her palm, and held her hand between his.

  “Deborah, my love, please don't say that.”

  “Then make the choice that is right for us,” she insisted. “If he's well enough to do chores, he can do chores for the company. They have ample money. We don't. You've done quite enough for the man, and you're a hero for that. Surely others can see fit to do their part?”

  “But if the others don't?”

  She gazed at her husband. She smiled. “Perhaps I say this because it's a woman's custom to submit to some higher will. There's control and then there is the illusion of that control. And sometimes you men can be so charmed by that illusion. Why don't we just fret over what the others do, or don't do, when we have to?”

  TEN

  THROUGHOUT THE WINTER ALEXIS CONTINUED his slow recovery. Some days, after Beaumont awakened him for the morning dressing change, he would gulp spoonfuls of broth and bites of bread and then collapse back onto his cot and sleep for hours, rising only to relieve himself in a chamber pot. On good afternoons, he walked back and forth across the hospital floor with the aid of his cane, counting off the number of turns he took. Then he began to walk without the cane. Beaumont brought him a new pair of boots and a pair of woolen stockings that Deborah had knitted. By February, Alexis was able to take slow walks in the snow.

  Though the wound still extruded occasional bits of matter, his injuries, with the exception of the hole into his stomach, were firmly scarred. The hole had changed little since the sixth week after the shooting. It was some two and a half inches around, and food and drink constantly exuded unless prevented by a tent of lint, soft compress and elastic bandage. The wound
was nearly painless except for a thin rim of tissue between the muscles of the ribs and the coat of the stomach that was as sensitive to the touch of a fingertip or instrument as a blistered surface.

  Over the course of the winter, the routine of the dressing changes began to change. Some mornings, when the demands of Beaumont's other patients were light and he had time to spare before he dressed the wound, he would have Alexis lie flat upon his cot so that he could dangle a piece of meat into the cavity by means of a silken thread. Beaumont used a quarter-hour sandglass to measure the time it took for the flesh to dissolve. Alexis's noon meal became a source of occasional study as well. If Beaumont was present at the start of the meal and had a free hour, he would wait until Alexis finished eating, then undo Alexis's dressings to insert a siphon. He would draw off some of the gastric contents in intervals to inspect the pace and appearance of digestion, or he would just sit upon a stool and gaze into the hole.