Open Wound: The Tragic Obsession of Dr. William Beaumont

by Jason Karlawish

  Beaumont shrugged. “Take care of his children, I should expect. She's not our charge, that's for certain. Neither she nor those children. He's a man now. If there is one virtue he shall learn it is industriousness. As I see it, having his family here will keep him settled. They'll remind him of his responsibilities. It will make him a better man. And it will keep him here.”

  He thumped the tabletop with his forefinger.

  She stood before his chair as he looked up at her. “It will be odd having him back after all that happened, has happened.”

  He reached up and took her hands.

  “I'm sorry, Deborah, that things have not worked out as we planned. But with him here I can resume the experiments, and in time, please don't ask me how much, I'll have that book done, and with that we shall have our fortune, and I can resign this army or, better yet, have the pick of the best assignments. And the world will be a better place for our sacrifice. My book shall change the world.”

  “I know that, William. I do. I just want us to be happy. To be happy in the pursuit of happiness, if such a thing is possible, that is my prayer for us.”

  “Events are out of my control.”

  “You know what I think.”

  “Resign? Debbie, I can't simply quit.”

  “But you have your promotion. Your reputation redeemed. We've spent more than five years beyond the pale of civilization. Surely, William, you could set up a private practice in St. Louis? The city is booming. You yourself have said that a private practice there will be lucrative. It's likely to be the new American capital. So why then must we suffer here? They could just as well send us back to Mackinac. You plainly disdain the military authority on your practice. It's Alexis, isn't it?”

  “What're you saying?”

  “As long as you have your post, you can take the time to study him.”

  “When the book is published, we can leave. Until that time, I ask for your patience.”

  “It has been more than five years.”

  “That is entirely enough, woman! Private practice? An apprentice-trained physician from Vermont? I suppose I could succeed. There are all kinds of snake oil vendors up and down the Mississippi.” He waved his arms to demonstrate the vast scope of this commerce. “Even Dr. Ben Franklin worked and sacrificed before wealth was his and as he wished. Unless you have some greater plan to secure our wealth and station, I should think you should see the wisdom of patience. That is my prayer.”

  Deborah stood red faced before her husband, then turned to her washbasin.

  IN APRIL, Beaumont called upon Hercules Douseman and Joseph Rolette at their cluttered house inside the American Fur Company compound. The traders were preparing for the season of commerce with the Indians. The warehouse was stacked high and tight with goods; more goods overflowed into their house. The dogs snaked between the boxes as Douse-man led Beaumont into the room he and Joseph used as a kind of kitchen and sitting room. The place smelled of fried meat and coffee.

  Beaumont produced a letter.

  “I was wondering if I might ask a favor of the company. I'll pay, of course. This is for Theodore Mathews. He's one of your agents.”

  Douseman nodded. “Little Teddy. Up in Lower Canada.”

  “Yes, him. I could send it in the U.S. mails, but I was wondering if you can see that it gets sent with the next bateaux convoy you send up the Fox-Wisconsin waterway?”

  Douseman took the letter, inspected each side and slipped it into a pocket within his leather vest. He patted the spot.

  “We've a boat going out within the week for Green Bay. He'll have it within four weeks. You'll get your answer by June.”

  “Thank you so much, Hercules. How much do I owe you?” Beaumont reached into his coat pocket.

  “Nothing, Doctor. Put your purse away. Courtesy of the company. I know that Misters Mathews and Crooks want to see your Frenchman back with you. That fellow with the lid over his stomach. St. something.”

  Joseph Rolette was nodding. “Martin,” he announced. “Alexis St. Martin.”

  Beaumont looked from Rolette to Douseman. He stammered.

  “I didn't know.”

  “You got friends in good places,” Rolette said. “We'll see that you get your man. There's not a brigade in the entire Upper Mississippi that will hire him. He's as good as yours. Your man.” He dropped his jaw and let out a great guffaw of laughter.

  THIRTY

  AROUND NOON ON THE 29TH OF JUNE, 1829, a clerk from the American Fur Company interrupted Beaumont at his work bandaging a soldier's leg wound.

  “Mr. Douseman sends me to tell you, Doctor, that the reply to your letter has arrived.”

  “Well then, hand it over.”

  Beaumont held out his right hand. He snapped his fingers.

  “At your house, sir. Mr. Douseman says they're there waiting for you.”

  Beaumont lowered his hand.

  “They are here?” but he did not hear the sullen clerk's reply. “Badger,” he called. The lad turned from his work rolling bandages.

  “Sir?”

  “Can you finish with this dressing here? I'll be back by the by, or tomorrow.”

  Beaumont had risen and was making to wash his hands in the basin. The soldier with the wounded leg lay propped up on his elbows. He looked at the clerk. The clerk shrugged his narrow shoulders. Then the soldier looked to Badger.

  “Tomorrow, sir, is Sunday, sir,” said Badger.

  “It is. I'll see you Monday then. You have the day as we discussed.”

  “Yes sir. Thank you, sir.”

  ALEXIS WAS RECOGNIZABLE even from behind, even with his straight black hair tied into a ponytail. He had the same broad shoulders and long arms and slender waist.

  He must have seen Deborah's relieved smile when she spied her husband, for he turned to see his doctor striding toward them. Deborah, Sarah and Lucretia, Alexis and beside him a short woman in a kind of loose-fitting, knee-length dress tied up with a length of cord around her waist. The ends of the cord were braided and beaded and knotted to keep from fraying. She was holding a moon-faced infant in her left arm and waving her right hand to shield it from the sun and keep the flies from its face. A small boy clung to her skirts.

  As Beaumont approached them he felt his pulse quicken and his face warm. He was thinking that at least one year had passed since he had done any reading of substance on the physiology of gastric digestion, and there was much reading still to do.

  “Mon Docteur Beaumont.”

  Had he grown? Perhaps an inch or two. He seemed more a man now.

  “Alexis. Alexis St. Martin.”

  They grasped hands.

  “Welcome to Prairie du Chien.”

  “Thank you, Doctor.”

  They still shook hands.

  “Alexis. This is a surprise. We did not know you were to arrive. It was only this past April when I wrote Mr. Mathews. We thought we'd be in . . .” he hesitated. “But never mind. Now here you are. Here.”

  Alexis nodded, grinned.

  “I am. Thank you, Doctor. Thank you. I am at your services.”

  Beaumont finally released his grip and looked to Deborah. He wiped his brow with his sleeve.

  “When did they arrive?”

  She smiled at Alexis as she spoke.

  “Just a few minutes ago they came up with one of Mr. Douseman's clerks. The boy from New Orleans.”

  A wheelbarrow stood nearby, piled high with two trunks and several canvas-wrapped bundles tied with the same cord that Marie wore as a belt. Alexis nodded vigorously and pointed to the barrow.

  “We've just had the chance to talk before you came. Let me introduce you to Marie St. Martin,” Deborah continued.

  The small woman who stood behind Alexis blushed at the sound of her name.

  Beaumont looked at the child clinging to her legs. The barefoot boy could not have been more than five years old and was dressed in a kind of smock that reached below his knees. The garment was filthy. The child's face was tanned
and his eyes nearly obscured beneath his straight bangs. Flies swirled about him. They swirled about everyone.

  Alexis held out his arm in a gesture of presentation.

  “Dr. Beaumont, my savior, I would like to make a present to you of my Marie. Marie, this is Dr. Beaumont.” Then he chattered quickly and quietly to her in French.

  She stepped forward tentatively.

  “She speak no English,” Alexis announced, his own accented English drawing out the i like a long sharp e.

  Beaumont took her small hand. Her face was round and pox marked, and she wore her hair parted down the middle and pulled back into a kind of bun, though several strands hung free and were stuck with sweat to her temples and cheeks. She could not be more than twenty years old.

  “Hello, Marie. Welcome to Prairie du Chien. Welcome. I am Dr. Beaumont, and you have met my wife, Deborah, and my children, Sarah and Lucretia.”

  He pointed to each as he pronounced their names.

  Marie looked at him with large brown eyes.

  “Allo, Docteur Beaumont,” she whispered and managed a kind of curtsy.

  Alexis leaned down to the boy who still clung to his wife's skirts.

  “And this is Alexis, my son. He is four years old.”

  He held up four fingers to more clearly demonstrate the child's age.

  “And this is Charles. Born just this past fall.” He stroked the infant's cheek as he gazed at him. “He traveled well.”

  Marie turned to her husband and chattered in rapid French. Her husband replied forcefully, but she cut him off, gesturing with her chin to the infant Charles. Alexis ignored her and turned to Deborah.

  “Where is little William?”

  Deborah cleared her throat. “The child is not with us anymore,” she said.

  Beaumont stepped close to Alexis and put his hand upon his bony shoulder. It felt as thin as it had some five years ago.

  “This child died. In the winter four years ago.”

  Alexis frowned. “I am so, so . . .”

  It was Deborah who spoke up.

  “Alexis, Marie needs some milk for Charles, no? Milk? Du lait? The children look hot and tired. Let's get them something to eat and drink. Come.” She signaled that everyone should follow her into the house.

  IT WAS EARLY EVENING when Beaumont returned home from the hospital. Around sunset, a great wind swept in, and the massive clouds that had gathered in the east blew in over the prairie, and within minutes great drops began to slap the hard-packed road. Soon a wall of rain poured down. Beaumont would have lingered in the hospital until it passed, such showers always did, and he had much work still to do, but it was long past his supper. He was hungry and lonely for his family. He picked up a square of planking from the side of the road and held it above his head. The villagers ran to gather up laundry and other implements. A band of some fifteen Winnebago braves, well covered under animal hides they draped over their heads and shoulders, watched them. They were part of some five hundred who had come up from Rock Island for the great council.

  As these braves passed, some of them eyeing him coldly and steadily, he recited to himself a line from a poem the salon had read in Fort Howard. 'Tis war alone that gluts the Indian's mind, as eating meat inflames the tiger kind. The articles and covenants and treaties and presents were ceremonies of war. He missed Mackinac Island for its order, the separation of the Indians from the white men and its isolation from the Western frontier's passions. It was good that he had allowed Alexis to bring his family here. They would keep him settled and contain his wild and uncultivated habits.

  He stood in the doorway of his house, dripping from the waist down. Deborah and Sarah came laughing to his aid. They helped him pull off his muddied boots and rain-soaked trousers. Deborah wiped one boot clean while Sarah held the other boot, intently watching her mother. They set the boots and clothes to dry before the stove, and Sarah sang a song about the rain.

  When he returned from the bedroom wearing dry clothes, Deborah had already taken out his plate from the warmer and placed it at his place at the table. She, Sarah and Lucretia were seated nearby on the floor, their dresses spread out like flowers in full bloom. The girls were playing with dolls. Deborah was working on her needlepoint. He sat, lifted his brocaded napkin from the plate and took up his fork and knife. After a time, he set down his fork and watched his wife and daughters.

  “Rain was so bad it fairly poured into the hospital. I need to tell Colonel Taylor to dispense with the repairs to the roof. They ought to simply tear that thing down and build a new one. Makes no sense to use lumber on that roof what with how scarce lumber is. I can wait a few more months.”

  Deborah nodded. “Marie was here after you left.”

  “When? This afternoon?”

  Deborah nodded.

  “And?”

  “She needed more milk for the children and brought some kind of bread she wanted to bake in our oven.”

  “And a mop and a bucket.” Sarah told her parents that Mrs. Martin wanted to clean her house.

  Deborah blushed. “I lent her a mop as well. That old one that was here when we arrived. And one of our buckets. The leaky one. I'll fetch them back on Monday.”

  Beaumont looked over at the oven.

  “But she doesn't speak a word of English.”

  “She carried an empty pitcher and a bowl full of dough, and her gestures are fairly demonstrative. She's not as shy as she seems, you know.”

  He nodded.

  Deborah guided Sarah over to the washbasin in the children's bedroom. She returned cradling Lucretia and stood before her husband.

  “I know you'll get the mop and bucket back,” he said to her. “You know, on the walk over to the Reynards' she was chattering like a jaybird to Alexis. The Indians seem to have her worked up. I don't think she's seen them before, at least not in these numbers and these wilder kind. There's a whole band of Chippewas come up from Rock Island, and that's not even the half of them. I'll speak with Alexis about the milk and the stove. Their rooms have a kitchen that's theirs to use as they wish. I showed it to them when I dropped them off. It's a perfectly acceptable stove, and they can buy or trade for milk just like the rest of us. He was a lad in Mackinac, but he's a grown man now, and it's his duty to learn to be independent of our charity. Man to man is how it shall be between us. He gets a salary.”

  “How is he?”

  “He looks thinner, but he's clearly in reasonable constitution. That journey was what, some two thousand miles, and they made it in three weeks. Of course, most of it's over water, and those bateaux move quickly. He said he helped with the rowing, said it reminded him of his days as a voyageur.”

  He pushed his plate away. “I'm sorry about his remark about Little William.”

  “How could he have known? I meant how is his side? You know.” She held her right hand over the place on her own body.

  “I haven't had occasion to examine him yet. As soon as I dropped them off at the Reynards' I had to return to the hospital.” He exhaled heavily and began rubbing his eyes. “The Second Regiment is due soon, and I want to have things in order. I've so many cases now I simply can't keep track of them, and Badger asked for tomorrow off, so I've got to go in tomorrow as well. These rains and crowds of Indians and soldiers mean the fevers will surely come, and Burnett is hounding me to talk to Colonel Taylor about prohibiting the sale of whiskey to the Indians. Can you believe that? Might as well order the rain not to fall. Douseman and Rolette want the man run out, but it turns out Burnett knows President Jackson. The two of them rode circuit together in Tennessee. Imagine that, Burnett knew Andrew Jackson. It promises to be a busy, busy summer.

  “But don't worry, if the hole isn't there or Alexis isn't amenable to proper experiments, I'll pack them all up in the next bateau and have them shipped back to Lower Canada.”

  THE ROOMS AT PIERRE REYNARD'S were set in an outer building built in the last century. Its mud bricks were melting, and several stones had spalled and burs
t from their mortar. The living space consisted of one stone-floored room with a sand-floored kitchen space in one corner, and one other low-ceilinged room that served as a bedroom. There was a table, several chairs and crates, and along the walls shelving and mounted peg boards. The windows, all four of them, were covered with oiled cloth. The doorway into the large room was wide and closed by a double door that swung upon great iron hinges. The air smelled of horses. The stones in the northeast corner floor were darkened with dampness.

  By Saturday evening, after a meal of beans, bread and catfish and with the children put to bed, Marie St. Martin had drawn up a list of the items they required to make the space habitable.