Dawn of the Golden Promise (59 page)

He lowered his hands and began to tap his fingers on the desk. “A procedure such as I am suggesting to you will not be widely performed, at least in this country, for years to come. But I am not willing to wait until I am a palsied old man to attempt what I already know can be accomplished.”

The uneasiness that had been circling about Morgan since Gunther had begun to speak now swooped down like a hungry vulture and began to peck at him in earnest. “Why—what makes you so certain you can perform such a surgery?”

Gunther seemed to bristle. “I have seen it done, on the Continent. By somewhat primitive methods to be sure, but I
have
seen it. I have observed, and I have learned. I can do the surgery, I assure you, Mr. Fitzgerald.”

He paused, again turning that unsettling iron stare on Morgan. “What I cannot assure is its success. There are any number of possibilities, most of them unpleasant. You might awaken with the paralysis extended to your upper extremities. You might not awaken at all. If you do survive, you will surely suffer. In addition, there is no guarantee that you will walk. There has been considerable atrophy of your muscles by now—and there will be even more during recovery. As yet we cannot know the extent of nerve damage. Only your own strength of will and divine intervention—if you believe in that sort of thing—will ultimately determine whether or not you will walk.”

Morgan moistened his lips and tried to swallow, but gave it up when he found his mouth as dry as batting. “Have you no hope at all for me?” he said, his voice hoarse. “I hear no reason—no
sane
reason—to submit to such a procedure. It seems you are predicting only my doom. I am no rat on which you may ply your tricks. I am a man.”

Sandemon's hand tightened on his shoulder, but Morgan was fast losing his patience with the man across the desk from him. It did not help that any hope he might have felt before the examination was quickly being extinguished by the surgeon himself.

Jakob Gunther seemed to consider his words, then pushed back from the desk and stood, hands clasped behind his back. “How much is it worth to you, Mr. Fitzgerald? How much do you
want
to walk again?”

Morgan stared at him. The blunt question seemed in incredibly poor taste, and the words hovered between them for a long time, until they were no more than an echo in Morgan's mind.

How much indeed?

“Enough to risk what would appear to be a fairly decent quality of life at the present?” Gunther probed. “Enough to risk your very life?”

“I cannot answer such questions. Not until I have had time to consider the implications.”

Gunther looked as if he were about to dismiss them from the room, but Morgan did not intend to be put off without more information. “Explain to me, if you will, why you responded to James Dunne's correspondence in the first place. I will admit that your letters to him and to me were anything but optimistic—and what I have heard from you thus far is even less encouraging. If the risks are so great, and the possibilities of success so slight, why would you presume I would agree? It seems to me that only a madman or a fool would involve himself in such a venture, and I like to think that I am neither.”

Gunther lifted an eyebrow, the thin line of his mouth again curving in a slight smile. “Perhaps it is the surgeon who is mad. A mad surgeon on the hunt for another wild-eyed adventurer like myself. Except that what you call madness, I prefer to call boldness.”

Morgan studied him, and without any basis for his judgment came to the conclusion that Gunther was anything but mad. Prideful, cynical, perhaps without human warmth—but not mad.

“Where would you perform the surgery?” he asked abruptly.

Gunther seemed surprised by the question. After a second or two, he came round the desk and stood, his hands still locked behind his back. “At Bellevue,” he said, “for the practical reason that no other hospital in the city is willing to let me…‘ply my tricks' on their premises.” He smiled a little. “Bellevue has grudgingly allowed me to practice on the indigent and a number of the poor wretches in the insane facility. As one of the administration so delicately put it, ‘Who would care?'”

He went on then to explain something of the surgical process itself, which Morgan did not understand in the least. He did notice that Sandemon seemed to be taking it all in with some degree of comprehension.

“From what I know of your injury, Mr. Fitzgerald, and the nature of your present condition, I am inclined to believe the bullet caused a fracture in your spinal cord. There would have been severe bruising and swelling, as well as some nerve damage, which is irreversible. But the bullet itself could still be contributing to the paralysis—and, of course, could cause additional paralysis if it shifts.” He continued, sounding more as if he were explaining the process to himself than to Morgan. “After the surgery, I would immobilize you in a type of plaster cast—much like a cocoon—from the neck to mid-thigh. For how long, I cannot say as yet. Certainly for several weeks.”

Morgan flinched but said nothing. His mind rebelled against the grim details Gunther was disclosing with such clinical impassiveness. Only by sheer force of will did he make himself hear every word of the surgeon's explanation.

“Once the cast is removed—” Again the eloquent shrug, the lift of the eyebrows. “After that, we would see what we have accomplished. If anything.”

For the first time since the surgeon had begun his explanation, Morgan took in a deep breath, albeit an unsteady one.

“I will ask you again,” he said tightly. “Can you give me any hope at all?”

Gunther looked at him, his expression unreadable. “Hope? What can I tell you, Fitzgerald? Your Dublin surgeon mentioned that you are a man of great faith. So, then—perhaps the answer depends on you. How great is your faith? Men of faith often believe that hope can be found in places where others would not think to look.”

Morgan found himself strangely irritated by the surgeon's words, as if Gunther were deliberately attempting to mock him. Yet his dizzying heartbeat was finally beginning to slow, his hammering pulse ebbing to a more normal rhythm. He was starting to move past the threats implied by the surgeon's recitation to the possibilities as yet unrevealed.

He answered Gunther's question with one of his own. “What of yourself, Doctor? Are
you
a man of faith?”

The smile turned to a cynic's sneer. “Doubtless you would like me to be, eh, Fitzgerald? Then we could pray together for a miracle. If the surgery is successful, you would give credit to your God, as if I had had no part in it. Well, I am sorry, Fitzgerald, but I fear that if you decide in favor of the surgery, you will be under the knife of a heathen. There's little I believe in besides the depravity of my fellow man.”

Morgan studied the sardonic face, the mocking eyes. He did not miss the edge of bitterness in the surgeon's voice. He sensed that Jakob Gunther lived with some private pain of his own, a pain beyond the help of even the most skilled surgical hands.

“God can use the hands of a heathen just as easily as the hands of a saint,” he told Gunther in all sincerity. “He has even been known to use madmen and jackasses for His purposes now and then.”

The surgeon made no response other than to crook an eyebrow, but Morgan felt a certain satisfaction. He had at last breached the man's armor, if only slightly.

“Interestingly enough,” he went on, “that depravity of man you referred to was the very thing on which my own faith was ultimately founded. Once I recognized it in myself, that is.”

He gave the surgeon no opportunity to respond. “Thank you very much for your time, Doctor,” he said, a bit surprised that he could actually be civil to Gunther with so little effort. “I am sure you will understand that I need to consider all this very carefully. If I send you my answer by tomorrow, will that be soon enough?”

The surgeon gave a curt nod and merely stood watching Morgan as he and Sandemon turned to leave.

Outside the office, Morgan drew in a deep breath. He barely noticed the vile stench of the river, so relieved was he to escape Gunther's cold cynicism. With his response to the surgeon weighing heavily upon him, again he questioned whether he might be foolish entirely even to consider placing his life in the hands of such a man.

But there was no one else. Jakob Gunther was his best hope, perhaps his only hope. A chilling thought, but one to keep in mind as he made his decision.

It was late afternoon before they got back to Michael's house.

Inside, Sandemon wheeled him to the parlor. They came to a sharp halt just inside the door. The room teemed with people. Finola was sitting by the fire. Annie and Johanna occupied the opposite corner of the room, playing with Gabriel and Teddy. Also present, watching Morgan with anxious eyes, were Michael and Sara, Nora and Whittaker—even Daniel John.

In a moment of alarm, Morgan wondered if some tragedy had occurred in his absence. Then it dawned on him that they all seemed to be waiting for
him.
Going the rest of the way into the room, he managed to force a note of lightness into his voice. “Well, now—we have had the reunion already, and I don't see a corpse, so it must not be a wake. What, pray, is the occasion?”

They all glanced among themselves—except for Finola, whose gaze clung to his.

Michael broke the awkward silence. “The truth is, you see, none of us seemed to be of much account, anxious as we've been for your news. We thought we might just as well wait together.”

By this time, Gabriel had spotted his father and came running. Morgan lifted the boy onto his lap and gave him a squeeze, then turned his attention to the others in the room.

For an instant—and an instant only—he felt a slight edge of disappointment. All the way back from Gunther's office he had craved nothing so much as Finola's serenity, longing to talk things through with her and hear her response, knowing that no matter how she felt about the surgery, she would soothe him.

Then he realized how altogether foolish, if not selfish, he was being. Was he not a man blessed, to find a room filled with people who cared so about him? He would have his time alone with Finola later, but for now he would be with his loved ones.

Finola had risen and now came to kneel beside him, studying his face as if to read his thoughts. Morgan set Gabriel to his feet and sent him running back to Teddy and the girls, then took Finola's hand in his. He turned to the waiting faces, and with a smile that was not in the least forced, began to tell them what he had learned from Jakob Gunther.

42

In the dark night of my agony
Oh, Savior, let me turn to Thee,
Who leads me from Gethsemane
Beyond despair to victory.

ANONYMOUS

I
t was late before the parlor doors finally closed on the last visitor, later still when those left behind went to their rooms.

In their bedchamber, after making certain Finola understood his need to be alone, Morgan prepared to seek out a place of solitude.

“You will tell me…when you have made your decision?” Propped up in bed, her flaxen braid tucked neatly over one shoulder, Finola searched his eyes, all the while clinging to his hand.

Morgan noted with some concern that she looked exceedingly weary. Her eyes were shadowed, her fair skin more pale than usual.