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  Arthur came forward as Patrick walked slowly to the table. He grabbed Patrick’s arm. “Was that who I think it was?”

  Patrick nodded. “Let’s get back to the hotel. We can never tell Katherine about this. Forget it happened, if you value my friendship in the slightest.”

  On the fourth day of the hunt, a storm hit without warning. “Must have blown in from Buffalo,” said their guide, a man named Grady Middleton. Caught in the storm’s thick sheets of snow and powerful winds, the men were stuck near the top of Mount Alton, trying to work their horses down the mountain. After two of the horses fell and Arthur was thrown, Patrick yelled at Middleton, “We can’t make it. We need to find some shelter.”

  Middleton nodded back over his shoulder to Patrick and shouted, “I know a hermit’s shack nearby. Follow me.” He yanked his horse’s bridle to the left.

  As the men turned their horses toward Middleton, the two pack mules broke free and disappeared into the woods. “Damn you, Tommy,” Edward yelled. “Didn’t you tie them to your horse when the storm hit?”

  “Let them go,” Patrick yelled. “We need to stay with Grady.”

  Middleton led them to a small grove of trees that gave shelter from the wind. “Hobble the horses and rope them together,” he ordered and pointed. “Stack the saddles behind that tree.” When the horses were organized, Middleton lifted two bags of deer meat over his shoulder and pointed again, this time toward a ladder leading up a sheer dirt and stone hillside. The men strapped their saddle blankets to their backs and climbed up thirty rungs with snow blowing in their face, the wind fighting to blow them off the ladder.

  As Middleton crawled off the top rung onto the deep snow covering the small plateau, a shot rang out. He fired three quick shots into the air. “That’s my signal. We’re safe now.” The hermit Middleton had mentioned, barely five feet tall with a dirty beard hanging to his waist, came out and waved them into his shack, which was no more than four wooden walls and a pitched roof without insulation. Wind whistled through cracks and wooden shutters across windows covered with oil paper, which barely kept the snow out. The men huddled around a pot-bellied stove in the center of the room. The hermit, dressed in a ragged shirt and trousers, topped by a leather vest lined with sheep’s wool, threw some more logs on a fireplace that provided little heat to the shack.

  Grady gave a sack of deer meat to the hermit, who took it outside to a cave guarded by a large rock that prevented animals from digging their way inside. Grady emptied out the second sack and Arthur skewered the hindquarters of a young buck with a long metal spear he found by the fireplace. Grady stayed by the fire to turn the meat on the hermit’s makeshift spit. Edward, Tommy, and Arthur sat around the stove and Edward poured whiskey for each of them, Middleton and the hermit, who took his cup with a grunt and turned away.

  “Does this hermit have a well?” Patrick asked Middleton as they stood by the fireplace. “I’m very thirsty.”

  Grady pointed to the opposite wall. “Out there, round the back.”

  Patrick pulled on his overcoat and his hat. “Be right back,” he said to his friends.

  “Don’t get lost,” Edward teased.

  “I’ll keep one hand on the wall of the house,” Patrick shot back.

  Outside, the storm had not let up. Patrick rounded the corner of the house, leaning into the wind, and saw a small round stone well. When he got closer, he saw a pail on a rope covered by snow. Emptying the snow from the pail, he lowered it into the well, pulled it back up and had a long drink. He needed to urinate. There was an outhouse a few yards away, but it was not worth the walk. Opening his trousers, he turned the snow yellow. As he moved back toward the house he stopped and drank again from the pail. Comfortable now, he headed toward the warmth of the shack.

  Two hours later, Edward, Tommy and Arthur were passed out from whiskey, sleeping on their saddle blankets. The hermit was asleep on his mattress. Grady and Patrick were finishing a cup of coffee in front of the fireplace. “Why don’t you drink whiskey?” Middleton asked.

  “Haven’t had any since the war. I promised my wife I wouldn’t drink anymore.” Middleton nodded knowingly, bid Patrick good night, and the two lay down on their saddle blankets.

  In the morning the storm was gone and the men rode down the mountain back into Bradford. That evening, while his friends returned to the Royal Flush Saloon, Patrick stayed in his hotel room. He wanted no risk of seeing Patricia. Besides, he wasn’t feeling good about this trip. He tried to sleep, but was too restless. He wanted to be home and in his bed with Katherine.

  On the train ride home, however, Patrick began feeling worse. He did not leave his compartment even when the other three men played cards in the lounge car. He felt feverish, and wracked his brain to remember if he’d been bitten by something, an insect or an animal. Nothing came to mind, and as his body and brain became an inferno, he began to feel a sense of impending catastrophe.

  Chapter Twelve

  NO SECOND CHANCE

  When Patrick arrived home, Katherine was so startled by his appearance that she blurted out, “You look awful.”

  “I feel awful,” Patrick replied. “Everything hurts. My head is throbbing, I’m hot, I’m sick to my stomach. All I want to do is go to bed.”

  Katherine helped him undress and get into bed. He was like a rag doll, which particularly worried Katherine. She knew no one with more energy then her husband. She immediately sent Pollard to fetch Doctor Agnew and bring him to Patrick.

  D. Hayes Agnew arrived within the hour, always most attentive to the Donovan family. Katherine had long ago forgotten her vilification of him when her mother was dying, for she had come to revere him for his care and attention to her grandfather during his illness and death, as well as his devoted concern about Patrick’s father when he was dying from his fractured hip.

  Patrick told Agnew that he had a headache, his arms and legs felt weak and achy, and he had no appetite. When Agnew opened Patrick’s shirt, he saw red spots on his chest and abdomen. He placed his new thermometer, a six-inch long tube filled with mercury, under Patrick’s armpit and held it there for five minutes. This was a great improvement over the old thermometer, which was a foot long and needed to be held in place for twenty minutes. Patrick’s temperature was 103 degrees. Holding Patrick’s wrist, Agnew felt a slow pulse. Without any other examination, Agnew knew the diagnosis. Nearly a hundred thousand soldiers had died of this disease in the war, and it was a common infection among civilians, too.

  Doctor Agnew straightened and gravely told Patrick and Katherine that Patrick had typhoid. “About one in three patients do not survive this disease.” Katherine gasped and put her hand to her mouth, and Agnew hurriedly added, “There’s no reason I can see that he shouldn’t recover, but he will be sick for two to three more weeks.”

  When Patrick described his trip to Agnew, the doctor became convinced that the hermit’s well water was the cause of Patrick’s infection. The nearby outhouse no doubt hosted infected feces, and bacteria had traveled through underground water to the well. The hermit probably carried the Salmonella typhi bacteria. Aware of Pasteur’s recent discovery of germs, Agnew made it a point to study bacteria himself and had seen the typhoid bacteria in a microscope.

  Patrick had swallowed a billion bacteria with every drink from the pail. By now they had multiplied in his body to two trillion germs that were waging war in every one of Patrick’s organs. With typhoid the damage was particularly in the gastrointestinal tract. Agnew had seen white blood cells engulf bacteria in his microscope, and the scientists believed that they attacked the cell wall and caused the bacteria to implode. The strength of Patrick’s immune system compared to the strength and number of bacteria would determine the winner of this war.

  Agnew spelled out the treatment for Patrick. Patrick’s temperature would rise every afternoon to as high as 104 or 105 degrees. The room must be cooled to around sixty degrees. Patrick was to be immersed in a cold bath to his neck every three hours.
To minimize his dehydration, Emma or Katherine would need to continuously give him water. His stomach would be fragile, so he was to be fed broth and soft light foods.

  “He’s likely to become disoriented and even somewhat incoherent,” Agnew said to Katherine. “Since he will become incontinent, skin care is critical. Pollard should turn him every hour, or bed sores will develop and then all could be lost. His teeth may chatter and he may shiver from the high temperature, but he must be put in the bath anyway. Every three hours. After the bath, give him a small glass of cognac.”

  “Excuse me, sir,” Pollard interrupted, “but Mr. Patrick doesn’t drink any type of whiskey. He promised Mrs. Katherine.”

  Agnew thought to himself that was a shame. If Patrick drank whiskey he would not have gone out to the well. “I know of his vow, Pollard.” Agnew explained that cognac was not a whiskey. “It is medicine. A restorative for his apathy that is absolutely necessary.” Pollard nodded dubiously.

  Katherine sat numb as she listened to all these instructions, writing them on her notepad. Her sense of foreboding was so strong she could only nod her acknowledgement to Doctor Agnew.

  Agnew turned to Emma. “Patrick’s gums may turn black and his breath foul. His mouth has to be cleaned regularly with moist linen cloths. After you clean his mouth, give him this.” Agnew handed her a bottle of liquid, a mixture of iodine, potassium iodide, quinine, and aspirin. “Iodine will kill bacteria in the bowel, quinine will ease the muscle ache and aspirin will lower his temperature,” he explained.

  Finally, Agnew lectured the entire room that Patrick would develop diarrhea. He would have six to eight stools a day which were putrid and the color of pea soup. The stools were full of germs, so everyone should wash with soap and alcohol after changing the bedding or handling Patrick. The bedding and his soiled bedclothes were to be burned.

  After prescribing Patrick’s care, Agnew spent several minutes comforting Katherine and Patrick, trying to give them hope that Patrick would survive. He assured them he would return daily.

  During the first few days home, Patrick was quite good in the mornings, able to chat with Katherine and even take short walks with her. Patrick could bathe himself in the cold water. Katherine would bring the boys to visit him in the morning and after their visit Emma would bathe them thoroughly. Although the estate was quarantined, Edward came by twice to visit, as did Arthur. In the afternoons, Patrick’s mind was edgy, and his fever rose to 102 degrees and beyond. When that happened, his dizziness confined him to bed. Katherine was certain this would pass.

  The second week was dreadful. All of Doctor Agnew’s predictions came true. Patrick often lapsed into a stupor, and when awake he was delusional. His gums blackened and he developed diarrhea and incontinence. The whole house smelled foul. Pollard now carried him to the bath. Katherine and Emma forced fluids and his medicine into his throat. Katherine’s optimism turned to doubt and now she pleaded with God for this to pass. She kept reminding herself that Patrick’s body had fought off infection with his war injury and hoped that his body would prevail again.

  The beginning of the third week found Patrick totally apathetic in mind and body. Agnew proclaimed that Patrick’s life force was in its decisive crisis. Patrick’s pulse was racing now, his fever 104 or even 105 degrees. His cheeks were bluish and his eyes sunken. He picked at his bedding and occasionally would cry out for someone to get snakes off him. When Patrick fell into a coma, Agnew sat with Katherine at the bedside continuously. Patrick’s abdomen distended as his bowel was eaten through by the bacteria. Peritonitis developed. Finally, Agnew put his stethoscope on Patrick’s chest, then lowered his eyes and shook his head at Katherine.

  Hayes Agnew’s eyes were blank with helplessness as he watched Katherine’s suffering. By the age of twenty-six she had lost her mother, her father, her grandfather, and now her husband—four people who meant so much in her life. The futility of medicine sometimes tore out the doctor’s heart, squeezed it in a vice, twisted it like a pretzel, then reimplanted it in his chest, maliciously leaving him to his pain.

  Chapter Thirteen

  THE PHOENIX

  “My God, my God. You have forsaken me.” Katherine was kneeling by Patrick’s casket, alone but for Father John Daly who stood behind her. His hands rested on her shoulders, which convulsed as she sobbed.

  “He has not left you my child. You endure the suffering of Mary, the Mother of his own Son.”

  “Oh, but Father John. It is I who must bear the cross. I cannot find the strength.”

  “Katherine. God gives you the strength in Jeffrey and Jonathan. You are to raise them in their father’s image. He lives on with you every day.”

  Katherine turned her face up to her priest and he helped her stand. She hugged him and her wet cheek pressed his as he patted her back. No more words were said. Katherine kissed Patrick’s lips and the priest closed the lid of the casket. They walked to the rear of the sanctuary where Emma waited with the boys. Katherine took the hand of her toddler, lifted Jonathan into her arms, and with Emma she went to the carriage, where Pollard held open the door.

  For three days she had not slept, sitting in a chair in her bedroom. Not tended her boys. Not prayed to God. Visitors were politely sent away by Pollard “until Madame is able to receive.” Even Commodore Vanderbilt, who had always respected Donovan & Sullivan while he competed with them fiercely, was not able to speak with Katherine. Collis Huntington was in Washington D.C., fuming that the impatient President Johnson was dying for attention from the railroads, and sent word he would visit as soon as he returned to Philadelphia. Secretary of War Stanton sent a note that Katherine should always remember that the soul is immortal. None of this stirred Katherine from her bedroom.

  One visitor was entertained. Father Daly came twice a day to speak with her and make funeral arrangements. “We’ll talk, Father John, but don’t ask me to pray. I’m not on speaking terms with God.” The funeral was set for the fourth day. It was not easy finding a funeral parlor to handle Patrick’s body, even though he was a Sullivan. Fear of a contagious disease was overcome by paying triple the usual fee. The casket would be sealed shut at the Mass. The second day, Father John raised the only smile to cross Katherine’s face when in his thick Irish brogue, he told her, “I spoke with God. I have Patrick’s free pass to Heaven in hand!”

  Katherine’s lonely thoughts dwelled on Patrick. She could not get rid of the memory of his change in personality while confined to bed. She became certain his body would never be at peace in a grave, even if his soul was in Heaven. She summoned Father Daly to her bedroom. Could she cremate Patrick so his body would not be confined, she asked? She knew the Catholic Church was against cremation. Father John gave Patrick’s cremation his blessing, but only after the Mass. He told Katherine that Patrick’s body must be at the Mass so he could receive the blessings and prayers to insure resurrection. Father Daly would assist with the cremation and give it his Catholic prayers, even though he did not approve of it in general. Katherine was, he knew, a woman of God and would return to Him. But he said the ashes must be buried. Katherine promised, knowing she was lying.

  For days after the funeral, Katherine welcomed to her home a continuous stream of visitors who came to mourn Patrick and offer their services as needed. She was dressed in black with a black hat. She would remain in black whenever in public for two years, as society expected. She sat in a chair upholstered in black to receive guests. Every condolence was answered on personal stationery bordered in black with the heading Mrs. Patrick Sullivan.

  The following month, in June, Katherine told Arthur he should run the business and she took the boys to the farm, where the wildflowers were gloriously in bloom. As they romped in the meadows, laughing and shouting, Katherine thought of the long, romantic rides that she and Patrick had taken all over the farm. She had Pollard organize two graves dug on the highest point of their land, with one headstone for Patrick and one for her. Pollard’s look of fear raised a smile. “Pollar
d, I am not committing suicide, but when I die, I will rest forever by my husband.”

  When Pollard’s work was done, Katherine called Father Daly to the farm and explained what she wanted to do and then begged for forgiveness. “I know him better than you, Father John. Patrick needs to soar. Please forgive me and may your blessing on his soul be heard by God.” She assured him that Patrick’s bones—which had not been dissolved by the flames of cremation—would be buried.

  Katherine had Pollard drive her and the boys to the grave site with the urn and the box of bones. Katherine took Jeffrey by the hand and carried Jonathan as she looked over the valley below. How many times had she and Patrick ridden together down there? She had healed his spirit in their weekends here. It was his hunting grounds, his weekend warrior games. With the two boys standing at her side, she took the urn from Pollard and threw the ashes into the wind. “Now Patrick, my love, you can soar with the eagles. You can fly free over your land and be forever the warrior that you loved being. Your boys and I will know you are here whenever we come to the farm.” Pollard buried Patrick’s bones in the grave beneath his headstone.

  In the next year Katherine was most often at the farm. Riding horses into the valley was therapeutic. She could commune with Patrick. Once a week when there, she rode to the grave and took a cheese sandwich and pickles—their picnic by the brook. She left half a sandwich on Patrick’s grave. She would often take the boys, who were now three and two, and Jeffrey asked once why she left the sandwich. “Oh, it feeds the birds,” she laughed.

  Near the end of the summer of 1868, Katherine rode to the grave and sat in the sun, watching the birds fly. Are you faster than they, my love? As she sat and looked out over the valley meditating, she saw a figure walking her way.

  When it reached the foot of the hill she saw it was Emma. Worried that something was wrong with the boys, she stood and yelled, “Emma, I’m up here.” When Emma reached her she asked, “What’s wrong? Why didn’t you have Pollard bring you?”