elbows and a red bow tie with little white polka dots. His glasses had thick lenses, so that his eyes loomed huge and blue behind them. His gray hair was ruffled, as if from a strong wind.
“I’m Dr. Pfeiffer,” he said, addressing Sid. “Is this your son?”
“No. Just a—” Sid fumbled for the right word.
“He’s with me,” Sister Eve said. “One of my young workers from the Sword of Gideon Healing Crusade.”
The doctor’s gray eyebrows lifted in a way that made me understand exactly what he thought of Sister Eve and her healing crusade. But he said, “A rattlesnake bite. You’re sure.”
“Quite sure,” Sister Eve said.
“On your calf, son?” the doctor said, finally giving his attention to Albert.
“Yes, sir.”
Albert turned his leg so that the doctor could see the two bleeding wounds. Although it hadn’t been long since Lucifer had plunged his fangs into my brother, the skin around the wounded area was already black and swollen, with poison-looking tendrils climbing upward toward his knee and down toward his ankle.
“He needs antivenom,” Sid said.
“Antivenom,” the doctor said in a dead echo. “Mr.—?”
“Calloway. Sid Calloway.”
“Mr. Calloway, we haven’t had a rattlesnake bite in Sioux County in decades. The rattlesnakes, if there ever were any here, were driven out a long time ago. So far as I know, there isn’t any antivenom anywhere in these parts. You’re sure it was a rattlesnake?”
“Believe me, it was a rattlesnake. And how do you know there’s no antivenom?”
“Because a rattlesnake bite around here would be news, and I’d know if someone had proper treatment for it. But I’ll have Sammy make some phone calls.” He turned to the young woman in pants. “Try the De Coster Surgical Hospital in Mankato. See if they can offer any help.” He turned back to examining Albert’s leg. “Maybe we can get some of that poison out,” he finally said.
He went to the stainless-steel table, opened the top drawer, and pulled out a scalpel. From the cabinet, he drew down one of the bottles of medication and held the scalpel above the sink while he poured the contents of the bottle over the blade. He took a white towel from a stack sitting on the table, folded it in half, and returned to Albert.
“Roll onto your stomach, son.” When my brother had done so, the doctor said, “This is going hurt some, okay?”
“Okay,” Albert said.
Dr. Pfeiffer slid the folded towel under Albert’s leg, then made two incisions that formed a V between the fang marks, and blood ran freely down the skin of my brother’s calf. Pfeiffer went back to the table and from another drawer took out what looked like a syringe without a needle and a small glass bulb with a rubber tube attached. He plugged the syringe device into the end of the tube, set the glass bulb firmly over the incisions he’d made, and began pumping the syringe, which sucked the air from inside the little glass bulb, creating a vacuum. The bulb filled with blood and, we hoped, snake venom, and when the doctor pulled it loose, the dark red mixture gushed down onto the folded towel. The doctor repeated the procedure three times, and in the end, the towel was a soaking, bloody mess.
On completion of the last procedure, as Pfeiffer was treating the wounded area with iodine—which made Albert grit his teeth and groan—the young woman returned. “They’ve got nothing. But they suggested I call the Winona General Hospital. There are still rattlers in the bluff country and they treat snakebites from time to time. So I called and explained our situation. They’re sending someone in a car with antivenom.”
“Winona,” Dr. Pfeiffer said, in a tone that didn’t sound promising. “That’ll take four or five hours. Did they have any suggestions what to do in the meantime?”
“Try suctioning out the poison and keep him calm.”
“That’s it?” He studied Albert’s black, swelling calf, and his eyes behind those thick lenses were huge blue pools of doubt. He taped gauze over the wounds and said, “Get him into the observation room, Sammy, and make him comfortable. I want to talk to Winona General myself.”
Sid and Mose supported my brother, who could barely walk now, and followed the woman with pants and a man’s name down a short hallway to a room with a bed, where Albert lay down. Despite the summer heat, he was shaking something awful, and Sammy put a light blanket over him.
A few minutes later, Pfeiffer appeared at the doorway and