Arm & Forearm: Revolver: Lodged Deep

The ball struck the point of your elbow, flattened, and stayed, lead and shattered joint ground together in a way no frontier surgeon can rebuild. He can dig, and splint, and pray, but the words stiff for good and take it above the joint are both spoken over you tonight.

• Arm splinted straight and bound to the body, useless for 7 days
• Laudanum haze, slow, dreamy and unfit to ride alone for 2 days
• A grinding heat in the joint at any jostle
• /me lies still under the laudanum, the splinted arm bound across the chest like a broken wing

Recovery 7 days splinted under a doctor before anyone knows what the arm will be, untreated, gangrene decides·Doctor, urgently

The ball struck your upper arm bone and pancaked flat against it, cracking the humerus and stopping cold. The doctor went in after it with probe and long forceps while two men held you down, it came out shaped like a bottle cap with grit of bone stuck to it.

• Arm splinted for 7 days, no shooting, roping or lifting with it
• The extraction cut stitched wider than the wound, doubling the scar
• A bone-deep ache in the cold of morning

Recovery 7 days splinted and dressed under a doctor, left in, the cracked bone sours around the lead·Doctor, urgently

The ball burrowed deep and came to rest against the nerve cord that runs your hand, the fingers went dark the moment it settled. The extraction was an hour of probing agony, and when the lead lifted off the nerve your hand came back tingling like a leg slept on wrong.

• Gun hand numb and clumsy for 4-5 days, no shooting, dealing or fine work
• Burning pins and needles at random hours
• An incision scar the length of a thumb up the inner arm

Recovery 4-5 days as the nerve wakes with a doctor's care, left in, the hand might have stayed dark·Doctor, urgently

The ball drove deep along the inside of your arm and nestled near the big vessels, too deep to leave and too close to cut careless. The doctor worked by lamplight with a spoon-tipped probe, sweating more than you, and the ball came free with a wet click and blood the color of church wine.

• Arm slung tight for 5 days
• Nothing heavier than a tin cup in that hand for 3 days
• Sweating chills through the first night
• /me lies rigid on the table, eyes fixed on the lamp, while the probe goes looking

Recovery 5 days slung with daily dressing, and no honest answer for what leaving it would have cost·Doctor, urgently

The ball went in at the meat of the upper arm and hid, the doctor probed once, twice, three times before steel finally clicked on lead. Every pass of the probe felt like being shot again, only slower.

• The entry cut wider for the forceps and stitched with silk
• Arm slung for 3-4 days
• A fever watch the first night, cool by morning

Recovery 3-4 days slung with carbolic dressings, 6 and a fever gamble without the extraction·Doctor required

No laudanum in the bag and the ball had to come out, so they gave you a doubled belt to bite and two friends to hold your shoulders. It took the doctor a quarter hour of forceps work; the belt shows every tooth you own.

• Hand-shaped bruises where they held you down, sore for 2-3 days
• Wound packed with lint, dressed daily for 3 days
• Hoarse for a day from a scream you will deny
• /me spits out the doubled belt and stares at the flattened ball in the dish

Recovery 3 days of dressing changes, 5-6 and a hot fever if it had stayed in·Doctor required

The forceps found the ball quick enough, but it had carried a wad of your sleeve down with it and the doctor had to go back in for the cloth. What lead misses, cotton festers, he flushed the pocket with carbolic until it ran clean.

• Wound left part-open to drain for 3 days, seeping honest
• A low fever the first two nights
• The flattened ball and the scrap of sleeve, kept in a matchbox

Recovery 4 days draining under a doctor's care, a stitched-over rag would have gone gangrenous in a week·Doctor required

Dug from the muscle of the forearm on a kitchen table, whiskey for the doctor and whiskey for the wound. Steel scraped lead twice before the grip held, and out it came, dragging a thread of your shirt behind it.

• Forearm bound wrist to elbow for 3 days
• Grip weak, no rope work or hammering for 3 days
• A puckered coin of a scar with a stitch line through it

Recovery 3 days bound with care, 5 stubborn ones and a hotter wound without·Doctor required

The ball spent most of its manners on your coat and only dug a finger-deep pocket into the muscle. The doctor pinned it with the probe on the first pass and levered it out whole, round as the day it was cast.

• Sling for 2 days
• An ache raising the arm for 3 days
• /me rolls the little lead ball across the bar top like a lucky marble

Recovery 2-3 days slung and dressed, 4-5 if you dig it out yourself with a knife and pride·Doctor advised

Caught and held in the thick of the biceps like a stone thrown into mud. It came out with one clean cut and a squeeze of the doctor's thumbs, simple as coring an apple, simple for him, anyhow.

• No lifting past a saddle blanket for 3 days
• Stitches pull when the arm bends
• A blue-black bruise blooming wide around the entry

Recovery 3 days with the stitches minded, 5 without·Doctor advised

The ball lodged shallow between the bones of your forearm, and the doctor dug it clear in ten unhurried minutes. Your grip mislikes the whole affair and says so whenever you close a fist.

• Grip weak and complaining for 2-3 days, shots go wide, knots go sloppy
• Forearm wrapped for 3 days
• An itching stitch line you are forbidden to scratch

Recovery 2-3 days wrapped and rested, 4 fumble-fingered ones without·Doctor advised

The ball settled tight against the bone where digging would do more harm than leaving it, and the doctor sat back and said the old words: you will carry it. It aches ahead of rain already, a little lead barometer sunk in your arm.

• A deep dull ache for 3 days as the pocket closes
• The arm stiffens ahead of every turn in the weather
• An entry scar with an ounce of lead beneath and no exit to match

Recovery 3 days of soreness while the wound seals over its new tenant, 5 if it is not kept clean·Doctor advised

Fired from far enough that the ball barely buried itself, sitting in the muscle like a stone in a plum. The doctor thumbed the flesh, made a half-inch cut, and squeezed it out into the dish with a clink.

• A half-inch cut with two stitches, tender for 2 days
• A bruise spreading wider than the wound
• The ball wiped clean and riding in your vest pocket

Recovery 2 days minding the stitches, 3-4 if a dirty thumbnail does the surgery instead·Doctor advised

You can see it, a blue-grey lump riding under the skin of your forearm where the spent ball stopped. One nick of a clasp knife held over a match and it popped free like a watermelon seed.

• A nick of a cut under a plaster for 1-2 days
• A bruise in ugly colors and no depth at all
• /me presses the little lump under the skin, watching it slide, grinning unwell

Recovery A day or two either way, wash the nick and forget it·No doctor needed

The ball was nearly done when it found you, sinking only half its width into the meat below your shoulder. The doctor plucked it out with his fingers like a splinter and charged you full price anyway.

• A shallow crater scabbing over for 2 days
• Sore as a fresh vaccination to any poke
• The flattened ball kept anyway, ugly as it is

Recovery 2 days scabbing, treated or not, the whiskey on it stings worse than the wound·No doctor needed

The ball split on a stone before it reached you, and only a ragged half of it had the legs to bite into your arm. The fragment came out with tweezers and a curse apiece.

• A ragged little cut under a plaster for 1-2 days
• A jagged scar the size of a fingernail moon
• Sore to a squeeze for a day

Recovery A day or two, treated or not, keep it clean and it is a story by Sunday·No doctor needed

Spent through a plank door before it found you, the ball barely broke the skin and hung there in the shallow of it like a tick. You flicked it loose yourself with a thumbnail; the bruise beneath is the true injury.

• A deep-colored bruise, sore for 2 days
• A scab no bigger than a bootlace eyelet
• /me flicks the spent ball loose with a thumbnail and catches it midair

Recovery 2 days for the bruise either way, there is nothing left in you to treat·No doctor needed

The ball spent itself through the crowd and the cold air and finally hung up in the doubled wool of your rolled coat sleeve, pressing a coin of a welt into your forearm without ever breaking skin. You picked it out of the wool like a burr.

• A round welt, tender for a day
• A lead pip in the coat sleeve's weave till you dig it out
• You flex the arm all evening to be sure it is whole

Recovery A day of tenderness, nothing under the skin but luck·No doctor needed

It struck at the very end of its run, lodged loose in the skin of your arm for one burning heartbeat, then dropped out into the dust when you clapped a hand to the spot. You have the ball; the arm has a nick, a bruise, and no further complaint.

• A nick and a bruise, sore for a day
• The flat ball on a thong or in a pocket by nightfall
• The retelling grows a hand-clap flourish every time

Recovery A day, treated or not, the dust took more hurt than you did·No doctor needed

The ball came in true for your forearm and met your heavy leather work cuff instead, burying itself in the hide a hair short of your skin. You unlaced the cuff, shook the flattened ball into your palm, and offered to sell it back to the man who fired it.

• A hot red pressure mark under the cuff, gone by morning
• The cuff wears its lead like a medal, you have checked it is real four times
• /me shakes the flattened ball out of the leather cuff and holds it up to the light

Recovery Nothing to heal, the cuff took the wound and the story pays for the drinks·No doctor needed