Arrow: Chest & Ribs

The arrow went in below the collarbone and did not stop until it found the lung. Air whistles through the wound with every breath, pink froth gathers at your lips, and the doctor drops all ceremony: he draws the shaft, slaps a square of oilcloth over the hole, and binds it airtight with lard and linen. Whether the lung fills again or you drown quiet in your own blood is now a matter between you and Providence, and Providence keeps its own counsel.

• Bedridden and propped upright on bolsters, no lying flat, no standing unaided for 5 days
• Speak only in short phrases, no shouting, no riding, no exertion of any kind for 2 weeks
• The oilcloth patch must be checked and re-sealed by a doctor daily for the first 4 days
• /me breathes in shallow sips, lips faintly pink with froth, one hand pressed over the sealed wound

Recovery A month abed and upright before the lung holds air on its own, longer before any hard work.·Doctor, urgently

The head slid between two ribs and nicked the lining of the lung before it stopped. The wound outside is neat, almost polite, but your breath comes shorter by the hour, and the doctor's ear against your chest hears the dullness of blood pooling where air should be. He draws the arrow, seals the hole, and sits you bolt upright to let the lung fight for its space, whiskey for you and prayer for him.

• Sat upright day and night, sleeping propped against a wall or headboard for 6 days
• No riding faster than a walk, no lifting, no bending at the waist for 10 days
• Any new shortness of breath or gray in the lips goes straight back to the doctor
• /me sits bolt upright and pale, taking careful half breaths against the strapped ribs

Recovery Two to three weeks upright and idle before the breath comes back full.·Doctor, urgently

You went down with the shaft standing proud, and the ground snapped it off flush and drove the head a knuckle deeper. The doctor cannot grip what he cannot see, so he opens a channel with the scalpel, follows the splintered wood down to the iron, and levers it out along with a flake of broken rib. The hole he leaves is worse than the arrow made, but it is empty, and empty is what saves you.

• The incision is packed and must be dressed fresh every day for 5 days, watch for the red streaks of infection
• A broken rib beneath: no lifting more than a coffee pot, no twisting the trunk for 2 weeks
• Laudanum measured at night only, expect short temper and shorter sleep
• /me holds the left arm clamped to the ribs, moving like a man carrying a full glass

Recovery The cut closes in two weeks, the rib knits in six, the temper somewhere after that.·Doctor, urgently

The arrow struck you square over the heart and the breastbone turned it, cracking under the blow like a plank under a maul. The head skated sideways and tore free through the muscle, leaving a ragged gouge and a bone that grinds when you cough. The doctor stitches the tear with silk, binds your chest board-flat, and observes that had it landed a finger to either side you would not be here to listen to him complain.

• Every cough and sneeze must be braced with a pillow or folded coat hugged to the chest for 3 weeks
• No pushing, pulling, or raising the arms above shoulder height for 2 weeks
• /me stands stiff as a fence post, one forearm pressed flat over the breastbone

Recovery The gouge heals in two weeks, the cracked breastbone in a month and a half of stiff mornings.·Doctor required

The head buried itself in the rib proper, seated in the bone like an axe in a stump. No amount of pulling will free it, so the doctor cuts the flesh back, braces a boot against the table, and works the iron loose with a slow twisting you will hear again in your sleep. The rib holds, gouged but whole, and he packs the wound with carbolic lint and calls you lucky in a tone that suggests otherwise.

• The gouged rib aches with weather and effort: no hauling, hammering, or hard riding for 10 days
• Wound packed with lint and redressed every other day, no soaking in creek or bath for a week
• /me presses a palm flat to the ribs when laughing, and tries hard not to laugh

Recovery Ten days of careful movement, a month before the rib forgets the iron.·Doctor required

It was a barbed head, and barbs do not come back the way they went in. The doctor lays a scalpel along the shaft, opens the wound wider on both sides, and draws the whole cruel business out slow while you bite a leather strap flat. It cost you a wider scar and a longer bleed than the arrow itself ever intended, but nothing inside was touched that will not mend.

• Eight silk stitches across the ribs: no stretching tall, no reaching across the body for 8 days
• The wound bleeds if provoked, keep the dressing dry and change it daily for 5 days
• /me works a shoulder in slow circles, testing the pull of fresh stitches over the ribs

Recovery Stitches out in eight or nine days, the scar a lifelong conversation piece.·Doctor required

The shaft hit at an angle and the rib took the worst of it, snapping clean while the head hung up in the muscle above. The doctor draws the arrow without ceremony, but the rib is the true patient: every breath measures it, every cough files a complaint. He binds you snug, prescribes shallow living for a fortnight, and warns that a rib ignored is a lung imperiled.

• One rib broken clean: no running, wrestling, or riding at speed for 2 weeks
• Sleep on the unbroken side and rise by rolling, not by sitting up straight, for 10 days
• /me breathes at half depth, wincing at the catch midway through each breath

Recovery The puncture closes inside a week, the rib takes a month and a half to knit true.·Doctor required

The head drove deep into the meat between two ribs and stopped a finger short of anything that matters. What it lacks in danger it makes up in blood: the wound wells steady until the doctor draws the shaft, flushes the track with carbolic that burns worse than the arrow did, and closes it in silk. You will keep the arrowhead, he says. You earned it.

• Deep muscle wound between the ribs: no drawing a bow, swinging an axe, or throwing rope for 8 days
• The track was flushed deep and will weep, dress it fresh each morning for 5 days
• /me flexes the torso gingerly, one hand guarding the stitched place between the ribs

Recovery A week of guarded movement, full strength back in the side inside three.·Doctor required

The arrow came in at a shallow slant, met a rib, and ran along it like a plow finding a stone, opening a furrow a hand long across your side before it flew on. Bloody, dramatic, and mercifully honest: everything it damaged is in plain sight. Cleaned with whiskey, drawn shut with a dozen stitches, and pronounced the best bad luck the doctor has seen this month.

• A stitched furrow along the ribs: no twisting at the waist or sleeping on that side for 5 days
• Keep the stitches dry, no swimming or bathing past the waist for a week
• /me tugs the shirt away from a long stitched line along the ribs

Recovery Stitches out in a week, a fine white line along the rib for good.·Doctor advised

You turned at the last instant and the arrow took the loose flesh along your ribs clean through, in one side and out the other like thread through cloth, never touching bone. Two holes, one channel, no arrowhead to dig for: the doctor calls it the tidiest arrow wound a man can buy, runs a carbolic-soaked wick through the track, and stitches both doors shut.

• Two stitched punctures along the flank: no heavy lifting or long days in the saddle for 6 days
• Both wounds dressed daily, any heat, swelling, or red streaking goes back to the doctor at once
• /me favors one side, elbow held close over the twin dressings on the flank

Recovery Both holes close within ten days if the fever keeps its distance.·Doctor advised

The arrow was near spent when it found you, and your coat and vest killed the rest of its ambition. It rapped off your ribs like a knuckle on a door, no blood at all, but the deep ache blooming by evening says a rib is cracked or at least gravely insulted. The doctor prods, nods, wraps, and remarks that the arrow is the only party to leave this unbruised.

• A cracked or badly bruised rib: no laughing fits, heavy lifting, or loping gaits for 10 days
• Brace the chest with a folded blanket when the wagon road turns rough
• /me shifts in the saddle by careful inches, sparing the bruised ribs

Recovery Sore for two weeks, honest again in four.·Doctor advised

The head buried itself a thumb-joint deep in the muscle over your breastbone and stopped, out of ideas. The doctor grips the shaft with pliers, sets his other palm flat on your chest, and pulls it free in one motion you feel in your teeth. A carbolic wash, two stitches, and the observation that your chest is apparently harder than your head.

• Two stitches over the breastbone: no bearing loads against the chest and no rifle recoil for 5 days
• The muscle is bruised deep, expect reaching and pushing to complain for a week
• /me rubs absently at the small dressing in the center of the chest

Recovery A week of tenderness, then a small scar centered like a button.·Doctor advised

The arrow crossed you shallow at an angle and tore a ragged path through the swell of the chest muscle, more rip than puncture. It bled with great enthusiasm and ruined a good shirt, but the doctor finds nothing beneath the muscle troubled. Silk sutures in a curving line, a snug dressing, and orders to keep that arm quiet before you undo his needlework.

• A stitched tear across the chest muscle: no fast pistol draws, no lifting overhead with the left arm for 6 days
• Dressing changed daily for 4 days, the arm carried tucked in the coat front when riding
• /me keeps the left arm held close, sparing the stitched chest

Recovery Stitches out in nine days, a curved scar across the chest thereafter.·Doctor advised

The broadhead kissed you in passing, slicing a shallow line across two ribs before burying itself in the corral post behind you. It is more cut than wound, the kind a barber could manage: washed with whiskey, drawn together with sticking plaster, and worth exactly one sharp intake of breath every time you forget yourself and stretch.

• A plastered cut across the ribs: no stretching tall or sudden twisting for 3 days
• Keep it dry for a couple of days so the plaster holds
• /me peels the shirt carefully away from a thin plastered cut along the ribs

Recovery Closed in five days, forgotten in ten.·Doctor advised

The arrow spent its fury on wool and canvas: through the coat, through the vest, through the shirt, and just barely into you. A puncture no deeper than a bootmaker's awl mark sits over your ribs, already done bleeding by the time you dared to look. Salve, a scrap of plaster, and a tailor's bill that will outlast the wound by a comfortable margin.

• A shallow puncture over the ribs, tender to a poke for 4 days
• Coat, vest, and shirt all want mending before the next cold snap
• /me pokes a finger through the neat hole in the coat front, whistling low

Recovery Healed over in four or five days.·No doctor needed

It grazed you at the top of its arc, scoring a welted line across the side of your chest like a switch laid on bare skin. There is a thread of blood and a sting that lively company will keep waking up for days, but nothing that needs a needle. Cold creek water, a smear of salve, and your dignity took the deeper wound.

• A raised welt across the side of the chest, sore under tight shirts for 4 days
• No leaning that side against fences, walls, or card tables for a few days
• /me hooks a thumb in the shirt to hold the cloth off a welted graze

Recovery A welt for a week, a faint mark for a fortnight, then nothing.·No doctor needed

You heard the thump before you felt it: a spent arrow, loosed from too far, struck your chest broadside through the heavy coat and dropped at your feet like a scolded dog. No skin broken. By nightfall a bruise the size of a horseshoe sits over your ribs, and you keep the arrow as evidence that somebody out there owes you an apology.

• A deep horseshoe bruise on the chest, no sleeping face-down for 5 days
• Deep breaths and big laughs come with a twinge for a week
• /me opens the shirt a button to show off a truly spectacular purple bruise

Recovery Purple to green to yellow to gone inside two weeks.·No doctor needed

The arrow struck your chest square and stuck there, quivering, and your heart went ahead and stopped on its own account. But it hangs strange, too loose, and when you open the coat you find the head buried in the folded letter riding in your breast pocket, its point just dimpling the skin beneath. Whoever wrote those pages saved your life without knowing it, and the letter now wears the hole to prove it.

• A pinprick dimple over the breastbone, tender for a day or two
• The letter is pierced clean through and arguably now worth framing
• /me unfolds a letter with an arrowhead-shaped hole through every page

Recovery Nothing to heal but the nerves, give those a quiet evening.·No doctor needed

You turned side-on as it arrived and the arrow passed through the flare of your open coat, snatching the cloth back and pinning it, and you, to the barn wall like a note left for the morning crew. The scratch it drew across your ribs on the way through would embarrass a barn cat. You had to be cut loose from your own coat, which everyone present found funnier than you did.

• A shallow scratch along the ribs, stings under a hot wash for 2 days
• The coat carries a clean arrow slit and a story that grows taller with each telling
• /me wiggles a finger through the arrow slit in the coat, unamused

Recovery The scratch fades in three days, the joke never will.·No doctor needed

The archer's aim was perfect, and that is the miracle: dead over your heart, full draw, close range. The arrow struck the pocket watch riding in your vest, burst the case, bent the head near double, and knocked you flat with your heart still beating on the wrong side of the ruined works. The watch reads the exact minute you did not die. Men will buy you drinks for a year on this story, and every word of it is true.

• A watch-shaped bruise over the heart, tender for 5 days
• The wind was knocked clean out of you, take the rest of the day at a walk
• The burst watch and the bent arrowhead now travel in your pocket as proof
• /me holds up a burst pocket watch, a bent arrowhead resting beside it

Recovery The bruise fades in a week, the watch and the legend are permanent.·No doctor needed