Arrow Graze & Glance

The broadhead laid your scalp open from brow to crown, glanced along the bone with a sound you felt more than heard, and took the top of your ear on its way past. You went down and stayed down. The doctor shaves the track, picks cloth and hair from the furrow, and stitches you by lamplight with silk, but he keeps returning to the skull, pressing gently, listening. The ear cannot be put back. Whether your wits come back whole is a question the next three days will answer.

• Bedridden in a darkened room, no riding, no standing without a steadying arm for 4 days
• Head wrapped brow to crown, no hat over the dressing for 2 weeks
• Ringing ears and doubled vision, no shooting or fine work for a week
• /me lies still in the dim, eyes closed, a fresh notch dark at the top of one bandaged ear

Recovery Three days in the dark to see if the skull answers, silk out in 10 days, the ear notch is for keeps.·Doctor, urgently

The arrow drew a deep red furrow along the side of your neck, a finger's width from the great vessel, and the blood came fast enough to soak your collar before you got a hand to it. The doctor works quick and quiet, carbolic and silk, and does not talk while he ties off the little bleeders. When he finishes he tells you plainly how narrow it was, and pours you a whiskey he charges you for.

• Neck bound in a wide bandage, no turning the head sharp for 5 days, turn the whole body instead
• No shouting, no heavy lifting, and no bar fights while the silk holds, 10 days
• Collar worn open over the dressing, the blood stiffened shirt retired
• /me keeps the chin high and stiff, a wide bandage riding the side of the neck

Recovery Stitches out in 10 days, a pale rope of scar to show for it after.·Doctor, urgently

The broadhead clipped the upper curve of your ear clean through, and an ear bleeds like it holds a grudge. By the time hands got a rag to it your whole shoulder was red. The doctor trims the ragged edge square, stitches what remains with fine silk, and holds up what he cannot save between two fingers. You can keep the piece in a jar if you like. It will not grow back.

• Ear dressed and bound to the head, sleep on the other side for a week
• No hat brim resting on that ear for 10 days, wear it tipped or not at all
• Hearing on that side muffled by the dressing until it comes off
• /me tilts the head to spare a thickly bandaged ear, dried blood still in the collar seam

Recovery Silk out in 8 days, the clipped curve healed hard in a month, and shaped that way for good.·Doctor required

It plowed a furrow through your scalp above the temple and glanced off the bone hard enough to drop you where you stood. You came to in the grass with someone's thumb pressed to your head and the sky too bright to look at. The doctor shaves a strip, closes the furrow with silk, and asks you the month twice. You get it wrong the first time, and he writes something down.

• Concussed: no riding faster than a walk and no firearms for 5 days
• Bright light and noise split the head, keep to shade and quiet rooms for 3 days
• A shaved strip and a line of silk above the temple, hat worn loose or carried
• /me squints against ordinary daylight, a shaved stripe of stitched scalp above one temple

Recovery Wits settle over 5 days if kept quiet, stitches out in 9, hair covers the scar by winter.·Doctor required

The head plowed a furrow along your cheekbone, close enough to the eye that you felt the wind of it on the lashes. It bled down your collar in sheets, the way face wounds do, and looked like murder before the doctor sponged it back to what it is: a deep graze wanting silk. Six neat stitches and a carbolic wash, and a promise that you will look interesting at card tables for years.

• Six silk stitches along the cheekbone, no wide grins or big chewing for 4 days, soft food and small talk
• Keep the wound dry and the plaster on, no washing the face above the jaw for 3 days
• /me carries a neat line of black silk along one cheekbone, the skin around it painted orange with carbolic

Recovery Stitches out in 8 days, a fine dueling scar after that costs nothing more.·Doctor required

A shallow word for a wet business: the arrow scored your scalp along the part line, and scalps bleed like slaughter. You rode in with your face a red curtain and half the camp certain you were done for. The doctor grins at the fuss, clips the hair, closes it with four stitches, and tells you scalp wounds have made more legends than deep ones ever did.

• Four stitches along the crown, no hat pressure on the line for 5 days
• No washing the head for 3 days, then careful and cold
• Blood crusted hair until you dare to comb it out
• /me wears a small clipped patch and a row of stitches along the part of the hair

Recovery Stitches out in 7 days, hidden under hair inside a month.·Doctor required

It cut through your eyebrow like a razor slip and the blood found your eye in a heartbeat. You fought the rest of the moment half blind, swiping red with the back of a wrist. The doctor pinches the split together, sets three stitches through the brow, and checks the eye itself twice by candle flame. The eye is whole. The brow will wear a thin pale parting in it ever after.

• Three stitches through the eyebrow, no rubbing the eye, no dusty work for 3 days
• Vision on that side blurred by ointment and swelling for a day
• /me blinks past a swollen, stitched brow, a rusty smear of dried blood at the temple

Recovery Silk out in 7 days, the brow settles inside 2 weeks.·Doctor required

The shaft glanced along the side of your neck and scored the strap muscle under the skin, a burn line with a bruise beneath it that stiffened before you got home. Nothing wants stitching, but the doctor prods it, watches you fail to look over your shoulder, and binds the neck warm. Turning your head now means turning your whole self, slow and dignified, like a judge.

• Stiff neck: no checking behind without turning the whole body for 4 days
• No rifle stock against that side and no roping for 5 days
• Warm cloths and liniment at night, the smell announcing you in any room
• /me turns from the shoulders like a fencepost, the neck wrapped in flannel

Recovery The cord loosens over 5 days with heat and patience, full turn of the head in 10.·Doctor advised

The broadhead kissed the side of your neck in passing and left a burn line from ear to collarbone, shallow as a cat scratch and hot as a stove lid. It seeped rather than bled. Washed with carbolic and dabbed with salve, it is more insult than injury, but every turn of your head for the next few days will remind you what nearly happened.

• A salved burn line down the neck, collar worn open or soft for 3 days
• No bandanna knotted on that side for 3 days
• /me wears a thin angry red line from ear to collarbone, shiny with salve

Recovery Scabs fine by day 3, fades to a faint line inside 2 weeks.·Doctor advised

It crossed your cheek like a hot poker laid flat, a graze that took the top of the skin and left a weeping burn line from mouth corner to ear. It looked far worse in the shaving mirror than it is. Carbolic wash, a light plaster, and the advice that growing a beard around it is cheaper than complaining.

• A plastered graze across the cheek, no shaving that side for a week
• Chewing big bites pulls the scab, cut your food small for 3 days
• /me carries a long scabbed graze across one cheek, plastered at the middle

Recovery Scabbed by day 2, smooth again in 2 weeks, a faint pale line after if the sun finds it.·Doctor advised

The arrow parted hair and skin in one motion, a shallow cut above the ear that bled with great enthusiasm and no real ambition. You clapped your hat back on to hold a folded rag against it and finished what you were doing. It has since crusted into your hair and pulls when you raise your eyebrows, which you are doing less.

• A crusted cut above the ear, hat worn tilted off it for 3 days
• No combing that side until the scab lets go
• /me wears a rusty crust of dried blood in the hair above one ear

Recovery Closed on its own in 4 days, forgotten in 10 save when the comb finds it.·No doctor needed

It scored a line along your jaw, shallow and clean, the kind of cut a careless barber apologizes for. It bled enough to drip from your chin and stain your shirtfront, then thought better of it. Washed and left open to the air, it itches more than it hurts, and everyone who sees it asks who you crossed.

• A scored jawline, no shaving over it for 5 days
• Chin straps and tight collars ride the cut, wear the hat pushed back for 3 days
• /me sports a clean scabbed line along the jaw, like a razor grudge

Recovery Scabbed by nightfall, gone in 10 days but for the story.·No doctor needed

The shaft turned in the air and slapped flat off your skull above the temple, cut nothing, and left a goose egg you can feel through the hat. Your ears rang for an hour and your temper for longer. Cold cloths bring the swelling down. The doctor, if you bother him, will press it, pronounce the skull thicker than your judgment, and charge you for the opinion.

• A goose egg above the temple, hat worn loose or pushed back for 3 days
• Ringing fades in and out through the first day, ask people to repeat themselves
• No headlong riding or brawling for 2 days while the head settles
• /me carries a proud swollen knot above one temple, unbroken but ugly

Recovery The knot flattens over 4 days, the ringing quits inside one.·Doctor advised

A thread thin scratch along the side of your neck, the kind you might blame on a rose bush if the fletching had not still been humming in the fencepost. It stung, welted, and settled. A dab of whiskey, more for ceremony than need, and you were back about your business inside the minute.

• A welted scratch on the neck, sore under a collar for 2 days
• /me has a thin red scratch along the neck, welted at both ends

Recovery Faded by the third morning.·No doctor needed

The fletching, not the head, dragged across your cheek as the arrow went by, and the feathers scoured the skin like a rope pulled fast. A brush burn the size of two fingers, raw and rosy, no blood worth naming. It weeps a little the first day and looks, for a week, exactly like you fell asleep against a stove.

• A raw brush burn on the cheek, keep dust and dirty gloves off it for 2 days
• Salve morning and night until the shine goes
• /me shows a rosy scoured patch on one cheek, shiny with salve

Recovery Dry by day 2, gone in a week.·No doctor needed

The broadhead sliced through your collar and topmost button and drew one bead of blood from the skin beneath, a scratch shorter than your thumbnail at the base of the throat. The shirt is ruined. You are not. You will spend more time explaining the collar than tending the wound.

• A pinprick scratch at the base of the throat, nothing but a dab of salve wanted
• One good shirt dead of its wounds, wear the collar pinned or the story ready
• /me wears a sliced collar pinned shut over a tiny scabbed scratch at the throat

Recovery Healed in 3 days, the shirt never.·No doctor needed

It nicked the very edge of your hairline at the temple as it passed, a scratch you could cover with a matchstick. It bled three drops, matted a lock of hair, and quit. You found it only when your hat pressed on it an hour later and you swore at nothing, to the amusement of witnesses.

• A matchstick scratch at the hairline, tender under the hatband for 2 days
• /me rubs at a small crusted nick at the edge of the hairline

Recovery Gone inside 4 days.·No doctor needed

The arrow took your hat clean off your head and carried it a horse length before dropping both in the dirt. There is a hole through the crown you can put two fingers in and a crease in the felt like a plow line. Your scalp does not have a mark on it. You have already begun lying about how calm you were.

• Not a mark on you, but the hat wears a broadhead hole through the crown
• Flinching at the sound of anything whistling past for a day or two, purely on principle
• /me sets a holed hat back on an untouched head and dares anyone to comment

Recovery Nothing to heal but the hat, and felt does not heal.·No doctor needed

You heard it before you understood it, a hornet sound by your ear, then the thud of the head burying itself in the doorframe behind you, still trembling. The wind of it moved your hair. You have a scuffed palm from going down fast and smart, and that is the entire bill for standing where you stood.

• A scuffed palm from diving, gloves sting for a day
• The arrow pried from the doorframe rides in your saddlebag as proof
• /me turns a pried loose arrow over in scuffed hands, measuring the near miss again

Recovery The palm forgets by tomorrow. You will not.·No doctor needed

Men will call it a lie, and you will let them. The arrow parted your hair straight down the middle, lifted your hat from your head, and nailed it to the barn door behind you at the height of a man's heart. Not one drop of blood. You walked over, worked the shaft loose, and put the hat back on through its new hole. Somewhere an archer is telling this story angrier than you are.

• Untouched entirely, a straight part combed into your hair by a broadhead
• The pinned hat and the arrow that did it, both retired to the mantel or worn as warning
• Free drinks for a week anywhere the story lands, embellishment expected
• /me tips a hat with an arrow hole in the crown, hair parted dead center

Recovery Nothing to recover but the hat from the door, already done.·No doctor needed