Bull Goring

The horn went in below the ribs and lifted you off the ground, and something deep inside gave way as it did. You are bleeding where no tourniquet reaches. The doctor opens the wound wider to look, goes quiet, and starts talking about laudanum and who ought to be sent for, in 1899, a horn through the vitals is a wound you survive by miracle or not at all.

• Bedridden and gray, no standing without two hands holding you up, for 4 days minimum
• A deep sutured horn channel below the ribs, packed and draining
• Fever watch around the clock; every calm hour is bought, not given
• /me lies still as church, lips moving through names like an inventory

Recovery Weeks flat on your back under a doctor if the bleeding stopped where he prays it did; if it did not, no medicine of this century reaches it.·Doctor, urgently

The horn punched into your upper thigh a finger's width from the great artery, and the blood came fast enough to soak your boot before hands reached you. A belt cinched high and cruel kept you on the right side of the grass. The doctor ties off bleeders and packs the channel, sweating like it was his own leg.

• No weight on the leg for 4 days, crutch or carried, no exceptions
• Blood loss dizziness, standing quickly drops you for 3 days
• A belt-bruise stripe high on the thigh above the packed wound itself
• /me keeps a hand pressed over the thigh bandage, counting their own pulse

Recovery A week of care while the channel closes from the bottom up; untreated it reopens at the first hard step and you may not get a second belt in time.·Doctor, urgently

The horn caught you under the ribs, tossed you the height of a man, and the ground finished the sentence. A rib cracked in the toss, and the horn tore a deep gash along your side that took two rows of silk sutures. You remember the sky wheeling; the rest was told to you afterward.

• Ribs strapped and side sutured, no lifting, twisting, or riding hard for 5 days
• Getting up from a chair is a three-stage operation for 3 days
• A long stitched gash along the ribs, a scar with a before and after

Recovery 6 days strapped under a doctor's eye; untreated the gash gapes and the rib knits crooked and stabbing.·Doctor, urgently

The horn plowed across your belly, deep enough to reach the muscle wall and no further, a hand's width shallower and you would be reading a very different card. The doctor probes the whole length twice before he believes it, then sutures the furrow closed and forbids you laughter, lifting, and second helpings.

• A sutured furrow across the abdomen, no lifting anything heavier than a plate for 4 days
• Bent-over shuffle when you walk; standing straight pulls the stitches, for 3 days
• Small meals only for 2 days by doctor's order
• /me straightens up an inch at a time, one hand flat on their bandaged belly

Recovery 6 days if the sutures hold and the wound stays clean; without care, the furrow opens or festers, and a fevered belly wound is a graveyard matter.·Doctor required

The horn hooked under your arm and tore your shoulder open as it threw you, a deep gash through the meat that leaves the whole arm hanging dumb. The doctor sutures muscle and skin and binds the arm to your chest so the shoulder heals as one piece instead of several.

• Arm bound to chest, no use of it for 4 days
• One-handed at everything; buttons, boots, and reloading become public entertainment
• /me works a coat on over the bound arm with the patience of the defeated

Recovery 5 days bound and behaving, 8 if you keep testing whether the doctor was serious.·Doctor required

The bull did not gore you so much as mail you: a scoop of the head sent you over its back and onto the top fence rail, which broke your fall and very nearly your hip. The rail snapped; the hip held, barely. You wear the whole event in one tremendous bruise from waist to knee.

• Deep-bruised hip, walk, never sprint, for 4 days
• Mounting a horse from the ground is beyond you for 3 days; find a stump
• A bruise from waist to knee in every color the frontier offers

Recovery 4 days of stiff hobbling, a week for the bruise to run its full exhibition.·Doctor required

You were nearly over the fence when the horn raked you across the back, hip to shoulder blade, a long tearing score, deep at the start and shallowing as you climbed. It bled down your belt and needed stitching at the deep end, and you will not be leaning back in any chair this week.

• A stitched score across the back, no bending or hauling for 3 days
• Sleeping face-down only for 4 days
• /me sits carefully upright at the table, an inch off the chair back

Recovery 4 days treated with clean dressings, 7 untreated with the deep end weeping.·Doctor required

The bull's forehead, bone like a church door, swung into your knee as you dodged and the leg quit the argument on the spot. Nothing broken, the doctor rules, but the joint swells vast and hot, and it buckles without notice for days after.

• Knee wrapped tight, it buckles unannounced, so a cane or a wall for 3 days
• Stairs taken one at a time, sideways, like a crab with dignity, for 3 days
• A knee too swollen for your trouser leg; the seam gets sacrificed

Recovery 4 days wrapped and rested, 6 if you keep dancing with livestock.·Doctor required

It pinned you against the corral boards with the flat of its skull and leaned, and for three long seconds you learned what a nut feels like in the cracker. Ribs bruised deep, breath gone, and a horn tip that scored your forearm as you levered yourself out and over.

• Deep-bruised ribs, shallow breaths and no heavy lifting for 3 days
• A scored forearm, cleaned and wrapped for 2 days
• /me presses a forearm to their ribs before every laugh, as insurance

Recovery 3 days of careful breathing, 5 for the ribs to stop filing complaints.·Doctor advised

The horn's very tip caught your side as you spun clear, a puncture the width of a thumb, shallow enough to see the bottom, dirty enough to respect. Carbolic, a plug of clean lint, and a bandage wound around your middle like a corset you did not order.

• A plugged puncture in the side, dressed daily for 3 days
• Twisting at the waist tugs and stings for 2 days
• A thumb-round scar to point at when the story wants proof

Recovery 3 days with cleaning, 5 without, punctures fester quiet, so mind it.·Doctor advised

You made the fence; the bull made the fence too. It hit the boards with you half over and the whole panel went down with you in it. You come out from under the lumber with splinters, a wrenched wrist, and a bull standing over the wreckage like it is admiring its work.

• A wrenched wrist wrapped snug, weak grip for 3 days
• Splinters in undignified places; picking them out is an evening's work
• /me flexes a wrapped wrist and eyes the repaired fence with mistrust

Recovery 3 days for the wrist; the fence takes longer.·Doctor advised

The head-swing clipped your hip and sat you down in the dirt hard enough to click your teeth, and the bull stood over you huffing steam while three people yelled at it from the fence. It backed off on its own terms. Your tailbone will remember; your tailor will profit.

• A bruised tailbone, you sit down like it is a ceremony, for 3 days
• Choosing to stand at the saloon rather than take a stool, and lying about why
• Trousers split at the seat, a detail witnesses refuse to forget

Recovery 3 days of standing when you can; nothing broken but protocol.·Doctor advised

In the scramble, the bull put one hoof square on your foot with a fair share of its half-ton behind it. The boot leather saved the toes from worse, but the foot swells purple and the boot has to be worked off with two hands and language.

• A crushed, purpling foot, pronounced limp for 3 days
• That boot goes on loose-laced or not at all for 2 days
• /me works a swollen foot into a boot with a long hiss

Recovery 3 days favoring it, 5 if the swelling is stubborn; nothing broken by luck alone.·Doctor advised

The horn snagged your vest at the ribs and tore it clean off you as you twisted away, buttons singing into the dirt like spent shot. A red scrape across the ribs beneath, nothing more. The vest hangs on the fence post now, a warning flag to the next fool.

• A raw scrape across the ribs, stinging under the shirt for 1 day
• One vest, deceased; its buttons are scattered across the corral

Recovery A day; the scrape is gone before you find all the buttons.·No doctor needed

You dove and rolled under the bottom rail with the horn hissing past your boot sole, and came up on the safe side wearing half the corral floor. The bull hit the fence behind you like a thunderclap. Scraped elbows, a bruised knee, and legs that stay jelly for an hour.

• Scraped elbows and a bruised knee, tender for 2 days
• /me dusts corral dirt out of their collar, hands not quite steady

Recovery A day or two; you were faster than you had any right to be.·No doctor needed

The horn passed close enough to lift the hat off your head and carry it away. The bull wore it a full minute, gored it twice against the ground, and left it a martyr in the dirt. You caught one scratch from the fence going over; your hat caught everything else.

• A fence-nail scratch on the palm, cleaned with a wince
• One hat, twice gored, worn now only for the story

Recovery A day for the palm; the hat is beyond medicine.·No doctor needed

Thirty yards of open corral, half a ton of bad intention behind you, and you beat it to the fence by the length of your own shadow. Over and clear. Your lungs burn, your legs shake, and a pulled muscle in your calf presents the only bill.

• A pulled calf muscle, tight and complaining for 2 days
• /me limps slightly and calls it a running injury, which is technically true

Recovery 2 days of stretching and swearing off corrals.·No doctor needed

No plan, pure animal instinct: you swayed one step aside at the last instant and the bull went past like a freight through a flag stop, close enough to smell. It wheeled, considered, and decided you were not worth the turn. Witnesses swear you did it on purpose. Let them.

• Untouched, and lying gracefully about how calm you were
• A reputation for cool nerves you now have to live up to

Recovery Nothing to heal; practice your modest shrug.·No doctor needed

The horn hooked your open coat instead of your ribs and the bull ran on with it streaming from one horn like a banner, snorting in triumph, before trampling it into the mud. You stand there in your shirtsleeves doing arithmetic on how close that was. The coat did not survive. You entirely did.

• Not a mark on you, the coat was taken hostage and executed
• /me watches the bull parade past wearing their coat, hands on hips

Recovery Nothing to heal; the coat gets a funeral.·No doctor needed

The horns caught you square, under the gunbelt. The bull threw its head and launched you clean over the corral fence, a full flying somersault, and you came down flat-backed in the hay wagon parked on the other side. You stand up in the hay to applause. The belt is bent into a horseshoe curve you will never straighten, and never want to.

• Not one injury, the hay wagon and the gunbelt split the miracle between them
• A horn-bent gunbelt buckle, the finest trophy in three counties
• /me unbuckles the bent belt and lays it on the bar like evidence

Recovery Nothing to heal; take the applause and buy the wagon's owner a drink.·No doctor needed