Calf & Shin: Buckshot

Inside ten paces the pattern never opened, the whole charge struck as one fist and the back of your calf is simply gone, a ragged crater down to things with Latin names. The doctor tourniquets, packs, and does not pretend: the muscle will not come back whole, if the leg keeps at all.

• Tourniquet, then packing changed twice daily; flat on your back for 7 days with the leg propped and watched for rot
• Blood loss leaves you gray and cold; broth, liver and laudanum are your whole calendar
• /me lies still while the packing is drawn, hands twisted into the sheets
• Whatever heals, the back of that calf will be dented and pale for life

Recovery 7 days of fever-watch under a doctor's roof; without one, the rot ends the argument·Doctor, urgently

Close enough that the pattern was only starting to open, a palm-sized patch of your calf is chewed to gristle, with a half dozen balls driven deep behind it. The doctor spends the evening trimming what can't be saved and mining out what shouldn't stay.

• Wound trimmed and packed daily for 5 days; crutch through day 6
• The calf is smaller and softer on that side while the muscle rebuilds
• A rough, cratered scar patch the size of a playing card

Recovery 6-7 days with a doctor's trimming and packing, it festers ugly and fast without·Doctor, urgently

A tight cluster of buckshot plowed into the meat of the calf, each ball on its own crooked path, and the muscle between them is torn to rags. The doctor follows every track with the probe, and each track has its own opinion about that.

• No weight on the leg for 2 days, crutch through day 5, hard limp after
• Five dug wounds each with its own stitch and its own throb, you can count them at night without looking
• /me eases the leg down and waits out the chorus of aches, one for each ball

Recovery 6 days with every track cleaned by a doctor, a fevered week if one goes sour·Doctor, urgently

Most of the pattern spared you, but one ball drove deep and sits hard against the heel cord, and every step drags a knife up the back of your leg. It has to come out before the cord frets through, and the digging is close, careful work.

• Until it's cut free you can't put the heel down; after, foot splinted flat for 4-5 days
• No tiptoes, no ladders, no stirrups on that side through day 6
• /me walks heel-up on that side, like a man perpetually sneaking

Recovery 6 days with the ball out by a careful hand, a snapped cord waiting if it stays·Doctor, urgently

The pattern caught you square at middle range, a dozen balls, each buried past finger-reach in the muscle. The forceps come out that evening more times than you can stay stoic for, and the doctor's basin rings like slow church bells.

• A long evening on the table; wrung out and trembling for a day after
• Twelve small stitched wounds; heavy limp 3 days, tender through day 6
• /me counts the rings of lead in the basin, losing track somewhere past nine

Recovery 5 days with a doctor's patient forceps, a festering 7 with any left behind·Doctor required

Most of the pellets sit shallow and come out easy, but one clicked against the shinbone and stopped, and that one costs more digging than all the rest together. The doctor mutters at it, blunt probe scraping bone, until the forceps finally close on it.

• The deep dig leaves a bone bruise that aches 4 days; the shallow holes are forgotten by comparison
• Limp hard for 3 days; kneeling is off the menu
• The deep pellet, nicked by bone, sits in your pocket looking chewed

Recovery 5 days with the stubborn one out, 6-7 and a fever risk if it had stayed·Doctor required

The doctor works down your calf from knee to ankle with lamp and forceps, and each pellet rings in the tin basin as it drops. You count fourteen rings, and he counts fourteen holes, and you both agree the arithmetic is sound.

• Fourteen small dressed punctures, calf peppered and swollen for 3 days
• Moderate limp 3 days; boot tops are your enemy till the swelling quits
• /me listens for each small ring of lead in tin, lips moving with the count

Recovery 4-5 days with the full count out, longer and hotter if the tally came up short·Doctor required

The picking-out seemed thorough, but by the second day one spot on your calf rises red, hot and angry around a pellet the forceps missed. The doctor opens it fresh, digs out the sulking lead, and floods the pocket with carbolic before it can spread.

• A day of low fever and a hot, throbbing lump before the reopening
• The re-dug wound drains 2 days and is dressed twice daily; limp through day 5
• Sweats and a foul temper until the carbolic wins

Recovery 5 days once the stray is found, a true fever-bed if it had festered on·Doctor required

Middling range, an honest spread, your calf took eight or nine balls, none deep, each needing its own turn under the forceps. It's not dangerous work, just long, and you're expected to hold still for all of it.

• An evening of extraction, then a speckled, swollen calf for 3 days
• Moderate limp 2-3 days; every pellet accounted for, the doctor swears to it

Recovery 3-4 days with the full set dug out, 5-6 and a fester risk doing it yourself·Doctor advised

The shallow ones come out in an evening's work, but two balls sit deep between muscle and bone where digging costs more than leaving. The doctor washes, closes, and tells you plain: those two are yours now, and they'll speak up when weather's coming.

• The dug wounds heal in 3-4 days like any others
• Two deep aches that wake before the rain does, you become the outfit's barometer
• Hard little knots in the calf you can find with a thumb, souvenirs under the skin

Recovery 4 days for the wounds with a doctor's care; the two boarders keep their own lease·Doctor required

Six pellets, none deep, and a doctor who believes whiskey is anesthesia enough for shallow work. He's right, barely, each pull is a bright little insult, and by the fourth you've stopped being polite about it.

• Six plastered punctures, sore for 2-3 days
• Mild limp 2 days; the whiskey headache outlasts one of the punctures
• /me holds the glass out for a refill between pellets, not asking

Recovery 3 days with the doctor's quick work, 4-5 picking at it yourself with a sewing needle·Doctor advised

The spread caught your calf broadside but shallow, a constellation of punctures, and by morning the whole muscle is swollen taut and hot to the touch. Cold soaks and a snug wrap bring it down over days, puncture by puncture.

• Calf too swollen for a boot for 2-3 days; wrapped and propped whenever you sit
• Skin speckled with scabbed dots knee to ankle, itching in committee

Recovery 3 days with soaks and wrapping, 4-5 letting the swelling set its own pace·Doctor advised

Nine pellets, all shallow, all in the meat, none anywhere that matters. The picking takes an hour, the dressing takes ten minutes, and the itching takes the better part of the week.

• Nine scabbing punctures that itch fiercer than they ever hurt for 3-4 days
• Light limp 2 days, mostly gone by the third

Recovery 3 days with the doctor's forceps, 4 with tweezers, a mirror and patience·Doctor advised

You caught the edge of the spread, five balls, shallow as gravel thrown hard, stitched across the outside of your calf. The doctor picks them out in the time it takes your coffee to cool.

• Five plastered dots, tender for 2 days
• Barely a limp; more a thoughtfulness in the stride

Recovery 2 days with the quick picking, 3 without·Doctor advised

Far enough out that the pellets arrived tired, most barely broke skin and sit gleaming just under it like seeds in a strawberry. The doctor squeezes them out one by one; only two need so much as a nick of the lancet.

• A stinging, speckled calf for a day or 2
• You pick a stray pellet out of your boot sock that night and add it to the count

Recovery 2 days of stinging, 3 at the outside·No doctor needed

Three pellets found you, and only just, two rolled out at a squeeze, and the third needed one small nick and a pull. The doctor drops all three in your tobacco tin by way of a receipt.

• Three small plasters on the calf, tender for a day or 2
• The tin rattles now when you ride; you've decided you like it

Recovery A day or 2, no more; hardly worth the doctor's chair·No doctor needed

Extreme edge of the pattern, a scatter of pellets bit the skin of your calf like a handful of flung gravel and half of them bounced. What's left is a dotting of shallow stings and a trouser leg that looks worse than the leg inside it.

• A dozen pinprick scabs that sting under wool for a day or 2
• The trouser leg is a colander; the story is that you walked through a wall of lead

Recovery A day or 2 of stinging; whiskey applied by mouth works fine·No doctor needed

The bottom half of the pattern spent itself on your tall boot, and the leather held all but two pellets that barely nosed into the calf above it. The boot rattles when you shake it upside down; the leg hardly noticed.

• Two shallow, plastered nips above the boot line, tender a day
• The boot is pocked like a hail-struck roof and twice the conversation piece you are

Recovery A day of stinging; the bootmaker's bill outlives the wound·No doctor needed

The pattern was wide and you were at its ragged edge, two pellets nipped the calf and hung in the skin, and the rest went by with a sound like hard rain. You flick one out yourself before the doctor even arrives.

• Two welted nips, scabbed by morning, gone in a couple days
• You walked away from a shotgun with a shrug, men buy you drinks just to hear it told

Recovery A day or 2; the doctor calls it a mosquito's work·No doctor needed

The full charge arrived, and met your bedroll, slung saddlebag and tall boot all stacked along that leg. You unbuckle and shake, and buckshot pours out of the leather like gravel from a scoop, leaving you one pellet-shaped bruise and possession of the best story in the territory.

• One round bruise on the calf, tender for a day, and not one broken skin
• A palmful of salvaged buckshot rides in your pocket, you deal the pellets out like cards when you tell it
• /me upends the boot and lets a stream of buckshot rattle across the floorboards

Recovery A day for the bruise; the story never heals over·No doctor needed