Chest & Ribs: Revolver: Straight Through

The ball took you under the breast and left through your back, and now both holes whistle with every breath. Pink froth climbs your throat, your lips go the color of ash, and the doctor quits reaching for forceps and reaches for the laudanum instead.

• Propped upright day and night, lying flat is drowning
• Cannot walk, ride or speak above a whisper; a deathbed scene played out over days
• /me breathes in shallow sips, a wet whistle escaping the soaked bandage at the chest

Recovery Hours to days. A city surgeon reached fast might turn it, out here it is goodbyes and laudanum.·Doctor, urgently

Air hisses in through the entry hole with every breath and your left side won't fill. The doc slaps an oilcloth patch over each hole, pastes them down with pitch, and props you against the headboard like a sack of flour: sit still or smother.

• Propped upright for 2 days; lying flat starts the whistle again
• No riding, roping or raised voices for 7 days
• Oilcloth patches taped over both holes, changed morning and night
• /me sits bolt upright, one hand pressed flat over the patched hole in the chest

Recovery 6 days with a doctor patching both holes daily; alone the lung stays down and you land back on the table.·Doctor, urgently

The ball clipped the top of the lung on its way through and you cough pink foam into your fist. The doctor swears a nick like this seals itself, if you sit upright, breathe shallow and do absolutely nothing for a spell.

• Coughing pink-flecked foam for 2 days; keep a rag handy
• Propped upright at night for 4 nights, no lying flat
• No exertion of any kind for 5 days, walking pace only

Recovery 5 days of enforced stillness under a doctor's watch, 7 and a fever gamble without.·Doctor required

The entry is a neat blue hole; the exit is a ragged crater the size of a silver dollar where the soft lead mushroomed against a rib on its way out. The doc packs it with carbolic gauze while you count the ceiling boards and lose count.

• Dizzy from blood loss, no standing quick, no ladders, no saddles for 2 days
• Exit wound packed and re-dressed daily for 5 days
• A crater scar on your back you will carry for life

Recovery 5 days with daily carbolic packing, 7 or worse if you let it fester.·Doctor required

The ball dragged shirt cotton and vest wool clean through your chest, and the doctor spends a long hour drawing threads out of the exit hole with forceps like he's unpicking a seam. Every one that comes out whole is one that won't rot in you.

• Fever watch for 3 days, any heat in the wound means back to the table
• Chest dressed and checked for rot morning and night for 4 days
• No hauling, digging or brawling for 5 days

Recovery 4 days with the wound flushed clean, 6 twitchy, feverish days if the cloth stays in.·Doctor required

The ball slipped between two ribs going in and cracked one leaving, and now the exit sits over a bone that grinds when you twist. The doc binds your chest so tight you breathe in sips and calls it kindness.

• Chest bound tight for 5 days; deep breaths and laughter both punish you
• No lifting past a coffee pot for 5 days
• /me turns the whole body to look sideways, keeping the cracked rib quiet

Recovery 5 days bound with a doctor's wrapping; near 7 of guarding your side without.·Doctor required

The ball passed through muscle, but the passage bruised the skin of the lung, and now every full breath drives a knife between your ribs. Nothing to stitch, nothing to set, just shallow sips of air and days of swearing off laughter.

• Shallow, careful breathing for 4 days; a deep breath doubles you over
• No running, and riding at a trot at most, for 3 days
• Sleeping propped on the good side for 4 nights

Recovery 3 days easing with rest and laudanum drops, 5 days of stabbing breaths without.·Doctor required

Clean through the big muscle of the chest, missing bone and lung both, but that still leaves two mouths to wash. Carbolic in the front, whiskey through the back, silk sutures at both ends, and you gripping the table edge through all of it.

• Both wounds cleaned and re-dressed daily for 4 days
• Chest muscle useless for pushing or pulling for 5 days
• Matching puckered scars, front and back
• /me grips the chair arm white-knuckled while the dressing comes off

Recovery 4 days with a doctor's washing, 6 if you trust trail medicine and luck.·Doctor required

Straight through the meat of the breast, in and out, never touching a thing that matters. It bled like sin down your shirt, but once the holes are plugged the worst of it is how much it looks like a killing that wasn't.

• Chest sore and stiff, no roping, no brawling for 3 days
• A blood-soaked shirt worth burning; two neat holes in your hide
• Wounds dressed once a day for 3 days

Recovery 3 days with a doctor's plugging and silk, 5 on your own with clean rags.·Doctor advised

The heavy soft ball plowed a channel through the chest muscle and left a bruise the width of a hand along its whole road. The holes are honest; it's the black-and-purple country between them that steals your breath when you reach.

• A hand-wide bruise across the chest, black to purple to yellow over 5 days
• No reaching overhead or hauling for 3 days
• Both holes dressed daily for 3 days

Recovery 3 days before the stiffness loosens, 5 for the bruise to quit shouting.·Doctor advised

The muzzle was close enough that the shot drove unburnt powder into your hide around the entry hole, a spray of blue-black grains the doctor scrubs at and mostly leaves. The ball itself passed through the chest edge clean as you please.

• Entry scrubbed raw, dressing changed daily for 3 days
• A permanent speckle of powder-blue dots around the scar; lawmen know the mark
• Sore chest wall, nothing heavier than a deck of cards for 2 days

Recovery 3 days healing either way; the powder tattoo is yours for keeps.·Doctor advised

Through the fold of chest just shy of the armpit, missing the ribs by the width of a playing card. Two holes, one story, and an ache that flares every time you bring your arm down against your side.

• Arm kept off the wound side, no roping or rifle shouldering for 3 days
• Dressings chafe with every arm swing; you walk with the elbow held wide
• Wounds cleaned and wrapped daily for 3 days

Recovery 3 days with sutures, 4 rough ones without.·Doctor advised

In and out through the chest's edge, and the doctor is halfway pleased with it: two small mouths, no bone, no lung, no cloth in the track. Silk at both ends, a proper dressing, and a lecture about standing sideways to a man with a pistol.

• Stitches front and back, no stretching, twisting or heavy work for 3 days
• Sutures out in 5 days, leaving two coin-sized scars

Recovery 3 days quiet with silk in, 5 without any stitching at all.·Doctor advised

The ball hit at a shallow slant and tunneled under the skin across two ribs before finding daylight again. Ugly to look at, a raised, bruised burrow across the chest, but it never got beneath the muscle.

• A raised welt-tunnel across the chest, tender to the touch for 4 days
• No shirt straps or bandoliers across the wound for 3 days

Recovery 3 days with a cleaning and light dressing, 4 on your own.·Doctor advised

The ball struck a rib at an angle and rode it like a rail, skating under the flesh and out your side. The rib is bruised bone-deep and swears at you when you cough, but it held, and the lead never got past it.

• Coughing and sneezing punished for 4 days, brace an arm against the side
• Bone-deep bruise along one rib; tender to any poke or hug
• /me flinches at a laugh and presses a forearm flat against the ribs

Recovery 2 days for the wound, 4 for the rib bruise to let you laugh again.·Doctor advised

Through the outer edge of the chest wall, in and out in the space of a finger's width. Whiskey on both holes, a folded rag under your shirt, and you finished the evening at the card table with a story nobody quite believed.

• Two small dressed nicks on the chest edge, sore for 2 days
• No brawling for 2 days unless you want them reopened

Recovery 2 days to close over, 3 if you keep picking at the dressing.·No doctor needed

A shallow through-track along the surface of the chest, more furrow than tunnel. You poured whiskey through it yourself, hissed the worst word you know, and tied it off with a clean neckerchief.

• A stinging furrow dressed with a neckerchief, tender for 2 days
• Smells faintly of whiskey until the dressing comes off

Recovery 2 days either way; a thin scar and a good bar story.·No doctor needed

Through nothing but the outermost slab of chest muscle, so shallow the doc could near see daylight through the track when you flexed. It bled dramatic and healed boring, which is exactly the order you want those in.

• Sore pectoral, favor that arm for 1 day
• Two small scars a hand-width apart to point at in saloons

Recovery A day of soreness, closed over inside 2.·No doctor needed

The ball took a pinched-up fold of skin over the breastbone and nothing else, two nicks a thumb apart that share one thin story between them. It burned like a wasp and bled about as much.

• Two plastered nicks over the sternum, itchy more than sore
• Sting fades within hours; scab gone in 2 days

Recovery Hours of sting, a scab by morning, forgotten in 2 days.·No doctor needed

In below the collarbone, out beside the shoulder blade, and between those two points it missed the lung, the heart, the great vessels and every last rib, the doctor probes both holes twice, whistles, and asks permission to write you up for a medical journal. You buy the room a round with your shirt still bloody.

• Two neat holes healing clean; dressings for 2 days out of pure ceremony
• Named 'the miracle' by the doctor to anyone who'll listen
• /me spreads the bloody shirt open to show off two impossibly tidy scars

Recovery 2 days of token dressings; the story lasts a lot longer.·No doctor needed