Chest & Ribs: Rifle: Straight Through

The round crossed your chest the wide way and both lungs are bleeding into themselves. You are propped in a corner, gray-lipped, blowing red bubbles with every breath while the doctor plugs both holes and will not meet your eyes. Men have survived this; the doctor can name both of them.

• Bedridden and propped upright day and night, you cannot cross a room unaided for 7 days
• Voice gone to a wet whisper; even a sentence brings coughing that spots the pillow red
• /me sags against the headboard, lips faintly blue, chest hitching in quick shallow pulls
• If you live, both lungs stay scarred, you will never again run a full quarter mile

Recovery 7 days at death's door under a doctor's constant care, without one, this is the end of the trail·Doctor, urgently

The entry is a neat blue-rimmed hole; the exit blew out between two ribs the size of a child's fist, and it sucks and sighs with every breath until the doctor packs it with greased lint and binds it airtight. One lung has gone slack, and you breathe like a man climbing stairs that are not there.

• Propped upright for 5 days; lying flat steals your wind inside a minute
• No riding above a walk, no lifting, no shouting for 5 days
• A ragged exit scar the width of a silver dollar that no shirt ever quite hides
• /me breathes in careful halves, one hand splinted flat over the packed dressing

Recovery 6 days sealed and propped under a doctor, and God's own gamble without one·Doctor, urgently

The round left your chest through a rib and took most of it along, spraying bone splinters out the back of your coat. The lung beneath is scraped but whole; the hole where a rib used to be is packed, laced and padded with leather, and it grinds when you twist.

• Chest bound board-stiff for 6 days, no bending, twisting or hauling
• Bone splinters work up through the exit wound for days; the doctor tweezes a new one at each dressing
• A crater of a scar on the back where the rib blew out, ugly as a brand

Recovery 6 days strapped under a doctor's daily care, 12 and a crooked heal without·Doctor, urgently

The round passed clean, but rifle lead at that speed bruises a hand's width of flesh around its path, meat that dies slow and weeps for days. The channel looks tidy the first night and horrifies the doctor by the third, sloughing gray until the healthy red shows through.

• Daily wound-scraping and carbolic packing for 5 days; it hurts worse than the shot itself
• Low, wandering fever for 3 days, you sweat, mutter and sleep in the afternoons
• No work heavier than carrying your own plate for 5 days

Recovery 6 days of ugly dressings with a doctor, or gangrene's coin-flip without one·Doctor, urgently

The round clipped the top margin of a lung on its way through, enough to bleed you inside, not enough to drop you. The doctor's whole cure is posture and patience: bolt upright in a corner chair for days, breathing shallow while the lung glues its own seam shut.

• Sleep sitting up for 4 days; lying flat brings a wet, frightening cough
• Talk low and short, long sentences cost more wind than they are worth for 4 days
• /me sits rigidly upright in the corner chair, measuring out each breath like a miser's coin

Recovery 4 days of enforced stillness with a doctor's checks, 8 fretful days without·Doctor required

In front, a hole you could cork with a finger; behind, a tear the size of a playing card where the round tumbled through the muscle of your back. The entry gets one stitch and the exit gets fourteen, layered silk from deep to shallow, and you count every one of them.

• Fourteen stitches across the back; no twisting, hauling or long saddle days for 4 days
• The exit dressing needs a second pair of hands to change, morning and night for 3 days
• A star-shaped exit scar that itches when it heals and forecasts cold snaps forever

Recovery 4 days with a doctor's silk holding it shut, 8 with a puckered rough heal alone·Doctor required

The round never touched bone and cracked two ribs anyway, the sheer slap of its passing was enough. Two clean holes and a chest that feels stove-in; you breathe in sips and dread your own sneezes like gunfire.

• Two cracked ribs; chest wrapped and no lifting, running or brawling for 5 days
• Laughing, coughing and sneezing all bend you double, brace a forearm across the ribs first
• Entry and exit dressings changed daily for 4 days

Recovery 5 days wrapped with a doctor's care, 9 wincing days without·Doctor required

Through the top of the chest, above the lung and under the collarbone, where a man is mostly straps and gristle. The round tore the muscle that swings your arm and left through the edge of your shoulder blade's meat, lucky placement, ugly plumbing.

• That arm rides in a sling for 4 days; no rifle to the shoulder, no roping, no punching
• Reaching overhead is beyond you for 5 days, somebody else gets the top shelf
• Entry and exit scars that peep out of every open collar

Recovery 4 days slung with a doctor's care, 7 stiff days without·Doctor required

Straight through the thick muscle of the chest wall, missing rib and lung by the grace of angles. The doctor threads a carbolic-soaked wick clean through the channel and out the other side, and swears the burn means it is working.

• A wicked double dressing, front and back, changed daily for 3 days
• No swimming or dusty cattle work for 3 days while the channel drains
• /me stiffens, eyes watering, as the soaked wick drags through the wound channel

Recovery 3 days with a doctor's wick and wash, 6 with fever odds if you skip it·Doctor advised

The exit lips are torn and ragged, rifle rounds leave rougher than they enter, so the doctor trims the edges square with scissors before the silk goes in. Neat work; you will carry a scar behind that looks tidier than it has any right to.

• Stitches front and back; no heavy hauling for 3 days
• Sleeping on your back presses the exit stitches; you learn the sideways sprawl for 3 nights
• Twin scars, the rear one bigger, that tell any veteran exactly what hit you

Recovery 3 days with a doctor's needle, 6 rough-healing days without·Doctor advised

The round entered by your breast pocket and left near your armpit, a long diagonal tunnel through nothing but muscle. Two holes, one channel, zero broken bones, the doctor calls it the best geometry he has seen all month.

• The whole chest wall stiffens overnight; raising that arm past the shoulder is misery for 3 days
• Dressings on entry and exit, changed daily for 3 days

Recovery 3 days with a doctor's care, 5 stiff ones alone·Doctor advised

Through the slab of muscle along your ribs and out the back without ever entering the chest proper. It bled twin red stripes down your side and ruined a good shirt, but your wind never so much as hitched.

• Sore side; twisting to look behind you means turning the whole horse for 2 days
• Two dressed holes a hand apart, changed daily for 3 days

Recovery 3 days with clean dressings, 5 without·Doctor advised

Clean through the outer muscle, in and out, but the shock of rifle lead leaves its signature: by morning a bruise the size of a skillet spreads across half your chest, black at the center and yellow at the rim. The holes heal faster than the color fades.

• A skillet-sized bruise across the chest for 5 days, bathhouse conversation guaranteed
• Tender to any press, bump or embrace for 3 days
• No sparring or wrestling for 3 days

Recovery 3 days for the holes with a doctor's wash, 5 for the bruise regardless·Doctor advised

Speed was your friend, the round was through the meat of your chest's edge before the flesh knew to tear, leaving a channel so clean the doctor just flushes it and shrugs. Two small scabs and a story nobody believes without the shirt off.

• Two dressed holes at the chest's edge, tender for 2 days
• No heavy lifting for 2 days while the channel seals
• /me hooks a thumb through the bullet hole in the shirt and wiggles it for the doubters

Recovery 2 days with a wash and dressing, 4 without·Doctor advised

For once the round left smaller than it should have, slipping out between muscle bands without tumbling. Entry stitched with two loops, exit with three, and the doctor mutters that rifle wounds are not supposed to behave this well.

• Five stitches total; keep them dry for 2 days
• A pinching pull across the chest when you reach high for 2 days

Recovery 2 days with a doctor's stitches, 4 with rougher scars alone·Doctor advised

The round passed through the loose fold of flesh at your side where the chest meets the ribs' end, all skin and slack, nothing that works for a living. It burned like a poker going through and bled a cupful, and that is the whole of the damage.

• A dressed double nick at the side, sore when you twist for 2 days
• Sleeping on that side is off the menu for 2 nights

Recovery 2 days with a dressing, 3 without·No doctor needed

In and out along the surface of your ribs, a shallow through-track no deeper than a knife score. It rattled you, the smack of a rifle round anywhere on the chest stops a heart for a beat, but the wound itself is a long scratch with two doors.

• A shallow stitched track over the ribs, tender for 2 days
• The ribs beneath are bone-bruised; no wrestling for 2 days
• /me undoes two buttons to show the stitched line, already rehearsing the tale taller

Recovery 2 days with a wash and stitches, 3 on your own·No doctor needed

The round went through the folded flap of your open coat and only pinched the skin of your chest in passing, a stinging red line no wider than a straw. The coat has two proud holes; you have one welt and all your luck.

• A thin red welt across the chest, gone in 2 days
• Two holes in the coat you refuse to have mended

Recovery A day or two of stinging, nothing more·No doctor needed

It broke the skin going in and going out and somehow insulted nothing in between, riding the shallowest possible line under the hide. Two scabs a finger apart, a bruise between them, and a doctor laughing too hard to charge full price.

• Two small scabs and a connecting bruise, tender for 2 days
• A faint double-dot scar that will pass for a snakebite in most company

Recovery 2 days to scab over clean, doctor or no·No doctor needed

You felt the wind of it and heard cloth tear, the round passed through the billow of your shirt between arm and chest, close enough to leave a red heat-line on the skin like a lash mark. Two holes in the linen, none in you, and witnesses enough to keep the drinks coming for a week.

• A faint red line along the chest that fades by morning
• A shirt with an entry and an exit you will never sew shut
• /me holds the shirt up to the lantern so the light shines through both holes at once

Recovery Nothing to heal, the line fades by morning·No doctor needed