Cougar: Bite: Neck & Skull

The fangs found the gap at the base of your skull and grated on bone before something tore the cat away. Your arms went dead as fence posts, and now you lie strapped flat on a travois while your hands tingle like a leg gone to sleep, waiting to learn what comes back.

• Cannot walk or sit a horse, carried flat and still for up to 7 days
• Both hands numb and wooden; you cannot hold reins, cup, or Colt
• Four deep punctures at the skull base, packed with carbolic gauze
• /me stares at the ceiling beams, willing one finger to curl.

Recovery 7 days motionless under a doctor before you know what returns, without one, you never get an answer you want.·Doctor, urgently

Its jaws slipped off the bone and peeled a flap of scalp forward from your nape toward your crown. The doctor sewed it back with silk while you counted the stitches through a laudanum haze.

• Head swathed in a bandage turban for 5 days, no hat fits over it
• Forty-odd silk stitches that pull when you raise your eyebrows
• Dizzy spells from blood loss; no fast riding for 3 days

Recovery 6 days for the flap to knit with a doctor's needlework, 12 ugly ones if you trust a mirror and whiskey.·Doctor, urgently

Four punctures at the back of your neck, two of them a finger deep, close enough to the spine that the doctor went quiet while he probed them. Your neck is wrapped stiff as a preacher's collar.

• Neck wrapped and braced straight, no turning your head for 5 days; checking behind you means turning your whole body
• Punctures wicked open with carbolic gauze, changed morning and night
• Fever watch: any stink or red streak means a hard ride to town

Recovery 5 days wrapped under a doctor's eye, 10 if you tough it out and the holes stay clean.·Doctor required

A shearing tooth caught your ear on the way past and tore it near in half. It got sewed back with silk, but the seam will show white for the rest of your days.

• Ear stitched and packed under a side-tilted bandage for 5 days
• Hearing on that side muffled like a hand cupped over it for 3 days
• Cannot sleep on that side; you wake if anything brushes it

Recovery 5 days stitched by a doctor, 9 if you let it heal ragged, the seam shows either way.·Doctor required

A fang skidded across the back of your skull and scored the bone like a knife across a plate. The scalp bled sheets down your collar before you got a rag knotted around it.

• Furrow across the scalp shaved and sutured, the part in your hair runs sideways now
• Headache thumping in time with your pulse for 3 days; no rifle recoil against that cheek
• /me runs a thumb along the shaved furrow, feeling the stitch knots like fence knots.

Recovery 4 days with a doctor's sutures, 7 with a self-tied bandanna and prayer.·Doctor required

The teeth missed bone and sank into the meat between neck and shoulder instead. Every time you turn your head, it feels like the cat still has hold.

• Head turns only halfway for 4 days, riding means turning the horse instead
• Two deep punctures kept open and draining under a dressing
• That arm goes weak lifting anything above the chest

Recovery 4 days with daily carbolic washes, 8 stiff ones without.·Doctor required

Its mouth closed sideways across your throat and squeezed until a rifle shot startled it off. The punctures are shallow, but your windpipe is bruised, and your voice comes out gravel.

• Voice a whisper-rasp for 3 days; shouting is beyond you
• Ring of tooth bruises purpling around the throat, high collar or not
• Swallowing hurts, broth, soup, and whiskey diet for 2 days
• /me answers in a torn rasp, one hand at the bruised throat.

Recovery 3 days on broth and silence with a doctor's watch, 6 croaking days without.·Doctor required

One puncture behind the ear nicked something generous, and scalp wounds lie about their size. By the time it was staunched, your shirt was soaked to the belt, and standing up made the world tilt.

• Weak and gray from blood loss, no hard labor or fast riding for 3 days
• Pressure bandage over the puncture, changed twice a day
• Ears ring when you stand too fast

Recovery 3 days of beef, liver, and rest with a doctor, 6 pale ones without.·Doctor required

The fangs punched clean through the crown of your hat and only pricked the scalp under it. The hat is dead; the head under it just needs whiskey and a wash.

• Two shallow scalp pricks, stinging under a whiskey wash for 2 days
• Your hat has four holes and a bite-crease, ruined or legendary, your call
• Tender lump where a tooth pressed bone

Recovery 2 days of sting, doctored or not, keep the pricks clean.·Doctor advised

The sheepskin collar of your coat filled its mouth before the teeth found your neck. You carry a horseshoe of deep bruises and two punctures that stopped at the muscle.

• Tooth-bruise arc from ear to shoulder, stiff for 3 days
• Two shallow punctures cleaned and plastered
• /me works the collar aside to show the horseshoe of purple.

Recovery 3 days of stiffness treated or not; the punctures close fast if they stay clean.·Doctor advised

It got mostly hair and hat brim, but the jerk snapped your head sideways and dropped you like a poleaxed steer. Your neck is one long pulled muscle.

• Stiff neck for 3 days, turning to spit means turning your whole chest
• A ragged patch where a mouthful of hair went with it
• Headache behind the eyes the first day

Recovery 3 days of liniment and slow turns; a doctor adds nothing but a bill.·Doctor advised

One fang caught behind your ear and tore a ragged nick as you twisted free. It bled the way head cuts do, which is to say like a spilled bucket, and your ear rang for an hour.

• Ragged nick closed with two silk stitches or a snug plaster
• Ringing in that ear comes and goes for a day
• Blood-stiff collar until laundry day

Recovery 2 days with a stitch, 4 with a plaster and patience.·Doctor advised

It came away with a mouthful of your hair and left tooth-drags across the scalp instead of holes. Under the blood the cuts are shallow as razor nicks, above it, you look half-scalped.

• Scalp drag-cuts washed with carbolic; they scab ugly for 4 days
• A palm-sized patch of hair cropped to stubble where it pulled free
• Hats sit wrong until the scabs quit

Recovery 3 days of scabbing whether doctored or not.·Doctor advised

The bite landed and quit in the same heartbeat, startled off before the jaws set. Four tooth-tip dimples at the nape, no deeper than a briar's work.

• Four puncture dots painted with iodine, itching by day 2
• You keep touching the back of your neck without meaning to

Recovery 2 days of itch; wash them once a day and forget it.·No doctor needed

One tooth dragged a straight line across the back of your skull, parting hair and skin in a single stroke. A finger's width lower and this would be a burying story.

• Single shallow scalp line, cleaned and left to scab for 3 days
• A new part in your hair that will not comb out for weeks

Recovery 2 days to scab; nothing a doctor would charge for.·No doctor needed

Its teeth snagged your neckerchief and the knot cinched hard against your throat before the cloth tore. You carry a friction burn like a rope's kiss and a temper to match.

• Red burn-line ringing the neck for 2 days, it reads like a hangman's near-miss and invites questions
• Swallowing tender the first evening
• /me loosens the fresh neckerchief, showing a raw red line beneath.

Recovery 2 days for the burn to fade; goose grease helps.·No doctor needed

The jaws closed on the thick muscle where neck meets shoulder and got mostly coat. What is left is a deep-set bruise and two pricks you could cover with a dime.

• Bruise the size of a dinner plate coming up plum by morning, sore for 2 days
• Two dime-sized pricks under a plaster

Recovery 2 days of sore shoulder; liniment is the whole prescription.·No doctor needed

The strike snatched your hat clean off your head, and the cat rode it to the ground like it owed money. By the time it knew the difference, you had a rifle up. The hat was not worth saving.

• Not a mark on you, but the hat is shredded felt and memories
• A cold head until the general store opens

Recovery Nothing to heal; the hat is past help.·No doctor needed

The fangs punched into the oilskin slicker rolled across your shoulders and hung there while you spun and hollered. It let go, insulted, and left you with wet gear and a dry neck.

• A pressure bruise across the shoulders where the roll drove down, sore for a day
• Slicker holed in four places, it drips on you every rain until patched

Recovery A day of sore shoulders; the slicker needs the doctor more than you.·No doctor needed

It struck for the base of your skull and its fangs met the walnut stock of the rifle slung across your back. You heard teeth squeal on wood, dropped, rolled, and came up armed while it spat splinters. The fang-gouged stock rides your shoulder still, and you let no one polish out the marks.

• Unmarked, save a strap bruise where the sling bit during the wrench
• Rifle stock carries two deep fang gouges, proof for every doubter at the fire
• /me taps the two gouges in the walnut stock and says nothing.

Recovery Nothing to heal; the rifle took the wound for you.·No doctor needed