Finger, Toe or Ear Taken

The blade goes through at the second knuckle with one hard lean, and the finger you've had all your life is on the table instead of your hand. The stump is seared with a heated blade to stop the blood, mercy and cruelty in the same motion.

• Hand bandaged into a mitt; no use of it for 7 days
• Tetanus and infection are the true killers, stump dressed with carbolic daily
• A permanent absence every card player, barber, and lover will notice
• /me hides the bandaged hand under the table when anyone glances down

Recovery Stump trimmed and stitched by a doctor heals in 4-6 weeks; untreated, lockjaw or rot make the finger the smallest thing you lose.·Doctor, urgently

Shears, a nod, and a small toe is subtracted while two men hold your leg like a fence rail. The wound itself is survivable, but it will live inside a sweating, filthy boot, and in 1899 that arithmetic is what kills men.

• No boot on that foot for 7 days, bandaged sock and a cane
• Dressings changed twice daily against the era's great killer, infection
• A rolling hitch to your walk that eventually becomes just how you walk

Recovery 3-5 weeks with a doctor trimming and dressing the stump; in a dirty boot it goes gangrenous within days.·Doctor, urgently

They notch your ear the way a rancher notches a calf's, a swift wedge of it gone, a mark meant to be read across a room for the rest of your life. It bleeds like a stuck pig and heals fast, and that was never the point of it.

• Ear bandaged for 5 days and bleeding through the first two
• A permanent notch that hats don't hide and strangers stare at
• /me angles their hat to shadow the notched ear out of habit

Recovery Heals clean in 2-3 weeks; the notch is forever, and so is being the fellow with the notched ear.·Doctor required

The blade bit down to the bone of the finger and stopped, interrupted, or merciful, or just making sure you understood the menu. The finger stays, but the cut crosses the joint, and the tendon inside took a nick it will sulk over for weeks.

• Finger splinted straight for 7 days; it must not bend while the tendon knits
• No gun work or rope work with that hand for 5 days
• A white ring of scar around the finger like a wedding band you didn't ask for

Recovery Sutured and splinted, 4-6 weeks to full bend; unset, the finger stiffens half-curled for good.·Doctor required

A long deliberate cut down the flat of the finger, deep enough to need silk, shallow enough to keep everything attached. It was bookkeeping, showing you the figure before asking whether you'd like to pay it.

• Finger stitched and wrapped; no fine work with that hand for 4 days
• Stitches out in 10 days if you don't pop them sooner
• /me flexes the stitched finger slowly, counting something private

Recovery 10-14 days with sutures; unstitched it gapes, sours, and takes a month.·Doctor required

The knife went through the ear's edge but took nothing with it, a clean split that bleeds down your neck in a sheet and makes everything sound like it's underwater on that side for a day. Stitched, it will pucker into a thin seam.

• Ear stitched and bandaged for 4 days; hats sit crooked over it
• Muffled hearing on that side for 1 day
• A thin seam-scar through the ear's edge, close inspection tells the tale

Recovery 2-3 weeks to heal stitched; unstitched the split heals apart and looks like a notch anyway.·Doctor required

They started slow on purpose, a saw of the blade across the base of the finger, and stopped at the first white flash of bone when someone called from the door. The finger is whole, cut near around, and screaming.

• Finger wrapped thick; nothing but a spectator on that hand for 5 days
• A ring-scar most of the way around the finger's base when it heals
• You now flinch when anyone reaches for your hand

Recovery 2-3 weeks stitched; the ring of scar is permanent, the finger's use is not harmed.·Doctor required

The shears bit into the small toe and stopped at the bone, a taste, not a purchase. Your boot fills with a surprising amount of blood, and the walk back to anywhere is a lesson in what toes are for.

• Limping with a dressed toe for 5 days; boot loose-laced or carried
• Dressings changed daily, a dirty toe wound is how 1899 kills you
• /me leaves faint red crescents in the dust behind one boot heel

Recovery 2 weeks kept clean; fouled inside a boot, it festers into something a doctor must carve at.·Doctor required

The blade rested on your knuckle and leaned until it bled, a shallow cut, exquisitely placed, made while they watched your eyes instead of the knife. It needs a bandage. Your composure needs more.

• One bandaged finger, stiff for 2 days
• You catch yourself rubbing the spot when knives come out at dinner

Recovery Closed in 4-5 days; a hair-thin scar if any.·Doctor advised

A flick of the knife took a nick from your earlobe, and ears being ears, it bled like the dam broke, down your collar, off your jaw, alarming everyone including your captors. The wound is trivial; the shirt is ruined.

• Nicked lobe scabbed for 4 days
• A ruined collar and a dramatic tale that outstrips the wound
• The tiniest notch in the lobe if you know to look for it

Recovery Healed in a week; scarcely a mark left behind.·Doctor advised

The knife point slid flat under the fingernail and stayed there through three questions, lifting the nail off its bed without ever cutting skin. The nail goes black, then loose, then leaves, it will grow back, which right now feels like a technicality.

• Fingertip too tender to use for 3 days
• A blackening nail that will shed in a couple of weeks and regrow ridged
• /me taps every finger on the table but one

Recovery Tenderness gone in a week; the new nail takes months and grows in with a ridge to remember it by.·Doctor advised

A slice across the back of the hand, shallow and long, made slowly enough that you got to watch. It's a bleeder that dresses down to a thin line, positioned precisely where you and everyone else will see it every day.

• Back of hand bandaged for 3 days; gloves optional but suddenly appealing
• A thin straight scar across the hand, a story trophy

Recovery A week to close; the line silvers and stays.·Doctor advised

Three shallow cuts along the forearm, spaced like fence posts, none deep, the theater of the thing was the whole of the thing. There was a great deal of blood, most of it now on their table, and remarkably little damage.

• Forearm wrapped for 3 days; sleeves stick if you skip the dressing
• Three faint parallel lines that read as a tally to anyone who's seen this done

Recovery Closed in 5-7 days; faint lines linger a few months.·Doctor advised

Mostly they just let the blade rest against your fingers, cold and patient, while questions were asked. One shallow nick at the knuckle is the entire physical record of the worst hour of your month.

• A plastered nick for 2 days
• An acquired distaste for men who clean their nails with knives

Recovery Healed in 3 days flat.·No doctor needed

The cigar cutter was placed on the table and your hand placed beside it, and the two were left to get acquainted while questions went by. One pinch-bruise where it was fitted to your finger, in demonstration. It never closed.

• A pinch-bruise ringing one finger for 2 days
• A cold sweat, in memory, whenever cigars are trimmed nearby

Recovery The bruise fades in 3 days; the association lasts longer.·No doctor needed

The blade scored a line across three fingers, splitting only the top layer of skin, a paper cut's ambitious cousin. It weeps, it stings under whiskey, and it will be gone before the memory even softens.

• Three stinging score lines, plastered for 2 days
• Gripping rough rope smarts for a day

Recovery Sealed in 3-4 days without a mark.·No doctor needed

In the end they never cut you at all, you did it yourself, flinching against the blade's edge as it was held steady. A hairline slice on one fingertip, thin as a grass cut, and the shakes for an hour after.

• A hairline fingertip cut for 1 day; lemon and salt are your enemies
• Hands that won't quite hold a match steady until tomorrow

Recovery Gone in 2 days; you'll feel it exactly as long as you talk about it.·No doctor needed

They wanted the fear, not the finger. The blade tapped your knuckles, the speech was delivered, and you were let up with all your digits and a scratch that a barn cat would be ashamed to claim.

• One faint scratch, gone in 2 days
• The distinct knowledge of what they're willing to do next time

Recovery Nothing to heal; sleep may take a night to come easy.·No doctor needed

The shears were dull as a sermon, and the first squeeze pinched instead of cut, a bruised crease across the finger and a howl out of you that was mostly outrage. Somebody was sent off to sharpen them, and the interruption saved the evening.

• A bruised crease on one finger for 2 days
• A finger that works fine and a story that improves with telling

Recovery Bruise gone in 3-4 days; no mark, all memory.·No doctor needed

The blade falls, bites pine, and takes the fingertip of your glove clean off, the finger inside curled back a half inch, a trick you learned from a Yuma card cheat and never once needed until now. They stare at the empty leather fingertip on the table. You try very hard not to smile.

• A gloved hand with one open fingertip you refuse to mend
• Every finger present, accounted for, and slightly smug
• /me wiggles a bare fingertip through the hole in their glove

Recovery Nothing at all; the glove gave its life for you.·No doctor needed