Dragged Behind a Horse

The soft ground ran out and the rocks began, and one of them found your skull. You wake days later, if you wake at all, to a face the mirror won't recognize and a doctor speaking softly about what can and cannot be mended.

• Bedridden 7 days, drifting in and out, face swathed in dressings
• Features permanently changed, folk who knew you look twice, then look away
• Speech slurred and slow while the swelling holds
• /me turns the bandaged side of their face away from the lamplight

Recovery Weeks under a doctor's roof, dressings changed daily; what the rocks took does not come back.·Doctor, urgently

The drag took the hide off your forearm and thigh in sheets, deep past feeling and into the meat, and your arm snapped somewhere in the second stretch. The doctor sets the bone and then starts on the dressings, and the dressings are the worse half.

• Arm splinted and slung, one-handed for 7 days
• Raw dressings on arm and thigh changed daily, each change an ordeal
• Fever watch for 3 days, degloved skin festers fast
• /me grips the table edge white-knuckled as the dressing peels away

Recovery 2 weeks minimum of daily dressing changes under a doctor; the skin scars in shining sheets.·Doctor, urgently

You bounced wrong off a stone shelf and heard the collarbone go, then two ribs answer. Every breath is bought at a price, and beneath the road-rash there is a grinding when you move that makes strong men look away.

• Collarbone bound in a figure-eight wrap, no lifting that arm past your belt for 7 days
• Cracked ribs, no running, hauling, or hard laughter for 5 days
• Full-thickness abrasions down one side, dressed and weeping

Recovery A doctor's setting and 3 weeks of care; untended, the bones knit crooked and the wounds fester.·Doctor, urgently

Your head kissed a rock at speed, and the world has rung like a church bell since. You lose the thread of sentences, vomit without warning, and the lamplight splits into doubles when you are tired.

• Seeing double by evening, no shooting, no riding for 4 days
• Wake-checks through the first night on doctor's orders
• Loses the thread mid-sentence and asks folk to start over
• /me stares hard at the lamp, blinking until the two flames agree to be one

Recovery 5 days of dark and quiet with a doctor near; pushing through invites the black spells back.·Doctor, urgently

The drag flayed your back raw from shoulder to hip, and dirt is ground deep into all of it. The doctor is honest with you: it has to be scrubbed out with a brush and carbolic, there is nothing meaningful for the pain, and it has to happen today.

• Back scrubbed and dressed, dressings changed daily for 5 days, none of them pleasant
• No shirt sits right; you move like a man wearing a coat of nettles
• Sleeps face-down or not at all for 4 days
• /me eases their shirt away from the dressings, breath hissing through teeth

Recovery A week of daily carbolic dressings to heal clean; skipped, it festers viciously inside three days.·Doctor required

Your hip and thigh took the worst of the road, and the road left souvenirs. The doctor spends an hour with tweezers picking gravel out of you piece by piece, dropping each stone into a tin cup with a little clink you will hear in your dreams.

• Deep dressed abrasions hip to knee, walk stiff-legged for 4 days
• No riding for 2 days; the saddle sits exactly wrong
• A tin cup of your own gravel, if you want to keep it

Recovery 6 days dressed and salved with care; left alone, the deep grit festers and reopens it all.·Doctor required

You spent the whole drag hauling on the rope with bare hands, and the rope and road milled them raw together. Both palms are flayed past the callus, wrapped now in bandages that make mittens of your hands.

• Both hands bandaged, no gun, no reins, no cards for 3 days
• Doors, buttons, and belt buckles all require help or cursing
• /me fumbles at a coat button with two bandaged paws, then gives up

Recovery 5 days wrapped and salved under a doctor's eye; the palms scar smooth and stay tender for weeks.·Doctor required

You turned your head at the wrong moment and the gravel wrote its name across your cheek and brow. The doctor cleans it grain by grain and allows that it will heal, but the signature stays, a patch of rough scarring beside your eye.

• One side of the face dressed for 3 days, it draws every eye in the saloon
• Chewing and grinning both pull at the scabs; do neither with enthusiasm for 2 days
• A permanent rough patch of scarring at cheek and brow, your new introduction

Recovery A week of careful cleaning to keep the face from festering; the mark itself is yours for good.·Doctor required

Road rash from elbow to ribs on the one side, hot as a stove-lid and twice as tender. It looks worse than it is, but if it isn't scrubbed clean it will shortly be exactly as bad as it looks.

• Dressed abrasions along the arm and ribs, sleeves stick, so keep it wrapped for 3 days
• Sleeping on the good side only for 3 days
• Winces theatrically at every friendly slap on the arm

Recovery 4 days if scrubbed and dressed proper; a festering week if you trust dirt to be kind.·Doctor required

The first yank of the rope near pulled your shoulder from its home, and the joint has opinions now. It sits low and aches deep, and lifting anything heavier than a coffee cup wants doing with the other arm.

• Bad arm in a kerchief sling for 3 days
• No roping, hauling, or pistol work off that side for 4 days
• /me rolls the low shoulder gingerly, testing what it will forgive today

Recovery 4 days rested in a sling; 7 stubborn days of aching if you keep using it.·Doctor advised

Your clothes fought hard and lost. Knees and elbows are ground raw through torn cloth, stinging in that particular childhood way, and your good trousers died so that you might live.

• Raw knees and elbows, dressed for 3 days, kneeling and leaning both cost extra
• Every joint bend cracks a scab; you move like a rusty gate
• One outfit ruined beyond any seamstress's mercy

Recovery 4 days of salve and clean dressings; it festers if you let the scabs go dirty.·Doctor advised

The loop sat around your ankle for the whole ride, and the ankle remembers. It is wrenched and rope-burned both, swollen snug against the boot, and it greets your weight each morning with a hot complaint.

• Pronounced limp, walk, never sprint, for 3 days
• Rope-burn ring above the boot, dressed for 3 days
• Boot goes on loose-laced or not at all the first 2 days
• /me lowers weight onto the bad ankle by degrees, testing it like thin ice

Recovery 4 days wrapped and rested; a week of hobbling if you dance on it early.·Doctor advised

Bruised everywhere and scraped in a dozen shallow places, with road-dirt ground into all of it. The doctor's warning is plain: scrub every scrape today, or the dirt sets under the skin like ink and the festering starts by Friday.

• An hour of miserable scrubbing owed today, carbolic, brush, and bad language
• Scattered dressed scrapes on arms, hip, and jaw for 3 days
• Stiff and bruised, mounts the horse like a much older person for 2 days

Recovery 3 days if scrubbed clean at once; a festering week and gray-blue skin stains if not.·Doctor advised

They dragged you across pasture, not pike road, and the grass took most of the bill. You are rashed pink along one side and your shirt is a rag, but soap and salve will square the rest.

• Pink friction rash along one side, tender for 2 days
• A ruined shirt and grass stains that will outlive the injury

Recovery 2 days of salve; scrub it once anyway, just to be sure.·Doctor advised

A short drag and a soft landing, gravel burn on one forearm and a green-brown stain from shoulder to boot. You lost the argument but kept the skin, mostly.

• Gravel-burned forearm, wrapped for 2 days
• Dirt-stained and disheveled, you look exactly like a person who was dragged
• /me brushes uselessly at grass stains that surrendered to the cloth long ago

Recovery 2 days; wash it with carbolic soap once and forget it.·Doctor advised

You caught the rope in both hands and held on like a fool hero, and the rope skinned you for your trouble. A hot friction stripe crosses each palm, and your grip complains about everything.

• Rope-burned palms, gripping reins or gun stings sharply for 2 days
• Handshakes are given gingerly and regretted immediately

Recovery 3 days salved; the calluses come back stronger, as calluses do.·Doctor advised

It ended almost before it began, a few yards of dirt, a mouthful of dust, and a heart going like a telegraph key. You stand up scraped, filthy, and furious, which is to say: fine.

• Scattered light scrapes, stinging for 1 day
• Spitting dust and pride in roughly equal measure
• Coat and hat need beating clean before town

Recovery A day, a bath, and a stiff drink.·Doctor advised

Providence made it rain last week. The whole drag ran through soft mud that received you like a feather bed, and you slide to a stop filthy from hat to heel without a mark that matters.

• Head-to-toe mud, you will be scraping it from your ears for days
• One faint bruise on the hip, more rumor than injury

Recovery A hot bath and a laundress owed a favor.·No doctor needed

Your thick winter coat took the whole ride on your behalf, shredded to ribbons across the back while the skin beneath came through with barely a pink patch. Bury the coat with honors.

• A faint friction warmth across the shoulders, gone by tomorrow
• One heroic coat, deceased, its remains make the story better
• /me holds up the shredded coat so the whole saloon can pay respects

Recovery None to speak of, though the coat is beyond any tailor.·No doctor needed

The rope snapped at the first hard yank, and you came up out of the dust in a roll while the rider thundered on, dragging six feet of nothing. You stood there in the settling dust, unhurt, holding your end of the rope like a fish that got away, and every witness will tell it forever.

• Not a mark on you, the frayed rope end hangs from your belt as proof
• Witnesses buy your drinks to hear it told properly
• /me holds up the frayed rope end and lets it speak for itself

Recovery None, save the rider's pride, once the story spreads.·No doctor needed