Fall from Ledge or Low Cliff (10-20 ft)

The shelf crumbles and the rock below catches your head sideways. You wake, if you wake, hours later at the base with dried blood down your neck, one pupil wide as a well, and your horse the only witness for miles.

• In and out of your senses, hours lost between one blink and the next
• Must be found, or must crawl to the horse; riding alone is falling that hasn't happened yet
• Vomiting and one wide pupil, a doctor must see this, whatever it costs
• /me lies among the scree, hat crown-down beside them, not moving

Recovery A week abed if you're carried to a doctor in time; out here untreated, the odds are the buzzards' to quote·Doctor, urgently

The landing drives your shin bone clean through the skin above the boot, white in the red. Out here that wound is a race, you splint the leg to your rifle stock with your belt and ride for town with your teeth gritted to powder.

• Leg lashed to the rifle stock until town, no weight on it whatsoever for 6 days
• The wound washed with whiskey and fear at every creek crossing
• Fever watch: any red streaking up the leg means ride faster
• /me rides slumped over the horn, leg splinted stiff to a rifle, face grey

Recovery Cleaned with carbolic and set within a day, then 7 days abed; left dirty, it festers by the third day and fever comes calling·Doctor, urgently

You throw an arm out and a boulder snaps it midway, both bones. There's nothing for it but to lash the arm to a green branch with your bandana and make the long ride home one-handed.

• Arm splinted branch-and-bandana, then plastered in town, no use of that hand for 6 days
• The ride back done entirely one-handed, reins in your teeth at the gates
• Fingers swollen fat past the splint for 2 days

Recovery Set in plaster, 6 days before the fingers work; splinted wrong too long on the trail, it knits crooked and wants breaking again·Doctor required

You land flat-backed on a slab of granite and the world whites out. Everything moves when you ask it to, slowly, and at a price, and a gash across your shoulder blades bleeds into your shirt the whole ride home.

• The gash needs silk sutures and a carbolic wash that you will remember
• Flat on boards for 3 days
• No hard riding or lifting for 5 days

Recovery 5 days stitched and flat with a doctor's care; undressed on the trail, the gash sours by day two and brings fever with it·Doctor required

The ankle snaps on landing, a clean break you hear over your own shout. You splint it with kindling and rawhide, mount from a boulder on the third try, and let the horse do all the walking home.

• No weight on the ankle for 4 days, crutch, stick, or a friendly shoulder
• The boot cut off a foot gone twice its size
• Mounting up requires staging, planning, and no witnesses

Recovery Set and splinted proper, 5 days before you hobble; unset, it knits at an angle that argues with boots forever·Doctor required

A shale edge opens your thigh going down, a gash long as your hand and grinning wider. Out here it's whiskey, a tight-wrapped bandana, and hoping the flies don't beat you back to town.

• Silk sutures once you reach town, a dozen, counted aloud
• No hard riding for 3 days after the stitching
• Wound checked twice daily for redness and heat
• /me loosens the blood-stiff bandana wrap at the fire, jaw set

Recovery Stitched and carbolic-washed, 4 days; undressed on the trail, it angers by day two and the fever rides in with it·Doctor required

You come to with the sun at a different angle than you remember and grit in your mouth. Head aching, ribs bruised deep, and however long you lay there, the horse kept your secret.

• An hour or more simply missing from the day
• Headache and blurred edges to your sight for 2 days, no shooting
• Ribs bruised deep; no lifting for 3 days

Recovery 3 quiet days once a doctor's checked your skull, 5 foggy ones if you skip him·Doctor required

You land kneeling on scree and the rock bites through the trouser into the joint. The cuts are shallow but ground with grit, and the knee swells stiff and hot around them.

• The doctor picks gravel from the joint by lamplight, you count the pieces together
• Walk, never sprint, for 3 days
• No kneeling or squatting for 4 days

Recovery 4 days cleaned and wrapped, 6 if grit stays in and the knee sours·Doctor required

The slope moves under your boots and the ankle rolls before the rest of you stops. You limp down the remainder like the mountain's charging you rent for every step.

• Walk, never sprint, for 3 days
• Ankle wrapped in bandana strips, boot laced loose
• Downhill hurts worse than up, to your daily surprise

Recovery 3 days wrapped and rested, 5 if you keep scrambling on it·Doctor advised

You grab everything on the way down, and everything you grab is rock. Your palms come up shredded raw and studded with grit, and the reins are going to hurt for days.

• Hands wrapped like a prizefighter's for 2 days
• Gripping reins, ropes, or pistols stings sharply for 2 days
• /me picks grit out of raw palms by firelight, hissing at the deep ones

Recovery 2 days of smarting, 4 if the grit stays in to fester·Doctor advised

You land side-on where the ledge dumps out and the hip takes it stone-deep. Not broken, but mounting the horse becomes a three-act performance with an audience of one unimpressed mule deer.

• Mounts from a rock or a stump for 3 days
• A bruise from belt to knee, deepening daily in color
• Sleeps on one side only, complaining

Recovery 3 days of stiff walking, 5 before the colors fade·Doctor advised

A rock edge splits your eyebrow and you finish the climb-down half-blind with your own blood. Head wounds pour like they're paid to, the cut itself is barely a thumbnail wide.

• The cut strapped shut with plaster, a fine scar through the brow to keep
• One eye crusted half-shut until you find water to wash it
• A headache for a day

Recovery 3 days strapped, 5 if it keeps cracking open under the plaster·Doctor advised

You break the last of the fall with one hand flat on granite, and the shock runs to the elbow. The wrist swells hot, not broken, the doctor will say, but you'll doubt him nightly.

• Wrist wrapped, no gun hand for 2 days
• Can't twist a cinch tight or wring out a shirt
• An ache that reports for duty every cold morning

Recovery 2 days wrapped, 4 if you keep hauling on ropes with it·Doctor advised

A juniper takes most of the fall and its payment in scratches, ripping your sleeve to ribbons and striping both forearms. You smell of crushed evergreen for two days, which is honestly the best part.

• Cat-scratch stripes down both forearms for 2 days
• One sleeve gone to ribbons, the seamstress sighs at you
• Smells strongly of juniper; the horse approves

Recovery 2 days for the stripes to quiet, a wash for the rest·No doctor needed

The slope goes and you go with it, riding a moving carpet of stones on your backside the whole way to the bottom. The trousers are casualties; you, somehow, are mostly upholstery bruises.

• The seat of the trousers gone to glory, ride with a blanket
• Small bruises peppered everywhere for 2 days
• /me stands up out of the rubble and checks the trousers before checking themself

Recovery 2 days of tenderness; the trousers are beyond medicine·No doctor needed

The ledge takes your boot heel clean off and lets the rest of you land easy in sand. You walk the trail back tilted like a ship in a crosswind until the cobbler evens you out.

• A lopsided walk until the cobbler's seen you
• One ankle faintly sore from the tilt for a day
• The heel kept in a pocket, evidence for the story

Recovery A day of listing to port; the boot takes longer than you do·No doctor needed

You drop the last body-length flat-footed onto rock and the jolt climbs your skeleton like a struck bell. Nothing breaks, but your teeth clacked hard and everything hums for an hour.

• Aching heels for a day, walks like the ground is untrustworthy, which it is
• A bitten cheek that stings at every meal for a day
• Knees that hum by evening and creak by dark

Recovery A day of humming bones, right by the morning after·No doctor needed

You fall exactly one body-length onto a second shelf you never saw, landing in a crouch like you rehearsed it. Above you, the ledge you trusted finishes crumbling into the drop you didn't take.

• One scraped palm, the entire bill
• A long, quiet look over the new edge at what almost was
• A debt to providence, payable at the next church or saloon

Recovery Nothing to heal, the mountain blinked first·No doctor needed

Of all the landings the canyon offers, you find the one drift of soft blow-sand at the base. You punch in to the ankles, sit down backward, and laugh the shaky laugh of the reprieved.

• Sand in every pocket, boot, and crease for a day
• Hands that shake for an hour, then steady
• A landing spot you privately thank on every ride past

Recovery An hour of shakes and a good boot-emptying·No doctor needed

The ledge lets go and you ride the collapsing scree upright, arms wide, stepping stone to sliding stone all the way down like the mountain owed you passage. You step off at the bottom into perfect stillness, boots full of gravel and legend.

• Boots emptied ceremonially, the gravel kept in a tin as proof
• Calves ache faintly tomorrow, sole cost of the ride
• /me steps off the last sliding stone onto flat ground and just stands there, letting it be witnessed

Recovery Nothing to heal, though you'll never repeat it, and you know better than to try·No doctor needed