Fingers & Hands Crushed

The hammer came down until the hand stopped looking like one, and for days after you told yourself it was healing. Now two fingers have gone dark and sweet-smelling, and there is exactly one treatment for gangrene in 1899, and it is a bonesaw.

• Hand splinted and slung; no use whatsoever for 7 days
• Fever, chills, and a wound that smells wrong
• /me cradles a blackening hand against their chest, sweating through their shirt

Recovery A surgeon within days decides how much hand you keep; wait longer and the rot climbs past the wrist.·Doctor, urgently

The boot heel comes down square across the back of your gun hand and the small bones give in a crackle of green sticks. The hand swells to a leather mitt inside the hour, and everything you're known for lives in that hand.

• Gun hand splinted flat to a board, no shooting, roping, or card dealing for 7 days
• Buttons, buckles, and boot pulls now take twice as long one-handed
• /me fumbles left-handed at a shirt button, jaw tight

Recovery 6+ weeks in splints under a doctor; unset, the hand knits crooked and never draws quite as fast.·Doctor required

They bent two fingers back past every argument the joints could make, one after the other, with a question between the snaps. Both are broken clean and both belong to the hand you use for everything.

• Two fingers splinted to their neighbors for 7 days, no fine work with that hand
• Grip is down to thumb and two fingers; reins yes, revolver no
• Cold mornings already whisper in the knuckles

Recovery 3-6 weeks splinted straight; unset they knit crooked and stay that way, a permanent souvenir bend.·Doctor required

One short swing of a shoeing hammer across the knuckles, and the joints balloon into a row of angry plums. Nothing is clean-broken, but the knuckles are chipped and mashed, and making a fist is a memory.

• Cannot make a fist for 5 days; gripping anything heavier than a spoon aches
• Knuckles swollen, split, and spectacular for 2-3 weeks
• /me flexes their fingers a quarter inch at a time, breath whistling

Recovery 4-6 weeks for the joints to settle with splinting and rest; rushed, they stiffen and swell with every rain.·Doctor required

A single finger, bent back with professional patience until it went. It's a clean break as breaks go, splinted to its neighbor like a drunk being walked home, but you'd be amazed what all a man needs that finger for.

• One finger splinted to its neighbor for 7 days
• No trigger work, piano, or dealing faro with that hand for 5 days
• A crooked finger forever if you skip the splint

Recovery 3-6 weeks splinted; ignore it and it points a little sideways for the rest of your days.·Doctor required

Pliers, a slow grip, and a fingernail leaving the world the hard way. There is no lasting harm in it at all, which is the devil's own trick, because in the moment it is very nearly the worst thing that has ever happened to you.

• Fingertip bandaged and howling; nothing touches it for 3 days
• The nail bed weeps and must be dressed daily for 4 days
• A ridged, strange nail when it finally grows back in

Recovery Sore for 2 weeks, and months for the nail to grow back; no disability at all, just the memory.·Doctor required

They stood on your bare foot and rocked their weight until three toes gave with little firecracker pops. Nobody splints toes; they buddy-wrap them, hand you a cane, and let the limp introduce you around town.

• A limp everyone asks about for 7 days; walk, never run
• Boots on that foot only loose-laced or not at all for 5 days
• /me walks heel-first on one side, toes buddy-taped inside a loose boot

Recovery 3-6 weeks of hobbling; the limp is honest the first fortnight and theatrical thereafter.·Doctor required

They levered your thumb out of its socket and left it sitting wrong for a long minute before the doc, or somebody brave, pulled it back in with a clunk. The hand works, but the thumb has resigned from anything requiring conviction.

• No firm grip with that hand for 4 days, hammers, ropes, and revolvers all betray you
• Thumb strapped to the palm; taking coins from a pocket is comedy

Recovery 2-3 weeks strapped; unstrapped it pops out again on the first hard grip.·Doctor required

The hammer landed flat instead of edge-on, luck of a kind. Nothing broke, but the bones of the hand are bruised deep, and the whole mitt is stiff, hot, and one size larger than it was at breakfast.

• Hand stiff and weak for 4 days; wring it out before every use
• Swollen enough that your ring finger keeps its ring for now, like it or not
• /me shakes out a swollen hand, testing the fingers one by one

Recovery 10-14 days of soaking and flexing; no marks left but the memory.·Doctor advised

The boot came down at an angle and jammed four fingers back into the hand. Nothing snapped, but the fingers swell up like sausages on a griddle, and bending them is a favor they're not doing today.

• Fingers fat and stiff; no fine work for 3 days
• Handshakes are an ambush, you visibly brace for each one

Recovery A week of cold-water soaks and they remember how to bend.·Doctor advised

They ground the ball of a boot heel into the back of your hand against the floorboards, slow, letting the boards do half the work. The skin is scraped raw in a heel-shaped brand and the tendons complain when the fingers curl.

• Back of the hand scraped raw, wrapped for 3 days
• A heel-shaped bruise that looks exactly like what it is
• Fingers curl at three-quarter strength for 2 days

Recovery Scrape scabs over in a week; the bruise takes two to fade.·Doctor advised

Pliers closed on the meat of your finger and twisted a slow quarter turn, enough to sprain the joint and blood-blister the skin, not enough to break anything. It was a sample, they explained. A courtesy.

• One finger sprained and taped for 3 days
• A deep blood blister that turns the nail purple-black over the coming week
• /me rubs the taped finger absently while watching the door

Recovery A week for the sprain; the blackened nail grows out over a couple of months as a keepsake.·Doctor advised

One boot stomp, one toe, probably broken, definitely furious. There's no treatment on earth but taping it to the toe next door and walking like your boot is full of hornets for a spell.

• A pronounced limp for 4 days; stairs are planned in advance
• Boot goes on late in the morning and comes off early at night

Recovery 3-4 weeks to knit; nobody dies of a broken toe, they just wish they could for a week.·Doctor advised

They wrenched a finger back and the joint screamed but held. It's swollen at the middle knuckle and taped for show, and it aches just enough to keep the memory of the room fresh.

• One taped finger for 2 days, tender if bumped
• A habit of guarding that hand in crowds

Recovery 4-5 days and it bends like nothing happened.·No doctor needed

The pliers pinched skin instead of bone, a deliberate mercy or a slipped grip, you'll never know. The blood blister beneath your nail is theatrical, purple as a magistrate's prose, and mostly harmless.

• A throbbing blackened nail for 3 days, worse if you drum your fingers
• The nail grows out purple, then ridged, over a couple months, a small trophy

Recovery Throbbing done inside 3 days; the nail's story takes two months to finish telling.·No doctor needed

Your hand was ground against the floorboards more than struck, and the damage is a set of scraped knuckles a bar fight would be proud of. They sting under whiskey and look worse than they are.

• Scraped knuckles scabbed for 4 days; they crack when you make a fist
• Looks exactly like you lost a fistfight, which invites the wrong questions

Recovery Scabbed and settled in 4-5 days.·No doctor needed

A big man in no hurry squeezed your hand like he was juicing an orange and asked his questions to the sound of your knuckles grinding. It aches deep and buzzes at the fingertips, but there's no mark by morning.

• A deep ache through the hand for 1 day
• You flex the hand at odd moments, remembering

Recovery Gone by tomorrow; nothing to show but the way you now size up men's hands.·No doctor needed

The hammer skipped off the table edge on its way down and only grazed you, pinching skin against wood. You yanked the hand back with a bruised stripe across two fingers and your heart doing forty miles an hour.

• A bruise stripe across two fingers, tender for 1 day
• Reflexes now excellent around descending objects

Recovery Faded in 2-3 days; luck did the doctoring.·No doctor needed

You twisted your hand at the last breath and the boot heel came down on floorboard instead of fingers. They laughed, in an unsettled way, you were supposed to be held tighter than that.

• A scraped fingertip from the escape, plastered for a day
• The dubious respect of everyone who watched you do it

Recovery Nothing worth naming; the story pays for drinks.·No doctor needed

The hammer falls square across your hand, and rings off the thick brass ring your grandfather wore before you. The band bends into an oval, three men check their ears from the sound, and your fingers come away bruised but whole under a ring that gave its shape for you.

• A bent brass ring you'll never have straightened, proof of the story
• Bruised fingers, fully working, tender for 1 day
• /me turns the oval-bent ring on their finger, grinning at it

Recovery The hand is fine by morning; the ring stays bent forever, exactly as it should.·No doctor needed