Foot: Rifle: Lodged Deep

The round spent all its fury inside your foot, tarsals shattered to shards, the slug wedged in the wreckage where no forceps can follow. The doctor can take the foot while you still have blood to spare, or leave a crushed thing that will never carry you again; he makes you say the words yourself.

• Bedridden 7 days, morphine by the clock, foot swollen shapeless
• /me signs their own name crooked on the surgeon's paper, hand shaking
• Whichever road: peg and crutch, or a boot built around a ruin

Recovery 7 days at the edge under a surgeon; without one, the shattered foot rots inside the week·Doctor, urgently

The round smashed through two metatarsals and stopped, and now your midfoot is a bag of bone splinters with a slug at the bottom of it. The extraction takes half the night, forceps in, splinter out, again and again, morphine keeping you just this side of the ceiling.

• No weight at all for 6 days; foot splinted board-flat
• Wound left open 2 days to weep splinters the doctor missed
• The foot heals a half-size wider and never loves a narrow boot again

Recovery 7 days of a doctor's daily work; there is no toughing this one out·Doctor, urgently

The slug wedged itself into the metatarsal it broke, tight as a nail in green wood. The doctor opens the top of your foot lamp-bright down to the bone and works the lead loose with forceps, sweating harder than you are.

• Off the foot 5 days; the incision drains for 2 of them
• Foot splinted; toes peek out bruised black
• /me listens to the steel tap-tapping against bone and grips the cot rail harder

Recovery 6 days under a doctor's needle and splint, 12 crooked without·Doctor, urgently

The round cracked a metatarsal and jammed itself into the very break it made, like a wedge in a split log. Levering the slug free opens the crack wider before it can knit, and you feel every ounce of the levering.

• Splinted flat for 5 days; heel-walking with a cane only
• A grinding ache deep in the foot whenever the weather turns
• The doctor keeps the slug, says it earned its place in his jar

Recovery 5 days splinted with care, 10 and a crooked heal alone·Doctor, urgently

The slug lies deep beneath the cords of your arch, and the probe must walk past every one of them to find it, each touch makes your toes jump like puppets. It takes the doctor an hour, two basins and one broken sweat to bring the lead up into the lamplight.

• The evening lost to the table; no weight on the foot for 4 days
• Toes cramp and curl on their own for 2 days after
• /me lies belly-down, boot off, fist crammed against their teeth as the probe goes walking

Recovery 5 days with the sole tended daily, 9 if the deep track festers·Doctor required

More bone than lead comes out of you, the doctor draws the slug in the first quarter hour, then spends two more picking bone slivers from the channel and dropping them into a tin cup, ringing like small change. The foot that is left knits honest, but slow.

• Foot bandaged thick as a beehive; no boot for 5 days
• Slivers work to the surface for days, sharp under the skin

Recovery 5 days tended, 9 with slivers festering their own way out·Doctor required

The round spent most of itself punching your boot's counter and stopped hard against the heel bone, flattened like a hammered penny. The doctor cuts through the heel pad's thick side to shell it out, and the heel pad holds a grudge.

• No heel-strike for 4 days, tiptoe and cane
• Heel bruised bone-deep; cold mornings ring it like a bell
• You ease down off the horse onto one toe, cursing softly at the ground

Recovery 4 days off the heel with care, 8 without·Doctor required

The slug lodged against the cords that lift your toes, and now three of them sit half-curled and answer nobody. The doctor frees it with one careful cut, and the toes wake over the days after, stiff as rusted hinges.

• Three toes stiff and clumsy for 3 days; stairs are treachery
• Limp on a cane while the toes remember their business

Recovery 4 days with care and toe-working, 7 if left stiff·Doctor required

Your boot's double leather drank most of the round's speed, it lodged shallow in the instep muscle, close enough to see its shape. One sitting on the table, one steady pull of the forceps, and the slug is in the basin before the whiskey wears off.

• Limp for 3 days; instep bruised black around the cut
• Two silk stitches and a lint pad under the laces

Recovery 3 days kept clean, 5 without·Doctor advised

A ricochet off the rock face came at you tumbling, it hit sideways-on and dug in shallow, an ugly ragged mouth over a slug lying crossways under the skin. Uglier than it is deep: the doctor turns it out in a minute and spends longer on the stitching.

• A ragged, bruised cut atop the foot, stitched and padded
• Limp for 2 days; a scar wider than most bullet marks

Recovery 3 days dressed daily, 5 alone·Doctor advised

The spent round settled in the soft flesh below your ankle knob, a hard button you found with your own thumb. Small cut, quick forceps, and the doctor charges you more for the whiskey than the work.

• Boot rubs the stitch for 2 days; laces left loose
• A bruise ringing the ankle bone like a smoke ring

Recovery 2 days tended, 4 if it angries up·Doctor advised

The slug is shallow but the foot ballooned too fast to cut tonight, the doctor packs the entry, props the foot high, and sits you out a day. Next morning the swelling has fallen and the lead comes out in one clean minute, easy as a splinter.

• A day flat on your back with the foot above your heart
• Limp for 2 days after the extraction
• /me sits with the foot propped on a flour sack, tapping fingers, waiting on the knife

Recovery 3 days all told with the doctor's patience, 6 without it·Doctor advised

The round sits just under the muscle sheath atop your foot, no deeper than a well-driven tack. One cut, one deep pinch of the forceps that you feel in your back teeth, and it is over before the lamp needs trimming.

• Walk careful for 2 days; the stitch pulls when the foot flexes
• The slug, barely deformed, rides in your vest pocket now

Recovery 2 days with the dressing, 3 without·Doctor advised

Spent on a wagon board before it found you, the round lodged skin-deep in the top of your foot, standing half-proud like a misdriven nail. It comes out with tweezers and a sharp breath, and the hole barely earns its plaster.

• A puncture bruise, tender in a boot for a day
• You keep flexing the foot, half proud, half checking

Recovery A day or 2, washed and plastered·No doctor needed

The tired round tangled itself in your bootlaces and the tongue's leather, its nose just pricking the skin of your instep. You unlace the whole mess with the slug still woven in it, like a fly in a web.

• A single bleeding prick, plastered in a moment
• /me holds up the boot, slug still snarled in the laces, for the whole camp to see

Recovery A few hours of sting, nothing by morning·No doctor needed

The round tore through the boot's upper and died there, its flattened nose resting against a bleeding scrape on your foot's edge. You brush the slug off your skin like a horsefly, and the scrape is done bleeding by the time the boot is off.

• A raw scrape along the foot's edge, dressed once
• Boot upper flaps until it meets an awl and thread

Recovery A day of tenderness, then only the itch·No doctor needed

The spent slug bounced off the top of your foot, splitting skin the width of a fingernail and leaving a deep red dimple. You find the round itself in your sock at bedtime, cold and flat, like a coin someone owed you.

• A dimpled welt under the laces for a day
• A split of skin that scabs by morning

Recovery A day, and only if you fuss over it·No doctor needed

The round spent itself on the stone wall you were standing behind and dropped the last yard onto your instep, a thump like a dropped horseshoe, a bruise, and the slug lying in the dirt beside your boot, done in.

• A deep instep bruise, tender in a stirrup for 2 days
• /me picks the spent slug out of the dust and blows it clean

Recovery A day or 2 for the bruise, nothing else to mend·No doctor needed

You felt the hammer-blow under your foot and walked crooked on a lumpy sole for half a day before the cobbler found it, the slug driven flat between outer sole and insole, snug as a knot in a plank. Your skin never even reddened.

• Not a mark on you; a half-day's mystery limp already fading
• The cobbler asks to keep the slug; you decline

Recovery Nothing to heal, the boot took the whole bill·No doctor needed

The round rang your stirrup iron like a chapel bell, deflected, and the spent slug dropped smoking down inside your boot shaft. You danced, you swore, you shook it out into the grass, one scalded stripe at the top of your foot and the loudest story on the trail this month.

• A thin scald mark, greased and forgotten in a day
• The dented stirrup stays on the saddle as proof
• /me rings a fingernail off the stirrup's dent and lets the sound finish the story

Recovery Hours, the tale outlives the mark by years·No doctor needed