Foot: Buckshot

Ten feet, no more, the pattern struck as one fist and the front half of your foot is a ragged red crater, toes and all somewhere in it. The doctor does not reach for the probe; he reaches for the saw and asks you a question no man wants asked.

• Bedridden 7 days, morphine-deep, dressings soaked through twice a day
• /me will not look down past their own knee while the doctor works
• The forefoot is gone whatever is chosen, built-up boot, cane and a rolling gait for life

Recovery 7 days between the saw and the fever under a surgeon; alone, the crater turns black inside three days·Doctor, urgently

Close range and the pattern still tight, nine balls of buck drove through your instep together, two of them flattening on bone and cracking a metatarsal. The extraction runs all night: probe, forceps, the clink of lead in the basin, again and again until the count comes right.

• No weight on the foot for 5 days; splinted for the cracked bone
• Nine wounds weep through the wrapping for 2 days
• /me counts the clinks in the basin through gritted teeth, seven, eight, nine

Recovery 6 days of a doctor's daily counting and cleaning, no honest road without one·Doctor, urgently

One pellet found the knuckle of your big toe and broke it like a walnut; two more buried in the ball of your foot beside it. The doctor digs the pair out, splints the big toe to its neighbor, and forbids you your boots like a schoolmaster.

• Big toe splinted to its neighbor for 5 days; no boot on that foot for 4
• Walking on the heel only, cane in hand
• The knuckle heals thick and cracks like a knot in the cold

Recovery 5 days splinted and tended, 10 with a toe that sets crooked·Doctor required

You caught the edge of a close pattern, five pellets driven deep into arch and heel, each its own small tunnel of trouble. The probing takes the evening, the fever takes the night, and morning finds all five pieces of lead lined up on the windowsill.

• Off the foot 4 days; five packed wounds checked daily
• One night of fever and sweat while the wounds declare themselves
• A constellation of pit scars across the arch for good

Recovery 5 days with a doctor's daily care, 9 and a festering track without·Doctor required

Middling range: a dozen pellets across the top of your foot, most sitting shallow as buttons, three sunk deep enough to need the knife. The shallow ones pluck out like ticks; the deep three each cost you a swallow of whiskey and a word your mother never taught you.

• Foot too tender for a boot for 3 days; bandaged in a wrap
• Three stitched cuts among a dozen plasters
• /me lies back as the forceps hunt, naming each pellet after a man they dislike

Recovery 4 days tended, 7 if the deep three are left to fester·Doctor required

The classic long evening on the doctor's table: boot off, lamp close, and the forceps picking pellet after pellet from the top of your foot while you work through his whiskey and your vocabulary. Fourteen pieces of lead in the tin by the finish, and he makes you count them with him.

• The whole evening lost to the table; limping 3 days after
• Fourteen small scabs in a spray across the foot
• /me drops the last pellet in the tin and asks if they can keep the set

Recovery 3 days with the punctures kept clean, 6 if any go bad·Doctor required

Most of the spread rattled off your boot, but one pellet slid between the laces and lodged against the cord that lifts your big toe, the toe hangs half-asleep until the doctor cuts the pellet free. A small piece of lead with expensive taste.

• Big toe droops and drags for 2 days after the cutting
• Limp with a cane for 3 days; no stirrup on that side

Recovery 3 days with care and toe-working, 6 stiff days without·Doctor required

Four pellets sank into the thick pad of your heel, and every step you took before the doctor drove them deeper like nails under a hammer. He cuts in from the sides, pulling them out one by one, and forbids your heel the ground for days.

• Tiptoe and cane for 3 days; heel bandaged into a fist of cloth
• A deep heel bruise that rings on cold mornings for a week
• You stand at the bar with one heel cocked off the floor like a nervous horse

Recovery 4 days off the heel with a doctor, 7 without·Doctor required

The doctor takes eleven pellets out of your foot and then sets down the forceps, the last two sit under the arch against bone, and chasing them would cost more foot than they are worth. They stay, and from this day your foot reads the weather better than any almanac.

• Punctures heal in 3 days; the limp fades with them
• A deep arch-ache before every rain, for good
• Two hard little beads under the skin that doctors always find

Recovery 3 days for the wounds under care, 5 alone, the two keepsakes never leave·Doctor advised

Long range and a loose pattern, eight pellets peppered across your instep, none deeper than a fingernail. Each one plucks out with a quick pinch and a hiss, and the doctor lines them up on the table like buttons off a coat.

• Eight plastered punctures under loose laces for 2 days
• Foot too tender for dancing for 3 days, and someone will ask

Recovery 2 days kept clean, 4 if the punctures angry up·Doctor advised

One pellet hit square and skittered along a metatarsal without breaking it, plowing a bruised groove under the skin before stopping at the foot's edge. The doctor milks it out through a small cut and shows you the bone-groove bruise rising like a brand.

• A hot bruised stripe across the foot for 3 days
• One stitched cut at the foot's edge; limp for 2 days

Recovery 3 days tended, 5 with the bruise nursed alone·Doctor advised

The boot's leather swallowed half the pattern; the other half made it to you as four pellets sitting just under the skin, each raising its own blood-bruise button. The doctor pops them out in the time it takes your coffee to cool.

• Four plasters and four bruises across the foot for 2 days
• Four small lumps gone, four little scars to come

Recovery 2 days with clean dressings, 4 without·Doctor advised

Past thirty yards the pattern arrived tired, a sprinkle of pellets a fingernail deep across the top of your foot, half of them stopped by sock and leather. Tweezers, carbolic and a steady hour see the lead out and you back in your boot by supper.

• Tender lacing for 2 days; a spray of small scabs
• You find one last pellet in your sock two days on

Recovery 2 days kept clean, 3 otherwise·Doctor advised

Three pellets at the pattern's edge sat down just under the skin of your foot like peas in a pod. The doctor pops each one through a nick you barely feel, and the whole business is done before the coffee finishes.

• Three plasters in a row; sore in a boot for a day
• Bruise-buttons fade over 3 days

Recovery A day or 2 with plasters·No doctor needed

You pull off your boot and pellets rattle out like gravel, most spent themselves on the leather, and the few that reached you stopped in the stocking's weave, pressing dimpled bruises into the skin. One left a blood blister you will lose a toenail to.

• Dimpled bruises across the foot for 2 days
• One black toenail that will lift and grow anew
• /me tips the boot and lets the spent shot patter onto the porch boards

Recovery 2 days of tenderness, no wound worth stitching·No doctor needed

The spread arrived like a fistful of thrown gravel, red welts across your instep and one lone pellet that broke skin at the foot's edge before falling into your boot. You dig it from beneath your own heel at day's end, flat and cold.

• A scatter of welts, hot for a day
• One shallow plastered cut at the edge

Recovery A day of sting; the welts outlive the cut·No doctor needed

The pattern's furthest edge caught you, two pellets pricked the skin at your foot's rim and a third bounced off your bootlace hook with a ping you heard clear as a bell. Two plasters and a story that requires the sound effect every time.

• Two pinprick scabs, tender at the boot seam for a day
• You cannot tell the tale without making the ping noise

Recovery Hours of sting, a day of tenderness·No doctor needed

Your boot's upper is studded with buckshot like a cobbler drove hobnails in from the wrong side, seven pellets in the leather, not one through it. Under the boot: a foot stone-bruised and whole, aching the honest ache of luck.

• A stone-bruise ache across the instep for a day
• /me pries pellets from the boot leather with a pocketknife, saving each one

Recovery A day for the bruise; the boot is past praying for·No doctor needed

They hollered dance and you were already dancing, the pattern chewed the dirt where your foot had been a half-second before. One pellet split the edge of your boot sole and scratched the little toe beneath; the rest killed nothing but dust.

• A scratched little toe, plastered once and forgotten
• New respect for your footwork at every campfire retelling

Recovery Hours, the toe forgets faster than you will·No doctor needed

The whole pattern arrived and your boot answered for all of it, nine dents across the sole and heel, not one pellet through to skin. That night at the fire you dig the flattened shot from the leather one by one and pass them around the circle, the boot standing in the middle like a war hero.

• Not a mark on your foot; the boot retires with honors
• Nine flattened pellets in a tobacco tin, shown at every card game
• /me lines the nine flattened pellets along the table edge, daring anyone to doubt the tale

Recovery Nothing to heal, you were never touched·No doctor needed