Alligator: Bite: Arm

It clamped your forearm and wrenched back toward the water, and the hide of you stayed with the teeth, skin and meat peeled from elbow to wrist like a wet glove. The doctor packs what's left in carbolic-soaked linen and starts talking, very quietly, about the bonesaw if the rot sets in.

• Arm bound in soaked dressings shoulder to fingertips, useless for 7 days, and what heals after is the doctor's guess
• Fever watch morning and night; red streaks past the elbow mean the saw
• Laudanum for the pain, and it barely reaches
• /me lies still while the dressings are changed, eyes fixed hard on the ceiling boards.

Recovery 7 days of daily carbolic dressings under a doctor's roof just to know what keeps; untended, gangrene decides for you·Doctor, urgently

A jaw built for cracking turtle shell met your forearm and both bones gave under it, you felt them grind before you ever felt the punctures. The doc splints elbow to knuckle and picks swamp grit out of every hole.

• Forearm splinted from elbow to knuckles, no shooting, roping or lifting with that arm for 7 days
• Rows of punctures kept open with lint wicks and flushed with carbolic twice a day
• Fingers swollen stiff and cold at the tips

Recovery Set and splinted, 7 days before it takes weight; unset, it knits crooked and aches every wet season·Doctor, urgently

The punctures looked clean enough when you climbed out, but nothing that lives in that water is clean. Two mornings on, the arm is hot as a stove lid, weeping gray, and the smell coming off the bandage turns your stomach.

• Fever and a swollen arm, laid up 5 days while the wounds are opened and drained
• Doctor reopens every hole and flushes them with carbolic; you bite the strap through it
• /me peels the bandage back, sniffs once, and goes pale.

Recovery 5 days of draining and carbolic to run it out; left to fester, blood poisoning is a coin toss·Doctor required

A back tooth ground against the cords in your wrist and the hand went half-foreign, it answers, but slow, and the fork drops twice before supper's done. The doc splints it straight and tells you not to test his stitching.

• Grip at half strength, no fast draw, no reins in that hand for 6 days
• Punctures both sides of the wrist packed open to drain
• Forearm strapped stiff to a board splint

Recovery 6 days splinted with a doctor's needlework; unstitched, the hand stays clumsy a good deal longer·Doctor required

The full jaw closed and every peg found meat, two curved rows of holes, top and bottom, elbow to wrist. Each one carried a drop of the bayou in with it, and the doc means to chase every drop back out.

• Arm slung and bandaged, one-handed work only for 4 days
• Every puncture flushed with whiskey, then carbolic, one hole at a time
• /me unwinds the bandage to count the holes again, and loses count again.

Recovery 4 days of daily flushing and fresh linen, near twice that if the swamp gets a head start·Doctor required

Gators shed teeth like a dog sheds hair, and one of them stayed in your forearm, you feel it click when you turn your wrist. The doctor goes in after it with a probe and forceps while you sweat through the chair.

• Deep probing wound bandaged tight, arm rested 4 days while it drains
• A gator tooth the size of a rifle cartridge in your pocket, yours now
• The probing hurts worse than the bite did, and you'll say so

Recovery 4 days once the tooth is out and the hole runs clean; left in, it festers to an abscess inside a week·Doctor required

It got you across the hand and wrist, the pegs punching between the small bones, and now your knuckles are the size of walnuts. Of all the meat on you, it chose the hand you make your living with.

• Gun hand swollen and punctured, no shooting, dealing or writing for 3 days
• Hand soaked in hot salt water morning and night to keep the swelling honest
• /me flexes the fat, punctured hand slow, counting what still answers.

Recovery 3 days splinted and soaked, 6 if you keep hauling iron with it·Doctor required

Half a dozen honest holes in the forearm, and every one of them went into the water dirty and came out dirtier. The doc's orders are plain: keep them open, keep them draining, and don't let the bayou seal itself inside you.

• Punctures wicked open with lint and drained twice a day for 3 days
• Arm carried stiff at your side, no rope work, no wrangling
• A sour throb that flares at every bandage change

Recovery 3 days of draining and carbolic; closed over dirty, it goes bad by the week's end·Doctor required

The clamp came through your coat, and though only a few pegs broke skin, the crush left your forearm one long bruise, wrist to elbow, deep as the bone. It doesn't bend so much as complain.

• Forearm bruised bone-deep, blocks, recoil and heavy lifting are misery for 2 days
• Three shallow punctures cleaned and covered
• Arm rounds out swollen like a proving loaf by nightfall

Recovery 2 days of rest and cold creek water, 4 if you keep working it·Doctor advised

Good Lemoyne wool gave its life for you, the teeth spent most of their spite on cloth and left you a handful of shallow holes and a bruise like a wagon wheel rolled over the arm.

• Shallow punctures bandaged, arm tender for 2 days
• Coat sleeve punched through in two curved rows, done for
• An ache that wakes when you lean on the arm

Recovery 2 days kept clean; the coat is past any recovery at all·Doctor advised

It slacked its grip to get a better one and you didn't wait, the arm came out raked and ragged, drag-tears where the pegs plowed instead of punched. Ugly to look at, shallower than it bleeds.

• Ragged drag-tears down the forearm, cleaned and bandaged, sting under sweat for 2 days
• Blood-soaked sleeve worth a free drink in any Lemoyne saloon
• Scars will read like claw marks, though you'll swear teeth

Recovery 2 days bandaged, 4 letting it scab in the open air·Doctor advised

You planted your boots in the mud and pulled against a thing built for pulling, and the elbow lost the argument even as the teeth lost their grip. It swells fat by dusk and hates every door handle.

• Elbow wrenched, no throwing, hauling or roping for 2 days
• A pair of shallow gashes where the pegs slid off
• /me works the swollen elbow in slow circles, breath hissing at the top.

Recovery 2 days wrapped and slung, closer to 5 if you keep hauling on it·Doctor advised

Two neat punctures in the meat of your forearm, small and deep, taken in water the color of old coffee. The wound is nothing; the waiting is the thing, you check for red streaks by every campfire like a man reading scripture.

• Punctures washed with whiskey and left open to drain for 2 days
• Morning and night wound inspection, red streaks or pus means ride for the doctor
• You catch yourself smelling the bandage when nobody's looking

Recovery 2 days to close clean; the checking habit takes a week to die·Doctor advised

Your bracer met the bite before your arm did, and most of the pegs stalled in the leather. One got through enough to bleed, and the crush left a mark, but you've been hurt worse by a corral gate.

• One shallow puncture and a pinch-bruise, sore for a day or two
• Bracer punched full of holes, proud wounds, all of them

Recovery A day or two with a clean bandage does it·No doctor needed

A single tooth caught you as the jaw glanced off, in and out of the forearm clean as an awl. You flushed it with whiskey on the bank, swearing at the sky, and that was the worst of it.

• Small bandaged puncture, aches a day, forgotten in two
• A round little scar with a very large story attached
• /me thumbs the small bandage on the forearm, grinning like it's a medal.

Recovery A day or two kept clean·No doctor needed

The jaws closed over your rolled coat and squeezed until your eyes watered, but never found skin. What's left is a bruise printed in two curved rows, every peg accounted for, purple going green.

• Bite-printed bruise around the forearm, tender for 2 days
• Grip aches when you haul on rope or reins

Recovery 2 days and it's a yellowing curiosity you show off·No doctor needed

You snatched the arm back as the jaws snapped shut, and the pegs skated along the skin instead of catching, three raw red lines and a heart doing double time. The marks are nothing; the sound of that clap of teeth will visit you tonight.

• Shallow scrapes down the forearm, cleaned and near forgotten by morning
• First night's sleep comes shallow, every splash is a gator

Recovery A day for the skin; a night or two for the nerves·No doctor needed

The jaws took your satchel off your arm as you jerked away, leather, jerky, letters and all. It sank back into the brown water chewing your worldly goods, and you stood there whole, minus your correspondence.

• Unhurt but for a red pressure mark that fades by morning
• Satchel and everything in it belongs to the bayou now

Recovery Nothing to heal, there's shopping to do·No doctor needed

You got the paddle up crossways and the jaws closed on ash instead of arm, snapping the blade like a cracker. It went under with its splinters and you poled for the bank with what was left, laughing the wrong kind of laugh.

• Not a mark on you, just half an oar and a testimony
• Wrists jarred from the impact, stiff a few hours

Recovery Stiff wrists ease by supper·No doctor needed

Some drunk trapper once told you a gator's jaw shuts like a bear trap but opens like a church door, and Lord help you, it's true. You got both hands clamped around the snout, rode it thrashing into the shallows, and held on until it sulked loose, not one tooth ever touched you.

• Untouched, soaked to the bone, and shaking with the best kind of fear
• Every soul in Lagras will hear this story twice by Friday
• /me holds up two steady hands. 'Shuts like a trap. Opens like a church door.'

Recovery Nothing to heal, drinks are on the crowd for a week·No doctor needed