Alligator: Tail Strike

The tail broke your shin like a fence rail and dropped you face-down in the shallows, where the world went dark. Whoever pulled you out did it by the collar, and the leg they dragged behind you was pointing the wrong way.

• Splinted leg takes no weight for 7 days; carried or carted everywhere
• Concussion fog: lost minutes around the strike, headaches for 3 days
• /me surfaces from sleep with a start, coughing, one hand flying to the splint

Recovery Weeks under a doctor's care for the leg to bear weight; untreated, it knits crooked and the shallows nearly finished the job anyway.·Doctor, urgently

The sweep caught you mid-stride and the crack of your shinbone was loud enough to scare the herons. Clean break, the doctor says, as if anything about it felt clean.

• Splint and crutch for 7 days; mounting a horse needs a helper and patience
• No running, no kneeling, no dancing, the fiddle player will cope
• /me swings the splinted leg wide with each crutch-step, jaw set

Recovery A week splinted before careful hobbling, with a doctor setting it; twice that and a limp if you let it knit wild.·Doctor, urgently

The blow took you at the joint and folded the knee a direction God never intended. It's back where it belongs now, but everything that holds it there has been stretched like old rope.

• Knee strapped straight for 5 days: stairs sideways, saddles agony
• Buckles without warning, keep a stick or a friendly shoulder near
• Swollen to twice its size by evening; prop it up or pay for it

Recovery 5 days strapped with a doctor's care, 8 without, and rain will find that knee for a season.·Doctor, urgently

The tail swept your feet and the back of your head found a cypress knee on the way down. You remember the water, the sky, and nothing in between.

• Concussion: pounding head and doubled vision at distance for 2 days
• Wrenched ankle wrapped tight; a careful, flat-footed walk
• /me presses the heel of a hand to their temple, eyes screwed shut against the light

Recovery 2 quiet days in the shade with a doctor checking your eyes; longer and lonelier without.·Doctor required

The tail hit your thigh like a swung beam. Nothing broke, but the muscle is crushed so deep it has seized solid, and the bruise is already the size of a dinner plate.

• Dead-leg limp for 3 days; the thigh cramps if you push it
• Bruise blooming black to yellow, a week of colorful RP
• Mounting a horse from the wrong side, badly, to spare the leg

Recovery 3 days of liniment and cursing with a doctor's care, 5 without.·Doctor required

You leapt the sweep but landed in shin-deep bayou mud, and the ankle stayed where the mud wanted it while the rest of you kept going. The pop was almost polite.

• Wrapped ankle: hobble for 3 days, no sprinting for 4
• Boot laces loosened by noon as the swelling wins
• /me tests the ankle with a toe-touch, hisses, and rebalances on the good leg

Recovery 3 days wrapped and raised with a doctor, 5 walking it off like a fool.·Doctor required

The sweep threw you sideways onto a cypress knee, and something in your side cracked on landing. Every breath now comes with a toll charge.

• Cracked rib: shallow breathing, no laughing, no lifting for 4 days
• Chest bound in wraps under the shirt
• /me lowers into a chair by degrees, one arm pressed against their ribs

Recovery 4 days bound with a doctor's wrapping, 6 without, and sneezes are your enemy throughout.·Doctor required

The tip of the tail caught you across hip and lower back like a knotted bullwhip. A welt rises from belt to spine, and your hip aches down to the socket.

• Deep hip bruising: stiff pivot, slow mount, sorry dismount for 3 days
• A raised welt across the back, dramatic reveal at the bathhouse
• Sitting on hard chairs is a negotiation

Recovery 3 days of liniment with a doctor's care, 4 to 5 without.·Doctor required

The sweep clipped your boots out from under you and gravity handled the rest. Tailbone, elbows, pride, all of it hit the bank at once.

• Bruised tailbone: standing in the stirrups instead of sitting for 2 days
• Scraped elbows under rolled sleeves
• /me eases down onto one hip on the bench, wincing on arrival

Recovery 2 tender days; a cushion helps more than a doctor.·Doctor advised

You took the flat of the tail across both calves. Nothing broke, but for two days your legs believe otherwise every time you stand.

• Stiff, aching calves: old-man rises from every chair for 2 days
• Twin horizontal bruises like you were caned by a giant
• Declines all footraces, indefinitely

Recovery 2 days of stiffness; witch hazel and complaining both help.·Doctor advised

The strike missed bone and threw you flat into the churned shallows instead. You rose from the bayou like a swamp haunt, dripping weeds, bruised where the tail grazed your thigh.

• Grazed thigh: tender for a day or two
• Head-to-toe mud, the smell outlasts two washes
• /me trails swamp weed from one shoulder, daring anyone to comment

Recovery A day for the bruise, two for the smell.·Doctor advised

You dodged the sweep but the mud kept your boot as ransom. The gator got a mouthful of empty air; you got a graze, a lost boot, and an audience.

• Grazed shin under a quick wrap
• One boot swallowed by the bayou, hop, wade, or barter
• The retreat was witnessed and will be re-enacted at the saloon

Recovery A day, boot procurement not included.·Doctor advised

The tail took your legs but the water took the fall. You went in flat, came up fast, and your worst injuries are a wrenched shoulder from the scramble and a hat sailing for open water.

• Sore shoulder: favor it for a day and a half
• The hat is gone, bareheaded until you replace it, and it shows
• /me squints at the horizon where the hat went, mourning briefly

Recovery A day or two; hats are forever.·Doctor advised

The very tip of the tail flicked your boot heel as you jumped, enough to spin you, not enough to drop you. You stumbled clear with your heart doing the real running.

• Slightly turned ankle: mind it on stairs for a day
• Adrenaline shakes for a quarter hour after

Recovery By supper it's mostly a story.·No doctor needed

The sweep missed, but the wall of bayou water it threw did not. Knocked back a step, soaked through, and stung across the face by flying grit.

• Grit-stung cheek, red for a day
• Powder and matches soaked, restock before trouble finds you
• /me wipes bayou water from their eyes with a shirtsleeve, spitting silt

Recovery Dry clothes fix most of it by nightfall.·No doctor needed

You leapt the tail like a skipping rope and landed hard on the bank, both knees taking the bill. Nothing torn, everything rattled.

• Achy knees on stairs and dismounts for a day
• An involuntary grunt every time you crouch

Recovery A day of creaking, then done.·No doctor needed

The tail slapped the water an inch from your boots, a gunshot crack and a soaking, and a message received in full. You backed up the bank with both hands raised to a reptile.

• Ears ringing faintly for an hour from the crack
• Soaked boots squelching the rest of the day
• /me backs away from the waterline, palms out, negotiating with a gator

Recovery Nothing but dry socks required.·No doctor needed

You saw the tail coil and left the ground before it moved, it hissed under your boots like a scythe through wheat. You landed already three strides gone.

• Untouched: the jump becomes taller in every retelling
• Winded from the sprint; hands on knees, grinning

Recovery None, save perhaps for the gator's opinion of you.·No doctor needed

The sweep passed close enough to flutter your coat hem. By the time the water settled you were up the bank, alive on reflexes you'll be bragging about by sundown.

• Not a scratch, just a coat hem with a story
• /me holds out the coat hem, showing exactly how close by half an inch

Recovery Nothing to heal; plenty to tell.·No doctor needed

The tail swept in and you stepped onto it, one boot on moving gator like a river-driver on a rolling log, then off the far side dry-shod on the bank. Three people saw it. None of them can explain it, and neither can you.

• Completely unharmed and insufferable about it
• Three witnesses, three versions, all of them flattering
• /me demonstrates the step on a fallen log, modestly, for the fourth time

Recovery None. Legends don't convalesce.·No doctor needed