Head & Neck Graze: Revolver Graze

The ball skips along your neck and opens the big vein under the jaw. Blood sheets hot down your collar with every heartbeat, and the world goes grey at the edges before anyone reaches you.

• Pressure bandage at the throat that must not come off for 24 hours
• Too weak to stand unaided for 2 days, grey-faced, cold-handed, whispering
• /me presses a wadded kerchief hard against a seeping neck wound, knuckles white
• A puckered cautery scar below the jaw for life

Recovery A touch-and-go night under a doctor's hands, then 7 days abed if the cautery holds. Untreated, you bleed out in minutes.·Doctor, urgently

The ball plows along your jawbone and bursts three teeth to gravel. You spit blood and white chips into your palm while the doctor threads silk through the split in your cheek.

• Jaw bound up in a Barton bandage, broth, soup and mumbling for 7 days
• Speech comes out clenched and slurred; no shouting, no arguing loud
• Swollen cheek over a silk-stitched furrow along the jawline

Recovery 7 days bound with a doctor's care, 10 days of misery and a festering cheek if you tough it out.·Doctor required

The muzzle was close enough to kiss. The ball burns a channel along the side of your throat while the blast drives unburnt powder into the skin and bruises the windpipe beneath.

• Voice down to a hoarse whisper for 4 days, no shouting orders, no singing
• Swallowing hurts; soft food and small careful sips for 2 days
• A speckled powder tattoo across the neck that lawmen know on sight

Recovery 4 days with carbolic washes and a doctor watching the swelling, 7 if you tough it out.·Doctor required

The ball tears through the cartilage and leaves the top of your ear flapping like a barn door. The doctor sews it back by lamplight, muttering that another inch was your temple.

• Head wrapped sideways in bandage for 3 days, your hat sits crooked or not at all
• Hearing on that side muffled and ringing; folk must speak to your good ear for 5 days
• /me tilts their head to catch the words, one ear bound in stained linen
• A stitched, forever-crooked ear once it heals

Recovery 3 days bandaged with a doctor's sutures, 6 days and a far uglier ear without them.·Doctor required

The ball plows a furrow across your scalp deep enough to show white bone at the bottom. Blood sheets into your eyes so fast you fight the rest of the trouble half blind.

• Twelve stitches under a head wrap for 3 days; blood keeps finding your eyebrows the first night
• Pounding headache, no galloping and no brawling for 2 days
• A dead-straight scar where the hair never grows back

Recovery 3 days stitched and wrapped, 5 with a crusted part in your hair if you skip the doctor.·Doctor required

The ball creases your temple and the world simply stops. You come to in the dirt a minute later with someone shouting your name from the far end of a tunnel.

• Knocked cold for a minute; woozy and slow-tongued the rest of the day
• Headache and double vision on and off for 2 days, no shooting at anything you'd mind hitting
• /me sways upright, touches the bloody crease at their temple, and checks their fingers twice

Recovery 2 days of quiet with a doctor watching your eyes, 4 if you insist on staying in the saddle.·Doctor required

A hot iron drawn along the side of your neck, the ball splits skin and muscle a finger's width from everything that matters. It bleeds free and ugly until it's packed tight.

• Pressure dressing at the collar for 3 days; turning your head fast pulls the stitches
• No rifle stock laid against that side of your jaw for 2 days
• A rope-straight scar under the jaw that high collars won't quite hide

Recovery 3 days with carbolic and silk sutures, 5 seeping days if you tough it out.·Doctor required

The ball skips along the bone of your jaw and lays the cheek open like a fish. The bone holds and your teeth stay put, so the doctor takes his time making the stitches small.

• Stitched cheek, talking hurts, and chewing on that side is off the menu for 3 days
• Face swollen and bruise-yellow down to the collar for 4 days
• A long thin scar along the jaw that beards never quite cover

Recovery 3 days with a doctor's fine needlework, 6 days and a wider scar without it.·Doctor required

The ball parts your scalp in passing, and scalps bleed like a slaughterhouse floor. By the time you're cleaned up you look half dead; underneath it's a shallow cut and a headache.

• Hair matted with dried blood and a blood-crusted collar for a day
• Head wrap and a thumping headache for 2 days
• A shirt and hat brim stained past saving

Recovery 2 days with stitches and a carbolic wash, 3 itching under a crust without.·Doctor advised

A clean half-moon of ear rim is simply gone, snipped away like a ticket punch. It bleeds down your neck and rings like a church bell, but the ball wanted more and didn't get it.

• Ringing in that ear for a day; you keep asking folk to say it again
• Small bandage over the notch for 2 days
• A punched-out notch in the ear rim, permanent as a brand

Recovery 2 days bandaged, doctor or no, the notch is yours to keep.·Doctor advised

The shot came from arm's length and mostly missed. The graze along your cheekbone is nothing; the unburnt powder driven under the skin is a hundred tiny black stings.

• The doctor picks powder grains from your cheek with a needle, an hour of flinching
• Cheek raw and speckled for 3 days, too tender to shave
• /me rubs at the peppering of black dots along one cheekbone
• A faint blue-black speckle scar that any lawman reads as a close call

Recovery 3 days raw with the grains picked out, or wear the full powder tattoo forever untreated.·Doctor advised

The ball rides the line of your hatband and creases the scalp above your ear, a shallow burning stripe. Your hat now has matching holes and a better story than you do.

• Burning stripe above the ear that the hat chafes for 2 days
• A low pounding headache through the first day
• Two neat holes punched through a good hat

Recovery 2 days of salve, 3 if you let it chafe untreated.·Doctor advised

The ball skims the point of your chin, splitting the skin down to the bone-ache beneath. Your teeth clack together hard enough to see stars, but everything stays where God put it.

• Split chin under a plaster for 2 days; grinning pulls at it
• Jaw aches when you chew for the first day
• A short white scar square on the chin point

Recovery 2 days plastered, 3 with a crooked scab without.·Doctor advised

The ball draws a hot line across the top of your head, singeing hair and blistering a stripe of scalp without truly cutting it. You smell like a farrier's shop for a while.

• Blistered stripe on the scalp, hat off or worn loose for 1 day
• The stink of burnt hair follows you until a good wash

Recovery A day of salve, 2 of itching without.·No doctor needed

The ball plucks through your collar and leaves a red weal along the side of your neck like a whip-touch. A finger higher and this is a different conversation entirely.

• Raised red weal on the neck for a day; every collar chafes it
• You button that collar higher and hope nobody asks

Recovery Fades in a day; nothing to treat but your pride.·No doctor needed

The soft of your earlobe gives up a bead of blood and no more. The crack of a shot that close leaves the ear singing for the whole afternoon.

• Nicked lobe with a bead of dried blood, stinging when touched for a day
• That ear rings until evening, you talk a shade too loud

Recovery Right as rain by morning.·No doctor needed

The ball comes from long range with the anger mostly out of it and slaps your neck like a thrown pebble. A bruise, a flinch, and a new respect for distance.

• Coin-sized bruise on the side of the neck for 2 days
• You flinch at the next few gunshots, and folk notice

Recovery The bruise fades in 2 days on its own.·No doctor needed

The ball drills the crown of your hat clean through, combing the hair beneath without finding skin. You feel the tug like a friend flicking the back of your head.

• Two holes through the crown that you show anyone who asks
• A parted line in your hair where the ball combed through

Recovery Nothing to heal but the hat.·No doctor needed

The ball snags the knot of your kerchief and spins it round your neck, leaving a rope-burn line and a hole through good silk. The throat beneath is untouched.

• Faint burn line across the throat for a day
• /me untucks a kerchief with a bullet hole through the knot and whistles low

Recovery The line fades by tomorrow.·No doctor needed

The ball passes so close it parts your hair straight as a preacher's and never touches skin. The barber swears he couldn't cut a line that clean with a fresh razor, and the story is already worth two drinks.

• A perfect part scorched through your hair, lasts until it grows out
• /me removes their hat to show a dead-straight white line parted through their hair
• A free drink or two while the story is fresh

Recovery Nothing to recover but your composure.·No doctor needed