Head & Neck Graze: Pellet Graze

The pattern's ragged edge crosses your face and one pellet strikes at the eye itself. That side of the world goes white, then red, then dark, and the doctor's voice turns careful and quiet as he winds the bandage on.

• That eye bandaged and dark for 7 days, no depth to anything; you misjudge every reach and pour
• Shooting at anything past ten feet is a gamble for 7 days
• /me turns their whole head to bring the good eye around
• A puckered scar in the brow and an eye that waters in the wind ever after

Recovery 7 days in the dark under a doctor's dressing to learn if the eye lives. Untreated, infection takes the eye and starts on the rest of you.·Doctor, urgently

One pellet rips through the shell of your ear and the world on that side ends in a single white crack. Blood runs from inside the canal, and the doctor's watch held against that ear might as well be ticking in another county.

• Stone deaf on that side for 7 days at least, folk must stand at your good ear
• Ear packed with carbolic lint and bandaged; nothing in that canal but the doctor's hands
• Balance runs crooked, no ladders, rooflines or galloping for 3 days

Recovery The torn drum settles over 7 days under a doctor's packing. Untreated it festers deep, and the whine in that ear never finds the door.·Doctor required

A pellet punches through the scalp and stops flat against your skull with a crack you hear from the inside. The doctor slits the skin wider and pries it off the bone while you count the knots in the ceiling boards.

• Concussed, dim rooms and bed rest for 2 days; daylight drives a nail behind the eyes
• Stitched slit under a head wrap for 4 days
• No shooting, brawling or hard riding for 3 days

Recovery 4 days stitched and watched for the head-sickness, 7 and a fever besides if the lead is left sitting on the bone.·Doctor required

Three pellets stitch a line up the side of your neck, and the deepest sits a whisker from the big vessels. The doctor probes for it slower than a man defusing powder, telling you twice in a row not to swallow.

• Neck dressed stiff as a preacher's collar for 4 days; you turn your whole body to look behind
• Grey-faced and shaky the first day, no heavy work, no saddle above a walk
• A neat diagonal of three puckered scars up the neck for life

Recovery 4 days dressed with carbolic after a careful extraction. Without a doctor, that deep one is a gamble that bleeds you slow.·Doctor required

A dozen pellets pepper you from crown to collar, none deeper than a fingernail and every one wanting out. You spend the evening face down on the doctor's table while the forceps click into the tin dish, one, two, nine.

• Scalp and neck dotted with small plasters for 3 days
• Too tender for a hat for 2 days; the sun gets its licks in
• /me flinches as another pellet rings into the tin dish
• The smell of carbolic follows you around for a day

Recovery An evening of forceps, then 3 days of salve. Dig them out yourself and it's 5 days with a festering few you missed.·Doctor required

Two pellets take the rim of your ear in bites, leaving it scalloped like a pie crust and bleeding down your jaw. The doctor trims the ragged bits by lamplight and stitches what's left into an ear that will do.

• Head bandaged sideways for 3 days, the hat sits crooked or not at all
• Ringing on that side for 2 days; you ask folk to say it again
• A scalloped, twice-bitten ear rim once it heals, permanent as a brand

Recovery 3 days bandaged after the trim and stitch, 6 days and a far uglier ear if you let it heal wild.·Doctor required

One pellet slides into your cheek and stops against the back teeth, you can feel it with your tongue, a marble of lead in the meat. The doctor braces your jaw and works it back out the way it came in.

• Cheek swollen and packed, no chewing on that side for 3 days
• Words come out sideways for 2 days; folk lean in to catch them
• /me runs their tongue over the dent inside their cheek
• A small pucker of scar on the cheek that deepens when you grin

Recovery 3 days on soup with the hole packed clean. Untreated, the cheek abscesses inside the week and the doctor meets you anyway.·Doctor required

Half a dozen pellets rake your scalp under the hair, and scalp wounds pay out blood like a robbed bank. It pours over your brow and blinds you red until someone knots a kerchief hard around your head.

• Head wrapped for 2 days; hair matted stiff with dried blood till a proper wash
• A thumping headache for 2 days, no brawling, no galloping
• A collar and shirt stained past any laundry's help

Recovery 2 days wrapped once each hole is washed with carbolic, 4 crusted and itching days without.·Doctor required

The doctor digs five pellets out of your scalp and hunts the sixth for half an hour before giving it up for lost. It settles in under the skin, a small hard pea you'll find with a comb for the rest of your days, aching before rain.

• Five small plasters across the scalp for 2 days
• A hard pea of lead under the scalp that aches when the weather turns
• /me presses a thumb to their scalp and squints up at the clouds

Recovery 2 days for the dug-out holes to close. The one that stayed keeps its own calendar.·Doctor advised

A pellet skips off your jaw and cracks the corner from an eyetooth on its way past. The graze itself is a scratch; the new edge on that tooth cuts your tongue every time you forget it's there.

• Dressed graze along the jaw for 2 days
• Wince at cold water and neat whiskey for 3 days
• A jagged corner in every grin until a dentist files it smooth

Recovery 2 days for the graze; the tooth waits on a dentist's file, not a clock.·Doctor advised

Two pellets lodge in the ridge of your brow, a finger's width above an eye already swelling shut around them. The doctor picks them out whole, and you spend a day peering at the world from behind a purple curtain.

• Eye swollen shut for 1 day, half-open the next
• No fine shooting or card-reading for 2 days
• A split brow scar that pulls one eyebrow a shade higher

Recovery 2 days for the swelling once the pellets are out, 4 days and a lasting lump if they stay.·Doctor advised

Four pellets in the back of your neck, none deep enough to matter and all too deep to ignore. A friend tips whiskey over the lot and picks them out by firelight with a heated knife tip while you grip a stick and mind your language.

• Four dressed nicks across the nape for 2 days
• Every collar chafes them for 2 days
• A swallow of the good whiskey gone to the wound, and your friend won't let you forget it

Recovery 2 days with the nicks washed clean, 3 with hot little points of festering if they're ignored.·Doctor advised

The pattern's edge chews your hat brim to lace and combs on through your hair. Two pellets touch scalp, shallow burns, no more, and three others rattle out of the felt when you tip the hat over your palm.

• Two salved burn spots on the scalp for 2 days
• A hat brim gone to lace, worn anyway out of spite
• Three flattened pellets in your vest pocket for the telling

Recovery 2 days of salve; the hat is past all medicine.·Doctor advised

At the far edge of the pattern's reach, two pellets stick in the skin of your jaw like fat ticks, barely deeper than their own width. You pluck the first out with your fingernails before the sting has even settled.

• Two dot scabs along the jaw for 2 days
• Shaving stings on that side for 2 days

Recovery 2 days for the dots to scab over and drop away.·No doctor needed

A single pellet scores the scalp above your ear, a hot line like a wasp with a grudge. You clap a hand there braced for horror and find one thin stripe of blood across your palm.

• A stinging stripe above the ear for 1 day
• Hat worn tilted off it for a day, which folk read as swagger

Recovery A day on its own; salve if you're precious about it.·No doctor needed

One pellet skips off your cheekbone the way a stone skips water, leaving a raised red weal and a bruise that blooms yellow by morning. Near enough to the eye that you sit down for a minute and let your hands shake.

• A red weal and blooming bruise under one eye for 2 days
• Folk keep asking who hit you, and no answer satisfies them
• /me touches the weal below their eye and lets out a slow breath

Recovery The weal settles in 2 days without help.·No doctor needed

The last pellet in the spread draws a burning stripe across the back of your neck, gone almost before the boom reaches you. It looks like a rope burn and lies through its teeth about how close it came.

• A thin burn line across the nape for 1 day
• You keep reaching back to touch it, and every collar reminds you

Recovery Fades inside a day or two on its own.·No doctor needed

The hat takes the whole edge of the pattern for you. When you lift it off, the brim is chewed to lace as if moths held a banquet, and your scalp carries one red pressure mark and not a single drop of blood.

• One red mark under the hair, gone by morning
• /me pokes a finger up through one of the holes in their brim
• A shot-to-lace hat brim shown around the saloon all week

Recovery Nothing to heal; the hat is a lost cause and a fine story.·No doctor needed

Two flattened pellets drop out when you shake your coat, the thick wool collar caught them a hand's width from your neck. Underneath is one warm bruised spot and a sudden fondness for heavy winter clothes.

• A coin-sized bruise under the collar for 1 day
• Two flattened pellets kept in a pocket for luck

Recovery The bruise is gone in a day.·No doctor needed

You hear the boom, feel the wind of the whole swarm go past, and take not one pellet. Behind you the barn door wears a perfect ring of shot holes with a clean gap in the middle the exact shape of your head, and men measure it with spread hands and go quiet.

• Not a scratch on you, only powder smoke in your hair
• /me sets their hat over the ring of pellet holes to show how the swarm parted
• The barn door becomes a local attraction; you drink free while it stands

Recovery Nothing to recover; the door tells the story better than you ever will.·No doctor needed