Gut: Revolver: Lodged Deep

The ball tore through bowel and settled somewhere deep no probe can follow, and the poison of the gut does the rest. The doctor washes the entry, feels the belly go board-hard under his palm, and quietly trades the forceps for the laudanum bottle.

• Belly rigid as an oak plank, fever climbing by the hour
• Laudanum haze, lucid in patches, drifting between them
• Bed-bound for whatever days remain; visitors come to you
• /me stares at the ceiling boards, whispering that he can still feel the lead sitting in him.

Recovery There is no digging this one out, 1 to 3 days, easier with laudanum and company.·Doctor, urgently

The ball nicked bowel and buried itself in the muscle of your back, and the surgeon spends half the night following the track with probe and forceps by lamplight. When the lead finally rings in the basin you are soaked through, and the fever fight is only starting.

• Board-hard belly and burning fever the first 2 days
• Water and thin broth only for 3 days; solid food revolts
• Bed-bound 4 days, then shuffling with a hand pressed to the dressing through day 7
• /me listens for the clink of lead in the basin and lets out a breath held too long.

Recovery 7 days flat under a surgeon's fever-watch, without one, the gut poison finishes what the ball started.·Doctor, urgently

The ball drove deep and mushroomed flat against the inside of your hip bone, and the doctor has to widen the channel to pry it loose. It comes out wide as a half-dollar and dragging cloth, and the bone underneath is bruised black.

• Cannot sit a saddle or take stairs faster than one at a time for 5 days
• Deep bone-ache in the hip that flares with every step for 6 days
• No lifting, hauling or fighting for 6 days
• The flattened ball, wide as a half-dollar, the doctor leaves it on your chest like payment

Recovery 6 days with daily carbolic packing, 10 uglier ones without.·Doctor, urgently

Soft lead drags whatever it touches, and the ball carried a wad of shirt and vest lining deep into your side before it stopped. The doctor pulls the lead first and then goes back in twice for threads, because one forgotten scrap means gangrene.

• The wound reopened and searched twice daily for 3 days, worse than the shot itself
• Low fever the first 2 nights, sheets wrung out each morning
• Nothing but broth and mercy-sips of whiskey for 2 days
• /me grips the table edge as the forceps go back in, counting knots in the ceiling wood.

Recovery 6 days if every thread comes out clean, a festering 9 if any stays.·Doctor, urgently

The ball sits somewhere in the thick of your flank, and the doctor hunts it with a silver probe while you bite a leather strap flat. An hour of cold sweat before steel scrapes lead, then the forceps, then the blessed clatter in the tin cup.

• Whole flank bruised stiff from the digging; bent-over walk for 3 days
• Fever checked morning and night for 3 days
• No riding above a walk for 4 days

Recovery 5 days with a doctor cleaning the dig, 8 hard ones alone.·Doctor required

The extraction goes clean but slow, lamplight, whiskey for you and the doctor both, and forceps that seem to go in a mile before they close on the ball. It fought going in and it fights coming out, and the channel bleeds fresh over everything.

• The dig-wound seeps through its dressing for 2 days; changed twice daily
• Sore through the whole middle; no bending to pick things up for 4 days
• /me tilts the tin cup and rolls the misshapen ball around, deciding whether to keep it.

Recovery 5 days under a doctor's dressing, 8 without and worse odds.·Doctor required

The ball settled deep against the muscle alongside your spine, and the doctor weighs the dig against the damage and shakes his head, the lead stays. The wound heals over it, and from now on you carry a passenger that aches when the weather turns.

• Entry wound packed and healing for 5 days; deep dull ache beneath it
• No twisting hauls or heavy lifting for 6 days
• A hard knot in your back where the lead lives, tender in cold and rain, a story for card tables

Recovery 5 days for the entry to close under a doctor's care, 8 alone; the ball rides with you from here.·Doctor required

The doctor's fingers find the ball resting shallow against the skin of your back, it tunneled the whole way through you and just failed to leave. Easier to cut a fresh opening over it than drag it back the way it came, so now you have an exit after all.

• Two wounds to dress, front and back, for 4 days
• Sleeping belly-down or not at all for 3 nights
• Matching scars a hand-span apart that pass for a through-and-through

Recovery 4 days with both wounds kept clean, 7 without.·Doctor required

The ball spent itself punching through your gunbelt and stopped in the muscle wall of your belly, a finger-joint deep and no further. The doctor spreads the wound, grips it on the second try, and holds it up to the lamp like a pulled tooth.

• Stomach muscle seizes when you laugh or cough for 4 days
• No hauling or digging for 3 days
• A single puckered scar low on the belly wall

Recovery 4 days cared for, 6 on your own.·Doctor required

The ball sits in the meat of your flank shallow enough that the doctor finds it on the first probe. One widening cut, one firm pull, and the worst part is the carbolic wash after, you would swear he enjoys that part.

• Hitching walk on the shot side for 3 days
• Stitches over the dig that pull at every twist for 4 days

Recovery 3 days with a doctor's needlework, 5 with your own.·Doctor required

Shallow enough for a steady hand and a bottle split two ways, half on the wound, half in you. Your friend digs the ball out of your side by firelight with a skinning knife and pliers washed in carbolic, and you learn every curse he knows.

• A crude cross-cut scar beside the bullet hole, wider than any surgeon would leave
• Side too sore for a saddle above a walk for 3 days
• /me takes one more pull off the bottle and nods for the knife to get on with it.

Recovery 4 days if the firelight surgery stays clean, 6 if it sours, a real doctor halves the worry.·Doctor advised

The ball barely won its way through your winter fat and sits a finger deep, close enough to feel from outside. Quick cut, quick pull, six stitches, and the doctor charges you full price anyway.

• Tender lump of bruise where the lead sat, sore for 4 days
• No bending to lift for 2 days

Recovery 3 days kept clean, 5 careless.·Doctor advised

Fired from far enough that the ball was tired when it reached you, it punched through skin and lodged against the muscle without the sand to go deeper. It pops out with less digging than a splinter of firewood, though the bruise beneath goes down to bedrock.

• Deep bruise spreading wide over 2 days, tender for 5
• Sharp catch when you rise from a chair for 3 days

Recovery 2 to 3 days either way; the bruise outlives the hole.·Doctor advised

The ball is right under the skin of your side, a lump you can slide around with a thumb like a marble in a pouch. The doctor slits the skin over it and it near falls out on its own.

• One small slit and two stitches, tender for 2 days
• Twin scars, the hole where it entered and the slit where it left

Recovery 2 days with a clean dressing; barely worth the doctor's chair.·Doctor advised

The ball spent its last breath in the pad of fat above your hip and sat there smug as a tick. One quick cut and a squeeze and it is in your palm, still warm.

• A small throbbing dig-wound, bandaged for 2 days
• Belt worn shy of it for 2 days

Recovery 2 days with whiskey and a clean rag.·No doctor needed

The ball hit at a slant and skidded along under the skin of your belly, coming to rest a hand-span from where it went in. The doctor pushes it back along its own tunnel and out the entry hole like shelling a pea.

• A raised welted line where it traveled, stinging for 3 days
• Skin too tender for a tight shirt or apron for 2 days

Recovery 2 days; the welt is the whole story.·No doctor needed

The ball came through the saloon door before it found you, and the timber took its temper, it barely hooked into the skin of your belly and hung there, half in, half out. You pry it loose with a knife tip and a wince and drop it in your vest pocket.

• A shallow hooked nick, plastered for 2 days
• The spent ball, still smelling of pine, a keepsake for your watch chain

Recovery A day or 2 with salve; no doctor needed.·No doctor needed

The ball buried itself in your thick gunbelt and only its nose found skin, you unbuckle and the lead comes away with the leather, leaving a bleeding dimple over your hip. The belt is ruined and you are very nearly not.

• A coin-sized bruise and a shallow dimple-cut, sore for 2 days
• The gunbelt needs new leather; the lead is still stuck in the old

Recovery A day or 2; salve for you, a saddler for the belt.·No doctor needed

The ball fought its way through the wound wool of your sash and used itself up doing it, it hangs in the last layer, pressed into your skin hard enough to leave its own portrait in bruise. You unwind the sash carefully and the lead drops into your hand.

• A ball-shaped bruise below the ribs, tender for 3 days
• /me unwinds the sash a turn at a time until the flattened ball drops out into his palm.

Recovery 2 days for a bruise; the sash saved you a surgeon.·No doctor needed

The ball struck the new deck of cards square in your vest pocket and stopped dead in the middle of the pack, its nose resting on the ace of spades. There is a red welt underneath and fifty-two dead soldiers, and every gambler in the territory will buy you a drink to see it.

• A round welt under the pocket, gone in 2 days
• The shot-through deck, ball still seated in it, worth more than the pot ever was
• /me fans the ruined deck to show the ball sat dead center on the ace of spades.

Recovery Nothing but a welt and a heartbeat that takes an hour to slow.·No doctor needed