Gut: Revolver: Straight Through

The ball tore through bowel on its way out your back, and what leaks inside no needle can reach. The doctor washes both holes, then sets the carbolic down and reaches for the laudanum instead, you both know what that means.

• Belly board-rigid and swelling; fever climbing hour on hour
• Laudanum-drowse: lucid in stretches, drifting the rest; nothing past your lips but wetted rags
• Bed-bound for whatever time remains
• /me lies gray-faced beneath a blanket, hand curled over the bandage, asking who is there in a paper-thin voice.

Recovery No mending this, 1 to 3 days, gentler with a doctor easing the road.·Doctor, urgently

The ball nicked bowel going through, and a surgeon spends the night flushing both holes with carbolic and praying over silk sutures. Three fever nights on your back, morphine for the worst hours, but the fever breaks, and you keep your name off a stone.

• Board-hard belly and shaking fever for the first 2 days
• Nothing past your lips but water and thin broth for 3 days
• Bed-bound 4 days, then walking bent as an old man through day 7
• /me presses a palm flat over the soaked bandage at his middle, breathing in careful sips.

Recovery 7 days flat under a surgeon's watch, without one, this wound writes your obituary.·Doctor, urgently

Soft lead flattens as it travels, and the hole it left in the small of your back is the size of a silver dollar, ragged as chewed rope. The surgeon trims what is dead, packs both wounds with carbolic gauze, and tells you not to look at it.

• Cannot sit a saddle or a hard chair for 5 days
• Dressing on the exit changed twice a day; it weeps through your shirt regardless
• No lifting, hauling or brawling for 6 days
• A puckered, coin-sized scar on your back for life

Recovery 6 days with a doctor packing it daily, 10 and a far uglier scar alone.·Doctor, urgently

The ball dragged a plug of shirt and powder grime clear through your side, and it all has to come out or you rot from the inside. The doctor opens the track and swabs it end to end with carbolic while you count the ceiling boards through gritted teeth.

• The track burns like a branding iron after each swabbing, twice daily for 3 days
• Low fever the first 2 nights; sweat-soaked sheets
• Solid food off the table for 2 days, whiskey in mercy-sips only
• /me flinches as the swab goes deep, knuckles whitening around the bed rail.

Recovery 5 days if the track stays clean under a doctor's care, a festering 9 without.·Doctor, urgently

By some backhanded mercy the ball threaded between the loops of your bowels and found daylight out the back. The doctor probes the track, finds it clean, and still will not smile until three fever-watches pass.

• Two stitched holes, front and back, pulling at every twist
• Fever checked morning and night for 3 days; a hot brow means trouble
• Nothing heavier than a coffee pot lifted for 4 days

Recovery 5 days with a doctor riding fever-watch, 8 on your own and praying.·Doctor required

The ball punched through the thick meat of your flank and out again without touching the cavity, but a pistol ball leaves a bruised channel wide as your thumb. Carbolic wash, silk sutures at both ends, and you walk like your boots are full of glass.

• Bent-over shuffle for 3 days; standing straight pulls the stitches
• No riding faster than a walk for 4 days
• /me eases himself down into the chair by degrees, one hand braced on his flank.

Recovery 4 days with stitches and care, 7 rough ones without.·Doctor required

The ball clipped the edge of something on its way through, the doctor presses your right side, watches the dark slow ooze, and keeps you on his cot overnight. It clots on its own, but for a few hours nobody in the room says much.

• First 24 hours flat on your back under a lamp and a doctor's eye
• Deep ache under the right ribs for 5 days; deep breaths cost extra
• No whiskey for 5 days, doctor's orders, and he means it

Recovery 5 days of quiet living with a doctor close, 8 if you gamble alone.·Doctor required

The shot came close enough to set your shirt smoldering, the entry is scorched black and tattooed with powder grains, and the exit is no prettier. The doctor scrubs both with a stiff brush and carbolic until you are inventing new curse words.

• Both wounds scrubbed raw once daily for 3 days
• Powder speckle tattooed around the entry scar for good
• Shirt sticks to the seeping burns; wear it loose for 4 days
• /me peels his shirt away from the blackened bandage, hissing through his teeth.

Recovery 5 days with daily scrubbing and clean dressings, 8 if you let it crust over.·Doctor required

The ball slid between skin and muscle around the curve of your belly and popped out near your spine without ever entering the cavity. A strange, lucky tunnel, the doctor runs a probe through it just to whistle at it.

• A tender raised welt arcing from navel to back for 5 days
• No twisting at the waist; mount from the off side only for 3 days
• Matching entry and exit scars a hand-span apart

Recovery 3 days with the tunnel syringed clean daily, 6 if you leave it be.·Doctor required

The ball caught you low and wide, through the soft flesh above the hip bone, missing everything a man cannot spare. Two washings with whiskey, a dozen stitches, and a stern word about ducking faster.

• Hitching limp on the shot side for 3 days
• Belt worn loose or not at all for 4 days; the buckle sits right on it
• /me hooks a thumb in his waistband, holding the belt clear of the bandage.

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

The ball plowed through the outer sheet of your stomach muscle and kept going, leaving a channel you could lay a pencil in. It bleeds free and honest, which the doctor calls a good sign, and hurts every time you laugh, which your friends call one too.

• Laughing, coughing and sneezing all cost you for 4 days
• No hauling, digging or throwing punches for 3 days
• A straight furrow scar across the side muscle

Recovery 3 days cared for, 5 if you keep working through it.·Doctor advised

Entry and exit not three fingers apart, right at the fleshy edge of your waist, the ball barely stayed in you long enough to say howdy. Whiskey sting, six stitches each side, and a story that will grow an inch every telling.

• Stitches tug at every bend for 3 days
• Sleep on the off side for 3 nights

Recovery 3 days if it is kept clean, 4 or 5 if you are careless.·Doctor advised

The ball passed clean through the pad of fat over your hip, an inch of winter eating that just paid for itself. Deep bruise, two small holes, and the doctor laughing harder than is strictly professional.

• Deep purple bruise spreading a hand wide over 2 days, tender for 5
• No bending to lift for 2 days

Recovery 2 to 3 days either way; the whiskey wash is the worst of it.·Doctor advised

The ball skated across the front of your stomach, splitting skin in a shallow furrow from one hip toward the other. Bloody as a hog-killing, shallow as a plow scratch.

• A long welted line that cracks and stings when you stretch, 3 days
• Keep the belt above or below it for 2 days

Recovery 2 days bandaged, 3 letting it scab in the open.·Doctor advised

The ball passed through the pinch of skin at your waist that a tailor would have taken in anyway. Two small holes you can cover with one thumb, and less blood than a good nosebleed, it was the surprise that sat you down.

• Sharp sting when your waistband rubs it, 2 days
• Twin dot scars, entry and exit, close enough to pass for a snakebite

Recovery 2 days with a clean rag and whiskey; no need to trouble a doctor.·No doctor needed

The ball tore through skin right along your belt line and buried itself in the doorframe behind you. A raw, scorched-feeling stripe an inch long, your belt will hate you for a couple of days.

• Wear the gunbelt slung low or not at all for 2 days
• Raw stripe that weeps a little the first night

Recovery 2 days; a smear of salve and it is a story.·No doctor needed

It looked like murder, your whole shirtfront red before you even felt it. Under all that theater is a shallow through-and-through of skin at your side no deeper than a fishhook mishap.

• One ruined shirt and a bandage under it for 2 days
• Tender to a poke for 3 days; your friends will keep poking

Recovery A day or two; the shirt is the real casualty.·No doctor needed

The ball slammed square into your belt buckle, tore through the leather behind it, and fell spent into your britches. You are bruised like you took a mule kick and there is a shallow cut where brass bit skin, the buckle wears the scar for you.

• A fist-sized bruise below the navel, sore for 3 days
• Buckle bent past saving; the belt needs new leather

Recovery The bruise minds you for 2 or 3 days; the cut, one.·No doctor needed

The ball passed through both folds of your hanging coat and left only a hot red weal across your side, like a lash from a quirt. Two holes in good wool, one line on you, and your heart hammering like a stamp mill.

• A raised weal that stings under the shirt for 1 or 2 days
• /me puts two fingers through the matching holes in his coat and lets out a low whistle.

Recovery A day, maybe two; the coat needs a tailor more than you need a doctor.·No doctor needed

The ball punched into your vest pocket, met the tobacco tin, and gave up, you dig the flattened lead out of a nest of shredded tobacco while the shooter stares like he has seen a haint. There is a red dent in your belly the shape of the tin lid and not one drop of blood.

• A tin-shaped bruise on your belly for 2 days
• The flattened ball, drill a hole in it and it is a watch fob
• /me flips the flattened ball off his thumb like a coin, catching it without looking.

Recovery Nothing to mend but your nerves and the price of fresh tobacco.·No doctor needed