Gut: Rifle: Straight Through

The round went through you flat and fast and took the bowel with it, the exit in your back is a ruin a fist could hide in. The doctor packs it because hands must do something, but the belly is already going hard, and you both stop pretending.

• Belly rigid and swelling; fever mounting by the hour
• Morphine measured out to keep you talking as long as talking matters
• Bed-bound for the little that remains; the room comes to you
• /me turns a visitor's hand over in both of his, making them promise something before the drowse takes him.

Recovery Past all mending, 1 to 3 days, softer with morphine and someone to talk to.·Doctor, urgently

A rifle round runs flat, and this one holed the bowel twice on its way through. A surgeon flushes the track with carbolic until the bottle runs dry and stitches what he can reach through both wounds, then it is three days of fever, morphine and silence, and somehow the fever loses.

• Burning fever and a board-hard belly through day 3
• Nothing past your lips but water and broth for 4 days
• Bed-bound 5 days, then walking folded over through day 7
• /me surfaces from the morphine long enough to ask if it is morning or evening, and which day.

Recovery A full 7 days flat under a surgeon, without one, this is a burying, not a wound.·Doctor, urgently

The entry above your hip is a neat purple dot; the exit beside your spine is a fist-wide crater of torn flesh, because that is what a rifle does on its way out. The surgeon trims the ragged edges, packs it with carbolic gauze, and forbids you a mirror.

• Exit wound packed and re-dressed twice daily for 5 days; it soaks through regardless
• Cannot lie on your back or sit a saddle for 5 days
• No lifting or hauling for 7 days
• A crater scar beside the spine for life, and no hiding it at the bathhouse

Recovery 7 days of packing under a doctor's hands, 10 and proud flesh without.·Doctor, urgently

The round missed your vitals but the shock of it did not, for a hand-width around the channel the muscle is bruised gray and half-dead. Over the next days the doctor trims back what dies, a little more each visit, until living red flesh is all that is left.

• The wound cut back and re-packed each day for 4 days, dreaded worse each time
• Low rolling fever through day 3
• Whole side stiff as saddle leather; no twisting or lifting for 6 days
• /me goes quiet when the doctor lays out the scissors, jaw working on nothing.

Recovery 6 days with a surgeon trimming it clean, or the gray spreads and takes you inside 10.·Doctor, urgently

The round passed close enough to your kidney to bruise it through and through, and by morning you are pissing rust. The doctor calls it the shock of the ball's passing, keeps you flat, and studies the pot each morning like it was scripture.

• Water runs rust-colored, clearing slowly over 3 days
• Deep flank ache; flat rest and water by the quart for 3 days
• No riding, lifting or whiskey for 5 days

Recovery 5 days of flat rest and water under a doctor's eye, 8 gambling without.·Doctor required

Going out, the round clipped the crest of your hip bone and flicked a chip of it loose under the skin. The doctor fishes the fragment out of the exit wound with forceps and shows it to you, a little white sliver that cost more pain than all the rest together.

• Hip aches bone-deep with every step; a stick to lean on for 4 days
• Cannot mount a horse from the near side for 5 days
• /me eases his weight off the bad hip and leans on the porch post like it was planned.

Recovery 6 days with the wound kept clean, 9 without and a longer limp.·Doctor required

Through the thick meat of your flank at full speed, the channel is wider than any pistol would cut and both ends need packing. Fast lead runs hot and clean, the doctor allows, but there is simply more of you torn than a slower ball would manage.

• Both wounds packed with carbolic gauze, changed twice daily for 4 days
• Bent-over shuffle for 3 days; standing straight pulls everything
• No riding above a walk for 5 days

Recovery 5 days packed and dressed, 8 rough ones without.·Doctor required

You could cover the entry with a nickel; the exit needs your whole palm. The doctor stitches the front hole in a minute and then spends an hour on the back one, laying silk sutures like railroad ties across the tear.

• A tight-stitched tear across your back that forbids bending for 4 days
• Dressings front and back for 5 days; the back one seeps
• A smooth dot scar in front and a puckered star behind, the whole rifle story written on your skin

Recovery 5 days under a doctor's needlework, 8 without.·Doctor required

Two clean holes through the meat above your hip, but a rifle round shocks the flesh it passes, and by morning a bruise the size of a dinner plate has bloomed around them, purple to black to yellow at the rim. It hurts wider than the wound has any right to.

• A plate-wide bruise, tender to a fingertip for 5 days
• Belt and waistband worn loose or not at all for 3 days
• /me lifts his shirt hem to check the bruise and finds a new color in it every time.

Recovery 4 days cared for, 6 toughing it, the holes close before the bruise fades.·Doctor required

Through the side meat above the hip bone and gone, buried somewhere in the hillside behind you. The speed that makes a rifle cruel also makes it tidy when it misses what matters, two holes, one channel, nothing dragged in behind it.

• Stitches front and back that tug at every twist for 4 days
• No hauling, digging or brawling for 3 days

Recovery 4 days with a doctor's stitching, 6 without.·Doctor required

The round threaded the muscle of your side, and the shock of its passing emptied your lungs and dropped you where you stood. You came to in the dirt certain you were dying, and the wound turned out neater than the memory of it.

• Deep muscle ache; hard breathing and laughing cost extra for 3 days
• No sprinting or heavy work for 3 days

Recovery 3 days cared for, 5 stubborn.·Doctor advised

The round moved too fast to drag cloth in with it, the doctor probes the channel and finds it clean as a drilled plank, which he says is the only nice thing about rifles. Wash, stitch, and a warning to respect it anyway.

• Stitched holes front and back, tender for 3 days
• Sleep on the off side for 3 nights

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

Through the spare flesh at your waist that your belt has been arguing with for years. The channel runs shy of anything vital by two fingers, and the doctor says so twice, mostly to watch you go pale both times.

• Sharp pull at the waist when you bend or mount for 3 days
• Belt worn above or below it for 3 days

Recovery 3 days either way; keep it clean and let it knit.·Doctor advised

The round passed through the pinch of skin and fat at your waist so fast you felt the tug before the burn. Two small holes a thumb apart, hardly bleeding, a rifle is a terrible thing an inch to the left and a seamstress an inch to the right.

• A stinging pinch when the waistband rubs for 2 days
• Twin dot scars a thumb-width apart

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

A shallow through-and-through of skin along your side that felt like a hot wire drawn straight across you. It bled a cupful and quit, and the mark it leaves is a line so straight men will think you measured it.

• A raw straight line that cracks when you stretch for 3 days
• Wear the shirt loose over it for 2 days

Recovery 2 days bandaged, 3 open to the air.·No doctor needed

You did not know you were hit until someone pointed at your shirt an hour after the shooting stopped. The round passed through a fold of skin at your side while your blood was up, and the sting only found you once the fight let go.

• A shallow track that stiffens overnight; sore for 2 days
• One bloodied shirt you never noticed ruining

Recovery A day or 2; whiskey on it, coffee in you.·No doctor needed

The crack of the round passing snapped by your ear the same instant it kissed the skin of your belly, a shallow nick through the topmost layer, gone through your shirt and out the other side of the cloth. An inch of luck measured in thread.

• A shallow nick, plastered for 2 days
• Two holes in the shirt to prove the story

Recovery A day or 2; salve and swagger.·No doctor needed

The round punched through the full canteen hanging at your hip, and the water robbed it of its worst, it left a shallow, ugly gouge along your side instead of a tunnel through it. You stood there soaked, bleeding a little, unsure for a full breath which wet was which.

• A shallow gouge along the side, dressed for 2 days
• A ruined canteen with two holes and a great story
• /me shakes the last drops out of the holed canteen and hangs it back on the saddle anyway.

Recovery 2 days for the gouge; the canteen is past saving.·No doctor needed

The round passed so close along your belly that it burned a red stripe across the skin without ever breaking through, heat and wind and one line of fire, and behind you a fence post took what was meant for your middle. Your knees learn about it a minute later.

• A hot red weal across the belly, stinging under the shirt for 2 days
• A shirt scorched in a stripe, wear it or burn it, your choice

Recovery A day, maybe 2; grease the weal and let it be.·No doctor needed

You were toting your saddle across your front when the shot came, the round struck the iron cinch ring dead center, shattered it, and spent itself in the wool of the blanket roll. You are bruised where the ring drove into your belly and otherwise unpunctured, and the mangled ring is going on a thong around your neck.

• A ring-shaped bruise on the belly, tender for 3 days
• The bent cinch ring, proof enough to drink free for a month
• /me holds the mangled cinch ring up to the light so the whole bar can see the strike in the iron.

Recovery Nothing but a bruise, a new cinch ring and a legend.·No doctor needed