Gut: Buckshot

Inside ten paces the pattern never opened, it struck your belly as one fist of lead and made a ruin no needle can answer. The doctor does not reach for the forceps at all; he reaches for the laudanum, and pulls a chair close for whoever is coming to sit with you.

• Belly wound packed only to keep you decent; rigidness and fever spreading by the hour
• Laudanum-drowse deepening; lucid spells kept for last words and small jokes
• Bed-bound for what remains
• /me makes a small dry joke about buying the cheaper coffin, and means for it to be laughed at.

Recovery There is nothing to dig for and no mending, a day, maybe two, softer with laudanum.·Doctor, urgently

Close range, and the pattern hit your side barely a hand wide, a cluster of pellets driven deep, two through the bowel wall. The surgeon works half the night flushing carbolic through the mess and retrieving what lead he can, and the fever that follows is the real fight.

• Burning fever and a hard belly through day 3
• Water and broth only for 4 days
• Bed-bound 5 days, then bent shuffling through day 7
• /me sweats through the sheets while the fever argues with the carbolic over who keeps him.

Recovery 7 days flat under a surgeon's watch, alone, this is a funeral with extra steps.·Doctor, urgently

The doctor's tally says nine pellets went deep into your side and flank, and each one is its own small surgery, probe, grip, pull, drop, clink. He retrieves seven; the last two sit too near things that should not be poked, so they stay in you like buried sins.

• Seven dig-wounds dressed across belly and flank for 5 days
• No riding, lifting or bending to lift for 6 days
• Two pellets left inside for keeps, aching before rain
• A constellation of puckered scars across the belly for life

Recovery 7 days of daily dressings with a doctor, 10 festering ones without.·Doctor, urgently

Close enough that the powder flame and the wadding followed the pellets in, the wound is scorched, and burnt felt and shirt cloth are driven deep into the shot-holes. The surgeon scrubs and picks and swabs with carbolic until you would trade the whole belly to make him stop.

• Scorched shot-holes scrubbed out daily for 4 days, the worst quarter-hour of each day
• Low fever the first 2 nights
• Powder-burn speckled black around the scars for good
• /me sets his teeth on the leather strap and nods for the scrubbing to start.

Recovery 6 days if every scrap of wadding comes out, a rotting 9 if any hides.·Doctor, urgently

A dozen pellets across your belly and side, deep enough to need the table, shallow enough to all come out. The evening is measured in small sounds, the probe's scrape, your hiss, the clink in the basin, twelve times over, with a pull of whiskey between each.

• Twelve small dig-wounds, dressed for 4 days
• Whole midsection too sore for a saddle for 3 days; no hauling for 5
• /me counts each clink in the basin aloud, voice going flatter by the number.

Recovery 5 days of clean dressings with a doctor, 8 without.·Doctor required

Most of the pattern sat shallow and picked out easy, but one pellet drove deep toward the hip and the doctor goes after it like a man digging a well. That single pellet costs more than the other ten together, a widening cut, forceps at full reach, and language unfit for church from both of you.

• One deep dig-wound near the hip, packed and dressed for 5 days
• Ten shallow digs healing around it, itching worse than they hurt, 3 days
• Hitching walk on that side for 4 days

Recovery 5 days cared for, 8 rough ones without.·Doctor required

The pattern caught you side-on from middling range, pellets from ribline to hip, none past the muscle, every one needing the forceps. It takes the doctor the whole evening and two lamps, and he bills you by the pellet just to make the point.

• A field of small dressed digs across your side for 4 days
• Twisting, bending and brawling all off the table for 4 days
• Sleeping on the off side for 4 nights

Recovery 5 days with the digs kept clean, 7 without.·Doctor required

The digging goes well until it does not, two pellets sit where the probing hurts worse than the leaving, and the doctor makes the old trade: they stay. The rest come out over a long grim hour, but those two are yours now, and they will introduce themselves every time a storm builds.

• Dig-wounds dressed across the belly for 4 days
• No heavy work or riding above a walk for 4 days
• Two pellets in you for keeps, you will call rain a day ahead of the almanac

Recovery 5 days for the digs with a doctor, 8 alone; the two keepers are permanent.·Doctor required

Twenty yards of open ground opened the pattern up, and what reached your belly sat in skin and shallow muscle. You lie on the table while the doctor works his way across you by lamplight like a woman picking seeds from a quilt, slow, steady, and maddening.

• A scatter of small shallow digs, salved and dressed for 3 days
• Shirt worn loose over it for 3 days; everything itches as it heals

Recovery 4 days cared for, 6 careless.·Doctor required

A neat row of pellets sits just under the skin across your belly like a line of dress buttons, each one a small hard lump you can feel from outside. The doctor slits and squeezes them out one at a time, dropping each into your palm because you insisted on keeping count.

• A row of small slits across the belly, tender for 3 days
• Belt worn high or not at all for 3 days
• A dotted line of scars, straight as a seam

Recovery 3 days with clean dressings, 5 without.·Doctor advised

Far enough out that half the pattern only bruised you, but the half that bit left shallow pellets in the fat and skin of your side, and the whole canvas is purple by morning. You look like you slept in a hailstorm and feel like it too.

• Bruising from ribs to hip, tender to the touch for 5 days
• Six shallow pellet-digs, salved for 3 days

Recovery 4 days for the digs; the bruise takes its own time regardless.·Doctor advised

Every pellet that found you sat in the pad of fat over your belly, none deeper than a fingernail. The doctor calls it the easiest digging he has had all month and works with his sleeves down, telling stories while the pellets tick into the cup like slow rain.

• Eight shallow digs, plastered for 3 days
• Too sore to laugh comfortably for 2 days

Recovery 3 days kept clean, 4 or 5 otherwise.·Doctor advised

Only the rim of the spread caught you, five pellets along the side of your belly, the rest fanning past into the dusk. Five small digs and a whiskey wash, and the doctor spends longer on the paperwork than the pulling.

• Five small digs along the flank, dressed for 3 days
• Twisting at the waist pinches for 2 days

Recovery 3 days either way, if you keep them clean.·Doctor advised

From across the road the pattern arrived wide and tired, freckling your belly with pellets that barely won through the skin. Half of them come out with a fingernail and the rest with a needle at camp, stinging, endless, and none of it deep.

• A freckling of tiny scabs across the belly, itching for 3 days
• One or two pellets likely still in you, shallow and harmless, found years from now

Recovery 2 days of salve; a doctor is a luxury here.·No doctor needed

Three pellets under the skin of your side, each a small hard pea you can slide around with a thumb. The doctor pops them out through slits no wider than a grass blade and offers them back as shirt buttons.

• Three small slits, plastered for 2 days
• Tender to a poke for 3 days; your friends will find this out immediately

Recovery 2 days; salve and forbearance.·No doctor needed

Your heavy coat drank most of the pattern, you shake pellets out of the wool like a dog shaking off rain. Two got through to the skin of your belly and sat there sulking, barely deep enough to bleed.

• Two shallow nicks, plastered for 2 days
• A coat peppered with holes, proof, and drafty proof at that
• /me shakes out his coat and lead pellets rattle across the floorboards like spilled shot.

Recovery A day or 2; the coat needs the doctor more than you do.·No doctor needed

At that range the pattern mostly slapped instead of bit, a spray of angry red welts across your belly, and a single pellet that broke skin and fell out when you pulled your shirttail free. You keep it, because one pellet is still shot, and shot is still a story.

• A spray of raised welts, stinging for 2 days
• One shallow nick, plastered for a day

Recovery A day or 2; witch hazel if you are feeling fancy.·No doctor needed

You stood at the very hem of the shot's reach, and the pellets arrived like thrown gravel, they rattled off your belt, your buttons and your buckle, and left nothing but welts. Ten steps closer and this is a different table entirely.

• A scatter of welts across the belly, fading over 2 days
• One pellet found inside your boot at bedtime, without a mark to explain it

Recovery A day of stinging; no needle, no knife, no bill.·No doctor needed

The bandolier slung across your middle caught the heart of the pattern, leather and brass chewed to ruin, and beneath it only bruises and one shallow nick where a pellet slipped between the loops. You wear the wreck the rest of the day because taking it off feels ungrateful.

• A stripe of bruises under the bandolier line, tender for 3 days
• One nick, plastered for a day
• /me runs a thumb over the chewed bandolier leather, counting the pellets still stuck in it.

Recovery 2 days of bruise; the bandolier died a hero.·No doctor needed

You were carrying the camp's cast-iron lid against your belly when the gun spoke, and the whole pattern rang off it like hail on a church bell. You sat down hard in the mud, deaf on one side and still holding supper's shield, with a lid-shaped bruise blooming and not one hole in you, and the lid still bakes fine.

• A wide round bruise across the belly, fading over 3 days
• Ears ringing on one side until tomorrow
• The pellet-dented lid, now the most famous cookware in the territory
• /me raps a knuckle on the dented lid and lets the ring make his argument for him.

Recovery Nothing but bruise and bell-rung ears; supper is saved as well.·No doctor needed