Hand & Fingers: Revolver: Lodged Deep

The ball mushrooms against the small bones at the root of your hand and stays there, wedged in the wreckage of the carpals. The doctor probes past midnight, takes the lead and half a dozen chips of bone with it, and tells you plain: the hand will close partway and no further, from this night on. What's left curls into a half-fist that no splint will ever teach to open.

• Hand set into a permanent half-curl, it will hold a rein or a cup handle, never a pistol grip proper
• Splinted and bound for 7 days while the wreck inside settles
• Laudanum for the first 2-3 nights; the ache never fully leaves
• /me works the crooked hand open as far as it goes, which is not far

Recovery The wounds close in 7 days under a doctor's care; the curl in the hand is forever.·Doctor, urgently

The ball flattens against a metacarpal, snapping it, and sets itself in the break like a coin in mud. The doctor is an hour over your opened hand with probe and forceps, whiskey for you and carbolic for the wound, before the lead finally comes loose with a sound you will hear in your sleep.

• Broken bone in the back of the hand, splinted flat to a board for 7 days
• Nothing gripped heavier than a spoon all week; no iron, no reins, no cards
• Forceps bruising and stitch-tracks across the palm on top of the bullet hole
• /me stares at the flattened ball in the jar the doctor let them keep

Recovery 7 days splinted under a doctor's eye; twice that, and crooked, if nobody sets it.·Doctor, urgently

The ball buries itself against the long bone of your thumb and chips it, and the doctor has to widen the wound with a scalpel to get his forceps around the lead. When it comes out it brings a sliver of bone and a plug of glove leather along for company.

• Thumb splinted and strapped to the palm for 6-7 days, no hammer-cocking, buckle-work or pinching
• The widened cut is stitched with silk and weeps through the dressing the first 2 days
• Grip at quarter strength; jars, cinches and lids will beat you all week

Recovery 6-7 days strapped with a doctor's care, 10 or more if the chip is left to grind.·Doctor, urgently

The ball goes in through your palm and stops just under the skin on the far side, too deep to reach the way it came. The doctor cuts a fresh incision in the back of your hand and pushes the lead out backwards, so now you wear two wounds for the price of one.

• Entry hole and a stitched incision, front and back, both dressed daily for 5-6 days
• Hand wrapped to twice its size; no shooting or rope work for 6 days
• Two scars that let you tell the story from either side
• /me turns the hand over slowly, showing the hole in the palm, then the stitches behind

Recovery 6 days with carbolic and clean dressings, 9 and a fever scare without.·Doctor required

The ball settles into your palm right against the cords that work your fingers, and every twitch grinds lead on gristle. The doctor eases it out with forceps in one slow pull, cursing softly, while your fingers jump like frog legs each time steel touches it.

• Ring and middle finger curl weak and stupid for 4-5 days after the lead is out
• No pistol work or roping for 5 days, a fumbled grip is a dropped iron
• Extraction wound dressed daily; deep bruise-ache in the palm the whole while

Recovery 5 days with a doctor's care, 8 clumsy ones without.·Doctor required

The soft ball drags a wad of your glove into the wound and beds down with it in the meat of your palm. The doctor hooks out lead, leather and wool in three separate trips with the forceps, then syringes the pocket with carbolic until it runs clean.

• Wound syringed daily for 3 days, the carbolic burns worse than the ball did
• Hot, red, throbbing hand and a low fever the first night
• No gripping past a loose rein for 4 days

Recovery 4-5 days once it runs clean, a festering week or worse if the cloth had stayed.·Doctor required

The ball stops against a metacarpal without breaking it, and until the doctor digs it free you can feel lead grate on bone every time you close your hand. The extraction is short and ugly, scalpel, forceps, one deep breath, out.

• Deep bruise-ache in the back of the hand for 4 days; gripping wakes it every time
• No recoil through that hand for 4 days, bone that's been ground on wants peace
• /me closes their fist slow, feeling for a grind that thankfully ain't there no more

Recovery 4 days with the wound washed and wrapped, 6-7 sore ones untended.·Doctor required

The classic scene, played out on your palm by lamplight: the silver probe slides in, taps lead at two inches, and the forceps follow it down while you bite the strap. One long pull, a sucking sound, and the doctor drops a flattened ball into the basin like a spent coin.

• Palm packed and bandaged for 3-4 days; grip at half strength
• No fast work with that hand for 4 days, dealing, drawing and knots are all out
• A puckered extraction scar dead center of the palm

Recovery 4 days with a doctor's care, 6 if you tough it out with whiskey and a mirror.·Doctor required

The ball hides somewhere in the meat below your fingers, and the doctor's probe goes hunting three times before it clicks on lead. By the time the forceps come up with their prize, your hand has been argued with more than the wound ever asked for.

• Probe-sore and bruised deep for 3 days beyond the hole itself
• Hand wrapped 3 days; writing and dealing look drunk
• /me soaks the swollen hand in a basin of cool water, sighing through their teeth

Recovery 3-4 days wrapped with a doctor's washing, 6 on your own stubbornness.·Doctor required

The ball comes out of the heel of your hand in one piece, near one piece, anyway. A flake of lead stays behind too small to chase, and the doctor tells you it will trouble you less than the scar, save that it speaks up before rain.

• Extraction wound wrapped 3 days; grip tender the whole while
• A pea-sized knot in the heel of the hand ever after, twinging before storms, no worse than a scar
• No leaning on that palm for 2-3 days

Recovery 3 days with care, 5 without; the flake costs you nothing but weather-guessing.·Doctor advised

The ball buries itself in the fat of your palm's heel and sits there, a hard marble you can roll under the skin. One slit of a whiskey-washed knife, one squeeze, and it pops out into a waiting hat.

• Slit and bullet hole both bandaged for 3 days
• No bearing weight on the palm for 3 days, mounting and fence-hopping go one-handed
• You keep the ball; it rattles in a vest pocket like a lucky tooth

Recovery 3 days wrapped, 4-5 if it's left to close around dirt.·Doctor advised

Half spent, the ball slides in at the edge of your palm and travels under the skin clean across the back of your hand, stopping under a knuckle like a stone under canvas. The doctor cuts down on the lump and flicks it out in under a minute, the crawling feeling takes longer to leave.

• A raised, bruised track across the back of the hand for 2-3 days
• Knuckle tender; fist-making is a thoughtful business for 2-3 days
• /me shudders, still feeling the ball creep under the skin long after it's gone

Recovery 2-3 days with a dressing, 4 on its own.·Doctor advised

Fired from far enough off, the ball barely wins its way through your palm's edge and gives up half an inch in. You can see its gray shoulder sitting in the wound; a knife tip and a hiss later it's in your other hand, still warm.

• One shallow, aching hole wrapped for 2 days
• Grip complains at rope and rein for 2 days

Recovery 2 days bandaged, 3 careless.·Doctor advised

The ball ends its day hanging halfway out the back of your hand, tenting the skin like a pole under a bedsheet. You pinch it free yourself with two fingers and a bad word, and it's over before your friends finish flinching.

• A split-lipped little wound, wrapped for 2 days
• Back of the hand bruised; gloves fit tight and mean for 2 days

Recovery 2 days, doctor or none, it did most of the leaving itself.·No doctor needed

The spent ball noses into the thick callus at the base of your fingers and sticks there like a hobnail in old boot leather, more in your hide than in you. A knife tip pries it loose; the callus hardly bleeds.

• Tender pad for 1-2 days; rope work stings
• A flat gray dent in the callus until it grows out

Recovery 1-2 days of tenderness, gone by the third regardless.·No doctor needed

The ball breaks up on a corral rail before it finds you, and only a ragged fragment reaches your hand, lodging shallow in the edge of your palm. Tweezers and a steady friend have it out in a moment; the ball's better half is still in the fence.

• A small dug-out nick, plastered for 1-2 days
• Sore spot whenever you lean on the palm's edge for a day or two

Recovery 1-2 days; keep it clean and forget it.·No doctor needed

From that range the ball has nothing left when it meets you, it breaks the skin on the back of your hand and lies down in the cut like a dog by a fire. You flick it out with a thumbnail and pocket it before the sting properly arrives.

• A thumbnail-sized cut, sore for a day
• A story where you get to say the words 'flicked it out'

Recovery A day of stinging, then done.·No doctor needed

The ball punches through the back of your heavy glove and dies there, rolling down inside to sit against your fingers, hot as a coal from the stove. You shake the glove and the ball drops into your palm, bruised knuckle, unbroken skin.

• One knuckle blood-blistered and tender for a day
• A holed glove and the ball that did it, ready for any bar top

Recovery The blister's forgotten by tomorrow night.·No doctor needed

The ball meets the silver ring on your finger and loses the argument, smearing itself across the band and skipping off into the dirt. Your finger swells and purples under the bent silver, but the ring took the wound that was yours.

• Ring finger bruised fat for a day; the ring has to be eased off with soap
• A ruined ring with a lead kiss across it, wear it on a cord and lie about who gave it to you
• /me thumbs the flattened silver band, shaking their head

Recovery A day of throbbing; the ring is past saving.·No doctor needed

The ball aimed at your gun hand finds your gun instead, burying itself in the walnut grip of the holstered iron under your palm. The blow slaps your hand numb to the wrist, and when the feeling crawls back you dig the lead out of your own pistol with a pocket knife, grinning like a fool.

• Palm buzzing and numb for a few hours, no wound at all
• A pistol grip with a lead heart, worth more in stories than the gun ever was
• /me draws the iron and shows off the gray bloom of lead set in the walnut

Recovery The numbness fades by supper; the grip stays famous.·No doctor needed