Hand & Fingers: Rifle: Lodged Deep

A rifle round only stops in a hand when it hits everything, and this one drives into the knot of bones at the base and stays, what the probe finds down there is gravel. The doctor is honest with you: he can take the hand off clean at the wrist, or close it over the wreckage and let it set into a stiff, aching paw that will never grip again. Either way, tonight was the last night that hand worked.

• The hand is done as a working hand, the saw or the stiff paw, your call at the table
• Bandaged or bound stump, dressed daily for 7 days
• Morphine haze the first 2-3 nights, then the long lesson of the other hand
• /me tucks the ruined hand inside their coat, out of sight and out of argument

Recovery The wounds close in 7 days under a doctor; what the hand lost does not come back.·Doctor, urgently

The round smashes through two metacarpals and hasn't the manners to leave, lodging in the ruin it made. The doctor works by lamplight with forceps and a basin, first the lead, then splinter after splinter of bone, each one rung against the tin like a little bell.

• Two broken bones, hand splinted flat to a board for 7 days
• Grip forbidden entirely for the week; you eat, dress and doff your hat one-handed
• Swollen purple from fingertips to wrist for days
• /me listens to each bone chip ring in the basin and keeps their eyes on the ceiling

Recovery 7 days splinted with a doctor's care; crooked and near twice as long without.·Doctor, urgently

The round buries its nose in the big knuckle of your first finger and sticks like an axe in green wood. The doctor levers it out with a steel elevator while two men hold your arm, and the joint it leaves behind is bruised bone-deep and full of opinions.

• First finger splinted straight for 6-7 days, no trigger work at all
• Extraction wound stitched and dressed daily for 5 days
• The knuckle stays thick and weather-wise ever after, stiff mornings, nothing worse

Recovery 7 days splinted with a doctor, near twice that and a crooked finger without.·Doctor, urgently

The round mushrooms against bone into a rivet of lead, and the forceps slip off its shoulders twice while you chew the leather strap flat. The third try goes in with the screw-tipped extractor, biting into the soft lead and drawing it out slow as a bad tooth.

• Palm opened wider than the bullet ever asked; stitched and dressed for 5-6 days
• No grip past a coffee cup for 6 days
• Laudanum the first night, whiskey the second, gritted teeth after

Recovery 6 days under a doctor's dressings, 9 or worse if the lead is left in to grind.·Doctor required

The round cracks a metacarpal and beds down beside it, and the doctor's evening is forceps work: one flattened rifle round, then five chips of bone, laid out in a row on a cloth like a gambler's winnings. The bone that's left is cracked but standing.

• Hand buddy-splinted for 5 days; grip at a quarter
• No recoil, roping or fisticuffs for 5 days
• /me straightens the row of bone chips on the cloth, morbidly proud of the biggest

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

The round drives a plug of glove leather ahead of itself all the way to the bone and pins it there. Lead, leather and grit come out across three trips of the forceps, and then the carbolic syringe hunts through the track for whatever's hiding, which is when you do your loudest talking.

• Wound syringed with carbolic daily for 3-4 days; it burns like judgment
• Hot swollen hand and one night of low fever
• No grip work for 4 days, and gloves are banned till it closes

Recovery 4-5 days once it runs clean; a festering, dangerous week if the leather had stayed.·Doctor required

The round breaks apart on the edge of a bone, and the bigger half surrenders to the forceps in a minute. Its little brother hides in the meat below your fingers for the better part of an hour, and the doctor's language deteriorates with every pass of the probe until steel finally clicks on it.

• Probe-bruised deep through the palm for 3-4 days
• Hand wrapped 4 days; dealing and knot-tying look shameful
• /me holds the two lead halves together, making one round of them again

Recovery 4 days with a doctor's patience, far worse if that second piece had stayed to fester.·Doctor required

The round stops against the nerve that feeds your last two fingers, and until it's out they buzz like a struck fence wire. The extraction itself is quick; the tingling stays on for days, your little finger the last to forgive you.

• Ring and little finger numb-tingling for 3-4 days; small work goes clumsy
• Extraction wound dressed for 3 days
• Grip startles open when the buzz flares, hold nothing precious for 3 days

Recovery 4 days as the nerve settles with a doctor's care, 6-7 twitchy ones without.·Doctor required

Fired from far off, the round has just enough left to crack a bone in the back of your hand and lie down beside it, done. The extraction is short work with scalpel and forceps; the crack is the part that keeps the calendar.

• Hairline crack, hand buddy-splinted for 3-4 days
• No recoil through that hand for 4 days
• You keep a rifle round flattened to the shape of your own bone

Recovery 4 days splinted with a doctor, 6 sore ones without.·Doctor required

The round noses deep into the muscle of your palm, and the doctor hunts it by lamplight, the probe whispering in the channel until it clicks. Out it comes in one pull, no bone touched, the hunt bruised more than the finding.

• Palm deep-sore and wrapped for 3 days
• Half grip for 3 days; rope and rein handled like hot pans
• /me holds their palm open under the lamp, letting the doctor read it like a map

Recovery 3 days dressed, 5 without.·Doctor required

The round buries itself in the thick heel of your hand and stops shy of the wrist bones by a whisker, a hard bean you can feel from outside. One incision, one squeeze of the forceps, and it's ringing in the basin.

• No leaning on that palm for 3 days, mounting, vaulting and pushing up go one-handed
• Incision and entry hole dressed for 3 days
• A deep bruise-ache whenever you press with the heel of the hand

Recovery 3 days wrapped, 5 tender ones without.·Doctor advised

In through the palm's edge, and the spent round burrows beneath the skin of the back of your hand, raising a mole's tunnel as it goes before stopping cold. The doctor slits over the lump and rolls the lead out with his thumb, easy as shelling a pea.

• A bruised, raised track across the back of the hand for 2-3 days
• Fist-making tugs the slit; take it gentle for 2 days

Recovery 2-3 days with a dressing, 4 alone.·Doctor advised

The round is so nearly spent it hangs loose in the outer meat of your palm, shifting when you flex like a stone in a boot. It comes out with one pinch of the forceps before you finish your swallow of whiskey.

• One small deep hole wrapped for 2-3 days
• Grip complains at hard work for 2 days

Recovery 2-3 days wrapped, 4 careless.·Doctor advised

The round dies against the skin on the far side of your hand, tenting it up from beneath like a tick under a dog's hide. A whiskey-washed slit no longer than a grain of rice sets it loose into your palm, still warm from its travels.

• A slit and an entry mark, plastered for 2 days
• Tender to a firm handshake for 2 days

Recovery 2 days, whoever holds the knife.·No doctor needed

You find it yourself before any doctor does: a flat button of lead just under the skin of your hand's edge, the round spent to nothing by the time it reached you. Knife tip, quick hiss, done, it lands in your palm flatter than a Sunday collection coin.

• A knife-nick and a bruise, sore for 1-2 days
• /me tosses the flattened button of lead and catches it, cheerful about the arithmetic

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

The round screams off a canyon rock and reaches you sideways and exhausted, a ragged remnant that lodges shallow in the back of your hand. Tweezers have it out in a breath; the whine of it passing is the part you'll remember.

• A shallow dug nick, plastered for 1-2 days
• You flinch at ricochet-song for a day or two, and who wouldn't

Recovery 1-2 days and it's a story, not a wound.·No doctor needed

At the far edge of the rifle's reach, the round barely bites through the skin of your knuckle ridge and sits in the graze like a seed in a furrow. You flick it away with a thumbnail before the sting even settles in to stay.

• A raw seed-sized nick, sore for a day
• One conversation-piece rifle round, hardly deformed, with a story attached

Recovery A day of stinging at most.·No doctor needed

The spent round slaps into the fat coin purse in your fist and gets no further than the second dollar. Your knuckles wear the bruise of it, and the purse pours out bent silver and one flattened round, expensive armor, but cheaper than fingers.

• Bruised knuckles, stiff for a day
• Two bent dollars no bank will love, and the lead that bent them

Recovery A day of stiffness; the dollars stay bent forever.·No doctor needed

The round is spent enough that your heavy work glove holds it: it punches into the padded leather across your knuckles and lodges there, never reaching skin. Underneath, a blood blister the shape of luck itself.

• One fat blood blister on the knuckles, tender for a day
• A glove with a rifle round grown into it, worth more than the pair cost new

Recovery The blister settles inside a day or two.·No doctor needed

The round meant for your hand slams into the tight-wound coil of lariat you were carrying, and the hemp swallows it whole. Your palm stings from the jolt and nothing more; three days on, you find the flattened round wound into the third wrap, snug as a bead on a string.

• A stung, buzzing palm for an hour or two
• A lariat with lead braided into its history, you don't repair it, you display it
• /me runs a thumb over the gray lump seated deep in the rope's coils

Recovery Nothing to heal; plenty to tell.·No doctor needed