Hand & Fingers: Buckshot

Inside ten yards there is no pattern, only a fist of lead, and it takes your hand square. What hangs at the end of your wrist afterward is nothing a splint can vote on; the doctor gives you laudanum, a leather strap and the truth, and the saw does its merciful arithmetic above the ruin.

• The hand is lost, the stump seared, stitched and bound in daily dressings for 7 days
• Morphine, then laudanum, then the long one-handed apprenticeship
• /me reaches for the coffee pot with a hand that ain't there anymore

Recovery The stump heals over in 7 days of a doctor's care; the hand is gone forever.·Doctor, urgently

Close enough to smell the powder, but only the pattern's edge finds you: five pellets strike your hand in a cluster, breaking two fingers and tearing the web between them to fringe. The doctor splints what's broken, stitches what's torn, and pulls lead from between the bones with a prayer per pellet.

• Two broken fingers splinted together for 7 days
• Web of the hand stitched with silk; no spreading the fingers wide all week
• Five pellet scars in a group you can cover with a poker chip
• /me holds up the splinted pair of fingers in a permanent, unwilling salute

Recovery 7 days splinted under a doctor, crooked fingers and twice that without.·Doctor, urgently

Eight pellets take your hand between knuckle and wrist, and the doctor's evening becomes forceps work by lamplight, each pellet ringing the basin a little duller than the last. Six come out. The deepest two are wedged where steel can't follow, and he closes the hand over them for keeps.

• Hand swollen, stitched and wrapped, half grip at best for 5-6 days
• Six fresh pellet-holes dressed daily for 5 days
• Two pellets stay for life, deep in the meat, they'll ache before rain and set off nothing worse than complaints

Recovery 6 days under a doctor's care, a festering 10 without; the deep pair ride along quiet.·Doctor, urgently

The rim of a close pattern catches the edge of your hand and takes a crescent of meat out of it, clean as a bite from an apple. The doctor packs the gap with carbolic lint and stitches the skin over as far as it will reach, promising the hollow will fill with scar in its own sweet time.

• The hand's edge packed and re-dressed daily for 5-6 days; it bleeds through the first 2
• No bracing a long gun or chopping motion off that edge for 6 days
• A crescent scar-hollow along the blade of the hand for life

Recovery 6 days of a doctor's packing, 9 or more and proud flesh if it's left ragged.·Doctor required

Middling range, and the spread deals you nine pellets across the back of the hand, none deep, all of them opinionated. You spend the evening flat-palmed on the doctor's table while the forceps go down each hole in turn, and by the ninth you've named every saint you know.

• Nine dressed punctures, hand swollen tight and stiff for 4-5 days
• Fingers move but won't make a full fist for 4 days
• /me flexes the pincushioned hand open and shut, counting all nine stings

Recovery 5 days with a doctor's picking and carbolic, a hot festering week without.·Doctor required

Most of the pattern went by; three pellets didn't, and they've gone deep, one against a bone, two into the muscle of the palm. The doctor gets two after a long hunt and leaves the deepest where it lies, saying it will trouble you less than the digging would.

• Two extraction cuts and an entry field, dressed for 4 days
• Deep palm-ache when you grip hard for 4-5 days
• One pellet stays by the bone forever, a cold-morning twinge, no worse than an old scar

Recovery 4-5 days with a doctor's care, 7 sore ones without; the keeper pellet costs nothing but weather-talk.·Doctor required

The spread walks across your knuckles like hail on a tin roof, splitting the skin over four of them and chipping one. The pellets themselves barely dig in, the doctor pops them out like seeds from a melon, but the chipped knuckle swells your fist into a mitt.

• First finger buddy-splinted for 4 days for the chipped knuckle
• Fist forbidden for 4 days; a thrown punch would cost you a month of regret
• Four scabbed knuckles that crack and weep when you forget them

Recovery 4 days splinted and dressed, 6-7 swollen ones without.·Doctor required

One pellet finds the gap at the base of your middle finger and lodges against the joint, and every bend of that finger clicks like a bad latch. The doctor eases it out sideways with a needle and forceps, slow work in a small place, and the joint stays hot and sulky after.

• Middle finger splinted straight for 3-4 days, then stiff and grudging a few days more
• No trigger, cards or knots with that finger for 4 days
• The knuckle swells in cold weather that first week, rub it and get on

Recovery 4 days with a doctor's small tools, 6 clicking ones without.·Doctor required

Twenty-five yards of open air spread the charge kindly: a dozen pellets pepper your hand and cuff, none deeper than a fingernail. You pass a long cursing evening under the lamp while the forceps pick you clean like a Sunday goose, pellets pinging into a tin plate.

• A constellation of small scabs across the hand for 3 days
• Gloves off for 3 days, wool sticks to every one of them
• /me winces at each ping in the tin plate, keeping count out loud

Recovery 3 days dressed and greased, 5 itching ones without.·Doctor advised

The pattern's edge speckles you from fingertip to wrist, shallow as gravel thrown by a wagon wheel. Most pellets sit right under the skin where a knife tip can tease them out; the doctor leaves the two smallest, saying your hide will hold them cheaper than his digging.

• Back of the hand speckled with dressed nicks for 3 days
• Grip fine, but knocks and handshakes light you up for 3 days
• Two shot left under the skin for keeps, small gray freckles that ache before rain

Recovery 3 days with care, 4-5 without; the freckles are permanent tenants, quiet ones.·Doctor advised

Five pellets, all in the meat, none with ambition. A knife tip and forceps have every one of them into the basin inside the half hour, and the doctor is more interested in his coffee than your wound before he's done wrapping it.

• Five plastered nicks across the hand, tender for 2-3 days
• Rope and rein sting for 2 days

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

The pellets that hit you sit too deep to chase and too quiet to fear, and the doctor makes the old bargain: he cleans the holes, wraps the hand, and leaves the lead where it lies. From now on that hand knows the weather half a day before the sky admits it.

• Punctures dressed for 2-3 days; grip tender the while
• Three pellets stay in the hand for good, no worse than scars, save they mutter before storms
• /me flexes their hand, frowns, and tells everyone to get the washing in

Recovery 2-3 days to heal over; the forecast is yours for life.·Doctor advised

At the pattern's ragged outer edge, the pellets reach you skin-deep and no more, buried like gravel in a fall-scraped knee. You and a steady friend pop them out with a sewing needle and a knife tip by firelight, dropping each into a whiskey glass to hear it clink.

• A dozen shallow nicks scabbing for 2 days
• Back of the hand looks like bad road for the week; works fine after 2 days

Recovery 2 days if cleaned proper, 3-4 itchy ones if not.·Doctor advised

Three pellets at the spread's far reach, sitting so shallow you can see the gray of them through the skin. Needle, knife tip, done, three clinks in a cup and three dabs of whiskey that hurt worse than the shot did.

• Three small nicks, plastered for 1-2 days
• Sore spots when you lean the hand on anything for 2 days

Recovery 1-2 days; whiskey inside and out.·No doctor needed

Only the pattern's outermost sprinkle reaches you: two pellets in the blade of your hand and a red spray of welts beside them. The pellets are out before the shooter's smoke has cleared, flicked loose with a thumbnail and a wince.

• Two nicks and a welt-speckled hand for a day or two
• /me compares the two little pellets in their palm to the welts they left behind

Recovery A day or two of stinging.·No doctor needed

Out of the whole charge, exactly one pellet claims you, burying itself shallow in the back of your hand with a smack like a flicked coin. One curse, one knife tip, one bead of blood, and the account is settled.

• A single plastered nick, sore for a day
• A pellet to roll around your palm while you tell it taller each time

Recovery A day, maybe less.·No doctor needed

At that range the charge arrives tired: a handful of pellets slap your hand and drop, leaving welts like wasp stings and one shallow scratch where a pellet dragged. It looks like you lost a fight with a beehive and feels about the same.

• Red welts across the hand for a day
• One scratch that wants a plaster more than a doctor

Recovery Welts gone by tomorrow.·No doctor needed

Past forty yards, buckshot is just angry hail. Two pellets bounce off your knuckles without breaking skin, and a third pats into your palm and rolls to a stop there, spent, as if the gun were paying you back for the fright.

• A pink-stung knuckle and a bruise, tender for a day
• One pellet caught in your own palm, warm as a coin from a pocket

Recovery Nothing but a bruise to sleep off.·No doctor needed

You were standing one long stride outside the pattern's business end, and only its fringe brushes you, a spray of felt wadding and powder-sting across the back of your hand, hot as a skillet's breath. Not one pellet in your hide.

• A red-stippled sting for a few hours
• A faint smell of scorched hair off your knuckles till you wash

Recovery Washed off and walked off within the day.·No doctor needed

You throw the gloved hand up on instinct, and the heavy gauntlet takes the whole reach of the pattern in its thick bullhide back. You peel it off to a sound like a rain-stick: nine pellets pour out of the leather and not one through it, your hand pink, stinging and entirely yours.

• A stinging pink hand for an hour or two
• Nine pellets in a shot glass on the bar, and the gauntlet that caught them hung above it
• /me upends the ruined gauntlet and lets the pellets rattle out across the table

Recovery The sting fades by supper; the gauntlet retires a hero.·No doctor needed