Barbed Wire Entanglement

It fought the wire and the wire won, the flexor tendons of the near hind sawed clean through above the pastern in the thrashing, the hoof left flopping without its rigging. No sinew grows back in 1899. Your choice is the pistol or a lifetime as a pasture cripple, and neither is wrong, and neither is easy.

• The put-down or permanent pasture retirement, the choice is yours alone
• The horse cannot walk out, it must be tended where the fence line stands
• /me sits in the cut grass beside the ruined leg, wire cutters still in hand

Recovery There is no mending a severed tendon, only the choice, and it is forever.·Doctor, urgently

The cuts are deep and dirty, rusted wire, old muck on the posts, everything the vet fears most. He cleans and sutures for an hour, then names the true enemy: lockjaw, with no antitoxin nearer than a city hospital and none that reaches here in time. For a week you watch the jaw, the ears, the way it takes its feed, and you pray the carbolic got everywhere the rust went.

• Deep sutured wounds dressed daily for 5 days
• Lockjaw watch: check jaw, ears, and gait morning and night for 7 days
• No work at all for 5 days
• /me offers a handful of oats and watches how the jaws work, counting

Recovery 6 days if the wounds stay clean, if lockjaw takes hold there is no cure, only an ending.·Doctor, urgently

It hit the fence chest-first in the dark and drove through two strands before physics won, parallel cuts across the breast sawed to the breastbone in the deepest places. The vet stitches by lamplight in layers, muscle then hide, and uses the whole spool. Your saddle girth misses the wounds by a hand; a harness collar wouldn't sit on this for weeks.

• No breast-collar or martingale for 5 days, rig your gear without them
• Dressings changed and cuts swabbed daily for 5 days
• A ladder of scars across the chest, white against the coat forever

Recovery 7 sutured days with carbolic, or open wounds that heal proud and ropey over weeks of story.·Doctor, urgently

A strand wrapped the hind cannon like a snare and tightened with every kick, flesh cut deep the whole way round, a groove you could lay a pencil in, the tendon bared but, by some mercy, not cut. The vet frees it a snip at a time, cleans the spiral wound, and splints the leg to keep the tendon quiet while flesh regrows over it.

• Splint and bandage changed daily for 5 days
• Hand-walking only for 5 days, no rider, no trotting
• A ring of scar around the cannon like a bracelet, permanent
• /me unwinds the last of the wire, one careful turn at a time

Recovery 7 days splinted and dressed, and touch-and-go for soundness, unsplinted, the bared tendon bows or worse.·Doctor, urgently

Diagonal cuts across the shoulder where it scraped down the fence line, three deep enough for silk sutures, the rest weeping scratches. Honest wire-cut work, the vet calls it: an hour of stitching, a tin of the patent wire-cut salve every store now stocks, and a horse that will carry the map of the fence on its shoulder for life.

• Sutured shoulder swabbed and salved daily for 4 days
• Mount from the off side for 3 days
• A lattice of thin white scars on the shoulder, permanent story material

Recovery 5 days sutured and salved, 7 crusted and cracking without.·Doctor required

One barb caught at the top of the cannon and unzipped a strip of hide clean to the fetlock, shallow but ugly, the kind of wound that heals slow and loves to grow proud flesh. The vet fits a snug bandage and warns you: keep it wrapped and keep it clean, or it heals into a fat rope of scar that spoils the leg's action for good.

• Pressure bandage changed daily for 5 days, no skipping, proud flesh is watching
• Walking work only for 4 days
• /me smooths the bandage down the cannon, checking for the telltale bulge of proud flesh

Recovery 6 days wrapped tight and clean, neglected, proud flesh builds and thickens the scar for weeks of story.·Doctor required

The horse went into the fence and you went over its head into the next span, now you are both striped. The horse took parallel cuts across chest and knees, deep enough to need cleaning and a few sutures; you took your own across forearm and thigh, plus a tetanus worry apiece. The vet works on the horse; the doctor, if you're wise, works on you.

• The horse's knees are wrapped, walking work only for 4 days
• You carry matching wire cuts, roll or narrate your own lacerations
• Both wound sets checked daily for angry redness, 4 days

Recovery 5 days of shared convalescence and mutual sympathy, 7 if either of you skips the carbolic.·Doctor required

A single barb drove deep into the pastern's soft back and snapped off flush, found only when the vet followed the lameness to a bead of blood. Dug free, flushed with carbolic to the bottom of its track, and dressed daily, because a deep puncture near a hoof is exactly where trouble likes to seed.

• Daily carbolic flush of the puncture for 4 days
• Head-bobbing lame for 3 days
• Keep the pastern dry, no wet grass mornings or creek crossings for 4 days

Recovery 5 days flushed and dry, or an abscess and a far lamer week if it seals over dirt.·Doctor required

Shallow cuts crisscross the chest and forearms, it walked into the fence at a plod in the dark and stood puzzled rather than fighting, which is the whole difference between this roll and the bad ones. Salve, soft bandages where they'll stay, and a week of looking disreputable.

• Salve the cuts daily for 3 days
• The horse looks dramatically striped, expect commentary at every rail

Recovery 4 days to scab and settle, 5 with more itching if unsalved.·Doctor advised

One barb hooked deep at the chest and tore a palm-sized flap of hide that hangs like a badly turned page. Under it: clean red muscle, barely nicked. The vet trims the ragged edge, stitches the flap home, and predicts a scar in the shape of a country nobody can agree on.

• Sutured flap kept dry and checked daily for 4 days
• No breast-strap pressure for 3 days
• A distinctive map-shaped scar on the chest thereafter

Recovery 4 days if the flap takes, 6 and a wider scar if the stitches pull.·Doctor advised

A clean slice across the front of the fetlock, shallow of the joint but right where every step flexes it open again. Wrapped snug, it knits; unwrapped, it cracks and weeps and takes twice as long, complaining at every stride.

• Fetlock wrapped for every ride, rewrapped nightly, for 4 days
• A slight hitch in the stride for 3 days

Recovery 4 days wrapped, 6 cracked and weeping without.·Doctor advised

A dozen shallow rips along one flank and haunch, none deep, all annoying, each one placed precisely where the horse cannot be touched without theatrics. The patent wire-cut liniment from the general store does its advertised work, applied to a running commentary of stamps and tail-swishes.

• Liniment twice daily for 3 days, applied under protest
• Tender-sided under the saddle blanket for 2 days
• /me chases the shifting horse in a slow circle, liniment tin in hand

Recovery 3 days salved, 5 itchy days without.·Doctor advised

It struck the fence post with a knee going through and wears the proof, a split-skin knock, swollen tight by morning, plus a wire scratch or two along the cannon below. Cold wraps take the swelling; the scratches take care of themselves.

• Cold water wraps on the knee twice daily for 3 days
• Stiff-kneed at the walk for 2 days, no trotting downhill

Recovery 3 days of cold wraps, 5 of stiff sulking without.·Doctor advised

The thick seasonal coat paid the bill, the wire combed through hair and only just reached hide, leaving welts and two thin scratches you have to part the coat to find. The horse seems mostly offended about the missing hair.

• Welted lines under the coat, tender to a brush for 2 days
• Patches of clipped-looking hair along one side

Recovery 2 days for the welts, the hair takes the season.·No doctor needed

A single shallow cut along the haunch, straight as a ruled line, it stepped back from the fence almost as soon as it touched. Whiskey-washed and salved, it is a scab by tomorrow and a hairline white scar by autumn.

• One tidy scab line to keep clean for 2 days
• The horse eyes fence lines with new suspicion for 2 days

Recovery 2 days at most.·No doctor needed

The barbs found saddle strings, cinch, and one saddlebag before they found any horse, leather scored deep and one string torn away entire, with a scrape on the horse's belly barely worth the name beneath.

• Cinch and strings need a saddler's attention before hard riding
• A faint belly scrape, salved once and forgotten

Recovery The horse: a day. The tack: a saddler's afternoon and a modest bill.·No doctor needed

The best kind of horse in the worst kind of trouble, it hit the wire, felt the bite, and simply stopped, standing planted in the fence line while you cut it free strand by strand. Two shallow cuts on the cannon are the entire cost of an accident that could have filled this table's bottom.

• Two shallow cannon cuts, salved for 2 days
• The horse earns and receives an inordinate quantity of praise
• /me works the wire cutters, murmuring stand, stand, good, over and over

Recovery 2 days, barely noticed.·No doctor needed

The wire snapped up and caught stirrup iron and fender instead of horseflesh, scoring the leather deep and leaving a bright scratch across the iron. The horse stepped through the gap it had already made, delicate as a deacon, and waited for you on the far side.

• One scored stirrup fender, character, not damage
• The horse is wholly unmarked

Recovery None to speak of.·No doctor needed

For all the noise, the twang of wire, your own shout, the staggering recovery, the total account is one scratch above the knee, so shallow it stops bleeding while you're still looking for the rest of the damage that surely must exist. It does not.

• One scratch dabbed once with salve
• Ten full minutes spent searching for injuries that aren't there

Recovery Done before you finished worrying.·No doctor needed

The fence lay collapsed in a tangle of loose coils hidden by grass, a trap that maims horses, and yours walked into the middle before either of you knew. Then, as you sat frozen, it picked each hoof up and set it down like a parade horse in slow time, high-stepping out of a wire nest without taking one cut. On a barb behind you: a single snagged hank of tail hair, the devil's rope's entire share.

• Not one mark on the horse, witnesses required for anyone to believe it
• A hank of tail hair left on the wire as the toll
• /me looks back at the coiled wire, hat pressed to chest, genuinely reverent

Recovery Nothing, though you walk it on the smooth road for a day out of superstition.·No doctor needed