Horse Kick, Bite & Stomp: Body

Both hooves take you square in the chest and the ribs cave inward like barrel staves. Something sharp is loose in there, every breath bubbles wrong, and the pink froth at your lips tells the doctor what he cannot fix: a lung punctured, bleeding where no hand can reach. He gives morphine generously and sends for whoever should come.

• Carried to bed, propped upright, lying flat drowns you
• Breath comes in wet, whistling half-measures
• Morphine dreams between short spells of clarity, use them well
• /me coughs into a kerchief and folds it away quickly, but not quickly enough

Recovery A punctured lung in 1899 is a deathbed with a view, days at most unless providence intervenes.·Doctor, urgently

You raise an arm as the hoof fires and the forearm takes what your ribs were spared, snapped clean through both bones with a crack that scatters the other horses. The doctor pulls it straight while you study the ceiling, then builds a splint of shingle wood and plaster bandage.

• Forearm splinted rigid, no use of that arm for 7 days
• One-handed at everything: dressing, saddling, eating, fighting
• Fingertips poking from the plaster go fat and blue the first 2 days
• /me knocks their splinted arm on the doorframe and goes white

Recovery 7 days splinted with a doctor's setting and weeks tender after, unset, the arm heals bent as a sickle.·Doctor required

You reach past a sour horse's feed bucket and it clamps your hand to the bone. A horse does not slice, it crushes, when the jaws let go, two fingers are mangled flat, and the doctor turns them in the lamplight a long time before saying the one nearest may not be worth saving.

• Hand splinted and swaddled, no use of it whatsoever for 6 days
• The doctor inspects the crushed fingers daily; the word 'gangrene' hangs unspoken
• Feed that horse from a pitchfork forevermore
• /me guards a thickly bandaged hand against every passing shoulder

Recovery 6 days bandaged with daily carbolic care, if the finger blackens, the bonesaw finishes what the horse began.·Doctor required

The hoof catches your shin edge-on and the bone cracks with a jolt you feel behind your eyes. Not clean through, a green-stick break, the doctor says, which sounds gentler than it is. He splints it knee to ankle and forbids you your own two feet.

• Leg splinted knee to ankle, crutches for 6 days, no exceptions
• The splint knocks doorways and pew-ends everywhere you go
• A dent in the shinbone you will feel through your skin for years
• /me maneuvers their splinted leg under the table with both hands

Recovery 6 days splinted under care, 7 and a bone that aches every cold morning if you skimp.·Doctor required

You walked behind the wrong horse without a word of warning to it, and the kick stamps a hoof-print bruise on your chest with two cracked ribs beneath. The doctor binds you in linen and warns that a laugh, a sneeze, or a lie big enough could crack a third.

• Chest bound tight, shallow breathing and no lifting for 4 days
• A perfect hoof-shaped bruise over your heart, black as a brand
• Laughing hurts enough that friends will make you laugh on purpose
• /me holds their ribs two-handed through a sneeze and swears breathlessly

Recovery 5 days bound with rest, 7 wincing ones without, and mind fever if the ache turns hot.·Doctor required

A thousand pounds of horse leans, shifts, and pins you to the stall boards until the planks groan and so do you. Ribs bend that should not bend. When it finally shifts off, you slide down the wall and spend a while relearning how deep a breath can go.

• Squeezed ribs, deep breaths ache and heavy work is out for 3 days
• Plank-pattern bruising across your back and chest
• A new habit of never letting a stalled horse get between you and the door
• /me stretches their back against the doorframe, breathing carefully

Recovery 4 days for the deep bruising to ease, 6 if you keep mucking stalls through it.·Doctor required

The horse sets its hoof down on your foot and then, with the whole science of malice, leans. Two toes crunch inside the boot. Getting the boot off that evening is its own small war, and what comes out is more plum than foot.

• Two broken toes splinted to their neighbors, a flat-footed limp for 5 days
• That boot will not go back on, slit it or wear a moccasin, 4 days
• Anyone who steps near your foot gets a warning growl

Recovery 5 days splinted and hobbling, 7 if you keep boots and stirrups on it.·Doctor required

The kick lands square in the meat of your thigh, missing bone by a finger's width. The muscle knots around a bruise that goes down to the marrow, and the leg simply resigns, it will bear you, but it has stopped taking orders about pace.

• A dead leg, dragging limp and no running whatsoever for 3 days
• The thigh knots up solid if you sit longer than an hour
• A hoof-print bruise on the thigh, black at the center for 5 days
• /me kneads a knotted thigh with a fist, leg stuck out straight

Recovery 4 days of limping and liniment, 5 with the knot recurring if unworked.·Doctor required

The horse reaches over the stall door and clamps your shoulder like it is settling an old score. The teeth do not break skin so much as crush it, a bite-shaped bruise with every tooth accounted for, and a muscle beneath that seizes when you raise the arm.

• A full dental record printed in bruise on your shoulder for 4 days
• Raising that arm above the shoulder costs a hiss for 3 days
• /me rolls their sleeve to show the bite mark to anyone doubting the story

Recovery 4 days for the crush-bruise to loosen; a wrenched arm-swing sooner if you rub it nightly.·Doctor advised

You catch a half-power kick on the hip bone as you pass too close behind. It spins you into the stall wall and leaves a bone bruise that makes every step for days begin with a small decision about whether it is worth it.

• A deep hip bruise, mounting from that side is off for 3 days
• You walk with a slight hitch, worse in the cold mornings
• Sleeping on that side is out; you wake when you roll onto it

Recovery 3 days of hitching, 5 without liniment and rest.·Doctor advised

A hoof comes down across your instep, full weight, brief visit. The boot leather spreads the load just enough that nothing cracks, but the top of your foot swells into the laces and every step is a negotiation.

• A swollen instep, boot loosened or slit, limping for 3 days
• Standing in the stirrup on that foot stings sharply for 2 days
• /me eases their weight off one foot while standing, like a resting horse

Recovery 3 days favoring it, 4 if you will not loosen the boot.·Doctor advised

You are picking a hind hoof when the horse swings its head around and nips your forearm, quick, mean, and gone. The crescent of tooth-bruises purples up by supper, deep enough that rolling your sleeve down over it makes you suck air.

• A crescent bite-bruise on the forearm, tender for 3 days
• Sleeves and coat cuffs rub it wrong all day
• You now pick that horse's hooves standing well forward

Recovery 3 days of bloom and fade; unbroken skin means little else to fear.·Doctor advised

The kick grazes the side of your knee, a glancing blow, but knees keep short accounts. It swells snug against your trouser leg by evening and bends thereafter with the reluctance of a rusty gate hinge.

• A stiff, swollen knee, stairs and squatting are hard bargains for 3 days
• You mount from the off side to spare the bend
• /me limbers their knee with slow, creaking half-squats before mounting

Recovery 3 days of stiffness with wraps and rest, 4 without.·Doctor advised

The hoof grazes your thigh with most of its business spent, enough to spin you a half turn and sit you down in the straw, not enough to leave more than an honest bruise and a bruised opinion of the horse.

• A palm-sized thigh bruise, tender for 2 days
• A slight favoring of that leg on stairs for 1 day

Recovery 2 days and it is yellow; 3 and it is a memory.·No doctor needed

The horse shoulders you sideways into the corral rail hard enough to fold you over it, more shove than strike. Your wind leaves briefly on business of its own. A rail-shaped bruise across your middle is the whole of the damage.

• A rail-stripe bruise across the stomach, tender to belts for 2 days
• Winded pride, you checked no one saw before you straightened up
• /me straightens up off the rail, waving off help before any is offered

Recovery 2 days of tenderness and it is done.·No doctor needed

The bite gets nine parts sleeve and one part you, a sharp pinch of skin at the forearm that raises a blood blister and tears the cuff seam clean out. The horse chews the button thoughtfully and does not apologize.

• A blood blister on the forearm, tender for 2 days
• One shirt cuff hanging by threads, needle and thread tonight
• /me examines the torn cuff, then the horse, then the cuff again

Recovery 2 days for the blister; do not pop it, no matter the temptation.·No doctor needed

The hoof skims your calf on its way to nowhere, a warning shot, if horses issued them. A red scrape and a stinging welt under your boot top, and a much livelier sense of where the hindquarters are pointed at all times.

• A stinging welt on the calf under the boot for 1 day
• You give every horse's hind end a wide, respectful arc now

Recovery A day of sting inside the boot and no more.·No doctor needed

The kick fires at the exact moment you step behind the fence post, and the hoof blasts the top plank to splinters an inch from your hip. You stand in the rain of wood chips, untouched, reconsidering several of your habits at once.

• Unhurt, the fence gave its life for yours
• A plank to replace and a story to tell while replacing it
• /me picks a splinter of fence plank off their shoulder and studies it

Recovery None for you, the fence, sadly, was pronounced dead at the scene.·No doctor needed

The bite clamps down on the padded shoulder of your coat and gets nothing but wool and horsehair stuffing. The horse tears the shoulder seam out with a triumphant toss while you slip out of the coat entirely and step back, whole and insulted.

• Untouched, the coat's shoulder gave itself up for yours
• A torn coat seam trailing stuffing, mendable for a coin
• The horse now owns part of your coat and shows no remorse

Recovery No healing needed, the tailor will see to the wounded party.·No doctor needed

The kick lands dead center in the full grain sack you happen to be carrying, and the sack detonates, a golden thunderclap of oats that showers the whole stable while you sit down hard, unhurt, in the fallout. Every horse in the barn immediately forgives everything, and the guilty party eats its apology off your hat brim.

• Completely unharmed, the grain sack absorbed a killing blow
• Oats in your boots, pockets, and hatband for a week of small discoveries
• Every horse in the county is suddenly your very best friend
• /me sits in a drift of spilled oats while horses close in from all sides

Recovery Nothing to heal, though the feed bill is another matter entirely.·No doctor needed