The Sawmill Blade

The cuff snagged, the blade drank the sleeve in half a heartbeat, and your hand followed. Three fingers of the right hand went into the sawdust before the sawyer threw the lever. The doctor trims the bone ends smooth, folds skin flaps over each stump, and closes them with silk, dosing you with laudanum against a pain that has no floor. He is honest with you: the fingers are gone, and the fight now is keeping rot out of what remains.

• The right hand is bandaged into a club, no gripping, writing, or shooting with it for 3 weeks
• Laudanum twice daily for 5 days, no horseback alone and no machinery while dosed
• Daily carbolic soak and fresh wrappings for 10 days, any red streaking up the arm means the doctor at a run
• /me cradles the bandaged right hand against the chest, the wrappings ending short where fingers ought to be

Recovery The stumps close in 3 to 4 weeks if rot stays out. Learning the new hand takes a season.·Doctor, urgently

You tore free, but not before the teeth walked up your forearm and laid it open wrist to elbow. White bone shows at the bottom of the furrow. The doctor floods it with carbolic, ties off two bleeders, and stitches muscle first, skin after, a long hour of silk by lamplight. He splints the arm straight to keep the stitches from working loose and tells you plainly that if it sours, the arm may not stay.

• Right arm splinted straight elbow to wrist, no bending, lifting, or gripping with it for 12 days
• Stitches checked and dressing changed daily for a week, hard labor forbidden for 3 weeks
• Fever watch each evening for 5 days, chills or red streaks send you back to the doctor
• /me keeps the splinted right arm tight to the body, sleeve pinned flat over the wrappings

Recovery Stitches out in 12 to 14 days, full strength in the arm closer to 6 weeks.·Doctor, urgently

The sleeve did not tear, it wound, and the arbor reeled your arm in like a fish. The wrist snapped against the blade guard a finger's width from the teeth before the cloth finally gave. The doctor pulls the break straight while two men hold you, splints it between cedar slats, and hangs the arm in a sling, remarking that you traded a hand for a wrist and got the best of the bargain.

• Right wrist splinted in cedar and slung, no use of the right hand at all for 3 weeks
• No riding faster than a walk for 10 days, the jolt works the break
• Laudanum at night for the first 4 days if the throbbing keeps sleep off
• /me carries the right arm in a sling, fingers poking stiff from the splint

Recovery Splinted for 5 to 6 weeks, the grip weak for a month after.·Doctor required

The blade got one true bite of the upper arm, deep into the muscle, before the sawyer threw the belt off the drive wheel and the whole rig wound down. It is a short wound and an ugly one, wide as the blade and down to the red heart of the muscle. The doctor packs it, stitches it in layers, and binds the arm to your side so the muscle knits without tearing itself open again.

• Right arm bound to the side for 5 days, then slung, nothing lifted heavier than a coffee cup for 2 weeks
• Dressings changed daily, the wound watched for souring for a full week
• No sawyer work, no swinging an axe or hammer for a month
• /me moves careful and lopsided, right arm strapped across the ribs under the coat

Recovery Stitches out in a fortnight, the muscle soft and unreliable for 5 to 6 weeks.·Doctor required

You got the hand clear a half second late. The teeth raked the back of it, four shallow trenches from knuckles to wrist, and one tendon showing pale in the bottom like a root in a ditch. The doctor cleans out the sawdust with carbolic and a horsehair brush, stitches what will hold stitches, and splints the hand flat so the tendon is not asked to work while it mends.

• Right hand splinted flat, no gripping, no fist, no trigger work for 10 days
• Dressing kept dry and changed every second day, sawdust wounds sour fast
• /me flexes the left hand twice as often, the right lying flat and wrapped on the table

Recovery Splint off in 10 days, the hand stiff and slow for another 2 weeks.·Doctor required

The drag was one great jerk, like a horse hitting the end of a rope, and your shoulder came out of its cup before the sleeve let go. You sat in the sawdust holding an arm that pointed wrong. The doctor lays you on the floor, sets a boot in your armpit, and pulls until it goes home with a clunk you feel in your teeth, then slings it and forbids you the mill for a fortnight.

• Left arm slung for 10 days, nothing lifted overhead for 3 weeks
• No roping, no hauling, no ladder work while slung
• /me rolls the freed shoulder a bare inch at a time, wincing it back into acquaintance

Recovery Out of the sling in 10 days, the shoulder guarded and weak for 6 weeks.·Doctor required

The blade caught your sleeve and the plank both, and it chose the plank. The board came back off the teeth like a thrown spear and caught you across the ribs, folding you over the carriage rail. Two ribs give under the doctor's fingers, cracked if not broken through. He binds your chest snug and orders ten slow breaths every hour, cracked ribs sour into pneumonia when a man will not breathe.

• Chest wrapped snug for 10 days, no lifting, twisting, or laughter you can help
• Sleeping propped upright for a week
• Ten slow deep breaths every waking hour, doctor's orders against pneumonia
• /me presses a forearm across wrapped ribs before every cough

Recovery The worst of it eases in 2 weeks, the ribs whole in 6.·Doctor advised

The teeth only grazed you, but a graze from a mill saw is a row of gouges, and every one of them was salted with sawdust, pitch, and whatever the blade carried from the last hundred logs. The doctor spends longer cleaning than stitching, scrubbing each furrow with carbolic until you have opinions about it, and leaves two of them open to drain rather than sew filth inside.

• Right forearm bandaged, the dressing changed and the open furrows repacked daily for a week
• No mill work, no mucking stalls, no dirty labor with that arm for 10 days
• Any heat, red streaking, or sweet smell from the bandage goes straight to the doctor
• /me peels back the bandage edge to frown at the furrows, counting them again

Recovery Closed in 2 weeks if it stays clean, a month of scarring after.·Doctor required

The blade ate the sleeve and skinned the arm underneath the way you would peel a green branch, a long raw scrape from wrist to elbow, bloody but shallow. The doctor picks threads of shirt cloth out of it with forceps, washes it with carbolic, and dresses it in oiled lint, calling you the luckiest careless man of the week.

• Right forearm dressed in oiled lint, kept covered and dry for a week
• No heavy gripping or rough sleeves against it for 5 days
• /me rolls the ruined sleeve back off a forearm gone raw and shiny

Recovery Scabbed in a week, new pink skin inside 3.·Doctor advised

The saw got the cuff and chewed upward, and the last tooth to touch you kissed the wrist just deep enough to matter. It bled the way wrist cuts do, freely and with theater, and the mill hands went pale, but the doctor finds the big vessels untouched. Four silk stitches, a snug wrapping, and a lecture about loose sleeves delivered free of charge.

• Right wrist stitched and wrapped, no hard bending of the wrist for 6 days
• Stitches kept dry, out in a week
• /me tugs the wrapped wrist deeper into a buttoned sleeve

Recovery Stitches out in 7 days, a thin white line to show for it.·Doctor advised

The sleeve ripped free and the same yank threw you sideways into the log carriage. You hit the iron rail with your hip and rode the frame down to the floor with all the grace of dropped firewood. Nothing is cut and nothing is broken, but the hip and the elbow wear bruises deep enough to have their own weather.

• Deep bruising on the left hip and elbow, sleeping on the right side for 4 days
• A stiff hitch in the walk, no running or jumping down from wagons for 5 days
• /me lowers onto the bench one careful half at a time

Recovery Colorful for a week, forgotten in two.·No doctor needed

You grabbed the first thing that promised leverage and it was the drive belt, moving at the speed of commerce. It skinned your palm like a hot iron before you let go and tore the sleeve loose on your own account. The palm weeps through any bandage for a day, and the doctor dresses it with sweet oil and lint and tells you not to make fists.

• Left palm dressed in oiled lint, no gripping rope, reins, or tool hafts with it for 5 days
• The dressing changed daily until the palm stops weeping
• /me holds the bandaged left palm open and up, like waving off a bad hand of cards

Recovery Tender for a week, tough new skin in 3.·Doctor advised

The blade hit the knot in the log the same instant it caught your sleeve, and the knot lost. It went to pieces like a grenade of pine, and your forearm and cheek took the spray. The doctor works by window light with forceps and a needle, pulling seventeen splinters and dropping each one into a tin cup so you can hear your luck counted out loud.

• Right forearm and cheek dotted with splinter wounds, kept clean and dabbed with carbolic for 4 days
• Any splinter site that swells or reddens gets opened again, so keep watch
• /me picks at a pine splinter the doctor missed, working it loose from the forearm

Recovery The holes close in days, the cheek spots fade inside 2 weeks.·Doctor advised

One tooth, one touch, and one neat nick across the pad of the thumb, and that was the whole of the saw's toll. It bled with enthusiasm far beyond its size. You wrapped it yourself at the mill and the sawyer docked you nothing but pride.

• Left thumb wrapped, no fine work like buttons, cartridges, or knots with that hand for 2 days
• /me re-wraps the thumb with a strip of clean rag, tying the knot with teeth

Recovery Closed in 3 days, forgotten in 5.·No doctor needed

The sleeve went into the blade and you went backwards out of it, and the arm came away scraped red from the cloth burning across it as it tore. There is not a cut on you, just a raw rash from wrist to shoulder and a shirt that died a hero.

• Right arm rash kept clean and dry, rough wool sleeves off it for 3 days
• No hot water on the arm for 2 days, it takes it poorly
• /me rolls the sleeve of the borrowed shirt down over a forearm gone raw pink

Recovery Calm in 3 days, gone in a week.·No doctor needed

You tore free with everything you had, which turned out to be more than the sleeve needed and about as much as the shoulder could stand. The cloth gave, you spun, and something in the shoulder pulled sour. It is only a strain, but it will spend the week reminding you of the price of enthusiasm.

• Right shoulder strained, no lifting above the head or throwing for 5 days
• Liniment rubbed in morning and night for 4 days
• /me works the right shoulder in slow circles, jaw set against the pull

Recovery Loose again in 5 to 7 days.·No doctor needed

The teeth skimmed your fingers as the sleeve pulled past, leaving one shallow red line across the first two fingers of the right hand, matching cuts like a tally mark. They want a wash, a wrap, and three days of you not gripping anything meaner than a spoon.

• First two fingers of the right hand wrapped together, no rope work or trigger work for 3 days
• The wrap kept dry, changed once midway
• /me flexes the two wrapped fingers together, testing the tally the saw left

Recovery Unwrapped in 3 days, healed in a week.·No doctor needed

The blade took the sleeve and the sleeve, bless its cheap thread, surrendered at the shoulder seam without an argument. The whole arm of your shirt vanished into the saw in a blur of thread and was spat out the far side as expensive lint. Your arm never felt so much as a breeze.

• One shirt down, a healthy new respect for rolled sleeves gained
• /me stands one sleeve short, arm bare to the shoulder, inspecting skin without a mark on it

Recovery Nothing to heal but the shirt, and the shirt is past prayer.·No doctor needed

The cuff button popped like a cork and the sleeve slid off your wrist into the blade instead of taking the wrist along. All you own from the whole affair is a red weal around the forearm where the cloth burned across it as it went, thin as a hat band and twice as cheap.

• A thin friction weal around the right forearm, worth nothing but a story, tender for a day
• /me thumbs the red line circling the forearm, right where a cuff used to close

Recovery The weal fades by tomorrow.·No doctor needed

The sleeve went into the teeth the same instant the blade hit an iron-hard pine knot, and the knot won. The saw bound solid, the belt shrieked off the drive wheel, and the loudest place in the county went church-quiet with your cuff still laced through a stopped blade. The sawyer cut you loose with a pocketknife, his hands shaking worse than yours, and the whole floor crew watched you walk away without one drop of blood owed. Men will buy you drinks on the strength of this for a year.

• Not a scratch on you, but the mill crew retells it better every day, and you were there
• A flinch at the whine of a saw spinning up, for a week or two, played as you like
• /me holds up the cuff, one thread cleanly nicked, and lets the mill floor look

Recovery Nothing to heal. The story only grows.·No doctor needed