Shoulder: Rifle: Lodged Deep

The round struck the shoulder joint at full speed and burst it, driving bone splinters through the socket like nails through a barrel head. The doctor picks shards out by lamplight for an hour, then sets down his forceps and asks how attached you are to the arm.

• Arm strapped dead to your chest for 7 days, any movement grinds the splinters
• Laudanum every few hours; you drift and mutter and lose whole afternoons
• /me lies grey-faced and still, breath hitching each time the shoulder is touched
• The doctor speaks plainly of the bonesaw if the wound sours

Recovery 7 days strapped under a doctor's constant care, and even then the joint may be past saving.·Doctor, urgently

The round hit the collarbone square and left it in three pieces with the deformed slug sitting in the wreck. The doctor lifts out lead and bone chips both, lining them up on a tin tray while you learn some new curses.

• Figure-eight brace and the arm bound to your side for 7 days
• A grinding shift in the collarbone at any reach or shrug
• Cannot pull a shirt on unaided; you sleep propped against the headboard

Recovery 7 days braced with a doctor setting the pieces, 14 crooked and lumped if you tough it out.·Doctor, urgently

The slug drove through the meat and wedged itself under the shoulder blade, where no probe can reach it from the front. The doctor lays you face down, cuts a fresh mouth over the blade, and takes it out the back way.

• Two wounds now, the entry in front and the doctor's cut behind, both packed daily for 6 days
• Arm slung 6 days; twisting at the waist pulls the incision
• /me shifts in the chair, unable to find a way of sitting that spares both holes

Recovery 6 days of doctor's dressing after the cutting, 11 if the back wound closes dirty.·Doctor, urgently

The round chewed a groove into the bone and shed splinters through the muscle around it. Each one has to come out, the doctor hunts them by feel, and every click on the tin tray is a small victory you pay for in full.

• An hour on the table awake; your hands shake the rest of the night
• Wound left open to drain for 5 days, wicked and dressed twice daily
• Any splinter missed means fever, red streaks send you back at a gallop

Recovery 5 days if the doctor found every splinter, 10 feverish ones and worse talk if one stayed.·Doctor required

The slug flattened itself against the shoulder blade into a lead flower the size of a poker chip. Getting it out means widening the channel, and the pull, when it finally gives, comes with a sound you will not forget.

• Extraction wound stitched wide, arm slung 4 days, no shooting or lifting on that side
• Deep bone bruise where the slug struck; it aches with every heartbeat the first two nights
• A misshapen lead flower in your pocket, twice the weight of any pistol ball

Recovery 4 days with a doctor's care, 8 if bar-room surgery did the widening.·Doctor required

The probe finds the slug snug against the big vessels under the collarbone, and the doctor will not chase it there. He stitches you closed over it and says a city surgeon with ether and clean steel can fetch it out someday, till then, you carry it.

• Absolute rest for the arm for 4 days while the flesh walls the slug off
• A deep pull when you raise the elbow, and a weight you would swear you can feel
• Fever watch each evening for 5 days, heat or red streaks mean it comes out after all

Recovery 4 days of doctor's rest to let the pocket settle, 8 uneasy ones without.·Doctor required

The slug stopped against bone and the shock of it rang down the arm like a hammer on a rail. The extraction is quick for once, but the limb answers slow for days, half numb from shoulder to thumb.

• Grip too unsure for trigger or rope work for 4 days
• Pins and needles down to the thumb, worst when the arm hangs
• /me shakes the arm out like a wet rope, trying to wake it

Recovery 4 days for the arm to come back with rest, 6 if you keep working it.·Doctor required

The slug comes out along with the wad of shirt it carried in, but the deep pocket it left keeps filling. The doctor threads a lamp-wick drain through the channel and milks it every morning while you hold on to the bedframe.

• Drain in the wound 4 days; the dressing sodden and changed twice daily
• Low fever the first two nights, sweats and no appetite
• The sweet-sour smell of the dressing gets checked at every change

Recovery 4 days draining under a doctor, 8 dangerous ones if it seals shut over the pocket.·Doctor required

Fired from distance, the round had spent its worst before it reached you, the shoulder blade stopped it flat as a hand catching a thrown coin. The pocket is shallow and the doctor has it out in twenty minutes of honest work.

• Arm slung 3 days, the extraction wound stitched and dressed
• A bone-deep bruise over the blade that makes chair backs your enemy

Recovery 3 days with a doctor's stitching, 6 stiff ones without.·Doctor advised

The slug lodged in the thick meat below the shoulder cap without touching bone. The doctor follows the channel with long forceps and backs it out the way it came, slow as pulling a fencepost, while you count the ceiling boards twice.

• No rifle to that shoulder and no roping for 3 days
• The channel packed for 3 days so it heals from the bottom up
• /me counts the ceiling boards aloud, voice climbing with the forceps

Recovery 3 days with a doctor's packing, 5 if you let it close dirty.·Doctor advised

The round clipped the edge of the shoulder blade, knocked a single chip loose and stopped. Slug and splinter come out in the same sitting, the doctor holds them up like a matched pair and tells you to keep the change.

• Arm slung 3 days, the wound dressed daily
• A sharp catch in the shoulder when reaching across the body for 5 days

Recovery 3 days under a doctor's eye, 5 without.·Doctor advised

Deep in the deltoid but shy of bone, the slug comes out ugly, blunt-nosed and yours. It weighs a sight more than any pistol ball, and the doctor remarks you were lucky it arrived tired.

• Sling 3 days; nothing heavier than a coffee pot in that hand
• A deep muscle knot around the pocket you can feel for a week
• /me weighs the ugly slug in one palm, then pockets it without a word

Recovery 3 days with a doctor's care, 5 healing around rough work.·Doctor advised

The slug slipped off its own channel and hid in the muscle, and the probe walks your shoulder three times before steel clicks on lead. The finding is worse than the pulling; by the end your shirt is wrung through.

• Probing channel sore and dressed for 3 days, arm favored throughout
• A cold sweat at the sound of instruments on a metal tray

Recovery 3 days with a doctor's dressing, 5 if the long probing sours.·Doctor advised

A far-off shot at the end of its arc: the round buried itself two knuckles into the muscle above the shoulder blade and gave up. A short dig, one sharp minute, and it is rattling in a whiskey glass.

• A tender knot above the shoulder blade for 2 days
• No pack straps or rifle slings on that side for 2 days

Recovery 2 days with a proper cleaning, 3 without.·Doctor advised

The round came through a plank door before it found you, and the wood took its temper. It sits shallow in the shoulder meat, blunt-nosed and splinter-scarred, and comes out with one firm pull.

• A stitched nick, tender for 2 days
• Flecks of paint and pine picked from the wound along with the lead

Recovery 2 days either way; the door did most of the doctoring.·No doctor needed

The slug pushed a finger's depth into the outer muscle and stopped, wobbling in its own pocket. A steady friend with a clean pocketknife has it out between one drink and the next.

• A small wound bound snug for 2 days
• A bruise like a thrown horseshoe spreading under the skin

Recovery 2 days with any halfway clean care, 3 if the knife wasn't.·No doctor needed

You feel the lump before you feel the pain, the spent round slid under the skin along the top of your shoulder and stopped a hand's width from where it went in. One shallow cut along the track and it slips free.

• A stinging track under the skin, plastered for 2 days
• Bragging rights: a rifle round, and your hide near refused it entry

Recovery 2 days, treated or not.·No doctor needed

The round chewed through your rolled blanket and coat before it touched you, and what was left barely broke the skin over the shoulder. It hangs in the last layer of shirt and flesh, and you pluck it out with two fingers.

• A nicked welt cleaned and plastered, tender a day
• A bedroll with a hole story worth more than the wound

Recovery A day; the blanket needs longer.·No doctor needed

The round struck rock somewhere behind you and arrived sideways and spent, slapping into the shoulder flat-on and lodging in the skin like a coin pressed into dough. It leaves a perfect oval bruise and comes out with a fingernail's worth of digging.

• An oval bruise printed on the shoulder, sore a day
• /me presses the bent slug flat between two fingers, whistling low

Recovery A day either way; the rock took the killing out of it.·No doctor needed

The doctor swears your shoulder blade should be in pieces, instead the round struck it flat, spent everything it had, and dropped into the muscle beside it like a tired man into bed. He lifts it out whole with his fingers, taps the bone through your skin, and declares it better ironwork than the rifle's.

• Sore as a dropped anvil for one evening, working fine by morning
• The unmarked slug for your watch chain, and a doctor's tale that names you
• /me raps a knuckle on their own shoulder blade, grinning at the sound

Recovery By tomorrow it's a bruise; by Sunday it's a legend.·No doctor needed