Shoulder: Rifle: Straight Through

The round tore through the nerve bundle beneath the collarbone and the arm simply left, it hangs off your shoulder like something borrowed, senseless from pit to fingertip. The doctor pricks your palm with a pin and you both watch nothing happen.

• Arm hangs dead in a sling, no feeling, no grip, no use for 7 days
• Exit wound at the back packed and dressed daily
• /me watches their own hand lie flat on the table, willing a finger to curl
• The doctor cannot say if the nerves will ever wake

Recovery 7 days of doctor's care before the first flicker of feeling, if it's coming back at all.·Doctor, urgently

The entry is a hole you could cork with a pencil; the exit at the back of your shoulder is a ragged crater a fist would sit in, where the round shoved everything out ahead of itself. The doctor packs it by the yard.

• Exit crater packed with carbolic gauze twice daily for 6 days
• Arm slung and strapped 6 days, no shooting, roping or lifting

Recovery 6 days of doctor's packing, 12 and a crater scar like a thumbprint in clay without.·Doctor, urgently

The round punched through meat and cracked the shoulder blade on its way out, a fracture you hear more than feel until you try to raise the arm. Then you feel it plenty.

• Arm bound to the body 6 days, the blade needs stillness to knit
• Coughing and laughing both punished by a deep bone stab
• Sleeping propped upright, lying back presses the crack

Recovery 6 days bound with a doctor's care, 12 crooked ones without.·Doctor required

The wound channel is clean but the speed of the round bruised the flesh a hand's width around it, and by the second day that meat has gone black and case-hard. The doctor trims the dying edges back to red with a scalpel while you study the ceiling.

• Debriding sessions on day 2 and day 4, the trimming hurts worse than the shot
• Shoulder swollen tight as a saddle roll, arm slung 5 days
• /me peels the dressing back and looks at the blackened edges too long

Recovery 5 days if the doctor cuts the dead away in time, 10 and gangrene talk if not.·Doctor required

Through and through, but the channel weeps a dark serum that stains every dressing and smells of iron and something worse. The doctor flushes it with carbolic until it runs clean, twice a day, and frowns at his watch each time.

• Twice-daily flushing for 4 days, you dread the sound of the kettle
• Arm slung 4 days, low fever the first two nights
• Sour-sweet smell in the dressing you learn to check for

Recovery 4 days with a doctor's carbolic, 8 gambling ones without.·Doctor required

The round passed close enough to the collarbone to kiss it, leaving a hairline crack and a bruise like spilled ink from throat to shoulder cap. It held, but it wants respect.

• No lifting, pulling or rifle recoil on that side for 4 days
• A wince every time a wagon jolts or a horse takes a hard step
• /me eases their coat off the bad shoulder one careful inch at a time

Recovery 4 days with a doctor's brace and say-so, 7 if you play the hero.·Doctor required

The exit bled like someone left a tap open, soaking through your shirt, your coat and the saddle blanket beneath you before pressure won. The wound is clean; the loss is the problem.

• Faint and cotton-headed for 3 days, no standing fast, no long rides
• Arm slung 4 days while both holes knit
• Doctor's orders: red meat, liver, stout and rest, in that order

Recovery 4 days with a doctor and a full plate, 7 pale ones without.·Doctor required

The round's shockwave slapped the nerve bundle without cutting it, and the arm answers slow, like a telegraph line half down. Feeling ends at the elbow; past that it's pins, needles and guesswork.

• No trigger work or rope work with that hand for 4 days, the grip can't be trusted
• Burns and scalds are a real danger: you can't feel the hand holding the coffee pot
• /me fumbles a coin, watches it fall, and flexes fingers that answer late

Recovery 4 days for the line to come back up with rest, 6 if you keep sending on it.·Doctor required

High through the trapezius meat above the shoulder blade, missing bone and cord both. A rifle round leaves no polite exit, but this is as polite as they come.

• Arm slung 3 days, stitches front and back
• Carrying a saddle or a sack on that shoulder is out for 5 days

Recovery 3 days with a doctor's needlework, 6 without.·Doctor advised

The round whistled through the outer shoulder so fast the pain arrived a full breath after the sound did. The exit needs stitches and the shoulder needs a week of manners.

• No rifle recoil to that shoulder for 4 days
• Exit stitches that pull at every hard reach

Recovery 3 days with a doctor's care, 6 stiff ones toughing it out.·Doctor advised

Meat only, but the exit is a silver dollar of missing shoulder that has to heal from the bottom of the hole up. Packed, dressed, and itching like sin by day three.

• Exit wound packed daily for 4 days
• A round crater scar on the back of the shoulder, guaranteed

Recovery 4 days with a doctor's packing, 6 and a deeper pucker without.·Doctor advised

Straight through below the shoulder cap, nothing vital touched, but a rifle wound commands respect: the doctor binds the whole shoulder and straps the arm across your chest like a parcel.

• Arm strapped 2 days, then slung 2 more, buttons and boots become two-man jobs
• /me stands patient as someone else buttons their coat over the strapped arm

Recovery 4 days by the doctor's book, 6 by yours.·Doctor advised

Clean passage, but the round's speed rang the whole limb like a struck rail. From shoulder to knuckles the arm carries one long dull ache that no position eases.

• Grip at half strength for 3 days, shooting is possible, but ugly
• Sleep comes hard; the ache surfaces the moment you lie still

Recovery 3 days with liniment and a doctor's advice, 5 without.·Doctor advised

The round clipped the very cap of the shoulder, through the thin meat over the joint and gone. An inch lower and this is a different table entirely.

• Tender shoulder cap for 2 days, no rifle butt seated there
• A through-scar on the shoulder's crown, visible in shirtsleeves

Recovery 2 days with a wash and stitch, 4 if you leave it be.·Doctor advised

Through the outer meat and away, the exit barely worse than the entry for once. It bleeds honest, aches honest, and heals honest.

• Favoring the arm for 2 days
• /me pulls the bandage tight with their teeth and one good hand

Recovery 2 days either way; whiskey inside and out will do it.·No doctor needed

The round drew a line straight through the skin and shallow muscle like a hot wire pulled by a running horse. Both mouths of the wound are small enough to close with plaster.

• A hot-poker sting the first evening, dull ache after
• Two plastered nicks, tender for 2 days

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

The doctor looks at the entry and exit and mutters that he couldn't have placed a cleaner channel with instruments. Straight, shallow, and shy of everything that pays his rent.

• Mild stiffness raising the arm overhead for 2 days
• A matched set of small scars your tailor will find before anyone else does

Recovery 2 days; the doctor almost seemed disappointed.·No doctor needed

Fired from so far that the round arrived winded, it pushed through the skin over your shoulder and flopped out the far side of the fold with barely a yard left in it. Two shallow holes, one bruise, no change of plans.

• A bruise like a mule nudge, sore for a day
• /me squints at the far ridgeline, doing the arithmetic on the range

Recovery A day; distance did your healing in advance.·No doctor needed

In and out through the pinch of muscle at the top of the shoulder, so straight and shallow that a stalk of grass could follow the path. It bled less than a shaving cut.

• A sting when the suspenders go over it
• Bragging rights to a rifle wound with a next-day recovery

Recovery A day either way.·No doctor needed

The round threaded the gap between collarbone and shoulder blade, past artery, nerve and lung, and left through the muscle without owning any of it. The doctor maps the path with his probe twice, sets it down, and pours two glasses.

• Sore as a lost fistfight for one evening
• A doctor who now introduces you to colleagues as the one he wrote about
• /me lets the doc trace the path with a finger one more time for the crowd

Recovery A day, and most of that is the whiskey.·No doctor needed