Widow in the Woodpile

The bite on your right forearm seemed a small thing for two days, then the center sank and went gray, and by week's end the sore had opened to the size of a silver dollar and kept opening. The doctor calls it a rotting bite and knows only one cure: the knife. He cuts away dead flesh down to what bleeds honest red, packs the crater with carbolic gauze, and warns that fever will ride you for weeks while the hole fills in from the bottom, if it fills at all.

• Right forearm carried in a sling, the packed wound dressed twice daily, no lifting, gripping, or hard riding for 3 weeks
• Fever comes and goes for 2 weeks: sweats, chills, and a short temper, scenes end early when it spikes
• The dressing must be changed by a doctor or a steady-handed friend every day for 10 days, missed changes risk the rot returning
• /me favors the slung arm, a sour smell of carbolic hanging about the stained bandage

Recovery Three to six weeks for the crater to granulate closed, the divot scar permanent.·Doctor, urgently

The pinprick on your wrist was nothing, and then it was everything. Inside the hour the ache climbed your arm, crossed your shoulder, and took your back and belly in waves of cramp that bowed you like a drawn bow. The doctor keeps you through the night on laudanum and hot flannel, one hand on your pulse, because a heart can tire of fighting muscles that will not quit.

• Two full days abed while the cramping breaks, then a slow shuffle with a hand on the wall for 3 more
• Cramping fits return without warning for a week, any scene can be cut short by a doubled-over spell
• Laudanum leaves your speech slow and your aim worthless: no shooting, no fine work, no contracts signed for 4 days
• /me curls around a board-stiff belly, the muscles of the forearms standing in knotted cords

Recovery The venom breaks in 2 or 3 days; the deep muscle ache takes a week to fade.·Doctor, urgently

By morning the bite on your left calf wore a blister black at the heart, and the doctor did not like the look of it one bit. He lanced it crosswise, pressed the poison out until honest blood ran, and touched a hot iron to the bed of it to kill what rot was starting. You smelled your own leg cooking. It stopped the spread, he says, and the price is a burn scar you can cover with a thumb.

• The lanced and burned calf bandaged tight: no boot on that leg for 4 days, a soft moccasin or a bare sock only
• Walking with a stick and a limp for a week, no running, no chasing, no dancing
• Dressing changed daily with carbolic wash for 10 days, and the doctor looks at it twice that first week
• /me limps on a stick, one trouser leg slit to the knee over a neat bandage

Recovery The burn crusts in a week and heals under it in three; the limp fades sooner.·Doctor required

The bite took you in the web of the right hand, and by supper the hand was a glove full of water, by midnight the forearm, by morning the whole arm to the shoulder with the armpit glands standing out like eggs. The doctor slings it high, scores the bite to let it weep, and doses you for the fever that arrives right on schedule.

• Right arm slung and useless for 5 days: no gripping, no lifting, no reins in that hand
• Fever the first 2 nights: sweats, poor sleep, and a temper with a short fuse
• The armpit glands stay tender a week, no rifle stock against that shoulder
• /me carries the right arm high in a sling, the fingers puffed tight as sausages

Recovery The swelling falls over 4 or 5 days; the hand answers properly again inside 2 weeks.·Doctor required

The cramps came on two hours after the bite and gathered in your middle until your belly set hard as a plank table, so hard the doctor pressed on it and frowned, because it feels like a burst gut and is not one. He knows the widow's signature when he sees the pinholes. A long night of hot compresses, whiskey, and cussing follows, and by morning the boards loosen.

• Abed through the night of the bite and dozing most of the day after
• Belly and back muscles sore as a beating for 4 days, no heavy lifting, no hauling, no brawling
• Appetite gone for 2 days, meals are broth and complaint
• /me lies flat with knees drawn up, one hand pressed to a belly gone hard as oak

Recovery The rigidity passes in a day; the ache in belly and back lingers most of a week.·Doctor required

She was waiting under the outhouse seat and caught you high on the right thigh, and the venom made a home in the big muscles there. They knot and release in fists you can watch moving under the skin, and standing is a negotiation. The doctor rubs in liniment, wraps the leg in hot cloths, and hands you a cane with no sympathy at all.

• Walking cane-slow for 3 days, mounting a horse from a fence rail or not at all
• The thigh cramps seize without warning for 5 days, long rides and long stands both end badly
• Hot cloth wraps every evening for 4 nights
• /me leans hard on a cane, the leg beneath jumping with knots that move on their own

Recovery The cramping quiets in 3 days, the thigh trusts your weight again inside a week.·Doctor advised

You let the bite alone for three days like a fool, and it repaid you by rising into a hot, throbbing boil with an angry red halo. The doctor opens it with a clean blade, drains what has gathered, packs it with a bread and milk poultice gone proper hot, and lectures you at length on the subject of showing him things sooner.

• The opened bite poulticed and bound, dressing changed morning and night for 5 days
• No soaking the wound: no bathing that arm, no washing tubs, sleeves rolled down in the rain
• A low fever the first 2 days keeps you short-winded and shorter-tempered
• /me picks at the edge of a bound poultice on the forearm, then thinks better of it

Recovery Drained and poulticed, it closes clean inside 10 days; ignored again, it will not.·Doctor required

The bite itself stayed small, but the venom sent its regards: a night and a day of pouring sweats, restless aching legs, and a heartbeat you could hear in your own ears. You wrung out the bedding twice. It passes the way a small storm passes, leaving you rinsed out and weak as tea.

• Weak and washed out for 2 days: half pace, frequent sits, no heavy work
• Salt broth and water every few hours or the dizziness comes calling
• The aching legs make a full night's sleep unlikely for 3 nights
• /me mops a damp face with a sleeve, shirt stuck flat to the back

Recovery The sweats break within a day; full strength walks back in over 3 or 4 days.·Doctor advised

There it is on your forearm: a red welt the size of a two-bit piece with two neat pinholes at the center, the calling card itself. It burns and aches up the arm, but the cramps never come calling in force. The doctor circles the redness with a pencil and gives you the rules: if the color crosses the line, or the center goes dark, you run back.

• The bite checked morning and night against the pencil line for 3 days
• The arm aches to the elbow: no roping, no heavy hammer work for 2 days
• No whiskey enough to make you forget to look at it
• /me turns a forearm to the light, studying a red welt ringed in pencil

Recovery Fading by the third day if it behaves; a return trip to the doctor if it does not.·Doctor advised

She was under the seat board, as the old joke warns, and she got you where a man least wants a story attached. The welt on your backside makes a saddle an instrument of torture and a church pew not much better. The doctor examines it with a professional face that costs him visible effort and pronounces you likely to live.

• Sitting is misery: stand, kneel, or perch sideways for 3 days
• Riding at a trot is out for 3 days, a slow walk in the saddle at most
• The story is loose in town within a day and you cannot stop it
• /me eases down onto one hip with the caution of a man lowering himself onto tacks

Recovery The welt settles in 3 or 4 days; the joke at your expense runs considerably longer.·Doctor advised

The bite on the back of your right hand rose through the afternoon until it sat up proud as half a hen's egg, tight and shining and hot. Cold well water and a vinegar cloth are the whole of the medicine, that and not using the hand, which you discover you use for everything.

• No gripping with the right hand for 3 days: reins in the left, fork in the left, cards held badly
• Vinegar cloth wraps changed when they dry, most of the waking day for 2 days
• The hand stiff and puffy for near a week after the swelling falls
• /me flexes a swollen right hand slowly, the skin over the welt stretched shiny

Recovery The egg shrinks over 3 days; full grip returns inside a week.·Doctor advised

No great drama, just a slow ache that climbed from the bite near your left elbow to the shoulder and settled in like an unwanted guest. The arm works, but it complains at everything you ask of it, and by evening you are carrying it a little apart from yourself like a parcel you do not trust.

• The left arm at half strength for 3 days: no hay bales, no wrestling, no long shovel work
• A dull ache wakes you once a night for 2 nights
• /me rolls the left shoulder and works the fingers, coaxing a sullen arm along

Recovery The ache walks off over 3 or 4 days without ceremony.·No doctor needed

Around the bite a ring of rash spread to the width of a coffee cup, red and stippled and itching like sin. Scratching it opens it, and opening it invites the fester, so your war for the week is fought against your own fingernails. Whiskey outside, and a little inside for morale.

• No scratching: gloves worn or hands kept occupied whenever the itch peaks, 5 days running
• The rash washed with cut whiskey or vinegar twice daily for 4 days
• Long sleeves over it in company, the sight of it invites questions and quackery
• /me presses a palm flat over a forearm rather than scratch, jaw set

Recovery The ring fades in 4 or 5 days if the fingernails stay out of it.·Doctor advised

A sharp sting at the woodpile, a small red welt by supper, and your grandmother's remedy from the shelf: a dab of hartshorn on the spot, which stings worse than the spider did. It aches like a bee sting for a day or so, and that is the whole of the tale.

• The welt tender to pressure for 2 days: gloves annoy it, doorframes announce themselves
• A faint ammonia smell about you until the next good wash
• /me rubs a thumb absently near a small welt on the wrist, not quite touching it

Recovery Gone in 2 or 3 days, remembered only when bumped.·No doctor needed

She struck through the flannel and got only half a purchase, and the shirt drank most of what she had to give. A pair of shallow pinpricks on your left shoulder redden and ache dully, and the shirt goes out the door on a stick to be shaken hard and inspected twice.

• The shoulder tender for 2 days, a rifle sling worn on the other side
• Every shirt and boot you own gets shaken out before wearing for a week, and you will not be talked out of it
• /me shakes out a shirt at arm's length, snapping it like a whip before trusting it

Recovery Two days of dull ache and done.·No doctor needed

You felt the legs on your neck and struck like lightning, and killed her sure enough, but the flat of your own hand did more damage than her fangs managed. A shallow nip and a handprint bruise share the same patch of neck, and only one of them was the spider's doing.

• A tender patch on the neck for 3 days, collars and bandannas worn loose
• The handprint blush is visible for 2 days and requires explaining
• /me tugs a collar away from a bruised neck, the mark suspiciously hand-shaped

Recovery Bite and bruise both gone inside 3 days.·No doctor needed

The bite raised nothing but a mosquito-grade bump and an itch of rare persistence. It is beneath mention in company and impossible to ignore in private, and it has chosen the exact spot on your back that neither hand can reach without a doorframe.

• An unreachable itch between the shoulder blades for 3 days
• Any doorframe, fence post, or obliging tree becomes furniture
• /me sidles against a doorframe and works the shoulders like a bear on bark

Recovery Itches for 3 days, then forgets you entirely.·No doctor needed

A dry bite: she struck, but she gave you nothing, and the two pinholes never so much as reddened. What she did take was your composure, in front of witnesses, in a register of scream you did not know you owned. The doctor finds nothing whatsoever wrong with you, and says so louder than necessary.

• Twin pinpricks and no more: no restriction but the ribbing
• The scream is now a local anecdote with sound effects, retold whenever you enter the room
• /me eyes the woodpile sidelong and picks up the next log with a long stick

Recovery Healed before the laughter is.·No doctor needed

You felt the tap on your palm and shook the glove off in a panic, and there she hung, fangs seated deep in cowhide and greatly inconvenienced by it. The leather took the whole strike. Your skin never split, though the glove has been retired from service and buried with honors under a rock.

• No injury at all, but new gloves are needed and the old pair is not discussed
• You inspect gloves like a bank examiner before every wearing for a week
• /me turns a glove inside out and holds it to the sun before daring a hand inside

Recovery Nothing to heal but your relationship with that woodpile.·No doctor needed

You saw her in the split second before your hand closed: fat, glossy black, the red hourglass burning against the wood grain. You froze, she raised her forelegs, and the log rolled and pinned her flat before either of you decided anything. You pried her out, dead, and boxed her. Now you own the evidence, and the drink other men buy when you slide that matchbox down the bar and let them peek.

• Untouched entirely, and in possession of a dead widow spider in a matchbox, worth a free drink most nights
• First look at any woodpile, outhouse, or boot from now on, by ironclad personal law
• The story grows a little each telling and you let it
• /me slides a matchbox across the bar and lifts the lid a bare half inch

Recovery Nothing to recover but your breath, which took a full minute.·No doctor needed