Stomped While Down

They kept stomping after you stopped moving, and something they broke does not mend, the doctor levels with you once the swelling falls. One eye stays dim, or a hand keeps a tremor, or the face in the mirror is changed for good; the boots took a piece and kept it.

• A lasting deficit chosen with your partner: a dim eye, a trembling hand, or a face rebuilt wrong
• Bedbound and swollen near past recognizing for 7 days
• Cold dread of boots on floorboards that takes months to quiet
• /me flinches at the sound of heavy boots crossing the room behind them

Recovery A month under a doctor's care to heal what heals; what the boots took stays took.·Doctor, urgently

You walk away from the beating, sore but upright, and that's the trap, hours later you go pale, cold, and sweat-slick, and fold up mid-sentence. The spleen is ruptured and bleeding into your belly, and period surgery rarely wins this race; the doctor's face says he knows it.

• Feeling deceptively fine now, collapse comes in hours, wherever you happen to be
• Once it hits: pale, cold, heart fluttering, bedbound flat with feet raised for 7 days
• Left side tender under the ribs, untouchable
• /me goes grey mid-sentence, grips the table edge, and slides toward the floor

Recovery If the bleeding slows on its own under a doctor's watch, a month flat on your back; if it doesn't, era surgery rarely saves it.·Doctor, urgently

A boot heel comes down on your jaw against the floorboards, an anvil-and-hammer arrangement your bones lose. The doctor wires the break shut, and for weeks your world is broth, clenched-teeth talk, and writing your temper in a notebook.

• Jaw wired shut, broth and reed straws, nothing solid, for 7 days and beyond
• Speech a clenched mumble; carry paper for the long thoughts
• A heel-shaped bruise going black along the jawline

Recovery 4 to 6 weeks wired under a doctor's care; unset, the jaw heals off-true and aches every winter after.·Doctor required

You covered your head, so the boot took your gun hand against the boards instead, three fingers broken under one unhurried heel. The doctor splints each one straight and doesn't ask how; he's seen this exact hand before.

• Gun hand splinted, no shooting, gripping, or dealing cards for 7 days
• Everything one-handed and wrong-handed: buttons, belts, coffee
• Swollen, blackened fingers like a row of sausages gone bad
• /me guards the splinted hand against their chest when anyone passes close

Recovery 4 weeks splinted for straight fingers; unsplinted, they knit crooked and the trigger finger never crooks true again.·Doctor required

Heels found your ribs while you covered your face, the crunch was three of them cracking in a row. Every breath now comes on a lease, and lying down and getting up are the day's two great labors.

• Cracked ribs, no sprinting, hauling, or tussling for 7 days
• Shallow careful breaths; a cough doubles you over
• Boot-sole bruises stamped purple across your side

Recovery 3 weeks to quiet with binding and sense; one wrong wrestle and you start over.·Doctor required

A boot caught your eye socket and the swelling arrived like a landslide, within the hour that eye is a purple seam that will not open. Nothing broken that the doctor can find, but you'll navigate one-eyed for the better part of two weeks.

• One eye swollen fully shut, no depth, no aim on that side for 7 days
• Cold compresses hourly to bring the swelling down
• A face that stops conversations when you walk in
• /me turns their whole head to bring the good eye around to the speaker

Recovery Near two weeks for the eye to open and the colors to run their course.·Doctor required

A heel came down square on your gut, and the bruise runs deep enough that the doctor keeps you close, he's watching for the hidden bleed, the pale-and-cold that means something inside gave. It never comes, but the two days of watching are their own kind of injury.

• Under a doctor's watch for 2 days, report any faintness at once
• A deep belly bruise; no lifting or riding hard for 5 days
• Eating small and careful while everything inside sulks

Recovery A watched week that ends in relief; unwatched, you'd never know which kind of story this was until it told you.·Doctor required

Your off hand caught a heel while you were crawling for the door, two fingers snapped sideways and had to be pulled straight and splinted together. Not the gun hand, which is the only mercy in the transaction.

• Two fingers of the off hand splinted together for 7 days
• No two-handed work, rifles, ropes, and reins get complicated
• A sick lurch every time the splint catches on a pocket

Recovery 3 weeks splinted to knit straight; unsplinted they set crooked and stiff.·Doctor required

Boot heels wrote their signatures across your ribs and back, a pattern of welts and bruises like a cattle brand catalogue, none of them deep. You're a walking woodcut of the evening for a week or so.

• Heel-shaped welts across ribs and back for 5 days
• Stiff as a new saddle every morning for 3 days
• /me eases their shirt on slow, hissing at each welt it crosses

Recovery 6 days for the pattern to fade to yellow.·Doctor advised

A boot pressed your head to the floorboards and the boards pressed back, your scalp split against the grain and bled a mask down one side of your face. Looks like murder, cleans up to a two-stitch cut and a rug-burned cheek.

• A stitched scalp split hidden in your hair for 4 days
• A floorboard-burn down one cheek for 3 days
• Blood-crusted collar you'll be soaking for days

Recovery 5 days, and a hat covers most of the story.·Doctor advised

A heel grazed your mouth on its way to worse plans and now two lower teeth wobble in their moorings, gums bleeding slow and salty. The doctor's advice is the hardest kind: leave them be and they'll tighten.

• Two loose teeth, soft food and no biting apples for 5 days
• The overwhelming urge to test them with your tongue, hourly
• Bleeding gums that taste like a handful of pennies

Recovery 10 days to firm back up, if you can keep your tongue off them.·Doctor advised

You got small fast, knees to chest, arms over skull, and your forearms took the heels meant for your head. Bruised to the bone from wrist to elbow, but the arithmetic came out in your favor.

• Both forearms bruised deep, lifting anything heavy stings for 4 days
• Sleeves hide it; rolling them up ends conversations
• /me rolls a sleeve down quick over a forearm gone storm-purple

Recovery 6 days of tender arms and quiet gratitude.·Doctor advised

The last kick landed as you crawled clear and caught your tailbone flush, a small bone with a giant's voice. Nothing broken, says the doctor, not meeting your eye; everything about sitting says otherwise for a week.

• Sitting is a slow, sideways operation for 5 days
• Riding at a trot is out for 4 days
• You develop strong opinions about chair cushions

Recovery A week standing at bars and mantels like it's a preference.·Doctor advised

The floor was slick with spilled beer and sawdust and half the stomps skidded off you sideways. You get up filthy, welted in two places, and considerably luckier than you look.

• Two modest welts for 3 days
• Clothes fit for the wash line and nothing worse

Recovery 3 days; the coat needs a brush and a prayer.·No doctor needed

A glancing boot clipped your ear against the floor and set a bell ringing in it that takes a day to wind down. A hot swollen ear and a temporary lean toward your good side, cheap, all considered.

• Ringing in one ear through tomorrow
• A hot, tender ear for 2 days

Recovery 2 days.·No doctor needed

A few welts on the shoulders and one on the hip where the boots found you before hands pulled them off. It aches like a hard day's haying and heals about as fast.

• Scattered welts for 3 days
• Stiff shoulders first thing in the morning

Recovery 3 days.·No doctor needed

You kept moving, rolling, twisting, never where the heel landed, and collected only scuffs and one honest bruise for the whole ugly minute. Staying loose saved you a month of tables further up this list.

• One good bruise on the hip for 3 days
• Floor-burn on both elbows for 2 days

Recovery 3 days.·No doctor needed

The second stomp never lands, hands haul your attacker backward into the crowd and the boots leave with him. One welt on the shoulder and a debt to whoever grabbed him first.

• A single welt for 2 days
• A drink owed to a stranger with quick hands

Recovery 2 days.·No doctor needed

Your attacker was three whiskeys past accuracy, the stomps land on floorboards, your coat hem, and once on his own other foot. You take a scuff and a scare and watch him hop.

• A scuffed forearm, gone in a day
• The image of him hopping, yours to keep
• /me watches the man hop on one boot, and slowly starts to grin

Recovery Overnight.·No doctor needed

At the first raised boot you roll hard under the billiard table, and the heel meant for your skull meets the table's oak leg full force, the yelp is loud, immediate, and the sweetest music of the evening. He hops off cursing with broken toes; you climb out without a mark and chalk a cue.

• Not a mark on you, a little chalk dust, maybe
• His broken toes announce your story every time he limps past
• /me rolls out from under the billiard table, stands, and straightens their collar

Recovery Nothing to heal. His toes, four to six weeks.·No doctor needed