Cottonmouth & Copperhead Bite

You bedded down rough and the cottonmouth found your warmth. It took you in the neck below the jaw, and the swelling is closing your throat by the hour, each breath a thinner whistle than the last. The doctor's choices in 1899 are a hollow quill through the windpipe or a prayer, and he is readying both.

• Breathing through a whistle-thin airway, no speech above a whisper for 3 days
• Neck swollen and black from jaw to collarbone, terrible to look upon
• Bedridden and propped upright, lying flat means choking, for 3 days
• /me breathes in a slow, careful wheeze, throat bound in stained bandages

Recovery A week or more under a doctor's constant watch if the airway holds; without one, the swelling decides for you before morning.·Doctor, urgently

The cottonmouth got you deep in the calf, and in this warm wet country the wound went bad fast. The flesh around the punctures dies gray-green and weeping, and the smell reaches the doctor before you do. He cuts away what is dead, packs what is left with carbolic lint, and tells you plainly that if the rot outruns his knife, the leg is next.

• Leg carried on a crutch, no weight on it for 4 days
• Daily debridement and packing; the dressing changes are their own ordeal
• A sick-sweet smell about the bandage that no wash quite defeats
• /me peels back a trouser leg to a wound that makes the room step back

Recovery A week of daily doctoring against the rot; untreated, gangrene takes hold and the bonesaw enters the conversation.·Doctor, urgently

A deep cottonmouth strike above the boot, and the bayou finished what the venom started. The punctures fester in the damp, and a fever rolls in like weather, you shake, you soak the bedding, you mumble at the lamp. Whiskey inside, carbolic outside, and a doctor keeping the wound open to drain.

• Fevered and weak, no riding and no work for 3 days
• The bite wound kept open and draining; dressings changed twice daily for 4 days
• Night sweats that leave you wrung out gray each morning

Recovery 6 days with a doctor breaking the fever; untreated it climbs, and blood poisoning waits behind it.·Doctor, urgently

It hit the ankle where the boot gapped, and the cytotoxic venom set about unmaking the joint. The foot swells past recognizing, skin stretched shiny and splitting at the creases, and a blister the size of an egg rises black over the punctures. The doctor lances it, ties the ligature, and forbids you your own two feet.

• No walking beyond a hobble, crutch or shoulder for 4 days
• A lanced black blister over the bite that will scar wide and shiny
• The foot will not take a boot for 5 days; you go about half-shod
• /me hops a step and grits out a curse at the swamp in general

Recovery 5 days under care with the leg raised, 9 without, the joint stiff long after.·Doctor required

You saw the white of its mouth a half-second before it struck your shin. Both fangs went deep, and the leg swells hot and bruised from ankle to knee. It is a real envenomation and it means to be respected, but the doctor's lancet and clean dressings catch it before the flesh turns.

• Hard limp, walk, never sprint, for 3 days
• Shin bruised black in a spreading hand-sized bloom
• /me walks with a careful, rolling hitch, keeping the bad shin from everything

Recovery 4 days with a doctor's cleaning, 7 alone while the wound weeps and threatens worse.·Doctor required

The copperhead was invisible in the leaf-litter until it was in your calf. The pain is out of all proportion, a scald, a brand, a hornet nest under the skin, though the venom itself rarely kills a grown soul. Rarely, the doctor says, is not never, and he keeps you where he can see you.

• Pain that makes you gasp at any touch to the calf for 2 days
• Pronounced limp for 3 days
• Two neat punctures ringed in furious red, tender for a week

Recovery 3 days under a doctor's eye, 6 without, the ache outstaying the danger.·Doctor required

It took you mid-wade, fangs into the meat of the calf through wet trouser cloth. The bayou water fouled the punctures as sure as the venom did, and by nightfall the wound is angry, hot, and weeping. The lancet and a burning carbolic wash turn it around, but the swamp nearly had its toll.

• Calf wound cleaned and packed, dressings changed daily for 3 days
• No wading or wet work while the wound is open, for 4 days
• /me rolls a sodden trouser leg to show punctures gone red and proud

Recovery 4 days treated, 7 untreated with the fester spreading in the damp.·Doctor required

You reached into the water plants after a snagged line and the cottonmouth was of another opinion. One fang caught the web of your thumb, shallow, but the hand puffs up like a preacher on Sunday and weeps at the puncture for days.

• Swollen hand, grip too weak for rope, reins, or trigger for 3 days
• The puncture weeps and must be washed and re-wrapped daily
• A lasting flinch at anything that moves in shallow water

Recovery 3 days with treatment, 6 without as the hand stays proud and useless.·Doctor required

A copperhead nailed your ankle through the sock, a shallow strike with a modest dose. The pain, however, did not read the dose, it burns like a stove lid clapped to the joint for one long evening before settling into a sullen, bearable throb.

• Noticeable limp for 2 days
• An ankle too tender for a proper boot lace for 2 days
• /me props their ankle on a rail and dares anyone to bump it

Recovery 2 days with a wash and wrap, 4 letting the bayou have its way.·Doctor advised

The copperhead bite on your calf never did anything dramatic, it simply refuses to close. The punctures scab, split, and weep with every day's walking, a slow-healing nuisance that keeps the bayou on your mind for longer than the pain ever did.

• A bite wound that reopens with hard use, no sprinting for 3 days
• Fresh bandage every morning; folks notice the routine
• Twin scars on the calf that will stay pale and dented

Recovery 3 days minding it, the better part of a week if you keep tearing it open.·Doctor advised

The cottonmouth hit the boot shaft with a thump you felt in your teeth. One fang made it through to score the skin; the other spent itself in leather. You get a shallow scratch, a blooming bruise from the strike itself, and a boot that now leaks in a crossing.

• A deep strike-bruise on the shin, sore to the touch for 2 days
• One shallow fang scratch, washed and wrapped
• /me thumps their boot shaft and shows off the puncture in the leather

Recovery 2 days with the scratch washed clean, 4 if the swamp gets into it, the bruise outlasts both·Doctor advised

A glancing strike to the calf left one puncture and half a measure of venom. The swelling stays small but the sick comes anyway, an afternoon of cold sweats and a stomach that wants nothing to do with supper, before your blood carries the day.

• Queasy and clammy for the rest of the day, no rich food, no whiskey for 1 day
• A coin-sized swelling on the calf, hot and tender for 2 days
• One puncture scar for the collection

Recovery 2 days and it is behind you, 3 if you insist on marching through the sick.·Doctor advised

It struck as you slipped, and the slip saved you, the fangs raked a shallow tear across the calf instead of sinking in. You come up out of the mud bleeding, filthy, and considerably luckier than you look. Carbolic stings worse than the bite did.

• A shallow raking cut on the calf, cleaned and wrapped for 2 days
• Caked head to heel in bayou mud; the smell precedes you
• /me limps along scraping mud off with the side of a hand

Recovery 2 days with a proper cleaning, swamp cuts are never left to luck.·Doctor advised

The cottonmouth reared, gaped its white mouth, and struck short, a single fang tip catching your trouser and grazing the skin beneath. A thin red line, a fierce sting, and a retreat on your part swifter than dignity allows.

• A stinging graze above the boot for 1 day
• You give every log and lily pad a wide, respectful berth

Recovery A day; a whiskey wash and it is done.·No doctor needed

The strike hit your boot below the ankle and stuck fast in the wet leather. You dragged the snake two whole steps before it tore loose and swam off, and only then did your heart start beating again. The boot took both fangs; you took none.

• Two fang punctures in a boot that now drinks the bayou
• /me squelches with every left step and pretends it is fine
• A story that improves the snake's size with each telling

Recovery Nothing to heal; the boot needs a cobbler.·No doctor needed

You saw the coil a half-second early and flung yourself sideways into a cypress knee. The snake missed clean; the cypress did not. You collect a scraped forearm and a knot on the ribs from the world's least graceful escape, performed before witnesses.

• A scraped forearm, cleaned to keep the swamp out of it, sore for 2 days
• Bruised ribs that comment when you laugh for 2 days

Recovery 2 days; the swamp water in the scrape is the only real concern.·No doctor needed

It struck your calf and left two punctures, then nothing. No burn, no swell, no sick. A dry bite, all threat and no toll. You keep a lamp lit and a thumb on your pulse half the night anyway, and by morning you owe the snake nothing but a grudge.

• Two clean fang marks on the calf, scabbing by morning
• /me checks the fang marks by lamplight for the fourth time tonight

Recovery A day of watching, then done.·Doctor advised

The panic is total until someone drags the culprit out of the shallows on a stick: a plain brown water snake, fangless, furious, and utterly harmless. The horseshoe of tiny teeth marks on your ankle needs soap, water, and no further conversation, though it will get plenty.

• A horseshoe of tiny scratches on the ankle, clean and shallow
• Your snake-identifying credentials are publicly revoked for a spell

Recovery Soap and a bandage; healed before the teasing ends.·No doctor needed

The cottonmouth lunged at your leg and hit the walking stick you happened to swing forward at that exact instant. Both fangs buried in green wood an inch from your knee. You carried that stick for miles after, and you may never set it down again.

• Not a mark on you, the stick took both fangs
• /me turns a walking stick to show twin punctures sunk in the wood

Recovery Nothing to heal; the stick earns a name.·No doctor needed

The cottonmouth coils to strike from the shallows, and the water explodes. A bull gator takes snake, lily pads, and half a gallon of bayou in one sweep of its jaws and sinks away like a closing door. You stand untouched in the ringing silence, elected by the swamp itself to live.

• Untouched, though your boots may never feel dry again
• Bragging rights: a gator ate the snake that was eating you
• /me stares at the flat, quiet water and slowly backs away from the entire bayou

Recovery Nothing to heal; give the swamp its due at the saloon.·No doctor needed