Thigh: Revolver: Lodged Deep

The ball burrowed deep and came to rest hard against the great artery, the doctor's probe touches it and he goes very quiet. It has to come out, and pulling it may open the vessel; you get laudanum, a leather strap to bite, and an honest word about the odds.

• Extraction scene with a tourniquet cinched and ready, if the vessel tears, you have minutes
• Bedridden and gray for 2 days after; no standing without two helpers
• No walking beyond a few steps, no riding, no fighting for 7 days
• /me lies stripped to the wound on the table, biting leather, eyes fixed on the ceiling while the forceps go in.

Recovery 7 days abed under a doctor who checks the leg hourly; without one, the ball stays and the leg goes cold.·Doctor, urgently

The soft ball struck the thigh bone flat and spread into a lead coin, cracking the femur without breaking it through. The doctor works the flattened slug off the bone with forceps while somebody holds your knee down.

• Leg splinted thigh to shin; no weight on it for 4 days, crutch for 7
• Grinding deep-bone pain when the leg is moved, you feel the crack talk
• Laudanum haze the first night; you say things you'll deny later

Recovery 7 days splinted with a doctor watching the bone; tough it out and the crack spreads with every step.·Doctor, urgently

The ball slid deep between the muscle bellies, a finger's length from the big vessels, and the doctor spends the better part of an hour following the channel with a porcelain-tipped probe. By the time the forceps finally click on lead, the table looks like a butcher's block.

• Weak from blood loss, no standing unaided for a full day
• Wound enlarged for the probing, stitched with silk; crutch for 5 days
• /me sweats through the shirt, knuckles white on the table edge, counting the doctor's breaths.

Recovery 5 days with the wound flushed daily, 7 and a fever if the probing was done dirty.·Doctor, urgently

The ball punched a plug of dirty trouser wool ahead of it and carried the whole mess deep into the thigh. By the second night the wound is swollen shut, hot as a stove lid, and weeping, the doctor has to open it again and chase the cloth as well as the lead.

• Fever and sweats for 2 nights; no appetite, ugly dreams
• Wound reopened, flushed with carbolic and repacked daily for 5 days
• Heavy limp for 6 days; the leg will not take a running stride

Recovery 6 days of daily carbolic washes once the wool is out; left festering, it is a gangrene watch by week's end.·Doctor required

It sits deep in the quadriceps, a hard knot the doctor can feel but not see. Twenty drops of laudanum, a bullet probe, then the long slow pull, the ball comes out misshapen with a piece of your trouser folded around it like a gift.

• Extraction leaves the channel raw; cane or crutch for 4 days
• Laudanum-slow for the rest of the day, no shooting, no cards worth money
• /me limps out of the doctor's office holding a misshapen ball up to the lamplight.

Recovery 4 days with the wound packed proper, 6 if you dance on it early.·Doctor required

The ball stopped square against the big nerve at the back of the thigh, and until it comes out the whole leg burns like it's been struck by lightning twice a minute. The extraction is quick; the relief afterward makes you laugh out loud on the table.

• Before extraction: leg buckles at random, do not trust it on stairs
• After: pins-and-needles from hip to heel for 3 days
• No sprinting, climbing or kneeling for 4 days

Recovery 3 days once the lead is off the nerve, 6 of shooting pains if nobody digs it out.·Doctor required

The doctor probes twice, shakes his head, and lays the forceps down, the ball sits too deep and too close to the bone to chase without doing worse. The hole is washed and packed, and the lead stays where it settled, yours now.

• Deep muscle ache for 5 days; heavy limp for 3
• Wound packed and dressed daily for 4 days while the channel closes
• A pistol ball carried for good, it aches ahead of rain and sets off no end of saloon talk
• /me presses a thumb into the thigh and finds the hard little knot of lead, same as always.

Recovery 5 days for the channel to close under a doctor's dressing, 7 on your own, the ball itself never leaves.·Doctor required

The entry hole is too narrow for the forceps, so the doctor takes a bistoury and opens it another inch while you hold the lamp steady with both shaking hands. The ball comes out on the third try, along with a curse in three languages.

• Wound now cut wider than it was shot, stitched with silk, drains for 3 days
• Stiff-legged walk for 4 days; hard flexing pops the stitches
• The scar will be a doctor's line crossing a bullet's pucker, and it tells the whole story

Recovery 4 days with clean dressings, 6 if the widened cut sours.·Doctor required

The ball spent itself getting through and sits just under the deep sheet of the muscle, a thumb's depth down. The doctor's forceps find it first pass, one steady pull, and it rings into the basin before you've finished swearing.

• Sore, packed channel; pronounced limp for 3 days
• Dressing changed daily for 3 days, skip it and the hole souring is on you

Recovery 3 days doctored, 5 with saloon-rag dressings.·Doctor advised

The ball hit the femur at a slant and rode around it like a wagon on a switchback, coming to rest just under the skin on the far side of your thigh. The doctor cuts a half-inch over the lump and it near falls into his palm.

• Two wounds now, the entry and the little cut where it came out the far side
• Deep bruised track around the bone; aching limp for 3 days
• /me shows off two dressings on opposite sides of one thigh and dares folk to work out the geometry.

Recovery 3 days with both holes kept clean, 5 without.·Doctor advised

The extraction goes clean, but the muscle takes the insult personally. By morning the whole thigh has seized board-stiff, and getting your boot on is a ten-minute war you fight sitting down.

• Leg will not bend past half for 3 days, mounting a horse is a spectacle
• Hot cloths and liniment twice a day loosen it some
• No running, jumping or kneeling for 4 days

Recovery 3 days of liniment and stretching, 5 if you just sit with it.·Doctor advised

No doctor for miles, so it's whiskey down your throat, whiskey over the blade, and a friend's pocketknife working by firelight while you chew on a stick. The ball comes out ragged but whole, and you keep it in your vest pocket out of spite.

• Ragged, amateur wound, must be seen by a real doctor within a day or two or it sours
• Limp for 4 days; the cut reopens if you strain it
• /me tosses a bloodied pistol ball in one palm by the campfire, the other hand still shaking.

Recovery 4 days if a doctor cleans up the knife-work after, 6 of fever-watch if nobody ever does.·Doctor advised

The ball comes out easy enough, but it left a pocket in the meat that wants to fill and sour. The doctor packs the hole with carbolic gauze and pulls a fresh yard of it out and in again every morning, a small daily hell.

• Daily repacking for 4 days, hurts worse than the day you were shot
• Wound weeps through the trouser by evening; keep spare dressings
• Walk fine, run never, for 4 days

Recovery 4 days of faithful packing, 6 and a lanced abscess if you skip days.·Doctor advised

The ball was near spent when it arrived and stopped barely a knuckle deep, a hard blue lump you could feel through the skin. The doctor nicks the hide, presses with two thumbs, and out it pops like a cherry stone.

• One small cut and one bullet-bruise; slight limp for 2 days
• Sticking-plaster over the nick; keep it dry for 2 days

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

Shallow lodge in the outer meat, the doctor has it out in under three minutes and charges you two dollars anyway. The extraction hurts less than the bill.

• Tender divot in the outer thigh; winces on stairs for 2 days
• A single silk stitch to mind for 3 days
• /me eyes the doctor's bill longer than the wound was ever probed.

Recovery 2 days, and the stitch comes out on the third.·Doctor advised

The ball buried itself in the fat of the outer thigh and sat there smug, wiggling under a thumb like a marble in a feed sack. One shallow cut and it's out, having never met a muscle worth mentioning.

• Bruised, tender patch the size of a playing card for 3 days
• Barely a limp; no riding at a gallop for a day

Recovery 2 days with a wash and plaster, 3 without.·No doctor needed

Fired from too far to matter, the ball hung half-in, half-out of your hide like a tick that lost its nerve. The doctor plucks it with his fingers, no forceps required, and offers to frame it.

• A shallow scab and a bruise; stings on the first stride for 2 days
• A pistol ball for the watch chain and a story that needs no exaggerating

Recovery A day or two, keep it clean and forget it.·No doctor needed

The ball was tumbling when it found you and slapped in flat instead of nose-first, lodging sideways just under the skin like a coin pushed into dough. It pried out whole, easy as a splinter, leaving a bruise shaped like an eclipse.

• Spectacular flat bruise, mild sting; sound by tomorrow evening
• /me peels back the trouser to show a perfect ball-shaped bruise, collecting winces like poker chips.

Recovery A day of tenderness, then just the bruise doing its slow sunset colors.·No doctor needed

The ball spent its manners going through your holster leather and only had enough left to sit in the skin beneath. The holster is ruined; you, by any honest accounting, are not.

• Skin-deep lead flicked out with a knife tip; sore spot for a day
• One dead holster wearing the hole that was meant for you

Recovery A day, if that, the holster is beyond saving.·No doctor needed

The ball drove into your thigh pocket and stopped cold in the tobacco tin riding there, punching it into a bent little shield. Under it: one magnificent bruise, not one drop of blood, and half an ounce of tobacco pressed flat as a love letter.

• Deep thigh bruise, you'll hiss sitting down for a day and grin doing it
• One bent tin with a ball seated in it, the best proof a liar ever carried
• /me slaps the dented tin on the bar, lead still in it, and waits for somebody to buy the next round.

Recovery The bruise fades in a couple of days; the tin never leaves your pocket again.·No doctor needed