Thigh: Rifle: Lodged Deep

The round struck the femur square and burst it into splinters, then stayed in the wreckage, the deadliest limb wound the frontier knows. The leg lies at a wrong angle, blood pooling deep in the thigh, and the doctor lays out the traction splint and the bone saw side by side so you understand the stakes.

• Leg in a traction splint, weighted and strapped; bedridden all 7 days, moved by others or not at all
• Extraction of round and bone splinters under laudanum, a scene measured in hours
• Fever-watch every night; if the wound sours, the saw is the only medicine left
• /me lies strapped to the frame, leg drawn straight by weights, counting knots in the ceiling boards.

Recovery 7 days flat under a doctor before you're even allowed a chair; alone, this wound ends stories.·Doctor, urgently

The round drove nose-first into the face of the femur and set there like a nail in oak. The doctor works it loose with a steel elevator and a jeweler's patience while two men hold your leg still, and when it finally gives, the sound is a cork from a bottle nobody wanted opened.

• Leg splinted after; no weight for 5 days, crutch through day 7
• Bone throbs in time with your pulse for 4 nights; laudanum for sleep
• Any twist or fall risks cracking the dented bone through, no horses, no stairs alone

Recovery 7 days splinted with daily doctor's care; without it the dent becomes a break by week's end.·Doctor, urgently

The round cracked the edge of the femur and drove bone splinters out into the meat like a fistful of thrown needles. The lead comes out first; then the doctor goes back in with fine forceps, again and again, laying each white sliver on the tray until there's a little bone graveyard beside your hip.

• Long extraction scene, lead, then splinters, counted aloud onto a tin tray
• Wound left partly open to drain; dressed twice daily for 5 days
• Crutch for 6 days; deep grinding ache when the thigh tenses
• /me flinches at each small click of bone on the tin tray, losing count on purpose.

Recovery 6 days if every splinter came out, 7-plus and a lanced abscess if one hid.·Doctor, urgently

The first extraction fails, the round sits too deep, wedged past the bone, and the doctor withdraws rather than butcher you by lamplight. A day of fever and waiting, then the wound is cut wider and the forceps go back in, and this time the lead comes out misshapen as a chewed coin.

• Two extraction scenes a day apart, the second under heavier laudanum
• Fever between sittings, sweats, chills, no appetite for 2 days
• Wound enlarged and stitched; crutch for 5 days, heavy limp through day 7

Recovery 7 days from the second sitting with a doctor's care; there is no toughing this one out alone.·Doctor, urgently

The round spent its last strength flattening against the femur without cracking it, and set there in the deep meat like a coin pressed into tallow. It takes the doctor a long half hour to pry it loose, and the bone underneath is bruised black through its sleeve of muscle.

• Deep extraction wound packed and stitched; crutch for 4 days
• Bone-bruise ache on any weight for 5 days, worst on cold mornings
• No running, jumping or hard riding for 6 days

Recovery 5 days doctored, 7 with the lead's bruise arguing every step.·Doctor required

The round mushroomed as it plowed in, opening like a flower and dragging its petals to a stop deep in the muscle. Getting it out means widening the channel to fit what the lead became, and the pocket it leaves behind could hold a hen's egg.

• Wound cut wider for the extraction; packed with carbolic gauze, changed daily for 5 days
• The pocket drains for 4 days; keep spare dressings and older trousers
• Cane or crutch for 4 days; the thigh gives a hollow ache when it tenses
• /me turns the bloomed slug over in two fingers, petals of lead catching the lamplight.

Recovery 5 days of faithful packing, 7 and a fever if the pocket seals dirty.·Doctor required

The probe finds the round snugged in behind the femur where no honest forceps can follow. The doctor packs the channel, tapes the leg, and tells you plain: a rifle slug rides with you now, and you'll know rain is coming before any almanac does.

• Deep channel packed and dressed daily for 5 days while it closes
• Heavy limp for 4 days; deep ache when the thigh works hard
• A rifle round carried for good behind the bone, a hard knot of weather-wisdom and saloon credit

Recovery 5 days for the channel to close with a doctor's dressing, 7 alone; the slug itself is a permanent lodger.·Doctor required

The round came to rest at the back of the thigh, leaning its whole weight on the great nerve, and the leg answers with lightning down to the heel every time you shift. The doctor extracts from behind with you face-down and biting a folded belt, and the moment the lead lifts off the nerve the relief nearly stops your heart.

• Before extraction: leg buckles without notice, no stairs, ladders or saddles
• After: pins-and-needles hip to heel for 3 days; foot slaps down careless
• No sprinting or climbing for 5 days
• /me shifts weight off the bad leg mid-sentence, breath catching like a man touching a stove.

Recovery 4 days once the lead is off the nerve, a week of lightning-leg if nobody goes in after it.·Doctor required

The round spent itself getting there and stopped dead center in the thick of the quadriceps, missing bone by a mercy. The extraction is deep but honest work, probe, widen, grip, pull, and the slug comes out long and true as the day it was cast.

• Deep channel packed; dressing changed daily for 4 days
• Pronounced limp for 4 days; no running
• The whole muscle bruises through by day 2, hip to knee in sunset colors

Recovery 4 days doctored, 6 with a fever scare if the packing goes neglected.·Doctor required

The round was tumbling off a ricochet and hit long-side-first, punching a slot instead of a hole and stopping shallow of the bone. Ugly entry, easy purchase, the doctor grips the exposed length of it and draws it out like a splinter of fence rail.

• Slot-shaped entry stitched in a line; stitches mind for 4 days
• Moderate limp for 3 days; saddle at a walk only
• The scar will be a straight bar, more knife-looking than bullet-looking

Recovery 3 days with a carbolic wash, 5 without.·Doctor advised

The round drove a bullet-shaped plug of trouser wool ahead of it the whole way down and stopped with the cloth still capping its nose. The doctor draws lead and wool out in one piece, holds it up like a pulled tooth, and tells you the cloth is the part that would have killed you.

• Channel flushed hard with carbolic, it took cloth in, so it gets no benefit of the doubt, daily for 4 days
• Limp for 3 days; wound tender to saddle work
• /me watches the doc hold up a slug wearing a little wool cap, unsure whether to laugh.

Recovery 4 days doctored and flushed, 6 and a festering scare if it's just plugged and forgotten.·Doctor required

The extraction goes clean, but the deep muscle swells around where the round sat until the whole works locks the knee half-bent. For a few days you walk like a man on a wooden leg carved by an apprentice.

• Knee will not straighten full nor bend full for 3 days; stairs are theater
• Hot cloths morning and night ease it an inch at a time
• No kneeling, squatting or mounting from the bad side for 4 days

Recovery 4 days with liniment and patience, 6 without either.·Doctor advised

The slug comes out whole, but the deep pocket it carved wants to fill and sour, so the doctor stitches a soft rubber tube into the wound to let it weep out the bottom. Modern medicine, he calls it. A leaking leg, you call it.

• Rubber drain in the thigh for 3 days, it seeps, and it is exactly as pleasant as it sounds
• Dressings changed twice daily while the drain is in
• Walk fine, run never, for 4 days; the tube tugs if the muscle works hard

Recovery 4 days and the drain comes out clean, 6 and a lanced abscess if you pull it early yourself.·Doctor required

Fired from so far the crack arrived after the hit, the round barely had strength left to break skin, lodging a knuckle deep in the outer meat. The doctor flicks it out with one small cut and asks, professionally, who on earth is shooting at you from the next county.

• Small cut and a bullet-bruise; slight limp for 2 days
• Sticking-plaster kept dry for 2 days

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

The round hit rock first and arrived tumbling, slow and rude, smacking into the outer thigh and lodging shallow in a mess of its own fragments. The doctor picks out the main slug and two gray crumbs of it, all shallow as gravel in a scraped knee.

• Three small dressed nicks in a cluster; tender for 3 days
• Barely a limp; no bareback riding for 2 days
• /me picks at the edge of a small bandage cluster, arranging the pulled fragments in a row on the table.

Recovery 2 days with a wash, 4 if grit stays in and grumbles.·Doctor advised

The round chewed through a plank door before it found you, and the oak took the fight out of it, it lodged shallow in your thigh wearing a collar of splinters. The doctor pulls lead and wood both and bills you for carpentry.

• Shallow lodge plus wood splinters, all tweezed out in one sitting; tender for 2 days
• Small dressed wound; keep it dry for 2 days

Recovery 2 days, and check the dressing for any splinter the tweezers missed.·Doctor advised

The round struck at a shallow slant, skipped off the femur like a stone off a pond, and slid to a stop just under the skin a hand's width away. One small cut over the lump and it's out, leaving a bruised stripe where it traveled.

• Bruised track across the thigh, sore for 3 days
• Small cut stitched once; slight limp for 2 days

Recovery 2 days, though the bruise stripe wears its colors for a week.·No doctor needed

The round spent its temper punching through the saddle fender before it reached your thigh, arriving with just enough push to hang in the skin. The leather is holed; you are barely dented.

• Skin-deep slug flicked out with a knife tip; sore spot for a day
• One saddle fender wearing the hole meant for your femur

Recovery A day for you; the saddler will want longer and money.·No doctor needed

The round broke up on a wagon iron somewhere between the muzzle and you, and all that arrived was one ragged fragment that stuck in your hide like a thrown horseshoe nail. The rest of the bullet is somebody else's story.

• One fragment tweezed out whole; stinging nick for a day
• /me holds up a jagged sliver of lead no bigger than an apple seed, unimpressed by fate's aim.

Recovery A day, if you can call it recovering.·No doctor needed

The round came half-spent off a rock face and buried itself in your thick woolly chaps, where it hung like an ornament on a Christmas bough. Under the wool: a fist-sized bruise, not one drop of blood, and a rifle slug you pluck out of the fleece in front of witnesses.

• Deep thigh bruise, you'll hiss swinging into the saddle for a day and brag while doing it
• One rifle slug combed out of the chaps, still warm, already legend
• /me combs the slug out of the woolly chaps and holds it up like a prize marble.

Recovery The bruise keeps you honest for two days; the story never heals over.·No doctor needed