Thigh: Buckshot

Inside ten feet the pattern never opened, the whole charge struck your thigh as one ragged fist and dug a crater deep enough to hide a pocket watch in. Blood comes fast and dark from torn vessels, and the doctor's first act is a tourniquet, his second a long silence over what's left of the muscle.

• Tourniquet above the wound through one touch-and-go night, loosened a notch at a time
• Bedridden 7 days; the crater is packed by the yard and repacked twice daily
• No standing at all the first 2 days; no walking beyond a few steps all 7
• /me lies gray on the table, thigh a mound of red-soaked packing, a belt cinched high above it.

Recovery 7 days under a doctor who never strays far, and the leg's future is a nightly vote; alone, you don't see morning.·Doctor, urgently

Close range, but the pattern's edge, most of the charge became one torn crater in the outer thigh while a few pellets flew wide of you altogether. The wound is a mouth of mixed lead, cloth and meat, and the doctor debrides it by lamplight for the better part of two hours.

• Crater packed open to heal from the bottom; dressings twice daily for 5 days
• Crutch for 6 days; the torn muscle folds under full weight
• Light-headed from blood loss the first day, no standing without help

Recovery 6 days with a doctor repacking daily, 7-plus and proud flesh if it's left to heal shut dirty.·Doctor, urgently

Mid-range: nine pellets went in deep, two of them all the way to the bone, and each one has to be probed for and pulled separate. It is a long, cursing evening on the table, the doctor counts them aloud as they ring into the basin, and stalls at seven for a cold quarter hour.

• Hours-long extraction scene; the last two pellets come off the femur itself
• Thigh a constellation of packed holes, dressed daily for 5 days
• Crutch for 4 days, heavy limp through day 7
• /me listens for each pellet to ring in the basin, lips moving on the count.

Recovery 6 days doctored; without the digging, half those holes fester by the third day.·Doctor, urgently

The charge drove its felt wadding and a fist of trouser cloth into the biggest wound, and by the second night the thigh is hot, swollen and weeping around the filth. The doctor reopens the hole and draws out a wad the size of a walnut, gray-green and evil-smelling, then flushes the pocket until you howl.

• Fever and sweats for 2 nights; the leg radiates heat through the blanket
• Wound reopened, flushed with carbolic and repacked daily for 5 days
• Heavy limp for 6 days; no saddle work

Recovery 6 days once the wadding is out, else it is a straight road to gangrene talk.·Doctor required

A dozen pellets across the front of the thigh, most shallow, a few with ambition. The doctor works by lamplight with forceps and a tin cup at his elbow, and every so often the cup chimes, the longest evening you've spent sober.

• Long extraction sitting; twelve small wounds dressed after
• Thigh too tender for saddle or squat for 4 days
• Moderate limp for 5 days
• /me flinches at every chime of lead on tin, swearing softer each time.

Recovery 5 days with the holes kept clean, 7 and a festering few if not.·Doctor required

One pellet found its way deep and leaned against the great nerve, and now a hot wire runs from hip to heel every time the leg moves. The rest picked out easy; that one takes the doctor a slow careful hour face-down on the table, and when it lifts free the whole leg sighs.

• Before extraction: leg buckles at random, no stairs or saddles unaided
• After: pins-and-needles to the heel for 3 days
• No sprinting, climbing or kneeling for 5 days

Recovery 4 days once the pellet is off the nerve, a week of lightning-leg if it stays.·Doctor required

The shallow pellets come out over one long sitting, but three sit too deep in the muscle to chase, and the doctor won't butcher good meat to get them. They're yours now, and from this day forward your thigh calls the rain a full day before the sky does.

• Extraction sitting for the shallow lead; small wounds dressed for 4 days
• Deep ache and heavy limp for 4 days as the muscle settles around its new tenants
• Three pellets carried for good, the leg aches ahead of weather, regular as an almanac

Recovery 5 days for the dug holes to close with care, 7 without; the deep three never leave.·Doctor required

The pattern raked the whole outside of your leg from hip to knee, a diagonal hail of lead, nothing deep, but there is a great deal of nothing-deep, and together the holes bleed like one big wound. Your trouser leg peels off heavy as a wet saddle blanket.

• Twenty-odd shallow wounds; the whole leg wrapped hip to knee for 4 days
• Weak and light-headed from the sum of small bleeding, rest a full day
• Stiff, straight-legged limp for 5 days; every stride cracks a scab somewhere

Recovery 5 days doctored, 7 with a handful of the holes gone sour.·Doctor required

Long range opened the pattern kind: two dozen pellets peppered the thigh, none deeper than a thumbnail. The cure is an evening face-up on the doctor's table while the forceps hunt each one down, tedium, sting and profanity in equal measure.

• A full evening's picking; two dozen small scabs after
• Thigh too tender for saddle work for 3 days
• /me lies back with an arm over the eyes, flinching at each of two dozen small tugs.

Recovery 3 days with the holes washed, 5 and a few angry ones without.·Doctor advised

A loose handful of pellets across the outer thigh, all shallow enough to see the gray of them under the skin. Dug out one by one at the kitchen table by lamplight, whiskey applied to both the wounds and the surgeon.

• Eight small dug wounds dressed for 3 days
• Limp for 3 days; walking works, running does not
• A speckle of small scars coming, like birdshot on a barn door

Recovery 3 days if the holes stay clean, 5 if kitchen surgery left grit behind.·Doctor advised

The pellets stitched a line up the inner thigh, exactly where leather meets rider. Every one came out clean, but there is no version of a trot that doesn't grind a fresh scab against the saddle, and your horse is about to enjoy a short vacation.

• No saddle for 3 days; walk or drive a wagon like the townsfolk
• Bow-legged, careful gait that tells everyone exactly where you were hit
• Dressings changed nightly for 3 days

Recovery 3 days on foot, 5 if pride puts you back in the saddle early.·Doctor advised

The picking went fine, all pellets accounted for, except the count was wrong. Three days of a deepening ache lead the doctor back in with a probe, and out comes one last pellet wearing a coat of early fester, small as a pea and mean as a landlord.

• A second small extraction days after the first; the site is lanced and drained
• Low fever for a day before the straggler is found
• Limp for 3 days; the lanced spot stays dressed for 3 more

Recovery 4 days all told with the straggler out, 6 and a proper abscess if it's ignored.·Doctor required

Every pellet took a pinch of dirty trouser wool in with it, so every hole is a small argument waiting to happen. The doctor tweezes lead and lint pair by pair and flushes each pocket with carbolic, slower than surgery has any right to be.

• Long careful picking; every hole flushed, all dressed daily for 4 days
• Thigh stings like a hornet convention under the bandages for 2 days
• Moderate limp for 3 days

Recovery 4 days flushed and clean, 6 with half the holes festering around their lint.·Doctor required

You caught the outermost edge of the spread, five or six pellets under the skin of the outer thigh, none deeper than a splinter. Ten minutes of tweezing, a dab of carbolic, and the doctor waves you off his porch.

• Five small scabs in a crescent; tender for 2 days
• Slight hitch in the stride for a day

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

Three pellets sitting so shallow they raise the skin like bee stings. They squeeze out between two thumbnails, one, two, three, each with a little pop you feel more than hear.

• Three tiny scabs; sting when trousers rub for 2 days
• /me squeezes a gray pellet out of the thigh and flicks it across the room without ceremony.

Recovery 2 days, and only the trousers hold a grudge.·No doctor needed

Your oilskin slicker hung over that leg and drank up most of the pattern, it looks like a colander now, but only two pellets made it through to you, tired and shallow. The rest rattle out of the folds when you shake it.

• Two shallow pellets tweezed out; small scabs for 2 days
• One slicker promoted to fishing-shack duty, holes and all

Recovery A day or two; the slicker is past mending.·No doctor needed

At the pattern's far fringe, only a single pellet broke skin, the rest struck spent through the cloth and left a scatter of raised red welts across the thigh like hailstone marks on a tin roof. The one boarder is out with a pin and a pinch.

• A dozen stinging welts that bloom into small bruises over 2 days
• One tiny dug wound under sticking-plaster for 2 days
• /me rolls the trouser up to show a spray of welts, pointing out the one that drew blood like it's the guest of honor.

Recovery 2 days for the welts to settle, less for the wound.·No doctor needed

At better than forty yards the charge arrived exhausted, pellets hung in the weave of your trousers like burrs, and the two that touched skin didn't break it. You pick lead out of the cloth for a week and feel taller each time.

• A speckling of pinprick bruises, tender for a day
• A pocketful of spent pellets shaken out of the trouser weave, souvenirs by the handful

Recovery A day for the speckles; the trousers just need a hard brushing.·No doctor needed

The pattern all but missed, two pellets sit skin-deep in the outer thigh and the rest went to whatever the shooter was actually owed. Out they come with a pin and a wince apiece, straight into the little jar on the bar you keep for exactly this brand of luck.

• Two pinprick wounds, sore for a day
• /me drops two gray pellets into a jar with a clink, nodding like a man paying a toll.

Recovery A day, and the jar gets heavier while you don't.·No doctor needed

You were carrying your saddle slung against that thigh when the gun spoke, and the whole pattern buried itself in wood, wool and leather, the skirt looks like a woodpecker's practice log. One spent pellet rolled down inside your boot, warm as a coal, and that is the entire butcher's bill.

• A single pinch-bruise where the saddle slammed against your thigh, gone in a day
• One saddle full of lead, you'll be finding pellets in the fleece for months, each one a free drink
• /me tips the boot and a single warm pellet rolls across the floorboards to a dead stop, exhibit A.

Recovery Overnight; the saddle, rest its soul, took the whole sentence for you.·No doctor needed