Knife at the Throat

The edge went deeper than a cut throat has any right to allow a survivor. It nicked the windpipe and scored the voice box, and every breath you draw whistles wet through the wound. The doctor packs and sutures by lamplight with silk, keeps your chin strapped low so the stitches hold, and tells whoever carried you in that the airway will decide the first night, and that the voice may never come back at all.

• Bedridden with the chin strapped low, no standing unaided for 3 days
• No speech at all for 7 days, then a whisper only, a slate and chalk or hand signs to talk
• Nothing but broth, water, and laudanum sips for 5 days, every swallow taken slow
• /me breathes in a thin wet whistle through a bandaged throat, lips shaping words no one hears

Recovery Six to eight weeks under a doctor's watch, and the voice, if it returns, comes back over months as a rasp.·Doctor, urgently

The blade slid along the left side of your neck and the wall of the great vein wept where the edge kissed it. Not the bright jet of an artery, but a steady dark welling that soaked your collar through before anyone got a thumb on it. The doctor clamps, ties off with silk, and stitches the long cut over the top, and he does not say one word while he does it.

• Bed rest for 2 days, then no riding faster than a walk for 5 more
• The head kept level for a week: no bending to lift, no looking hard over the left shoulder
• No liquor for 5 days by the doctor's order, it thins the blood and loosens the tie
• /me keeps the chin lifted and still, one hand drifting to the thick pad bound at the neck

Recovery Three to four weeks for the cut to knit, the doctor checking the tie every day of the first week.·Doctor, urgently

The cut opened the front of your throat down to the windpipe itself, and the doctor could count the pale rings of it through the wound. Nothing breached: your breath stays where it belongs, but there was one thin layer of you left between air and open sky. He cleans with carbolic, closes deep and shallow in two rows of silk, and forbids you to so much as cough hard.

• No shouting, singing, or raised voice for 10 days, a low even tone only
• The throat kept dry under its bandage: no dunking the head, no shaving the neck for 2 weeks
• No hauling, lifting, or brawling for 10 days, the strain pulls the deep row of stitches
• /me speaks low and level, throat bound in white, swallowing carefully between words

Recovery Stitches out in 10 to 12 days, the throat sound in a month if fever keeps away.·Doctor, urgently

The edge missed everything that kills and carved through what merely matters: the long strap muscle down the right side of your neck, severed clean. Your head now turns one way like a rusted gate, and the doctor took thirty stitches in two layers to close what the knife left open. It will heal. It will also make you memorable to anyone who watches you check behind yourself.

• No turning the head to the right past a half turn for 2 weeks, move the shoulders instead
• One arm work only: no roping, no two-handed hauling for 10 days
• Sleeping propped on the left side or the back for a week, a rolled blanket under the neck
• /me turns the whole body to look at things, the neck held stiff above a stitched line

Recovery Two layers of stitches out over 2 weeks, the full turn of the head back in about 6 weeks.·Doctor required

The doctor measured it afterward, because he could not help himself: a finger's width between the bottom of that cut and the artery that would have ended you in a minute. The cut itself is deep, a necklace of parted flesh from ear toward the pipe, and he stitched it with sweat standing on his own lip, which you were awake to see. You will carry a fine scar and the memory of his hands shaking once.

• No riding above a trot for 4 days, the jolting opens the stitch line
• A loose neckerchief over the dressing for dusty work, nothing snug at the throat for 10 days
• No wrestling, hanging on ropes, or craning the neck back for a week
• /me wears a stitched red necklace of a scar in the making, chin tucked to guard it

Recovery Stitches out in 8 to 10 days, a clean pale line inside a month.·Doctor required

You threw your head back and the blade rode up along the underside of your jaw instead of across your throat, and the bone took the toll the artery was owed. The cut runs from the corner of the chin to below the ear, down to bone in places, and the doctor put a long row of small silk stitches in it, remarking that your beard will grow crooked there from now on.

• Soft food and soup for 5 days, chewing pulls the stitches along the jaw
• No shaving the right jaw for 3 weeks, the razor stays clear of the stitch row
• Talking kept short and quiet for 4 days, the jaw moved as little as pride allows
• /me tilts the head to spare a stitched line along the underside of the jaw

Recovery Stitches out in 9 days, the jaw line settled in 3 to 4 weeks.·Doctor required

The cut stayed above the vessels that matter but went through the broad thin muscle of the throat, and that layer bleeds like it is paid to. You painted your shirt, your saddle, and the front step of wherever they dragged you, and by the time the doctor had it clamped and stitched you were gray and asking for water. Frightening to see. Fixable, though, and fixed.

• Weak from blood lost: no hard labor, double water and red meat for 4 days
• Sit before you stand and stand before you walk for 2 days, the head swims when rushed
• The dressing changed daily for a week, watched for heat, smell, or red streaks
• /me stands up slow and gray-faced, a broad bandage wound about a stitched throat

Recovery The cut knits in 2 weeks, the strength lost with the blood comes back over 2 more.·Doctor required

Some animal part of you rolled your head with the pull, and so the blade carved a long track instead of a deep one: deep behind the ear where it began, thinning to a scratch by the windpipe. The doctor stitched the first three inches and merely painted the rest, told you the turn of your neck bought your life, and suggested you buy a hat to suit a lucky man.

• The deep end behind the ear stitched: no hat brims, collars, or ropes rubbing it for 8 days
• No swimming or dunking the head for a week while the track scabs over
• Head turns to the left kept slow and shallow for 5 days
• /me carries a long thin scab from behind the ear down across the throat, stitched at its start

Recovery Stitches out in 8 days, the whole track faded to a line in 3 weeks.·Doctor required

A shallow line clean across the throat, through skin and no further, and it bled the way stage blood does: everywhere, dramatically, and to no lasting consequence. Two grown men fainted on your behalf. The doctor sponged you clean, put three stitches in the one deep inch, and charged you extra for the show, since everyone in the room got their money's worth.

• Three stitches at the deepest inch: no collar buttons done up tight for 6 days
• The line kept clean and dry for 5 days, a whiskey or carbolic wash each night
• /me wears a thin scabbed line clear across the throat, spectacular and shallow

Recovery Stitches out in 6 days, the line a pale thread inside 3 weeks.·Doctor required

You tucked your chin like a boxer at the last instant and the blade spent half its anger on the underside of your jaw and chin instead of your throat. A shallow ugly cut in two parts, chin and throat-top, that the doctor closed with plaster strips and a single stitch, muttering that men who tuck live longer than men who flinch.

• Plaster strips under the chin: no wide yawns and no shouting matches for 5 days
• Food cut small for 4 days, a wide bite pulls the strips loose
• /me carries a strip-plastered cut under the chin, tipping the head back to talk

Recovery Strips off in 5 or 6 days, faded past noticing in a fortnight.·Doctor advised

His hand jarred, or your knee found something dear to him, and the cut came out a stutter: three short shallow strokes across your neck instead of one long one, none deeper than a bootlace. The doctor cleaned all three, stitched the middle one twice, and observed that your throat now reads like a telegraph message, three quick strokes, and lucky.

• Two stitches in the middle cut: neckerchiefs worn loose or not at all for 6 days
• All three cuts washed with carbolic water morning and night for 4 days
• /me shows three short scabbed strokes across the neck, like a message half sent

Recovery Stitches out in 6 days, all three marks faint inside a month.·Doctor advised

Your bandanna took the first inch of the edge and then rode into the wound with it, so what you have is a shallow cut across the throat packed with cotton fluff and trail dust. Shallow is good. Dirty is not. The doctor spent longer picking thread out of you with fine tweezers than he did closing the cut, and he made you watch as a lesson about clean neckwear.

• The cut scrubbed and left part open to drain: dressing changed morning and night for 5 days
• Watched close for infection: any heat, throb, or smell goes straight back to the doctor
• No bandanna or collar over the cut for a week
• /me wears a light gauze wrap at the throat, the skin around it scrubbed pink

Recovery A week of clean dressings, healed over in 2 if the dirt raises no fever.·Doctor advised

The knife was drawn hard but half flat, and pressure did what the edge mostly failed to do: a shallow scratch across the skin, and beneath it a deep crushing bruise square over the voice box. You sound like a bullfrog with opinions and swallowing is a chore, but the doctor pressed and prodded and found the box itself sound, only sorely offended.

• The voice a croak: no shouting, singing, or long speeches for 5 days
• Warm salt water sipped for the swallow, meals kept soft for 3 days
• Nothing snug at the neck, no buttoned collars for 4 days
• /me speaks in a cracked croak, a bruise darkening across the front of the throat

Recovery The croak clears over 4 or 5 days, the bruise turns green and is gone in a fortnight.·Doctor advised

A shallow scratch clear across the throat, no deeper than a bramble takes, but placed where brambles never reach. It stung like sin under the whiskey wash and it will sting again every morning at the mirror for a week, which may well be the point of it. No stitches. Just a signature you did not agree to sign.

• The scratch washed with whiskey or carbolic once a day for 3 days
• No shaving over the line for 5 days
• /me carries a thin red scratch straight across the throat

Recovery Scabbed thin in 2 days, gone in 10.·Doctor advised

When it was over and your hands stopped shaking enough to check, you found one small nick at the side of your throat, the kind a drunk barber apologizes for. It bled one bright thread into your collar and quit on its own. You have cut yourself worse eating an apple off a knife, though never with an audience like that one.

• A dab of clean cloth and a day of leaving it alone
• No open razor on the neck for 3 days
• /me has a small shaving-style nick at the side of the throat, already scabbed

Recovery Scabbed by evening, invisible in a week.·No doctor needed

Your hat's chin strap crossed your throat at exactly the right moment and the edge spent itself on good leather. The strap is cut through and hangs in two pieces, and beneath it you carry a short nick at the corner of the jaw where the blade skipped off. The hat stayed on. Priorities: the hat stayed on.

• A nick at the jaw corner kept clean for 2 days
• A new chin strap owed to the hatter, the old one carried as proof of the story
• /me thumbs a cut-through chin strap, a small nick scabbed at the corner of the jaw

Recovery Nothing to heal but a nick, gone in a week.·No doctor needed

The edge was against your skin, you felt every cold inch of it, and then it was gone, leaving a raised red pressure welt across your throat and one bead of blood where it started to bite before something changed its owner's mind. You will feel that line for two days. You will feel the promise of it a good deal longer.

• A raised welt across the throat for 2 days, tender to collars and neckerchiefs
• Sleep comes shallow the first night or two, the memory of cold steel at the neck
• /me rubs at a raised red welt across the throat, a single dried bead of blood on it

Recovery The welt fades in 2 days, the one bead scabs and is gone in 5.·No doctor needed

The blade caught your collar stud and skipped, and what should have been your last bad moment became a ruined shirt and a red thread of a scratch you will have to shave around for a few days. The stud is bent near in half. Men have paid jewelers for less useful metal. You mean to keep it in a waistcoat pocket for the rest of your life.

• A red thread of a scratch to shave around for 4 days
• One collar stud bent double, carried from now on as a lucky piece
• /me turns a bent collar stud over in the fingers, a hairline scratch showing at the throat

Recovery The scratch is gone within a week. The story is not.·No doctor needed

You went backward off your heels faster than you have ever moved in your life, and the blade crossed two inches of air where your throat had been. The wind of it, you would swear you felt the wind of it. There is not a mark on you except where you sat down hard in the street, which nobody else needs to know about.

• A bruised tailbone from the sit-down: hard chairs disliked for 2 days
• The next morning's shave taken very, very carefully
• /me swallows once, hand brushing an unmarked throat, and laughs a little too loud

Recovery Nothing at the throat to heal, the bruised seat forgotten in 2 days.·No doctor needed

He drew the knife across your throat with a killer's full intention, and the cheap trade blade snapped clean off at the hilt against your skin, leaving one faint red pinstripe and a man staring at a bare handle. In the stillness that followed, you took the handle from him. You own it now, along with every retelling of this story until the end of your days.

• A faint red pinstripe across the throat, faded by week's end
• A knife handle with no knife in it, yours now, the finest trophy on the frontier
• First drink free anywhere this story gets told properly
• /me draws one finger slowly across an unbroken throat, then produces a bladeless knife handle

Recovery The pinstripe fades in days. The legend does not.·No doctor needed