Thrown at Full Gallop

The horse drops a shoulder mid-stride and slings you headfirst into a granite outcrop at a full gallop. Folk who saw it say you did not move after. The doctor speaks of a cracked skull, maybe the neck too, and sets a chair by your bed for the vigil, laudanum for the pain, prayer for the rest.

• Unconscious, you wake only when the doctor and the story allow
• If you wake: neck braced stiff, no turning your head for 5 days
• Numbness down one arm that comes and goes for a week
• /me lies terribly still where they landed, one boot yards away

Recovery A week of deathbed vigil under a doctor, untreated, the vigil is short.·Doctor, urgently

You pitch over the horse's shoulder and land on your own, and the collarbone snaps clean, the oldest injury in the riding trade. The bone ends grind when you sit up, and your head is ringing besides from the second bounce.

• Arm slung and strapped to your body, no use of it for 6 days
• Concussion fog, slow answers and a flinch at bright light for 2 days
• A hard lump on the collarbone forever after, your badge of the trade
• /me sits up slow in the grass, arm hanging wrong, eyes not quite focusing

Recovery 6 days slung with a doctor's setting, unset, it knits crooked and clicks when you rope.·Doctor required

You hit flat on your side at speed and slide, and three ribs give way one after another like a fence in a flood. Every breath after is measured in careful sips. The doctor binds your chest tight and warns you that a cough could crack a fourth.

• Chest bound in linen, shallow breaths only for 5 days
• No lifting, hauling, or brawling for 6 days
• Sleep sitting up, propped against the wall, lying flat is agony
• /me breathes in small, careful sips, one arm pressed to their ribs

Recovery 6 days bound and idle with care, toughed out, count 7 and pray no fever sets in the lung.·Doctor required

You threw your arms out at thirty miles an hour and the ground called the bluff, both bones of the forearm snapped above the wrist. The hand flops in a way that turns bystanders green. The doctor pulls it straight over a chair back and splints it in plaster.

• Forearm in plaster, that hand is decoration for the next 7 days
• Cannot shoot, rope, deal cards, or saddle your own horse with it
• Fingers swell purple over the cast's edge the first 2 days
• /me carries a plastered arm like a loaf of bread, protective and stiff

Recovery 7 days in plaster under a doctor, unset it heals bent, and bent arms do not draw fast.·Doctor required

Your head takes the second bounce and the day folds itself up. You come to walking in a circle near the horse with no memory of falling, your hat in your hand and blood in one ear. The last hour is simply gone, and it is not coming back.

• An hour of your life missing, you will never know what you said or did
• Splitting headache and a wobble in your walk for 2 days
• No galloping and no gunfights for 3 days, your eyes will not track fast things

Recovery 3 quiet days in the shade with a doctor's watch, 5 of dizzy spells without.·Doctor required

You land on your shoulder and slide a wagon-length through dirt and stone. The joint wrenches half out and back in on its own, and the ground plane-shaves the skin off your upper arm to pay for the ride.

• Arm rested in a sling for 3 days, overhead reaches are lost to you
• A raw red slide-burn from shoulder to elbow, weeping through your sleeve
• Shirt sticks to the scrape every morning and peels off wrong
• /me rolls a shoulder gingerly, sleeve spotted through with rust-colored stains

Recovery 4 days if the scrape is cleaned with carbolic, 6 and a fever risk if the grit stays in.·Doctor required

The loop settles over your shoulders at a dead run and the world stops before you do. The rope leaves a bruise-stripe from armpit to armpit like a brand laid on with a wagon jack, and the landing rattles every bone you own.

• A deep purple rope-stripe across your chest, it shows at the collar for 5 days
• Raising both arms together pulls the bruise and buckles your knees, for 3 days
• Breathing deep aches where the rope crushed the muscle
• /me tugs their collar closed over a livid rope-burn stripe

Recovery 4 days for the stripe to fade to yellow, 6 if you keep working ropes across it.·Doctor required

Your boot wedges in the stirrup as you leave the saddle and your ankle pays the toll for your whole body's speed before the leather lets go. You land in a heap with one bare foot and an ankle already the size of a summer squash.

• Ankle wrapped and braced, walk with a stick, never run, for 4 days
• Your boot has to be cut open or soaked off the swelling
• Mounting from the right side only, and slowly, for 3 days

Recovery 4 days wrapped tight with rest, 6 limping if you stay on your feet.·Doctor required

You hit, bounce, and roll like thrown dice, and every facet takes a mark. Nothing breaks, a genuine wonder, but by nightfall you are bruised from hip to heel in colors a sunset would envy.

• Stiff all over, mounting, dismounting, and stairs draw groans for 3 days
• A hitching, whole-body soreness that makes you move like you're underwater
• /me lowers themselves onto the bench in stages, like a wagon settling

Recovery 3 days of soreness working itself out, 4 if you skip the liniment.·Doctor advised

You plow a short furrow with your cheek and come up spitting dirt and blood. Gravel rash covers one side of your face, and picking the grit out at the washbasin that evening brings tears you will deny.

• One cheek scabbed in a road-rash patch, impossible to hide for 4 days
• Shaving that side is out of the question
• Grit works out of the skin for days; each fleck stings on its way

Recovery 4 days to scab and slough clean if washed with carbolic, 6 and angrier without.·Doctor advised

You land flat on your back and every ounce of air leaves you at once. For a long, terrifying moment you cannot draw breath, only croak at the sky. The breath comes back; the deep bruise across your back takes longer.

• Bruised back and ribs, no bedrolls on hard ground for 2 days
• Twisting in the saddle to look behind hurts enough that you turn the whole horse
• /me arches their back with a wince, pressing a fist into it

Recovery 2 days of stiffness, 4 if you keep hauling saddles.·Doctor advised

Your chin clips a half-buried stone at the end of the slide and splits like a dropped peach. It bleeds down your shirt-front with theatrical enthusiasm, and the doctor puts two silk stitches in it while you try to hold still.

• Two stitches under your chin, no wide yawns or hard chewing for 3 days
• A blood-ruined shirt and a bandage you can't hide
• A neat white scar under the jaw when it heals, barber will notice it forever

Recovery 3 days for the stitches, 5 and a wider scar if it gapes open again.·Doctor advised

You kept your fist closed on the reins a half-second too long and the departing horse wrenched two fingers back to the wrist. Not broken, the doctor judges, but sprained deep, and they swell up fat and useless as sausages.

• Two fingers splinted together, gun hand at half speed for 3 days
• Buttons, buckles, and rolling smokes now take both hands and some swearing
• /me fumbles their coffee cup, catching it clumsily with the off hand

Recovery 3 days splinted, 5 stiff ones if you keep gripping rope with them.·Doctor advised

You go over the horse's head and roll a full three turns before stopping in a sprawl. Everything hurts a little; nothing hurts a lot. Your pockets emptied themselves in a ten-foot line behind you.

• A dull all-over soreness for 1 day
• Your possessions are scattered across ten feet of prairie, go pick them up
• Grass stains and dirt ground into every seam

Recovery A day of aches, gone by the next morning's coffee.·No doctor needed

You come off clean but pay the ground a toll on landing, one elbow scraped raw through the sleeve, and your hat sails on ahead without you like it had somewhere better to be.

• Scraped elbow that catches on every sleeve and table edge for 2 days
• A torn coat sleeve wanting a needle and thread
• /me rolls up a sleeve to frown at a raw, oozing elbow

Recovery 2 days of sting, less if you keep it clean and covered.·No doctor needed

Old instinct tucks your chin and shoulder-rolls you through the fall, and the trick mostly works. The bill comes due in your neck, which sets stiff as a fence post by evening and stays that way through tomorrow.

• Turning your head means turning your shoulders too, for 1 day
• Checking behind you on the trail is a whole production

Recovery A day of stiffness; a hot cloth at night hurries it along.·No doctor needed

You land square in a fat clump of sagebrush that crackles, folds, and takes most of the hurt for you. You climb out smelling like a medicine cabinet, cross-hatched with fine scratches and picking twigs from unlikely places.

• Fine scratches across hands and neck, stinging in the wash for 1 day
• You smell powerfully of sage until your next bath
• /me picks sagebrush twigs out of their collar, sniffing themselves with a frown

Recovery The scratches fade in a day; the smell is on its own schedule.·No doctor needed

The ground coming at you is soft spring prairie, and your body remembers what to do, tuck, roll, roll again, and up on one knee before the dust settles. Your heart hammers, but the grass gave you everything and took nothing.

• Grass stains from shoulder to hip, the only mark on you
• A racing heart and shaking hands for a quarter hour

Recovery Nothing but the shakes, and a stiff drink settles those.·No doctor needed

You leave the saddle in a flat arc and land in the one mud wallow within a country mile, hitting with a slap and a geyser of brown. You stand up dripping, furious, and completely unhurt.

• Head-to-toe mud, every stitch you wear needs washing
• Squelching boots for the rest of the day
• /me stands up out of the wallow, dripping, and wipes mud from their eyes with one finger

Recovery None, though the laundry may charge you double.·No doctor needed

Your bedroll tears loose from the saddle strings a heartbeat before you do, unrolls itself midair like it knew, and you land square on the blankets with a whump that raises dust but breaks nothing. You lie there staring at the sky, laughing, while the horse gallops a wide apology circle back to you.

• Not one mark on you, the bedroll took the whole bill
• Anyone who saw it will be buying you drinks to hear it again
• /me lies back on the unrolled bedroll in the middle of the prairie, laughing at the sky

Recovery Nothing to heal, re-roll your bedroll and ride on into legend.·No doctor needed