Tomahawk or Hatchet Blow

The heavy blade takes you across the back of the leg and cuts the hamstring, the leg folds like an empty sleeve and no surgery of 1899 can knit that cord back true. The doctor closes the gape in layers and is honest with you: you'll walk again, but never the same.

• The leg buckles without a cane or a shoulder, no standing unaided for 7 days
• A permanent hitching limp, worse on stairs and slopes
• No sprinting, ever again, the leg simply doesn't answer
• /me plants the cane first, swings the bad leg after, every step a small bargain

Recovery The wound closes in 3 weeks under a doctor's care; the limp is yours for life.·Doctor, urgently

The blade buries itself in your upper arm and stays there, wedged in muscle and kissing bone, and every soul present hears the doctor holler the same order: nobody pulls it. It comes out on his table with ligatures ready, crusted brown with old swamp mud, and the scrubbing-out hurts worse than the drawing.

• The hatchet stays put until a doctor draws it, hold still, hero
• That arm splinted and slung, no use of it for 7 days
• Deep layered stitches that seep for days
• A low fever by the second night as the mud makes its argument, sweated out under blankets
• /me stands rigid, breathing through their nose, a hatchet still seated in one arm

Recovery 3 weeks with a doctor's extraction and scrubbing; pulled free in the field you bleed white, and the mud left behind sours the arm.·Doctor, urgently

The chop splits the meat of your shoulder to the bone and cracks the scapula beneath, a wound that gapes like a ledger left open. The blade was crusted brown to the haft, and the doctor scrubs swamp mud out of the meat before the first stitch goes in. Deep layered stitching, a splinted arm bound to your body, and a scar shaped like the argument.

• Arm bound to your chest, one-handed at everything for 7 days
• Cannot raise or rotate the arm; shirts go on bad-arm-first
• Fever rises on the second day as the mud argues with the wound; dressings changed twice daily
• A wide, deep chop-scar across the shoulder cap

Recovery 4 weeks of splint, stitches and daily scrubbing with a doctor; untreated, the mud festers it toward the bonesaw.·Doctor, urgently

You got the shoulder up in time to save your skull, and the collarbone paid the bill, snapped clean under the wedge with a sound you felt in your teeth. The doctor sets it, binds the arm across your chest, and tells you to make friends with your other hand.

• Arm slung across the chest, no use of it for 7 days
• A visible knot rising on the collarbone as it knits
• Even nodding too hard sends a jolt through it

Recovery 4 to 6 weeks to knit under a doctor's binding; unset, it heals crooked and grinds forever.·Doctor required

The chop drives into your forearm to the bone, and the bone holds, barely. The blade came in filthy, mud dried brown along its edge, and the wound gapes wide as a coin purse, taking deep layered stitching, carbolic, and more of your composure than you'd planned to spend, most of it while the mud is scrubbed from the bottom of it.

• Forearm splinted for 5 days as a precaution against a crack
• No gripping or lifting with that arm for 5 days
• The wound edges watched for redness; a sour turn means the doctor again, no arguing
• /me flexes stitched forearm slowly, watching the skin pull against silk

Recovery 2 weeks with a doctor's scrubbing and layered stitching; without it, the mud sours the gape and it festers open.·Doctor required

The blade drops into the meat of your thigh and splits the muscle deep, missing cord and vessel by the doctor's grudging admiration. Stitched in layers and issued a walking stick you're too proud to use, for about an hour.

• Walk with a stick, never sprint, for 5 days
• Mounting a horse from the off side like a greenhorn
• The thigh cramps hard if you sit too long

Recovery 2 weeks stitched and rested, 3 limped through with a proud-flesh scar to show for it.·Doctor required

You twisted and the blade glanced, dragging a long deep gash across your shoulder and upper back instead of planting itself. Ugly, bloody, and stitchwork the length of your hand, but it's a scratch compared to what it wanted to be.

• A hand-length stitched gash across the shoulder blade
• No reaching overhead for 4 days
• Shirt seams sit wrong on it for a week
• /me shrugs one shoulder experimentally and immediately regrets the science

Recovery 10 days with stitches, 2 weeks and a wider scar without.·Doctor required

The edge bites into the crest of your hip, chipping bone and splitting skin in one economical stroke, and it left mud in the bargain, the doctor picking grit from the chip before it closes. Every step is a small tax, and sitting down is a two-act performance.

• Hitching walk, hand braced on the hip, for 5 days
• Getting up and down draws sound effects you can't help
• The cut sours easy; dressing changed daily and a fever watch for two nights
• Deep bone bruise that outlasts the cut

Recovery 10 days with daily dressing and rest; left dirty, the muddy chip sours, and the bone-deep ache visits cold mornings for a month.·Doctor required

Thrown hard and spun wrong, the handle strikes your ribs instead of the blade, which is the difference between a bruise and a burial. A spectacular blooming welt and a cracked rib, and you got to keep the hatchet.

• A handle-shaped bruise across the ribs, purple to black by morning
• Cracked rib, no sprinting or heavy lifting for 5 days
• Laughing hurts; your friends will test this

Recovery A week for the worst of it; the rib whispers for three more.·Doctor advised

The swing lands flat-bladed against your upper arm with a clang you feel to the elbow, steel-slapped, not split. The arm dead-numbs for a minute and rises purple by nightfall.

• That arm numb and clumsy for the next hour
• A blade-wide bruise stripe for 5 days
• /me shakes out a tingling arm, opening and closing the fist

Recovery 4 days of deep bruise, no marks after.·Doctor advised

Only the last inch of the swing reaches you, the blade's corner opens a short gaping cut on your shoulder that bleeds with enthusiasm and needs a few stitches to close its mouth.

• Three stitches in the shoulder, tender for 3 days
• Don't carry a saddle on that side this week
• A short wide scar, more chop than slice

Recovery 5 days with stitches, 8 without and it heals in a pucker.·Doctor advised

You ducked the blade and rose straight into the haft, the wooden handle cracks your crown and fills the tent with stars. A goose egg, a headache, and a lesson in ducking lower.

• A goose egg at the hairline for 4 days
• Pounding headache till tomorrow, bright light is your enemy
• /me probes the lump on their scalp and hisses through their teeth

Recovery 3 days; wake a friend if your speech goes strange tonight.·Doctor advised

A low chop aimed at your leg spends itself on boot leather and gets only the last of its temper into your ankle. The boot is opened like an envelope; the ankle is cut shallow and bruised deep.

• Limp on a bruised, cut ankle for 3 days
• One boot held together with rawhide lacing
• Stairs taken one at a time like a dignitary

Recovery 5 days; the boot's fate is between you and the cobbler.·Doctor advised

The thrown hatchet turns one rotation too many and slaps you side-on, a welt like a brand and a heartbeat where your whole life flashed sideways. It clatters to the boards and everyone breathes again.

• A hatchet-shaped welt on the chest for 3 days
• Flinch at anything thrown your way for a day or two

Recovery 3 days.·No doctor needed

The haft shatters across your raised forearm and the blade cartwheels away, you take the splinters instead of the steel. An evening with tweezers and lamplight, picking wood out of your arm like a bad carpenter.

• A forearm peppered with splinters, picked out one by one
• Bruised forearm, stiff for 2 days
• /me digs at a splinter in their arm with a pocketknife, muttering

Recovery 3 days; any splinter you miss announces itself in a week.·No doctor needed

You leap back and the blade's tip nicks your chest through the shirt on the way down, a shallow crescent right over the breastbone. An inch closer and this table gets much longer.

• A crescent scab on the chest for 3 days
• A sliced shirt placket to remind you

Recovery 3 days.·No doctor needed

They jab instead of swing and the butt of the handle punches your shoulder, a deep, dull bruise and a flare of temper, in that order. Nothing broken but the peace.

• A deep shoulder bruise for 3 days
• That arm slow to raise first thing in the morning

Recovery 3 days.·No doctor needed

The blade sails past your ear and plants itself two inches deep in the porch post, still humming. You wear a few flecks of thrown splinter on your cheek and a new respect for standing elsewhere.

• A splinter-fleck scratch on the cheek, gone in a day
• A hatchet in a post that you get to pull out slowly, while maintaining eye contact

Recovery Overnight.·No doctor needed

The chop splits your coat's shoulder seam clean as a tailor's shears and leaves only a red pressure line on the skin beneath. The coat hangs open like a butterflied trout; you hang together just fine.

• A red line across the shoulder, faded by morning
• A coat split shoulder to elbow, badge of the cheapest survival on record

Recovery Overnight; the coat needs last rites or a needle.·No doctor needed

The hatchet spins in end over end and your hand comes up on animal instinct, you catch it by the haft, mid-air, blade a hand's width from your face. Your palm stings for an hour; the saloon talks about it for a year; the hatchet is yours by right of miracle.

• A stinging palm for the evening
• One free hatchet, provenance: the air in front of your face
• /me spins the caught hatchet once and slides it into their belt, casual as Sunday

Recovery By supper. Nobody who saw it recovers at all.·No doctor needed