Sisson made his way through the mesquite to an open area where they had stowed their gear, knowing that if a posse actually came into the bosque and found the gear, they would stop and likely talk, giving John and Sisson the chance to run or get ready for the fight. Sisson had a leather tool wrap tied to his saddle. Untying and unrolling it, he selected the only tool that would be of use—a pair of fencing pliers with wide, rounded jaws made for pulling fence staples from posts.

“I guess that little tug hurt pretty bad,” he told John. “I'm regretful about that, and I'm guessing that this is going to be somewhat worse, though I'll do my best not to linger over it.”

“Do it.”

Sisson nodded. He knelt in front of John and pushed John's head back against the trunk of the tree. He took the leather tie from the tool kit and wrapped it around John's forehead and tied it off behind the tree, securing John's head. He kept the pliers down at his right side so John wouldn't see them. He had learned this working with cattle. “Shut your other eye,” he said.

“No. I want to be staring you right in the eye, so I can curse you to hell, you bastard.”

Sisson smiled. “Yeah, I guess you do.” He put the thumb and index finger of his left hand on John's eyelids and slowly pulled them apart. The eye seemed to have swollen more, turned more red. He brought the pliers up, jaws wide open, quickly and efficiently to the eye, closed them around the end of the splinter, and pulled straight back. He could not see the splinter as he pulled, but John's eye seemed to explode as thick wads of blood and vitreous exited the wound as the splinter came out. He sat back and wiped some of the gore from his moustache. In the jaws of the pliers was a jagged cut of pine almost two inches long.

John unclenched his jaws and took his hand from his mouth, then put it back to suck the blood from the wound. He fought against losing consciousness.

“Hang in there. Don't go out on me,” Sisson said. “There's more. It ain't done.”

“There's always more.”

Sisson went back to his gear, replaced the pliers, and then took a small bottle of pure grain alcohol from his saddlebag. He held it up for John to see.

“Give me that.”

“No. You'll drink it. That ain't what you need.”

“Oh, fuck no.”

“Yes. It's what we got to do.”