Iron reemerged, with the little plastic box in his mouth. The next few hours were spent with painful, makeshift medical treatment, stitching her wounds by a propane lamp. The process was as awful as she imagined. Lotus suffered through most of it biting a stick so she wouldn't accidentally take a piece of her tongue off as Iron worked on her. Then came the final layer, which the horse didn't understand but she insisted on—the liquid bandage.

It burned as much as pouring superglue into an open wound, because that was basically what they did. But when it was done, so too went her worst fears of infection. "Bandage would get wet…" she said, collapsed onto her belly now. "We're not in a hospital. The only way to keep it clean is glue it. That's what my dad taught me."