McCarthy's works are filled with obscure words, but this one is particularly strange, and prior to me posting this question, almost constitutes a Googlewhack.
I'm reading the Kindle edition and so it could even be a misprint.
The passage is this:
The black wiped his eyes with one huge hand. Stories of the days and nights writ there, the scars, the teeth, the ear betrun-cheoned in some old fray that clung in a toadlike node to the side of his shaven head.
