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《No Country for Old Men》
Acknowledgments
The author would like to express his appreciation to the Santa Fe Institute for his long association and his four-year residence. He would also like to thank Amanda Urban.
I
I SENT ONE BOY to the gaschamber at Huntsville. One and only one. My arrest and my testimony. I went up there and visited with him two or three times. Three times. The last time was the day of his execution. I didnt have to go but I did. I sure didnt want to.
Hed killed a fourteen year old girl and I tell yht now I never did have no great desire to visit with him let alone go to his execution but I do. The papers said it was a crime of passion aold me there wasnt no passion to it. Hed been datin this girl, young as she was. He was een. Aold me that he had been plannin to kill somebody for about as long as he could remember. Said that if they turned him out hed do it again. Said he knew he was goin to hell. Told it to me out of his own mouth. I dont know what to make of that. I surely dont. I thought Id never seen a person like that and it got me to wonderin if maybe he was some new kind. I watched them strap him into the seat and shut the door. He might of looked a bit nervous about it but that was about all. I really believe that he knew he was goin to be in hell in fifteen minutes. I believe that. And Ive thought about that a lot. He was not hard to talk to.
Called me Sheriff. But I didnt know what to say to him. What do you say to a man that by his own admission has no soul? Why would you say anything? Ive thought about it a good deal. But he wasnt nothin pared to what was in down the pike.
They say the eyes are the windows to the soul. I dont know what them eyes was the windows to and I guess Id as soon not know. But there is another view of the world out there and other eyes to see it and thats where this is goin. It has done brought me to a pla my life I would not of thought Id of e to. Somewhere out there is a true and living prophet of destru and I dont want to front him. I know hes real. I have seen his work. I walked in front of those eyes once. I wont do it again. I wont push my chips forward and stand up and go out to meet him. It aint just bein older. I wish that it was. I t say that its even what you are willin to do. Because I always khat you had to be willin to die to even do this job. That was always true. Not to sound glorious about it or nothin but you do. If you aint theyll know it. Theyll see it in a heartbeat. I think it is more like what you are willin to bee. And I think a man would have to put his soul at hazard. And I wont do that. I think now that maybe I never would.
THE DEPUTY LEFT CHIGURH standing in the er of the office with his hands cuffed behind him while he sat in the swivelchair and took off his hat and put his feet up and called Lamar on the mobile.
Just walked in the door. Sheriff he had some sort of thing on him like one of them oxygen tanks for emphysema or whatever. Then he had a hose that run down the inside of his sleeve ao one of them stunguns like they use at the slaughterhouse.
Yessir. Well thats what it looks like. You see it when you get in. Yessir. I got it covered. Yessir.
Wheood up out of the chair he swung the keys off his belt and opehe locked desk drawer to get the keys to the jail. He was slightly bent over when Chigurh squatted and scooted his manacled hands beh him to the back of his knees. In the same motio and rocked backward and passed the under his feet and then stood instantly and effortlessly. If it looked like a thing hed practiced many times it was. He dropped his cuffed hands over the deputys head and leaped into the air and slammed both knees against the back of the deputys ned hauled ba the .
They went to the floor. The deputy was trying to get his hands ihe but he could not. Chigurh lay there pulling ba the bracelets with his knees between his arms and his face averted. The deputy was flailing wildly and hed begun to walk sideways over the floor in a circle, kig over the wastebasket, kig the chair across the room. He kicked shut the door and he ed the thr in a wad about them. He was gurgling and bleeding from the mouth. He was strangling on his own blood. Chigurh only hauled the harder. The nickelplated cuffs bit to the bohe deputys right carotid artery burst and a jet of blood shot across the room and hit the wall and ran down it. The deputys legs９9liｂ? slowed and then stopped. He lay jerking. Theopped moving altogether. Chigurh lay breathing quietly, holding him. Whe up he took the keys from the deputys belt and released himself and put the deputys revolver in the waistband of his trousers a into the bathroom.
He ran cold water over his wrists until they stopped bleeding aore strips from a handtowel with his teeth and ed his wrists a bato the office. He sat on the desk and fastehe toweling with tape from a dispenser, studying the dead man gaping up from the floor. When he was do the deputys wallet out of his pocket and took the money and put it in the pocket of his shirt and dropped the wallet to the floor. Then he picked up his air-tank and the stungun and walked out the door and got into the deputys car and started the engine and backed around and pulled out and headed up the road.
Oerstate he picked out a late model Ford sedan with a single driver and turned on the lights and hit the siren briefly. The car pulled onto the shoulder. Chigurh pulled in behind him and shut off the engine and slung the tank across his shoulder and stepped out. The man was watg him in the rearview mirror as he walked up.
Whats the problem, officer? he said.
Sir would you mind stepping out of the vehicle?
The man opehe door and stepped out. Whats this about? he said.
Would you step away from the vehicle please.
The man stepped away from the vehicle. Chigurh could see the doubt e into his eyes at this bloodstained figure before him but it came too late. He placed his hand on the mans head like a faith healer. The pic hiss and click of the plunger sounded like a door closing. The man slid soundlessly to the ground, a round hole in his forehead from which the blood bubbled and ran down into his eyes carrying with it his slowly uncoupling world visible to see. Chigurh wiped his hand with his handkerchief. I just didnt want you to get blood on the car, he said.
MOSS SAT WITH THE HEELS of his boots dug into the volic gravel of the ridge and glassed the desert below him with a pair of twelve perman binoculars. His hat pushed ba his head. Elbows propped on his khe rifle strapped over his shoulder with a harness-leather sling was a heavybarreled .270 on a 98 Mauser a with a lamioaple and walnut. It carried a Ul telescopic sight of the same power as the binoculars. The antelope were a little under a mile away. The sun less than an hour and the shadow of the ridge and the datilla and the rocks fell far out across the floodplain below him. Somewhere out there was the shadow of Moss himself. He lowered the binoculars and sat studying the land. Far to the south the raw mountains of Mexico. The breaks of the river. To the west the baked terracotta terrain of the running borderlands. He spat dryly and wiped his mouth on the shoulder of his cotton workshirt.
The rifle would shoot half minute of angle groups. Five inch groups at ohousand yards. The spot hed picked to shoot from lay just below a long talus of lava scree and it would put him well within that distance. Except that it would take the better part of an hour to get there and the antelope were grazing away from him. The best he could say about any of it was that there was no wind.
Whe to the foot of the talus he raised himself slowly and looked for the antelope.
Theyd not moved far from where he last saw them but the shot was still a good seven hundred yards. He studied the animals through the binoculars. In the pressed air motes a distortion. A low haze of shimmering dust and pollen. There was no other cover and there wasnt going to be any other shot.
He wallowed down in the scree and pulled off one boot and laid it over the rocks and lowered the forearm of the rifle down into the leather and pushed off the safety with his thumb and sighted through the scope.
They stood with their heads up, all of them, looking at him.
Damn, he whispered. The sun was behind him so they couldnt very well have seen light reflect off the glass of the scope. They had just flat seen him.
The rifle had a jar trigger set to nine ounces and he pulled the rifle and the boot toward him with great care and sighted again and jacked the crosshairs slightly up the back of the animal standing most broadly to him. He khe exact drop of the bullet in hundred yard is. It was the distahat was uain. He laid his finger in the curve of the trigger. The boars tooth he wore on a gold spooled onto the rocks inside his elbow.
Even with the heavy barrel and the muzzlebrake the rifle bucked up off the rest. When he pulled the animals bato the scope he could see them all standing as before. It took the 150 grain bullet the better part of a sed to get there but it took the sound twice that. They were standing looking at the plume of dust where the bullet had hit.
Then they bolted. Running almost immediately at top speed out upon the barrial with the long whaang of the rifleshot rolling after them and ing off the rocks and yawing back across the open try in the early m solitude.
He stood and watched them go. He raised the glasses. One of the animals had dropped bad ag one leg ahought that the round had probably skipped off the pan and caught him in the left hindquarters. He leaned and spat. Damn, he said.
He watched them out of sight beyond the rocky headlands to the south. The pale e dust that hung in the windless m light grew faint and then it too was gohe barrial stood silent ay in the sun. As if nothing had occurred there at all. He sat and pulled on his boot and picked up the rifle aed the spent g and put it in his shirtpocket and closed the bolt. Then he slung the rifle over his shoulder a out.
It took him some forty mio cross the barrial. From there he made his a long volic slope and followed the crest of the ridge southeast to an overlook above the try into which the animals had vanished. He glassed the terrain slowly.
Crossing that ground was a large tailless dog, bla color. He watched it. It had a huge head and cropped ears and it was limping badly. It paused and stood. It looked behind it. Then it went on. He lowered the glasses and stood watg it go.
He hiked on along the ridge with his thumb hooked in the shoulderstrap of the rifle, his hat pushed ba his head. The back of his shirt was already wet with sweat. The rocks there were etched with pictographs perhaps a thousand years old. The men who drew them hunters like himself. Of them there was no other trace.
At the end of the ridge was a rockslide, a rough trail leading down. delilla and scrub catclaw. He sat in the rocks and steadied his elbows on his knees and sed the try with the binoculars. A mile away on the floodplain sat three vehicles.
He lowered the binoculars and looked over the try at large. Then he raised them again. There looked to be men lying on the ground. He jacked his boots into the rocks and adjusted the focus. The vehicles were four wheel drive trucks or Broncos with big all-terrain tires and winches and racks of rooflights. The men appeared to be dead. He lowered the glasses. Then he raised them again. Then he lowered them and just sat there.
Nothing moved. He sat there for a long time.
When he approached the trucks he had the rifle unslung and cradled at his waist with the safety off. He stopped. He studied the try and theudied the trucks. They were all shot up. Some of the tracks of holes that ran across the sheetmetal were spaced and linear and he kheyd been put there with automatic ons. Most of the glass was shot out and the tires flat. He stood there. Listening.
In the first vehicle there was a man slumped dead over the wheel. Beyowo more bodies lying in the gaunt yellow grass. Dried blood bla the ground. He stopped and listened. Nothing. The drone of flies. He walked around the end of the truck. There was a large dead dog there of the kind hed seen crossing the floodplain.
The dog was gutshot. Beyond that was a third body lying face down. He looked through the window at the man iruck. He was shot through the head. Blood everywhere.
He walked on to the sed vehicle but it was empty. He walked out to where the third body lay. There was a shotgun in the grass. The shotgun had a short barrel and it was fitted with a pistol stod a twenty round drum magazine. He he mans boot with his toe and studied the low surrounding hills.
The third vehicle was a Bronco with a lifted suspension and dark smoked windows. He reached up and opehe driver side door. There was a man sitting in the seat looking at him.
Moss stumbled back, leveling the rifle. The mans face was bloody. He moved his lips dryly. Agua, cuate, he said. Agua, por dios.
He had a shortbarreled H&K maepistol with a blaylon shoulderstrap lying in his lap and Moss reached and got it and stepped back. Agua, the man said. Por dios.
I aint got no water.
Agua.
Moss left the door open and slung the H&K over his shoulder and stepped away. The man followed him with his eyes. Moss walked around the front of the trud opehe door oher side. He lifted the latd folded the seat forward. The cargo spa the rear was covered with a metallic silver tarp. He pulled it back. A load of bricksized parcels each ed in plastic. He kept one eye on the man and got out his knife and cut a slit in one of the parcels. A loose brown powder dribbled out. He wet his forefinger and dipped it in the powder and smelled it. Then he wiped his finger on his jeans and pulled the tarp back over the parcels and stepped bad looked over the try again. Nothing. He walked away from the trud stood and glassed the low hills. The lava ridge. The flat try to the south. He got out his handkerchief and walked bad wiped everythiouched. The doorhandle and the seatlatch and the tarp and the plastic package. He crossed around to the other side of the trud wiped everything dowoo. He tried to think what else he might have touched. He went back to the first trud opehe door with his kerchief and looked in. He opehe glovebox and closed it agaiudied the dead man at the wheel. He left the door open and walked around to the driver side. The door was full of bulletholbbr>..es.
The windshield. Small caliber. Six millimeter. Maybe number four buckshot. The pattern of them. He opehe door and pushed the windowbutton but the ignition was not on. He shut the door and stood there, studying the low hills.
He squatted and unslung the rifle from off his shoulder and laid it in the grass and took the H&K and pushed back the follower with the heel of his hand. There was a live round in the chamber but the magazine held only two more rounds. He s the muzzle of the piece. He ejected the clip and slung the rifle over one shoulder and the maepistol over the other and walked back to the Brond held the clip up for the man to see. Otra, he said. Otra.
The man nodded. En mi bolsa.
You speak english?
He didnt answer. He was trying to gesture with his . Moss could see two clips stig out of the vas pocket of the jacket he was wearing. He reached into the cab and got them and stepped back. Smell of blood and fecal matter. He put one of the full clips into the maepistol and the other two in his pocket. Agua, cuate, the man said.
Moss sed the surrounding try. I told you, he said. I aint got no water.
La puerta, the man said.
Moss looked at him.
La puerta. Hay lobos.
There aint no lobos.
Si, si. Lobos. Leones.
Moss shut the door with his elbow.
He went back to the first trud stood looking at the open door on the passenger side.
There were no bulletholes in the door but there was blood on the seat. The key was still in the ignition and he reached in and tur and then pushed the windowbutton. The glass ratcheted slowly up out of the el. There were two bulletholes in it and a fine spray of dried blood on the inside of the glass. He stood there thinking about that. He looked at the ground. Stains of blood in the clay. Blood in the grass. He looked out dowrack south across the caldera back the way the truck had e. There had to be a last man standing. And it wasnt the cuate in the Bronco begging for water.
He walked out on the floodplain and cut a wi?de circle to see where the track of the tires ihin grass would show in the su fn a hundred feet to the south. He picked up the mans trail and followed it until he came to blood in the grass. Then more blood.
You aint goin far, he said. You may think you are. But you aint.
He quit the track altogether and walked out to the highest ground visible holding the H&K under his arm with the safety off. He glassed the try to the south. Nothing.
He stood fingering the boars tusk at the front of his shirt. About now, he said, youre shaded up somewheres wat your backtrack. And the e seein you fore you see me are about as close to nothin as you get without fallin in.
He squatted and steadied his elbows on his knees and with the binoculars swept the rocks at the head of the valley. He sat and crossed his legs a over the terrain more slowly and then lowered the glasses and just sat. Do not, he said, get your dumb ass shot out here. Do not do that.
He turned and looked at the sun. It was about eleven oclock. We dont even know that all of this went down last night. It could of been two nights ago. It might even could of been three.
Or it could of been last night.
A light wind had e up. He pushed back his hat and wiped his forehead with his bandanna and put the bandanna ba the hip pocket of his jeans. He looked across the caldera toward the le of ro the eastern perimeter.
Nothin wounded goes uphill, he said. It just dont happen.
It was a good hard climb to the top of the ridge and it was close to noon by the time he got there. Far off to the north he could see the shape of a tractor-trailer moving across the shimmering landscape. Ten miles. Maybe fifteen. Highway 90. He sat and swept the new try with the glasses. Theopped.
At the foot of a rockslide on the edge of the bajada was a small piece of something blue.
He watched it for a long time through the binoculars. Nothing moved. He studied the try about. Theched it some more. It was the better part of an hour before he rose and started down.
The dead man was lying against a rock with a nickelplated gover .45 automatic lying cocked in the grass between his legs. Hed been sitting up and had slid over sideways. His eyes were open. He looked like he was studying something small in the grass. There was blood on the ground and blood on the rock behind him. The blood was still a dark red but then it was still shaded from the sun. Moss picked up the pistol and pressed the grip safety with his thumb and lowered the hammer. He squatted and tried to wipe the blood off the grips on the leg of the mans trousers but the blood was too well gealed. He stood and stuck the gun in his belt at the small of his bad pushed back his hat and blotted the sweat from his forehead with his shirtsleeve. He turned and stood studying the tryside. There was a heavy leather dot case standing upright alongside the dead mans knee and Moss absolutely knew what was in the case and he was scared in a way that he didnt even uand.
When he finally picked it up he just walked out a little ways and sat down in the grass and slid the rifle off his shoulder and laid it aside. He sat with his legs spaced and the H&K in his lap and the case standiween his khen he reached and unbuckled the two straps and unshe brass latd lifted the flap and folded it back.
It was level full of hundred dollar bankhey were in packets fastened with banktape stamped each with the denomination $10,000. He didnt know what it added up to but he had a pretty good idea. He sat there looking at it and then he closed the flap and sat with his head down. His whole life was sitting there in front of him. Day after day from dawn till dark until he was dead. All of it cooked down into forty pounds of paper in a satchel.
He raised his head and looked out across the bajada. A light wind from the north. Cool.
Sunny. One oclo the afternoon. He looked at the man lying dead in the grass. His good crocodile boots that were filled with blood and turning black. The end of his life.
Here in this place. The distant mountains to the south. The wind in the grass. The quiet.
He latched the case and fastehe straps and buckled them and rose and shouldered the rifle and then picked up the case and the maepistol and took his bearings by his shadow a out.
He thought he knew how to get to his trud he also thought about wandering through the desert in the dark. There were Mojave rattlesnakes in that try and if he got bit out here at night he would in all likelihood be joining the other members of the party and the dot case and its tents would then pass on to some other owner.
Weighed against these siderations was the problem of crossing open ground in broad daylight on foot with a fully automatic on slung across one shoulder and carrying a satchel taining several million dollars. Beyond all this was the dead certainty that someone was going to e looking for the money. Maybe several someones.
He thought about going bad getting the shotgun with the drum magazine. He was a strong believer in the shotgun. He even thought about leaving the maepistol behind.
It eiary offeo own one.
He didnt leave anything behind and he didnt go back to the trucks. He set out across try, cutting through the gaps in the volic ridges and crossing the flat or rolling try between. Until late in the day he reached the ranch road hed e down that m in the dark so long ago. Then in about a mile he came to the truck.
He opehe door and stood the rifle in the floor. He went around and opehe driver door and pushed the lever and slid the seat forward ahe case and the mae-pistol behind it. He laid the .45 and the binoculars in the seat and climbed in and pushed the seat back as far as it would go and put the key in the ignition. Theook off his hat and leaned bad just rested his head against the cold glass behind him and closed his eyes.
Whe to the highway he slowed and rattled over the bars of the cattleguard and then pulled out onto the blacktop and turned on the headlights. He drove west toward Sanderson and he kept to the speed limit every mile of the way. He stopped at the gas station on the east end of town farettes and a long drink of water and then drove on to the Desert Aire and pulled up in front of the trailer and shut off the motor. The lights were on inside. You live to be a hundred, he said, and there wont be another day like this one. As soon as he said it he was sorry.
He got his flashlight from the glovebox and climbed out and took the maepistol and the case from behind the seat and crawled up uhe trailer. He lay there in the dirt looking up at the underside of it. Cheap plastic pipe and plywood. Bits of insulation. He wedged the H&K up into a er and pulled the insulation dow and lay there thinking. Then he crawled back out with the case and dusted himself off and climbed the steps a in.
She rawled across the sofa watg TV and drinking a Coke. She didnt even look up. Three oclock, she said.
I e back later.
She looked at him over the back of the sofa and looked at the television again. What have you got in that satchel?
Its full of money.
Yeah. Thatll be the day.
He went into the kit and got a beer out of the refrigerator.
I have the keys? she said.
Where you goin.
Get some cigarettes.
Cigarettes.
Yes, Llewelyn. Cigarettes. I beein here all day.
What about ide? How are we fixed for that?
Just let me have the keys. Ill set out in the damn yard and smoke.
He took a sip of the beer a on bato the bedroom and dropped to one knee and shoved the case uhe bed. Then he came back. I got you some cigarettes, he said. Let me get em.
He left the beer on the ter a out and got the two packs of cigarettes and the binoculars and the pistol and slung the .270 over his shoulder and shut the truck door and came ba. He handed her the cigarettes a on back to the bedroom.
Whered you get that pistol? she called.
At the gettin place.
Did you buy that thing?
No. I found it.
She sat up on the sofa. Llewelyn?
He came ba. What? he said. Quit hollerin.
What did you give for that thing?
You doo khing.
How much.
I told you. I found it.
No you never done no such a thing.
He sat on the sofa and put his legs up on the coffeetable and sipped the beer. It dont belong to me, he said. I didnt buy no pistol.
You better not of.
She opened one of the packs of cigarettes and took o and lit it with a lighter.
Where have you been all day?
Went to get you some cigarettes.
I dont even want to know. I dont even want to know what all you been up to.
He sipped the beer and hatll work, he said.
I think its better just to not even know even.
You keep runnin that mouth and Im goin to take you back there and screw you.
Big talk.
Just keep it up.
Thats what she said.
Just let me finish this beer. Well see what she said and what she didnt say.
When he woke it was 1:06 by the digital clo the bedside table. He lay there looking at the ceiling, the raw glare of the vaporlamp outside bathing the bedroom in a cold and bluish light. Like a winter moon. Or some other kind of moon. Something stellar and alien in its light that hed e to feel fortable with. Anything but sleep in the dark.
He swung his feet from uhe covers and sat up. He looked at her naked back. Her hair on the pillow. He reached and pulled the bla up over her shoulder and got up a into the kit.
He took the jar of water from the refrigerator and unscrewed the cap and stood there drinking in the light of the open refrigerator door. Then he just stood there holding the jar with the water beading cold on the glass, looking out the window and down the highway toward the lights. He stood there for a long time.
When he went back to the bedroom he got his shorts off the floor and put them on and went into the bathroom and shut the door. Then he went through into the sed bedroom and pulled the case from uhe bed and ope.
He sat in the floor with the case between his legs and delved down into the bills and dredged them up. The packets were twenty deep. He shoved them back down into the case and jostled the case on the floor to level the moimes twelve. He could do the math in his head. Two point four million. All used bills. He sat looking at it. You have to take this seriously, he said. You t treat it like luck.
He closed the bag and redid the fasteners and shoved it uhe bed and rose and stood looking out the window at the stars over the rocky escarpment to the north of the town.
Dead quiet. Not even a dog. But it wasnt the mohat he woke up about. Are you dead out there? he said. Hell no, you aint dead.
She woke while he was getting dressed and turned in the bed to watch him.
Llewelyn?
Yeah.
What are you doin?
Gettin dressed.
Where are you goin?
Out.
Where are you goin, baby?
Somethin I fot to do. Ill be back.
What are you goin to do?
He opehe drawer and took the .45 out aed the clip and checked it and put it bad put the pistol in his belt. He turned and looked at her.
Im fixin to go do somethin dumbern hell but Im goin anyways. If I dont e back tell Mother I love her.
Your mothers dead Llewelyn.
Well Ill tell her myself then.
She sat up in the bed. Youre s the hell out of me, Llewelyn. Are you in some kind of trouble?
No. Go to sleep.
Go to sleep?
Ill be ba a bit.
Damn you, Llewelyn.
He stepped bato the doorway and looked at her. What if I was to not e back? Is them your last words?
She followed him down the hallway to the kit pulling on her robe. He took ay gallon jug from uhe sink and stood filling it at the tap.
Do you know what time it is? she said.
Yeah. I know what time it is.
Baby I dont want you to go. Where are you goin? I dont want you to go.
Well darlin were eye to eye on that cause I dont want to go her. Ill be back. Dont wait up on me.
He pulled in at the filling station uhe lights and shut off the motor and got the survey map from the glovebox and unfolded it across the seat and sat there studying it.
He finally marked where he thought the trucks should be and theraced a route cross try back to Harkles cattle-gate. He had a good set of all-terrain tires orud two spares in the bed but this was some hard try. He sat looking at the line hed drawn. Then he bent and studied the terrain and drew another ohen he just sat there looking at the map. Whearted the engine and pulled out onto the highway it was two-fifteen in the m, the road deserted, the truck radio in this outland try dead even of stati one end of the band to the other.
He parked at the gate and got out and ope and drove through and got out and closed it again and stood listening to the silehe ba the trud drove south on the ranch road.
He kept the tru two wheel drive and drove in sed gear. The light of the unrisen moon before him spread out along the dark placard hills like scrimlights in a theatre.
Turning below where hed parked that m onto what may have been an old wagonroad that bore eastward across Harkles land. When the moon did rise it sat swollen and pale and ill formed among the hills to light up all the land about aurned off the headlights of the truck.
A half hour on he parked and walked out along the crest of a rise and stood looking over the try to the east and to the south. The moon up. A blue world. Visible shadows of clouds crossing the floodplain. Hurrying on the slopes. He sat in the scabrock with his boots crossed before him. No coyotes. Nothing. For a Mexi dopedealer. Yeah. Well.
Everbody is somethin.
Whe back to the truck he left the trad steered by the moon. He crossed under a volic headland at the upper end of the valley and turned south again. He had a good memory for try. He was crossing terrain hed scouted from the ridge earlier that day aopped again and got out to listen. When he came back to the truck he pried the plastic cover from the domelight and took the bulb out and put it in the ashtray.
He sat with the flashlight and studied the map again. Whe he stopped he just shut off the engine and sat with the window dow there for a long time.
He parked the truck a half mile above the upper end of the caldera and got the plastic jug of water out of the floor and put the flashlight in his hip pocket. Theook the .45 off the seat and shut the door quietly with his thumb ochbutton and turned a off toward the trucks.
They were as hed left them, hunkered down on their shot-out tires. He approached with the .45 cocked in his hand. Dead quiet. Could be because of the moon. His own shadow was more pany than he would have liked. Ugly feeling out here. A trespasser.
Among the dead. Do weird on me, he said. You aint one of em. Not yet.
The door of the Bronco en. When he saw that he dropped to one knee. He set the waterjug on the ground. You dumb-ass, he said. Here you are. Too dumb to live.
He turned slowly, skylighting the try. The only thing he could hear was his heart.
He made his way to the trud crouched by the open door. The man had fallen sideways over the sole. Still trussed in the shoulderbelt. Fresh blood everywhere.
Moss took the flashlight from his pocket and shrouded the lens in his fist and tur on. Hed been shot through the head. No lobos. No leones. He shohe hooded light into the cargo space behind the seats. Everything gone. He switched off the light and stood. He walked out slowly to where the other bodies lay. The shotgun was gohe moon was already a quarter ways up. All but day bright. He felt like something in a jar.
He was half way back up the caldera to his truck when something made him stop. He crouched, holding the cocked pistol across his knee. He could see the tru the moonlight at the top of the rise. He looked off to one side of it to see it the better. There was someoanding beside it. Then they were gohere is no description of a fool, he said, that you fail to satisfy. Now yoin to die.
He shoved the .45 into the back of his belt a off at a trot for the lava ridge. In the distance he heard a truck start. Lights came on at the top of the rise. He began to run.
By the time he got to the rocks the truck was halfway down the caldera, the lights bobbing over the bad ground. He looked for something to hide behind. No time. He lay face down with his head between his forearms in the grass and waited. Either theyd seen him or they hadnt. He waited. The truck went by. When it was gone he rose and began to clamber up the slope.
Half he stopped and stood sug air and trying to listen. The lights were somewhere below him. He couldhem. He climbed on. After a while he could see the dark shapes of the vehicles down there. Theruck came back up the caldera with the lights off.
He lay flattened against the rocks. A spotlight went skittering over the lava and back again. The truck slowed. He could hear the engine idling. The slow lope of the cam. Big blogihe spotlight swept over the rocks again. Its all right, he said. You o be put out of your misery. Be the best thing for everbody.
The engine revved slightly and idled down again. Deep guttural too the exhaust.
Cam and headers and God knows what else. After a while it moved on in the dark.
Whe to the crest of the ridge he crouched and took the .45 out of his belt and uncocked it and put it back again and looked out to the north and to the east. No sign of the truck.
How would you like to be out there in your old pickup tryin to outrun that thing? he said.
Then he realized that he would never see his truck again. Well, he said. Theres lots of things you aint goin to see again.
The spotlight came on again at the head of the caldera and moved across the ridge.
Moss lay on his stomach watg. It came back again.
If you khere was somebody out here afoot that had two million dollars of your money, at oint would you quit lookin for em?
Thats right. There aint no such a point.
He lay listening. He couldhe truck. After a while he rose and made his way down the far side of the ridge. Studying the try. The floodplain out there broad and quiet in the moonlight. No way to cross it and nowhere else to go. Well Bubba, what are your plans now?
Its four oclo the mornin. Do you know where your darlin boy is at?
Ill tell you what. Why dont you just get in your trud go on out there and take the son of a bitch a drink of water?
The moon was high and small. He kept his eye on the plain below as he climbed along the slope. How motivated are you? he said.
Pretty damn motivated.
You better be.
He could hear the truck. It came around the foreland head of the ridge with the lights off and started down the edge of the floodplain in the moonlight. He flattened himself in the rocks. In addition to the other bad news his thoughts ran to scorpions and rattlesnakes.
The spotlight kept rowing bad forth across the face of the ridge. Methodically.
Bright shuttle, dark loom. He didnt move.
The truck crossed to the other side and came back. Tooling along in sed gear, stopping, the motor loping. He pushed himself forward to where he could see it better.
Blood kept running into his eye from a cut in his forehead. He didnt even know where hed gotten it. He wiped his eye with the heel of his hand and wiped his hand on his jeans.藏书网 He took out his kerchief and pressed it to his head.
You could head south to the river.
Yeah. You could.
Less open ground.
Less aint none.
He turned, still holding the handkerchief to his forehead. No cloud cover in sight.
You o be somewhere e daylight.
Home in bed would be good.
He studied the blue floodplain out there in the silence. A vast and breathless amphitheatre. Waiting. Hed had this feeling before. In another try. He hought hed have it again.
He waited a long time. The truck didnt e back. He made his way south along the ridge. He stood and listened. Not a coyote, nothing.
By the time hed desded onto the river plain the sky to the east carried the first faint wash of light. It was the darkest this night was going to get. The plain ran to the breaks of the river and he listened one last time and the out at a trot.
It was a long trek and he was still some two hundred yards from the river when he heard the truck. A raw gray light was breaking over the hills. When he looked back he could see the dust against the new skyliill the better part of a mile away. In the dawn quiet the sound of it no more sihan a boat on a lake. Then he heard it downshift.
He pulled the .45 from his belt so that he wouldnt lose it a out at a dead run.
When he looked back again it had closed a good part of the distance. He was still a hundred yards from the river and he didnt know what hed find whe there. A sheer rock ge. The first long panes of light were standing through a gap in the mountains to the east and fanning over the try before him. The truck was ablaze with lights, roof rad bumper spots. The engi rag away into a howl where the wheels left the ground.
They wont shoot you, he said. They t afford to do that.
The long crack of a rifle went ing out over the pan. What hed heard whisper overhead he realized was the round passing and vanishing toward the river. He looked bad there was a man standing up out of the sunroof, one hand on top of the cab, the other cradling a rifle upright.
Where he reached the river it made a broad sweep out of a yon and carried down past great stands of carrizo e. Dow washed up against a rock bluff and then bore away to the south. Darkness deep in the yon. The water dark. He dropped into the cut and fell and rolled and rose and began to make his way down a long sandy ridge toward the river. He hadnt gowenty feet before he realized that he had no time to do that. He glanced bace at the rim and then squatted and shoved himself off down the side of the slope, holding the .45 before him in both hands.
He rolled and slid a good ways, his eyes almost shut against the dust and sand he lowing up, the pistol clutched to his chest. Then all that stopped and he was simply falling. He opened his eyes. The fresh world of m above him, turning slowly.
He slammed into a gravel bank and gave out a groan. Then he was rolling through some sort h grass. He came to a stop and lay there on his stomach gasping for air.
The pistol was gone. He crawled back through the flattened grass until he found it and he picked it up and turo s the rim of the river breaks above him, whag the pistolbarrel across his forearm to shake out the dirt. His mouth was full of sand. His eyes. He saw two men appear against the sky and he cocked the pistol and fired at them and they went away again.
He knew he didnt have time to crawl to the river and he just rose and made a run for it, splashing across the braided gravel flats and down a long sandbar until he came to the main el. He got out his keys and his billfold and buttohem into his shirtpocket. The cold wind blowing off the water smelled of iron. He could taste it. He threw away the flashlight and lowered the hammer on the .45 and shoved it into the crotch of his jeans. Then he shucked off his boots and pulled them inside his belt upside down at either side and tightehe belt as far as he could pull it and turned and dove into the river.
The cold took his breath. He turned and looked back toward the rim, blowing and backpedaling through the slate-blue water. Nothing there. He turned and swam.
The current carried him down into the bend of the river and hard up against the rocks.
He pushed himself off. The bluff above him rose dark and deeply cupped and the water in the shadows was blad choppy. When he finally spilled out into the tailwater and looked back he could see the truck parked at the top of the bluff but he couldnt see anyone. He checked to see that he still had his boots and the gun and then turned and began to stroke for the far shore.
By the time he dragged himself shivering out of the river he was the better part of a mile from where hed gone in. His socks were gone a out at a jog barefoot toward the standing e. Round cups in the shelving rock where the as had ground their meal. When he looked back agairuck was gowo merotting along the high bluff silhouetted against the sky. He was almost to the e when it rattled all about him and there was a heavy whump and then the echo of it from across the river.
He was hit in the upper arm by a buckshot and it stung like a hor. He put his hand over it and dove into the e, the lead ball half buried in the back of his arm. His left leg kept wanting to give out beh him and he was having trouble breathing.
Deep in the brake he dropped to his knees and khere sug air. He undid his belt ahe boots drop into the sand and reached down and got the .45 and laid it to one side ahe back of his arm. The buckshot was gone. He unbuttoned his shirt and took it off and pulled his arm around to see the wound. It was just the shape of the buckshot, bleeding slightly, pieces of shirtfiber packed into it. The whole back of his arm was already being an ugly purple bruise. He wrung the water out of his shirt and put it on again and butto and pulled on the boots and stood and buckled his belt. He picked up the pistol and took the clip out of it aed the round from the chamber and then shook the gun and blew through the barrel and reassembled it. He didnt know if it would fire or not but he thought it probably would.
When he came out of the e on the far side he stopped to look back but the e was thirty feet high and he couldnt see anything. Downriver was a broad bench of land and a stand of cottonwoods. By the time he got there his feet were already beginning to blister from walking barefoot i boots. His arm was swollen and throbbing but the bleeding seemed to have stopped and he walked out into the sun on a gravel bar and sat there and pulled off the boots and looked at the raw red sores on his heels. As soon as he sat down his leg began tain.
He unshe small leather holster at his belt and got out his knife and then stood up and took off his shirt agai off the sleeves at the elbow and sat and ed his feet in them and pulled on the boots. He put the knife ba the holster and faste and picked up the pistol and stood and listened. A redwing blackbird.
Nothing.
As he turo go he heard the truck very faintly on the far side of the river. He looked for it but he could. He thought that by now probably the two men had crossed the river and were somewhere behind him.
He went on through the trees. The trunks silted up from the high water and the roots tangled among the rocks. He took off his boots again to try to cross the gravel without leaving any tracks and he climbed a long and rocky rin toward the south rim of the river yon carrying the boots and the ings and the pistol and keeping an eye on the terrain below. The sun was in the yon and the rocks hed crossed would dry in minutes. At a benear the rim he stopped and lay on his belly with his boots in the grass beside him. It was only aen mio the top but he didnt think he had ten minutes. On the far side of the river a hawk set forth from the cliffs whistling thinly.
He waited. After a while a man came out of the e upriver and paused and stood. He was carrying a maegun. A sean emerged below him. They gla one another and then came on.
They passed below him ached them out of sight down the river. He wasnt really even thinking about them. He was thinking about his truck. When the courthouse ope nine oonday m someone was going to be calling in the vehicle number aing his name and address. This was some twenty-four hours away. By then they would know who he was and they would op looking for him. Never, as in never.
He had a brother in California he was supposed to tell what? Arthur theres some old boys on their way dowo see you who propose to lower your balls between the jaws of a six-inch maists vise and ence kin on the handle a quarter turn at a time whether you know where Im at or not. You might want to think about movin to a.
He sat up and ed his feet and pulled the boots on and stood and started up the last stretch of yon to the rim. Where he crested out the try lay dead flat, stretg away to the south and to the east. Red dirt and creosote. Mountains in the far and middle distanothing out there. Heatshimmer. He stuck the pistol in his belt and looked down at the river one more time and the out east. Langtry Texas was thirty miles as the crow flies. Maybe less. Ten hours. Twelve. His feet were already hurting. His leg hurt. His chest. His arm. The river dropped away behind him. He hadnt even taken a drink.
II
I DONT KNOW if law enfort work is more dangerous now than what it used to be or not. I know when I first took office youd have a fistfight somewheres and youd go to break it up and theyd offer to fight you. And sometimes you had to aodate em.
They wouldnt have it no other way. And youd better not lose, her. You dohat so muore, but maybe you see worse. I had a man pull a gun on me oime and it happehat I grabbed it just as he went to fire and the plunger on the hammer went right through the fleshy part of my thumb. You see the mark of it there. But that man had ever iion of killin me. A few years ago and it wasnt that maher I was goin out one of these little two lane blacktop roads of a night and I e up on a pickup truck that they was two old boys settin in the bed of it. They kindly blinked in the lights and I backed off some but the truck had Coahuila plates on it and I thought, well, I o stop these old boys and take a look. So I hit the lights and whenever I dohat I seen the slider window in the back of the cab open and here e somebody passin a shotgun out the windo..w to the old boy settin in the bed of the truck. Ill tell yht now I hit them brakes with both feet. It skidded the unit sideways to where the lights was goin out into the brush but the last thing I seen in the bed of the truck was the old boy puttin that shotgun to his shoulder. I hit the seat and I just had hit it when here e the windshield all over me in them little bitty pieces they break up into. I still had one foot on the brake and I could feel the cruiser slidin down into the bar ditd I thought it was goin to roll but it didnt. It filled the car just full of dirt. The old boy he opened up owice more and shot all the glass out of one side of the cruiser and by then Id e to a stop and I laid there in the seat, had my pistol out, and I heard that pickup leave out and I raised up and fired several shots at the taillights but they was long gone.
Point bein you dont know what all youre stoppin when you do stop somebody. You take out on the highway. You walk up to a car and you dont know what youre liable to find. I set there in that cruiser for a long time. The motor had died but the lights was still on.
Cab full of glass and dirt. I got out and kindly shook myself off and got ba and just set there. Just kindly colle my thoughts. Windshield wipers hangin in on the dashboard. I turned off the lights and I just set there. You take somebody that will actually throw down on a law enfort officer and open fire, you have got some very serious people. I never saw that truck again. Nobody else did her. Or not them plates noways. May９９ｌiｂ.be I should of took out after it. Or tried to. I dont know. I drove back to Sanderson and pulled in at the cafe and Ill tell you they e from all over to see that cruiser. It was shot just full of holes. Looked like the Bonnie and Clyde car. I didnt have a mark on me. Not even from all that glass. I was criticized for that too. Parkin there like I dohey said I was showin out. Well, maybe I was. But I hat cup of coffee too, Ill tell you.
I read the papers ever mornin. Mostly I suppose just to try and figure out what might be headed this way. Not that Ive done all that good a job at headin it off. It keeps gettin harder. Here a while back they was two boys run into one another and one of em was from California and one from Florida. And they met somewheres or other iween.
And then they set out together travelin around the try killin people. I fet how many they did kill. Now what are the ces of a thing like that! Them two had never laid eyes on one ahere t be that many of em. I dont think. Well, we dont know. Here the other day they was a ut her baby in a trash pactor. Who would think of such a thing? My wife wohe papers no more. Shes probably right. She generally is.
BELL CLIMBED THE REAR steps of the courthouse a down the hall to his office. He swiveled his chair around and sat and looked at the telephone. Go ahead, he said. Im here.
The ph. He reached and picked it up. Sheriff Bell, he said.
He listened. He nodded.
Mrs Downie I believe hell e down directly. Why dont you call me back here in a little bit. Yes mam.
He took off his hat and put it on the desk and sat with his eyes closed, ping the bridge of his nose. Yes mam, he said. Yes mam.
Mrs Downie I havehat many dead cats in trees. I think hell e down directly if youll just leave him be. You call me ba a little bit, you hear?
He hung the phone up and sat looking at it. Its money, he said. You have enough money you dont have to talk to people about cats in trees.
Well. Maybe you do.
The radio squawked. He picked up the receiver and pushed the button and put his feet up on the desk. Bell, he said.
He sat listening. He lowered his feet to the floor and sat up.
Get the keys and look iurtle. Thats all right. Im right here.
He drummed his fingers on the desk.
All right. Keep yhts on. Ill be there in fifty minutes. And Torbert? Shut the trunk.
He and Wendell pulled onto the paved shoulder in front of the unit and parked and got out. Tot out and was standing by the door of his car. The sheriff nodded. He walked along the edge of the roadway studying the tire tracks. You seen this, I re, he said.
Yessir.
Well lets take a look.
Torbert opehe trunk and they stood looking at the body. The front of the mans shirt was covered with blood, partly dried. His whole face was bloody. Bell leaned and reached into the trunk and took something from the mans shirtpocket and unfolded it. It was a bloodstained receipt fas from a service station in Jun Texas. Well, he said. This was the end of the road for Bill Wyrick.
I didnt look to see if he had a billfold on him.
Thats all right. He dont. This here was just dumb luck.
He studied the hole in the mans forehead. Looks like a .45. . Almost like a wadcutter.
Whats a wadcutter?
Its a target round. You got the keys?
Yessir.
Bell shut the trunklid. He looked around. Passing trucks oerstate were downshifting as they approached. Ive already talked to Lamar. Told him he have his unit ba about three days. I called Austin and theyre lookin for you first thing in the mornin. I aint loadin him into one of our units and he damn sure dont need a helicopter. You take Lamars unit back to Sonora when you get done and call and me or Wendell one will e a you. You got any money?
Yessir.
Fill out the report same as a.
Yessir.
White male, late thirties, medium build.
How do you spell Wyrick?
You dont spell it. We dont know what his name is.
Yessir.
He might have a family someplace.
Yessir. Sheriff?
Yes.
What do we have on the perpetrator?
We dont. Give Wendell your keys fore you fet it.
Theyre in the unit.
Well lets not be leavin keys in the units.
Yessir.
Ill see you in two days time.
Yessir.
I hope that son of a bitch is in California.
Yessir. I know what you mean.
I got a feelin he aint.
Yessir. I do too.
Wendell, you ready?
Wendell leaned and spat. Yessir, he said. Im ready. He looked at Torbert. You get stopped with that old boy iurtle just tell em you dont know nothin about it. Tell em somebody must of put him in there while you was havin coffee.
Torbert nodded. You and the sheriff goin to e down a me off of death row?
If we t get you out well get in there with you.
You all dont be makin light of the dead thataway, Bell said.
Wendell nodded. Yessir, he said. Youre right. I might be one myself some day.
Driving out 90 toward the turnoff at Dryden he came across a hawk dead in the road. He saw the feathers move in the wind. He pulled over and got out and walked bad squatted on his bootheels and looked at it. He raised one wing a fall again. Cold yellow eye dead to the blue vault above them.
It was a big redtail. He picked it up by one wingtip and carried it to the bar ditd laid it in the grass. They would hunt the blacktop, sitting on the high powerpoles and watg the highway in both dires for miles. Any small thing that might veo cross. Closing on their prey against the sun. Shadowless. Lost in the tration of the hunter. He wouldnt have the trucks running over it.
He stood there looking out across the desert. So quiet. Low hum of wind in the wires.
High bloodweeds along the road. Wiregrass and sacahuista. Beyond ione arroyos the tracks ons. The raw rock mountains shadowed ie sun and to the east the shimmering abscissa of the desert plains under a sky where raincurtains hung dark as soot all along the quadrant. That god lives in silence who has scoured the following land with salt and ash. He walked back to the cruiser and got in and pulled away.
When he pulled up in front of the sheriffs offi Sonora the first thing he saw was the yelloe stretched across the parking lot. A small courthouse crowd. He got out and crossed the street.
Whats happened, Sheriff?
I dont know, said Bell. I just got here.
He ducked uhe tape a ..up the steps. Lamar looked up wheapped at the door. e iom, he said. e i hell to pay here.
They walked out on the courthouse lawn. Some of the men followed them.
You all go on, said Lamar. Me and the sheriff here o talk.
He looked haggard. He looked at Bell and he looked at the ground. He shook his head and looked away. I used to play mumbledypeg here when I was a bht here.
These youoday I dont think would even know what that was. Ed Tom this is a damned lunatic.
I hear you.
You got anything to go on?
Not really.
Lamar looked away. He wiped his eyes with the back of his sleeve. Ill tell yht now. This son of a bitch will never see a day in court. Not if I catch him he wont.
Well, we o catch him first.
That boy was married.
I didnt know that.
Twenty-three year old. cut boy. Straight as a die. Now I got to go out to his house fore his wife hears it on the damn radio.
I dont envy you that. I surely dont.
I think Im goin to quit, Ed Tom.
You wao go out there with you?
No. I appreciate it. I o go.
All right.
I just have this feelin were looking at somethin we really aint never even seen before.
I got the same feeli me call you this evenin.
I appreciate it.
He watched Lamar cross the lawn and climb the steps to his office. I hope you dont quit, he said. I think were goin to need all of you we get.
WHEN THEY PULLED up in front of the cafe it was owenty in the m. There were only three people on the bus.
Sanderson, the driver said.
Moss made his way forward. Hed seen the driver eyeing him in the mirror. Listen, he said. Do you think you could let me out down at the Desert Aire? I got a bad leg and I live down there but I got nobody to pick me up.
The driver shut the door. Yeah, he said. I do that.
When he walked i up off the coud ran and put her arms around his neck. I thought you was dead, she said.
Well I aint so dont go to slobberin.
I aint.
Why dont you fix me some ba and eggs while I take a shower.
Let me see that cut on your head. What happeo you? Wheres your truck at?
I o take a shower. Fix me somethin to eat. My stomach thinks my throats been cut.
When he came out of the shower he was wearing a pair of shorts and whe at the little formica table i the first thing she said was Whats that on the back of your arm?
How many eggs is this?
Four.
You got any more toast?
Theys two more pieces in. What is that, Llewelyn?
What would you like to hear?
The truth.
He sipped his coffee a about salting his eggs.
You aint goin to tell me, are you?
No.
What happeo y?
Its broke out in a rash.
She buttered the fresh toast and put it on the plate and sat in the chair opposite. I like to eat breakfast of a night, he said. Takes me bay bachelor days.
What is goin on, Llewelyn?
Heres whats goin on, Carla Jean. You o get your stuff packed and be ready to roll out of here e daylight. Whatever you leave you aint goin to see it again so if you want it dont leave it. Theres a bus leaves out of here at seven-fifteen in the mornin. I want you to go to Odessa and wait there till I call you.
She sat ba the chair and watched him. You wao go to Odessa, she said.
Thats correct.
You aint kiddin, are you?
Me? No. I aint kiddin a bit. Are we out of preserves?
She got up and got the preserves out of the refrigerator ahem oable and sat back down. He unscrewed the jar and ladled some onto his toast and spread it with his knife.
Whats in that satchel yht in?
I told you what was in that satchel.
You said it was full of money.
Well then I re thats whats in it.
Wheres it at?
Uhe bed in the ba.
Uhe bed.
Yes mam.
I go back there and look?
Youre free white and twenty-one so I re you do whatever you want.
I aint twenty-one.
Well whatever you are.
And you wao get on a bus and go to Odessa.
Yettin on a bus and goin to Odessa.
What am I supposed to tell Mama?
Well, try standin in the door and hollerin: Mama, Im home.
Wheres your truck at?
Gohe way of all flesh. Nothins forever.
How are we supposed to get down there in the mornin?
Call Miss Rosa over yonder. She aint got nothin to do.
What have you done, Llewelyn?
I robbed the bank at Fort Sto.
Youre a lyin sack of you know what.
If you aint goin to believe me whatd you ask me for? You o get on back there and get your stuff together. We got about four hours till daylight.
Let me see that thing on your arm.
You done seen it.
Let me put somethin on it.
Yeah, I think theres some buckshot salve in the et if we aint out. Will you go on and quit aggravatin me? Im tryin to eat.
Did you get shot?
No. I just said that to get you stirred up. Go on now.
HE CROSSED THE Pecos River just north of Sheffield Texas and took route 349 south.
When he pulled into the filling station at Sheffield it was almost dark. A lowilight with doves crossing the highway heading south toward some ranch tanks. He got ge from the proprietor and made a phone call and filled the tank a back in and paid.
You all gettin any rain up your way? the proprietor said.
Which way would that be?
I seen you was from Dallas.
Chigurh picked his ge up off the ter. And what business is it of yours where Im from, friendo?
I didnt mean nothin by it.
You didnt mean nothing by it.
I was just passiime of day.
I guess that passes for manners in your cracker view of things.
Well sir, I apologized. If you dont want to accept my apology I dont know what else I do for you.
How much are these?
Sir?
I said how much are these.
Sixty-nis.
Chigurh unfolded a dollar onto the ter. The man rang it up and stacked the ge before him the way a dealer places chips. Chigurh hadnt taken his eyes from him. The man looked away. He coughed. Chigurh opehe plastic package of cashews with his teeth and doled a third part of them into his palm and stood eating.
Will there be somethin else? the man said.
I dont know. Will there?
Is there somethin wrong?
With what?
With anything.
Is that what youre asking me? Is there something wrong with anything?
The man turned aut his fist to his mouth and coughed again. He looked at Chigurh and he looked away. He looked out the window at the front of the store. The gas pumps and the car sitting there. Chigurh ate another small handful of the cashews.
Will there be anything else?
Youve already asked me that.
Well I o see about closin.
See about closing.
Yessir.
What time do you close?
Now. We close now.
Now is not a time. What time do you close.
Generally around dark. At dark.
Chigurh stood slowly chewing. You dont know what youre talking about, do you?
Sir?
I said you dont know what youre talking about do you.
Im talkin about closin. Thats what Im talkin about.
What time do you go to bed.
Sir?
Youre a bit deaf, arent you? I said what time do you go to bed.
Well. Id say around hirty. Somewhere around hirty.
Chigurh poured more cashews into his palm. I could e back then, he said.
Well be closed then.
Thats all right.
Well why would you be in back? Well be closed.
You said that.
Well we will.
You live in that house behind the store?
Yes I do.
Youve lived here all your life?
The proprietor took a while to ahis was my wifes fathers place, he said.
inally.
You married into it.
We lived in Temple Texas for many years. Raised a family there. In Temple. We e out here about four years ago.
You married into it.
If thats the way you want to put it.
I dont have some way to put it. Thats the way it is.
Well I o close now.
Chigurh poured the last of the cashews into his palm and wadded the little bag and placed it on the ter. He stood oddly erect, chewing.
You seem to have a lot of questions, the proprietor said. For somebody that dont want to say where it is theyre from.
Whats the most you ever saw lost on a toss?
Sir?
I said whats the most you ever saw lost on a toss.
toss?
toss.
I dont know. Folks dont generally bet on a toss. Its usually more like just to settle somethin.
Whats the biggest thing you ever saw settled?
I dont know.
Chigurh took a twenty-five t piece from his pocket and flipped it spinning into the bluish glare of the fluorest lights overhead. He caught it and slapped it onto the back of his forearm just above the bloody ings. Call it, he said.
Call it?
Yes.
For what?
Just call it.
Well I o know what it is were callin here.
How would that ge anything?
The man looked at Chigurhs eyes for the first time. Blue as lapis. At once glistening and totally opaque. Like wet stones. You o call it, Chigurh said. I t call it for you. It wouldnt be fair. It wouldnt even be right. Just call it.
I didnt put nothin up.
Yes you did. Youve been putting it up your whole life. You just didnt know it. You know what the date is on this ?
No.
Its een fifty-eight. Its been traveling twenty-two years to get here. And now its here. And Im here. And Ive got my hand over it. And its either heads or tails. And you have to say. Call it.
I dont know what it is I stand to win.
In the blue light the mans face was beaded thinly with sweat. He licked his upper lip.
You stand to wihing, Chigurh said. Everything.
You aint makin any sense, mister.
Call it.
Heads then.
Chigurh uncovered the . He turned his arm slightly for the man to see. Well done, he said.
He picked the from his wrist and ha across.
What do I want with that?
Take it. Its your lucky .
I dont .
Yes you do. Take it.
The man took the . I got to close now, he said.
Dont put it in your pocket.
Sir?
Dont put it in your pocket.
Where do you wao put it?
Dont put it in your pocket. You wont know whie it is.
All right.
Anything be an instrument, Chigurh said. Small things. Things you wouldnt even notice. They pass from hand to hand. People dont pay attention. And then one day theres an ating. And after that nothing is the same. Well, you say. Its just a .
For instanothing special there. What could that be an instrument of? You see the problem. To separate the act from the thing. As if the parts of some moment in history might be intergeable with the parts of some other moment. How could that be?
Well, its just a . Yes. Thats true. Is it?
Chigurh cupped his hand and scooped his ge from the ter into his palm and put the ge in his pocket and turned and walked out the door. The proprietor watched him go. Watched him get into the car. The car started and pulled off from the gravel apron onto the highway south. The lights never did e on. He laid the on the ter and looked at it. He put both hands on the ter and just stood leaning there with his head bowed.
Whe to Dryden it was about eight oclock. He sat at the interse in front of dras Feed Store with the lights off and the motor running. Theurhe lights on and pulled out on highway 90 headed east.
The white marks at the side of the road when he found them looked like surveyors marks but there were no numbers, just the chevrons. He marked the mileage on the odometer and drove another mile and slowed and turned off the highway. He shut off the lights ahe motor running and got out and walked down and opehe gate and came back. He drove across the bars of the cattleguard and got out and closed the gate again and stood there listening. The in the car and drove out down the rutted track.
He followed a southrunning fehe Ford wallowing over the bad ground. The fence was just an old remnant, three wires strung on mesquite posts. In a mile or so he came out on a gravel plain where a Dodge Ramcharger arked fag toward him. He pulled slowly alongside it and shut down the engine.
The Ramchargers windows were tinted so dark they looked black. Chigurh opehe door and got out. A man got out on the passenger side of the Dodge and folded the seat forward and climbed into the rear. Chigurh walked around the vehicle and got in and shut the door. Lets go, he said.
Have you talked to him? the driver said.
No.
He dont know whats happened?
No. Lets go.
They rolled out across the desert in the dark.
When do you aim to tell him? the driver said.
When I know what it is that Im telling him.
When they came to Mosss truck Chigurh leaned forward to study it.
Is that his truck?
Thats it. Plates is gone.
Pull up here. Have you got a screwdriver?
Look in the jockeybox there.
Chigurh got out with the screwdriver and walked over to the trud opehe door.
He pried the aluminum iion plate off of the rivets ihe door and put it in his pocket and came bad got in and put the screwdriver ba the glovebox. Who cut the tires? he said.
It wasnt us.
Chigurh nodded. Lets go, he said.
They parked some distance from the trucks and walked down to look at them. Chigurh stood there a long time. It was cold out on the barrial and he had no jacket but he didnt seem to notice. The other two men stood waiting. He had a flashlight in his hand aur on and walked among the trucks and looked at the bodies. The two men followed at a small distance.
Whose dog? Chigurh said.
We dont know.
He stood looking in at the dead man slumped across the sole of the Bronco. He shohe light into the cargo space behind the seats.
Wheres the box? he said.
Its iruck. You want it?
you get anything on it?
No.
Nothing?
Not a bleep.
Chigurh studied the dead man. He jostled him with his flashlight.
These are some ripe petunias, one of the men said.
Chigurh didnt answer. He backed out of the trud stood looking over the bajada in the moonlight. Dead quiet. The man in the Bronco had not beehree days or anything like it. He pulled the pistol from the waistband of his trousers and turned around to where the two men were standing and shot them once each through the head in rapid succession and put the gun ba his belt. The sean had actually half turo look at the first as he fell. Chigurh stepped between them a and pulled away the shoulder-strap from the sean and swung up the nine millimeter Glock hed been carrying and walked back out to the vehicle and got in and started it and backed around and drove up out of the caldera and back toward the highway.
III
I DONT KNOW THAT law enfort bes all that much from eology.
Tools that es into our hands es into theirs too. Not that you go back. Or that youd even want to. We used to have them old Motorola two way radios. Weve had the high-band now for several years. Some things aint ged. on sense aint ged. Ill tell my deputies sometimes to just follow the breadcrumbs. I still like the old Colts. .44-40. If that wont stop him youd better throw the thing down and take off runnin. I like the old Wier model 97. I like it that its got a hammer. I dont like havin to hunt the safety on a gun. Of course some things is worse. That cruiser of mine is seven years old. Its got the 454 in it. You t get that engine no more. I drove one of the new ones. It wouldnt outrun a fatman. I told the man I thought Id stick with what I had. That aint always a good policy. Bu藏书网t it aint always a bad oher.
This other thing I dont know. People will ask me about it ever so often. I t say as I would rule it out altogether. It aint somethin I would like to have to see again. To witness. The ohat really ought to be oh row will never make it. I believe that.
You remember certain things about a thing like that. People didnt know what to wear.
There was one or two e dressed in black, which I suppose was all right. Some of the men e just in their shirtsleeves and that kindly bothered me. I aint sure I could tell you why.
Still they seemed to know what to do and that surprised me. Most of em I know had never been to a execution before. When it was over they pulled this curtain around the gas-chamber with him in there settin slumped over and people just got up and filed out.
Like out of church or somethin. It just seemed peculiar. Well it eculiar. Id have to say it robably the most unusual day I ever spent.
Quite a few people didnt believe in it. Evehat worked on the row. Youd be surprised. Some of em I think had at oime. You see somebody ever day sometimes for years and then one day you walk that man down the hallut him to death.
Well. Thatll take some of the cackle out of just about anybody. I dont care who it is.
And of course some of them boys was not very bright. Chaplain Pickett told me about one he ministered to ae his last meal and hed ordered this dessert, ever what it was. And it e time to go and Pickett he asked him didnt he want his dessert and the old boy told him he was savin it for when he e back. I dont know what to say about that. Pickett didher.
I never had to kill nobody and I am very glad of that fact. Some of the old time sheriffs wouldnt even carry a firearm. A lot of folks find that hard to believe but its a fact. Jim Scarbh never carried ohats the younger Jim. Gaston Boykins wouldnt wear one. Up in anche ty. I always liked to hear about the old timers. Never missed a ce to do so. The old time that the sheriffs had for their people is been watered down some. You t help but feel it. Nigger Hoskins over in Bastrop ty knowed everbodys phone number in the whole ty by heart.
Its a odd thing when you e to think about it. The opportunities for abuse are just about everwhere. Theres no requirements iexas State stitution for bein a sheriff. Not a ohere is no such thing as a ty law. You think about a job where you have pretty much the same authority as God and there is no requirements put upon you and you are charged with preservin ent laws and you tell me if thats peculiar or not. Because I say that it is. Does it work? Yes. y pert of the time. It takes very little to good people. Very little. And bad people t be gover all. Or if they could I never heard of it.
THE BUS PULLED INTO Fort Sto at quarter to nine and Moss stood and got his bag down from the overhead rad picked up the dot case out of the seat and stood looking down at her.
Do on a airplah that thing, she said. Theyll put you uhe jail.
My mama didnt raise no ignorant children.
When are you goin to call me.
Ill call you in a few days.
All right.
You take care.
I got a bad feelin, Llewelyn.
Well, I got a good one. So they ought to bala.
I hope so.
I t call you except from a payphone.
I know it. Call me.
I will. Quit worryin about everthing.
Llewelyn?
What.
Nothin.
What is it.
Nothin. I just wao say it. You take care. Llewelyn? What.
Dont hurt nobody. You hear?
He stood there with the bag slung across his shoulder. I aint makin no promises, he said.
Thats how you get hurt.
BELL HAD RAISED the first forkful of his supper to his mouth when the ph.
He lowered it again. Shed started to push her chair back but he wiped his mouth with his napkin and rose. Ill get it, he said.
All right.
How the hell do they know when youre eatin? We never eat this late.
Dont be cussin, she said.
He picked up the phone. Sheriff Bell, he said.
He listened for a while. Then he said: Im goin to finish my supper. Ill meet you there in about forty minutes. Just leave the lights on on your unit.
He hung up the phone and came back to his chair and sat and picked up the napkin and put it in his lap and picked up his fork. Somebody called in a car afire, he said. Just this side of Lozier yon.
What do you make of that?
He shook his head.
He ate. He drank the last of his coffee. e go with me, he said.
Let me get my coat.
They pulled off the road at the gate and drove over the cattleguard and pulled up behind Wendells unit. Wendell walked bad Bell rolled down the window.
Its about a half mile down, Wendell said. Just follow me.
I see it.
Yessir. It was goin real good here about a ho. The people that called it i from the road.
They parked a little way off and got out and stood looking at it. You could feel the heat on your face. Bell came around and opehe door and took his wifes hand. She got out and stood with her arms folded in front of her. There ickup truck parked a ways down and two men were standing there in the dull red glare. They nodded ea turn and said Sheriff.
We could ht weeners, she said.
Yeah. Marshmallers.
You wouldnt think a car would burn like that.
No, you wouldnt. Did you all see anything?
No sir. Just the fire.
Didnt pass nobody or nothin?
No sir.
Does that look to you like about a 77 Ford, Wendell?
It could be.
Id say it is.
Was that what the old boy was drivin?
Yeah. Dallas plates.
It wasnt his day, was it Sheriff.
It surely wasnt.
Why do you re they set fire to it?
I dont know.
Weurned and spat. Wasnt what the old boy had in mind when he left Dallas I dont re, was it?
Bell shook his head. No, he said. Id guess it was about the farthest thing from his mind.
In the m whe to the office the phone was ringing. Torbert wasnt back yet.
He finally called at hirty and Bell sent Weo get him. The with his feet on the desk staring at his boots. He sat that way for some time. Then he picked up the mobile and called Wendell.
Where you at?
Just past Sanderson yon.
Turn around and e back.
All right. What about Torbert?
Call him and tell him to just set tight. Ill e get him this afternoon.
Yessir.
Go to the house ahe keys to the truck from Loretta and hook up the horsetrailer.
Saddle my horse and Lorettas and load and Ill see you out there in about a hour.
Yessir.
He hung up the speaker and got up a down to che the jail.
They drove through the gate and closed it again and drove down along the fence about a hundred feet and parked. Wendell unlatched the trailer doors ahe horses out. Bell took the reins of his wifes horse. You ride Winston, he said.
You sure?
Oh Im more than sure. Anything happens to Lorettas horse I tell yht now you damn sure dont want to be the party that was aboard him.
He handed Wendell one of the lever a rifles hed brought and.he plywood of the room-divider. Heres where it hit at, he said. He balahe piece of brass in his palm and looked toward the door. You could weigh this thing and measure the distand the drop and calculate the speed.
I expect you could.
Pretty good speed.
Yessir. Pretty good speed.
They walked through the rooms. What do you think, Sheriff?
I believe theyve do a shuck.
I do too.
Kindly in a hurry about it, too.
Yep.
He walked into the kit and opehe refrigerator and looked in and shut it again.
He looked in the freezer.
So when was he here, Sheriff?
Hard to say. We might of just missed him.
You think this boy has got any notion of the sorts of sons of bitches that are huntin him?
I dont know. He ought to. He seen the same things I seen and it made a impression on me.
Theyre in a world of trouble, aint they?
Yes they are.
Bell walked bato the livingroom. He sat on the sofa. Wendell stood in the doorway.
He was still holding the revolver in his hand. What are you thinkin? he said.
Bell shook his head. He didnt look up.
By Wednesday half of the State of Texas was on its way to Sanderson. Bell sat at his table in the cafe ahe news. He lowered the paper and looked up. A man about thirty years old that hed never seen before was standing there. He introduced himself as a reporter for the San Antonio Light. Whats all this about, Sheriff? he said.
It appears to be a huntin act.
Hunting act?
Yessir.
How could it be a hunting act? Youre pulling my leg.
Let me ask you somethin.
All right.
Last year een felony charges were filed ierrell ty Court. How many of those would you say were n related?
I dont know.
Two. In the meantime I got a ty the size of Delaware that is full of people who need my help. What do you think about that?
I dont know.
I doher. Now I just o eat my breakfast here. I got kindly a full day ahead.
He and Torbert drove out in Torberts four wheel drive truck. All was as theyd left it.
They parked a ways from Mosss trud waited. Its ten, Torbert said.
What?
Its ten. Deceased. We fot about old Wyrick. Its ten.
Bell hat we know about, he said.
Yessir. That we know about.
The helicopter arrived and circled a down in a whirl of dust out on the bajada.
Nobody got out. They were waiting for the dust to blow away. Bell and Torbert watched the rotor winding down.
The DEA agents name was Mtyre. Bell knew him slightly and liked him about well enough to nod to. He got out with a clipboard in his hand and walked toward them. He was dressed in boots and hat and a Carhartt vas jacket and he looked all right until he opened his mouth.
Sheriff Bell, he said.
Agent Mtyre.
What vehicle is this?
Its a 72 Ford pickup.
Mtyre stood looking out down the bajada. He tapped the clipbainst his leg.
He looked at Bell. Im happy to know that, he said. White in color.
Id say white. Yes.
Could use a set of tires.
He went over and walked around the truck. He wrote on his clipboard. He looked inside.
He folded the seat forward and looked in the back.
Who cut the tires?
Bell was standing with his hands in his back pockets. He leaned and spat. Deputy Hays here believes it was done by a rival party.
Rival party.
Yessir.
I thought these vehicles were all shot up.
They are.
But not this one.
Not this one.
Mtyre looked toward the chopper and he looked down the bajada toward the other vehicles. I get a ride down there with you?
Sure you .
They walked toward Torberts truck. The agent looked at Bell aapped the clipbainst his leg. You dont io make this easy, do you?
Hell, Mtyre. Im just messin with you.
They walked around in the bajada looking at the shot-up trucks. Mtyre held a kerchief to his he bodies were bloated in their clothes. This is about the damhing I ever saw, he said.
He stood making notes on his clipboard. He paced distances and made a rough sketch of the se and he copied out the numbers off the lise plates.
Were there no guns here? he said.
Not as many as there should of bee two pieces in evidence.
How long you think theyve been dead?
Four or five days.
Somebody must have got away.
Bell heres another body about a mile north of here.
Theres heroin spilled in the back of that Bronco.
Yep.
Mexi black tar.
Bell looked at Torbert. Torbert leaned and spat.
If the heroin is missing and the money is missing then my guess is that somebody is missing.
Id say thats a reasonable guess.
Mtyre tinued writing. Dont worry, he said. I know you did.
I aint worried.
Mtyre adjusted his hat and stood looking at the trucks. Are the rangers ing out here?
Rangers are in. Or one is. DPS drug unit.
Ive got .380s, .45s, nine millimeter parabellum, twelve gauge, and .38 special. Did you all find anything else?
I think that was it.
Mtyre nodded. I guess the people waiting for their dope have probably figured out by now that its not ing. What about the Border Patrol?
Everbodys in as far as I know. We expect it to get right lively. Might could be a bigger draw than the flood ba 65.
Yeah.
What we need is to get these bodies out of here.
Mtyre tapped the clipbainst his leg. Aint that the truth, he said.
Nine millimeter parabellum, said Torbert.
Bell nodded. You o put that in your files.
Chigurh picked up the signal from the transponder ing across the high span of the Devils River Bridge just west of Del Rio. It was near midnight and no cars on the highway. He reached over into the passenger seat and turhe dial slowly forward and then back, listening.
The headlights picked up some kind of a large bird sitting on the aluminum bridgerail up ahead and Chigurh pushed the button to let the window down. Cool air ing in off the lake. He took the pistol from beside the box and cocked and leveled it out the window, resting the barrel on the rearview mirror. The pistol had been fitted with a silencer sweated onto the end of the barrel. The silencer was made out of brass mapp- gas burners fitted into a hairspray and the whole thing stuffed with fiberglass roofing insulation and painted flat black. He fired just as the bird crouched and spread its wings.
It flared wildly in the lights, very white, turning and lifting away into the darkness. The shot had hit the rail and ed off into the night and the rail hummed dully in the slipstream and ceased. Chigurh laid the pistol in the seat and put the window back up again.
Moss paid the driver and stepped out into the lights in front of the motel offid slung the bag over his shoulder and shut the cab door and turned a in. The woman was already behind the ter. He set the bag in the floor and leaned on the ter. She looked a little flustered. Hi, she said. You fixin to stay a while?
I need another room.
You want to ge rooms or you want another one besides the one youve got?
I want to keep the one I got a another one.
All right.
Have you got a map of the motel?
She looked uhe ter. There used to be a sort of a one. Wait a minute. I think this is it.
She laid an old brochure on the ter. It showed a car from the fifties parked in front.
He unfolded it and flatte out and studied it.
What about one forty-two?
You have oo yours if you want it. Owenty aint took.
Thats all right. What about one forty-two?
She reached and got the key off the board behind her. Youll owe for two nights, she said.
He paid and picked up the bag and walked out and turned down the walkway at the rear of the motel. She leaned over the ter watg him go.
In the room he sat on the bed with the map spread out. He got up a into the bathroom and stood iub with his ear to the wall. A TV laying somewhere.
He went bad sat and unzipped the bag and took out the shotgun and laid it to one side and theied the bag out onto the bed.
He took the screwdriver and got the chair from the desk and stood on it and unscrewed the airduct grille and stepped down and laid it dustside up on the cheap ille bedspread. Then he climbed up and put his ear to the duct. He listened. He stood down and got the flashlight and climbed back up again.
There was a jun in the ductwork about te down the shaft and he could see the end of the bag stig out. He turned off the light and stood listening. He tried listening with his eyes shut.
He climbed down and got the shotgun ao the door and turned off the light at the switch there and stood in the dark looking out through the curtain at the courtyard.
Then he went bad laid the shotgun on the bed and turned on the flashlight.
He uhe little nylon bag and slid the poles out. They were lightweight aluminum tubes three feet long and he assembled three of them and taped the joints with duct tape so that they wouldnt pull apart. He went to the closet and came back with three wire hangers and sat on the bed and cut the hooks off with the sidecutters and ed them into one hook with the tape. Theaped them to the end of the pole and stood up and slid the pole down the ductwork.
He turhe flashlight off and pitched it onto the bed a back to the window and looked out. Drone of a truck passing out on the highway. He waited till it was gone.
A cat that was crossing the courtyard stopped. Then it went on again.
He stood on the chair with the flashlight in his hand. He turned on the light and laid the lens up close against the galvanized metal wall of the duct so as to mute the beam and ran the hook down past the bag and tur and brought it back. The hook caught and turhe bag slightly and then slipped free again. After a few tries he mao get it caught in one of the straps aowe9９liｂ?d it silently up the duct hand over hand through the dust until he could let go the pole and reach the bag.
He climbed down and sat on the bed and wiped the dust from the case and unfastehe latd the straps and ope and looked at the packets of bills. He took one of them from the case and riffled it. Theted it bad undid the length of cord hed tied to the strap and turned off the flashlight and sat listening. He stood and reached up and shoved the poles down the dud the back the grid and gathered up his tools. He laid the key on the desk and put the shotgun and the tools in the bag and took it and the case and walked out the door leaving everything just as it was.
Chigurh drove slowly along the row of motel rooms with the window down and the receiver in his lap. He tur the end of the lot and came back. He slowed to a stop and put the Ramcharger in reverse and backed slightly down the blacktop and stopped again. Finally he drove around to the offid parked a in.
The clo the motel office wall said twelve forty-two. The televisio was on and the woman looked like shed been asleep. Yessir, she said. I help you?
He left the office with the key in his shirtpocket and got into the Ramcharger and drove around to the side of the building and parked and got out and walked down to the room carrying the bag with the receiver and the guns in it. In the room he dropped the bag onto the bed and pulled off his boots and came back out with the receiver and the battery pad the shotgun from the truck. The shotgun was a twelve gauge Remington automatic with a plastic military stod a parkerized finish. It was fitted with a shopmade silencer fully a foot long and big around as a beer. He walked down the ramada in his sockfeet past the rooms listening to the signal.
He came back to the room and stood in the open door uhe dead white light from the parking lot lamp. He walked into the bathroom and turhe light on there. He took the measure of the room and looked to see where everything was. He measured where the lightswitches were. Theood in the room taking it all in once again. He sat and pulled on his boots and got the airtank and slung it across his shoulder and caught up the cattlegun where it swung from the rubber airhose and walked out and down to the room.
He stood listening at the door. Then he punched out the lock der with the airgun and kicked open the door.
A Mexi in a green guayabera had sat up on the bed and was reag for a small maegun beside him. Chigurh shot him three times so fast it sounded like one long gunshot a most of the upper part of him spread across the headboard and the wall behind it. The shotgun made a strange deep chugging sound. Like someone coughing into a barrel. He snapped on the light and stepped out of the doorway and stood with his back to the outside wall. He looked in again quickly. The bathroom door had been shut.
Now it eepped into the room and fired two loads through the standing door and ahrough the wall and stepped out again. Down toward the end of the building a light had e on. Chigurh waited. Then he looked into the room once more.
The door was blown into shredded plywood hanging off the hinges and a thin stream of blood had started across the pink bathroom tiles.
He stepped into the doorway and fired two more rounds through the bathroom wall and then walked in with the shotgun leveled at his waist. The man was lying slumped against the tub holding an AK-47. He was shot in the chest and the ned he was bleeding heavily. e, he wheezed. e. Chigurh stepped back to avoid the spray of ceramic chips off the tub and shot him in the face.
He walked out and stood on the sidewalk. No ohere. He went ba and searched the room. He looked in the closet and he looked uhe bed and he pulled all the drawers out into the floor. He looked ihroom. Mosss H&K maepistol was lying on the sink. He left it there. He wiped his feet bad forth on the carpet to get the blood off the soles of his boots aood looking at the room. Then his eye fell on the airduct.
He took the lamp from beside the bed and jerked the cord free and climbed up onto the dresser and stove in the grate with the metal lampbase and pulled it loose and looked in.
He could see the dragmarks in the dust. He climbed down and stood there. Hed got blood and matter on his shirt from off the wall aook the shirt off a back into the bathroom and washed himself and dried with one of the bath-towels. Then he wet the towel and wiped off his boots and folded the towel again and wiped down the legs of his jeans. He picked up the shotgun and came bato the room o the waist, the shirt balled in one hand. He wiped his bootsoles on the carpet again and looked around the room a last time a.
When Bell walked into the office Torbert looked up from his desk and then rose and came over and laid a paper down in front of him.
Is this it? Bell said.
Yessir.
Bell leaned ba his chair to read, tapping his lower lip slowly with his forefinger.
After a while he put the report down. He didnt look at Torbert. I know whats happened here, he said.
All right.
Have you ever been to a slaughterhouse?
Yessir. I believe so.
Youd know it if you had.
I think I went once when I was a kid.
Funny place to take a kid.
I think I went my own self. Snu.
How did they kill the beef?
They had a kraddled the chute and theyd let the beeves through o a time and hed knock em in the head with a maul. He dohat all day.
That sounds abht. They dont do it thataway no more. They use a airpun that shoots a steel bolt out of it. Just shoots it out about so far. They put that thing between the beefs eyes and pull the trigger and down she goes. Its that quick.
Torbert was standing at the er of Bells desk. He waited a minute for the sheriff to ti the sheriff didnt tiorbert stood there. Then he looked away. I wish you hadnt of even told me, he said.
I know, said Bell. I knowed what youd say fore you said it.
Moss pulled into Eagle Pass at a quarter till two in the m. Hed slept a good part of the way in the back of the cab and he only woke when they slowed ing off the highway and down Main Street. He watched the pale white globes of the streetlamps pass along the upper rim of the window. The up.
You goin across the river? the driver said.
No. Just take me downtown.
You are downtown.
Moss leaned forward with his elbows on the back of the seat.
Whats that right there.
Thats the Maverick ty Courthouse.
Nht there where the sign is.
Thats the Hotel Eagle.
Drop me there.
He paid the driver the fifty dollars theyd agreed on and picked up his bags off the curb and walked up the steps to the pord went in. The clerk was standing at the desk as if hed been expeg him.
He paid and put the key in his pocket and climbed the stairs and walked down the old hotel corridor. Dead quiet. No lights iransoms. He found the room and put the key in the door and ope a in and shut the door behind him. Light from the streetlamps ing through the lace curtains at the window. He set the bags on the bed a back to the door and switched on the overhead light. Old fashioned pushbutton switchplate. Oak furniture from the turn of the tury. Brown walls. Same ille bedspread.
He sat on the bed thinking things over. He got up and looked out the window at the parking lot and he went into the bathroom and got a glass of water and came bad sat on the bed agaiook a sip ahe water on the glass top of the wooden bedside table. There is no goddamn way, he said.
He undid the brass latd the buckles on the case and began to take the packets of money out and to stack them on the bed. When the case was empty he checked it for a false bottom and he checked the bad sides and the it aside and began to go through the stacks of bills, riffling each of the packets and stag them ba the case. Hed packed it about a third full before he found the sending unit.
The middle of the packet had been filled in with dollar bills with the ters cut out and the transponder unit here was about the size of a Zippo lighter. He slid back the tape and took it out and weighed it in his hand. The it in the drawer and got up and took the cut-out dollar bills and the banktape to the bathroom and flushed them dowoilet and came back. He folded the loose hundreds and put them in his pocket and then packed the rest of the banknotes into the case again ahe case in the chair and sat there looking at it. He thought about a lot of things but the thing that stayed with him was that at some point he was going to have to quit running on luck.
He got the shotgun out of the bag and laid it on the bed and turned on the bedside lamp.
He went to the door and turned off the overhead light and came bad stretched out on the bed and stared at the ceiling. He knew what was ing. He just didnt know whe up a into the bathroom and pulled the on the light over the sink and looked at himself in the mirror. He took a washcloth from the glass towelbar and turned o water ahe cloth and wrung it out and wiped his fad the back of his neck. He took a leak and then switched off the light a bad sat on the bed. It had already occurred to him that he would probably never be safe again in his life and he wondered if that was something that you got used to. And if you did?
He emptied out the bag and put the shotgun in and zipped it shut and took it together with the satchel down to the desk. The Mexi whod checked him in was gone and in his place was another clerk, thin and gray. A thin white shirt and a black bow tie. He was smoking a cigarette and reading Ring magazine and he looked up at Moss with no great enthusiasm, squinting in the smoke. Yessir, he said.
Did you just e on?
Yessir. Be here till ten in the mornin.
Moss laid a hundred dollar bill on the ter. The clerk put down the magazine.
I aint askin you to do nothin illegal, Moss said.
Im just waitin to hear your description of that, the clerk said.
Theres somebody lookin for me. All Im askin you to do is to call me if anybody checks in. By anybody I mean any swingin dick. you do that?
The nightclerk took the cigarette out of his mouth and held it over a small glass ashtray and tipped the ash from the end of it with his little finger and looked at Moss. Yessir, he said. I do that.
Moss nodded a back upstairs.
The phone never rang. Something woke him. He sat up and looked at the clo the table. Four thirty-seven. He swung his legs over the side of the bed and reached and got his boots and pulled them on and sat listening.
He went over and stood with his ear to the door, the shotgun in one hand. He went in the bathroom and pulled back the plastic showercurtain where it hung s over the tub and turned oap and pulled the pluo start the shower. Then he pulled the curtain back around the tub a out and closed the bathroom door behind him.
He stood at the door listening again. He dragged out the nylon bag from where hed pushed it uhe bed a in the chair in the er. He went over and switched on the light at the bedside table and stood there trying to think. He realized that the phone might ring aook the receiver from the cradle and laid it oable. He pulled back the covers and rumpled the pillows on the bed. He looked at the clock. Four forty-three. He looked at the phone lying there oable. He picked it up and pulled the cord out of it and put it ba the cradle. Then he went over and stood at the door, his thumb on the hammer of the shotgun. He dropped to his stomad put his ear to the spader the door. A cool wind. As if a door had opened somewhere. What have you done. What have you failed to do.
He went to the far side of the bed and dropped doushed himself underh it and lay there on his stomach with the shotgun poi the door. Just spaough beh the wooden slats. Heart pumping against the dusty carpet. He waited. Two ns of dark intersected the bar of light beh the door and stood there. The thing he heard was the key in the lock. Very softly. Then the door opened. He could see out into the hallway. There was no ohere. He waited. He tried not even to blink but he did. Then there was an expensive pair of ostrichskin boots standing in the doorway.
Pressed jeans. The man stood there. Then he came in. Then he crossed slowly to the bathroom.
At that moment Moss realized that he was not going to opehroom door. He was going to turn around. And when he did it would be too late. Too late to make any more mistakes or to do anything at all and that he was going to die. Do it, he said. Just do it.
Dont turn around, he said. You turn around and Ill blow you to hell.
The man didnt move. Moss was walking forward on his elbows holding the shotgun. He could see no higher than the mans waist and he didnt know what kind of gun he was carrying. Drop the gun, he said. Do it now.
A shotgun clattered to the floor. Moss pulled himself up. Get your hands up, he said.
Step back from the door.
He took two steps bad stood, his hands at shoulder level. Moss came around the end of the bed. The man was no more than te away. The whole room ulsing slowly. There was an odd smell in the air. Like some fn cologne. A medial edge to it. Everything humming. Moss held the shotgun at his waist with the hammer cocked.
There was nothing that could happen that would have surprised him. He felt as if he weighed nothing. He felt as if he were floating. The man didnt even look at him. He seemed oddly untroubled. As if this were all part of his day.
Back up. Some more.
He did. Moss picked up the mans shotgun and threw it onto the bed. He switched on the overhead light and shut the door. Look over here, he said.
The man turned his head and gazed at Moss. Blue eyes. Serene. Dark hair. Something about him faintly exotic. Beyond Mosss experience.
What do you want?
He didnt answer.
Moss crossed the room and took hold of the footpost of the bed and swung the bed sideways with one hand. The dot case stood there in the dust. He picked it up.
The man didnt eveo notice. His thoughts seemed elsewhere.
He took the nylon bag from the chair and slung it over his shoulder a the shotgun with its huge like silencer off the bed and put it under his arm and picked up the case agais go, he said. The man lowered his hands and walked out into the hallway.
The small box that held the transponder receiver was standing in the floor just outside the door. Moss left it there. He had the feeling hed already taken more ces than he had ing. He backed down the hallway with his shotgun trained on the ma, holding it in one hand like a pistol. He started to tell him to put his hands back up but something told him that it didnt really make any difference where the mans hands were.
The bedroom door was still open, the shower still running.
You show your face at the head of these stairs and Ill shoot you.
The man didnt answer. He could have been a mute for all that Moss knew.
Right there, Moss said. Dont you take aep.
He stopped. Moss backed to the stairs and took one last look at him standing there in the dull yellow light from the wallsd theurned and doubled dowairwell taking the steps two at a time. He didnt know where he was going. He hadnt thought that far ahead.
In the lobby the nightclerks feet were stig out from behind the desk. Moss didnt stop. He pushed out through the front door and doweps. By the time hed crossed the street Chigurh was already on the baly of the hotel above him. Moss felt something tug at the bag on his shoulder. The pistolshot was just a muffled pop, flat and small in the dark quiet of the towurned in time to see the muzzleflash of the sed shot faint but visible uhe pink glow of the fifteen foot high neon hotel sign.
He didnt feel anything. The bullet s his shirt and blood started running down his upper arm and he was already at a dead run. With the shot he felt a stinging pain in his side. He fell down and got up again leaving Chigurhs shotgun lying ireet. Damn, he said. What a shot.
He loped wing down the sideast the Aztec Theatre. As he passed the little round ticket kiosk all the glass fell out of it. He never even heard that shot. He spun with the shotgun and thumbed back the hammer and fired. The buckshot rattled off the sed storey balustrade and took the glass out of some of the windows. Wheurned again a car ing down Main Street picked him up in the lights a99lｉb?nd slowed and then speeded up agaiurned up Adams Street and the car skidded sideways through the interse in a cloud of rubbersmoke and stopped. The engine had died and the driver was trying to start it. Moss turned with his back to the brick wall of the building. Two men had e from the car and were crossing the street on foot at a run.
One of them opened fire with a small caliber maegun and he fired at them twice with the shotgun and then loped on with the warm blood seeping into his crotch. Ireet he heard the car start up again.
By the time he got to Grareet a pandemonium of gunfire had broken out behind him. He didnt think he could run any more. He saw himself limping along in a storewindow across the street, holding his elbow to his side, the bag slung over his shoulder and carrying the shotgun and the leather dot case, dark in the glass and wholly unatable. When he looked again he was sitting on the sidewalk. Get up you son of a bitch, he said. Dont you set there and die. You get the hell up.
He crossed Ryan Street with blood sloshing in his boots. He pulled the bag around and unzipped it and shoved the shotgun in and zipped it shut agaiood t. Then he crossed to the bridge. He was cold and shivering ahought he was going to vomit.
There was a gewindow and a turnstile on the Ameri side of the bridge and he put a dime in the slot and pushed through and staggered out onto the span and eyed the narrow walk ahead of him. Just breaking first light. Dull and gray above the floodplain along the east shore of the river. Gods own distao the far side.
Half way he met a party returning. Four of them, young boys, maybe eighteen, partly drunk. He set the case on the sidewalk and took a pack of the hundreds from his pocket.
The money was slick with blood. He wiped it on his tr and peeled off five of the bills and put the rest in his back pocket.
Excuse me, he said. Leaning against the link fence. His bloody footprints on the walk behind him like clues in an arcade.
Excuse me.
They were stepping off the curb into the roadway to go around him.
Excuse me I wondered if you all would sell me a coat.
They didnt stop till they were past him. Then one of them turned. Whatll you give? he said.
That man behind you. The one in the long coat.
The one in the long coat stopped with the others.
How much?
Ill give you five hundred dollars.
Bullshit.
e on Brian.
Lets go, Brian. Hes drunk.
Brian looked at them and he looked at Moss. Lets see the money, he said.
Its right here.
Let me see it.
Let me hold the coat.
Lets go, Brian.
You take this hundred a me hold the coat. Then Ill give you the rest.
All right.
He slipped out of the coat and ha over and Moss handed him the bill.
Whats this on it?
Blood.
Blood?
Blood.
He stood holding the bill in one hand. He looked at the blood on his fingers. What happeo you?
Ive been shot.
Lets go, Brian. Goddamn.
Let me have the money.
Moss handed him the bills and unshouldered the zipper bag to the sidewalk and struggled into the coat. The boy folded the bills and put them in his pocket and stepped away.
He joihe others and they went on. Theopped. They were talking together and looking back at him. He got the coat buttoned and put his money in the inside pocket and shouldered the bag and picked up the leather case. You all o keep walkin, he said. I wont tell you twice.
They turned a on. There were only three of them. He shoved at his eyes with the heel of his hand. He tried to see where the fourth one had gohen he realized that there was no fourth ohats all right, he said. Just keep puttin one foot in front of the other.
When he reached the place where the river actually passed beh the bridge he stopped and stood looking down at it. The Mexi gateshack was just ahead. He looked back down the bridge but the three were gone. A grainy light to the east. Over the low black hills beyond the town. The water moved beh him slow and dark. A dog somewhere. Silenothing.
There was a stand of tall carrizo e growing along the Ameri side of the river below him a the zipper bag down and took hold of the case by the handles and swung it behind him and then heaved it over the rail and out into space.
Whitehot pain. He held his side and watched the bag turn slowly in the diminishing light from the bridgelamps and drop soundlessly into the e and vanish. Then he slid to the pavement and sat there in the puddling blood, his face against the wire. Get up, he said. Damn you, get up.
When he reached the gatehouse there was no ohere. He pushed through and into the town of Piedras Negras, State of Coahuila.
He made his the street to a small park or zocalo where the grackles in the eucalyptus trees were waking and calling. The trees were painted white to the height of a wainscot and from a distahe park seemed set with white posts arrayed at random.
In the ter a wrought-iron gazebo or bandstand. He collapsed on one of the iron benches with the bag on the bench beside him and leaned forward holding himself.
Globes e light hung from the lampstands. The world reg. Across from the park was a church. It seemed far away. The grackles creaked and swayed in the branches overhead and day was ing.
He put out one hand on the bench beside him. Nausea. Dont lie down.
No sun. Just the gray light breaking. The streets wet. The shops closed. Iron shutters.
An old man was ing along pushing a broom. He paused. Then he moved on.
Se?or, Moss said.
Bueno, the old man said.
You speak english?
He studied Moss, holding the broom handle in both hands. He shrugged his shoulders.
I need a doctor.
The old man waited for more. Moss pushed himself up. The bench was bloody. Ive been shot, he said.
The old man looked him over. He clucked his tongue. He looked away toward the dawn.
The trees and buildings taking shape. He looked at Moss aured with his .
Puede andar? he said.
What?
Puede ar? He made walking motions with his fingers, his hand hanging loosely at the wrist.
Moss nodded. A wave of blaess came over him. He waited till it passed.
Tiene dinero? The sweeper rubbed his thumb and fiogether.
Si, Moss said. Si. He rose and stood swaying. He took the packet of bloodsoaked bills from the overcoat pocket and separated a hundred dollar note and ha to the old man. The old man took it with great reverence. He looked at Moss and theood the broom against the bench.
When Chigurh came doweps and out the front door of the hotel he had a towel ed around his upper right leg and tied with ses of window blind cord. The towel was already wet through with blood. He was carrying a small bag in one hand and a pistol iher.
The Cadillac was crossways ierse and there was gunfire ireet. He stepped bato the doorway of the barbershop. The clatter of automatic riflefire and the deep heavy slam of a shotgun rattling off the facades of the buildings. The men in the street were dressed in raincoats and tennis shoes. They didnt look like anybody you would expeeet in this part of the try. He limped back up the steps to the pord laid the pistol over the balustrade and opened fire on them.
By the time theyd figured out where the fire was ing from hed killed one and wounded ahe wounded man got behind the car and opened up oel.
Chigurh stood with his back to the brick wall and fitted a fresh clip into the pistol. The rounds were taking out the glass in the doors and splintering up the sashwork. The foyer light went out. It was still dark enough ireet that you could see the muzzleflashes.
There was a break in the firing and Chigurh turned and pushed his way through into the hotel lobby, the bits of glass crag under his boots. He went gimping down the hallway and doweps at the rear of the hotel and out into the parking lot.
He crossed the street a up Jefferson keeping to the north wall of the buildings, trying to hurry and swinging the bound leg out at his side. All of this was one block from the Maverick ty Courthouse and he figured he had mi best before fresh parties began to arrive.
Whe to the er there was only one man standing ireet. He was at the rear of the car and the car was badly shot up, all of the glass gone or shot white. There was at least one body ihe man was watg the hotel and Chigurh leveled the pistol and shot him twid he fell down ireet. Chigurh stepped back behind the er of the building and stood with the pistol upright at his shoulder, waiting. A rich tang of gunpowder on the air. Like the smell of fireworks. No sound anywhere.
When he limped out into the street one of the men hed shot from the hotel porch was crawling toward the curb. Chigurh watched him. Then he shot him in the back. The other one was lying by the front fender of the car. Hed been shot through the head and the dark blood ooled all about him. His on was lying there but Chigurh paid it no mind. He walked to the rear of the ca..r and jostled the man there with his boot and the and picked up the mae-gun hed been firing. It was a shortbarreled Uzi with the twenty-five round clip. Chigurh rifled the dead mans raincoat pockets and came up with three more clips, one of them full. He put them in the pocket of his jacket and stuck the pistol down in the front of his belt and checked the rounds in the clip that was in the Uzi. Then he slung the piece over his shoulder and hobbled back to the curb.
The man hed shot in the back was lying there watg him. Chigurh looked up the street toward the hotel and the courthouse. The tall palm trees. He looked at the man.
The man was lying in a spreading pool of blood. Help me, he said. Chigurh took the pistol from his waist. He looked into the mans eyes. The man looked away.
Look at me, Chigurh said.
The man looked and looked away again.
Do you speak english?
Yes.
Dont look away. I want you to look at me.
He looked at Chigurh. He looked at the nealing all about. Chigurh shot him through the forehead and then stood watg. Watg the capillaries break up in his eyes. The light reg. Watg his own image degrade in that squandered world. He shoved the pistol in his belt and looked back up the street once more. Then he picked up the bag and slung the Uzi over his shoulder and crossed the street a limping on toward the hotel parking lot where hed left his vehicle.
V
WE E HERE FROM Geia. Our family did. Horse and wagon. I pretty much know that for a fact. I know theys a lots of things in a family history that just plain aint so. Any family. The stories gets passed on and the truth gets passed over. As the sayin goes. Which I re some would take as meanin that the truth t pete. But I dont believe that. I think that when the lies are all told and fot the truth will be there yet.
It dont move about from place to plad it dont ge from time to time. You t corrupt it any more than you salt salt. You t corrupt it because thats what it is.
Its the thing youre talkin about. Ive heard it pared to the rock — maybe in the bible—and I wouldnt disagree with that. But itll be here evehe rock is gone. Im sure theys people would disagree with that. Quite a few, in fact. But I never could find out what any of them did believe.
You always tried to be available for your social events and I would always go to things like cemetery ins of course. That was all right. The women would fix dinner on the ground and of course it was a way of campaignin but you were doin somethin for folks that couldnt do it for theirselves. Well, you could be ical about it I re and say that you just didnt want em in around at night. But I think it goes deeper than that.
It is unity and it is respect, of course, but the dead have more claims on you than what you might want to admit or even what you might know about and them claims be very strong indeed. Very strong indeed. You get the feelin they just dont want to turn loose. So any little thing helps, in that respect.
What I was sayiher day about the papers. Here last week they found this couple out in California they would rent out rooms to old people and then kill em and bury em in the yard and cash their social security checks. Theyd torture em first, I dont know why. Maybe their television was broke. Now heres what the papers had to say about that. I quote from the papers. Said: Neighbors were alerted when a man run from the premises wearin only a dogcollar. You t make up such a thing as that. I dare you to even try.
But thats what it took, youll notice. All that hollerin and diggin in the yard didnt bring it.
Thats all right. I laughed myself when I read it. There aint a whole lot else you do.
IT WAS ALMOST A three hour drive to Odessa and dark whe there. He listeo the truckers on the radio. Has he got jurisdi up here? e on. Hell if I know. I think if he sees you ittin a crime he does. Well Im a reformed criminal then. You got that right old buddy.
He got a city map at the quickstop and spread it out on the seat of the cruiser while he drank coffee out of a styrofoam cup. He traced his route on the map with a yellow marker from the glovebox and refolded the map and laid it on the seat beside him and switched off the domelight and started the engine.
When he k the door Llewelyns wife answered it. As she opehe door he took off his hat and he was right away sorry hed do. She put her hand to her mouth and reached for the doorjamb.
Im sorry mam, he said. Hes all right. Your husband is all right. I just wao talk to you if I could.
You aint lyin to me are you?
No mam. I dont lie.
You drove up here from Sanderson?
Yes mam.
What did you want.
I just wao visit with you a little bit. Talk to you about your husband.
Well you t e in here. Youll scare Mama to death. Let me get my coat.
Yes mam.
They drove down to the Sunshine Cafe and sat in a booth at the rear and ordered coffee.
You dont know where hes at, do you.
No I dont. I doold you.
I know you did.
He took off his hat and laid it in the booth beside him and ran his hand through his hair.
You aint heard from him?
No I aint.
Nothin.
Not word one.
The waitress brought the coffee in two heavy white a mugs. Bell stirred his with his spoon. He raised the spoon and looked into the smoking silver bowl of it. How much money did he give you?
She didnt answer. Bell smiled. What did you start to say? he said. You say it.
I started to say thats some more of your business, aint it.
Why dont you just pretend I aint the sheriff.
And pretend youre what?
You know hes in trouble.
Llewelyn aint dohin.
Its not me hes in trouble with.
Whos he in trouble with then?
Some pretty bad people.
Llewelyn take care of hisself.
Do you care if I call you Carla?
I go by Carla Jean.
Carla Jean. Is that all right?
Thats all right. You dont care if I keep on callin you Sheriff do you?
Bell smiled. No, he said. Thats fine.
All right.
These people will kill him, Carla Jean. They wont quit.
He woher. He never has.
Bell nodded. He sipped his coffee. The face that lapped and shifted in the dark liquid in the cup seemed an omen of things to e. Things losing shape. Taking you with them.
He set the cup down and looked at the girl. I wish I could say that was in his favor. But I have to say I dont think it is.
Well, she said, hes who he is and he always will be. Thats why I married him.
But you aint heard from him in a while.
I didnt expect to hear from him.
Were you all havin problems?
We dont have problems. When roblems we fix em.
Well, youre lucky people.
Yes we are.
She watched him. How e you to ask me that, she said.
About havin problems?
About havin problems.
I just wondered if you were.
Has somethin happehat you know about and I dont?
No. I could ask you the same thing.
Except I wouldnt tell you.
Yes.
You think hes left me, dont you.
I dont know. Has he?
No. He aint. I know him.
You used to know him.
I know him yet. He aint ged.
Maybe.
But you dont believe that.
Well, I guess in all hoy I would have to say that I never knew nor did I ever hear of anybody that money didnt ge. Id have to say hed be the first.
Well hell be the first then.
I hope thats true.
Do you really hope that, Sheriff?
Yes. I do.
He aint been charged with nothin?
No. He aint been charged with nothin.
That dont mean he wont be.
No. It dont. If he lives that long.
Well. He aint dead yet.
I hope thats more fort to you than it is to me.
He sipped the coffee ahe mug down oable. He watched her. He o turn the money in, he said. Theyd put it in the papers. Then maybe these people would leave him alone. I t guarahat they will. But they might. Its the only ce hes got.
You could put it in the papers anyway.
Bell studied her. No, he said. I couldnt.
Or wouldnt.
Wouldnt then. How much money is it?
I dont know what youre talkin about.
All right.
You care if I smoke? she said.
I think were still in America.
She got her cigarettes out and lit one and turned her fad blew the smoke out into the room. Bell watched her. How do you think this is goin to end? he said.
I dont know. I dont know how nothin is goin to end. Do you?
I know how it aint.
Like livin happily ever after?
Somethin like that.
Llewelyns awful smart.
Bell nodded. You ought to be more worried about him I guess is what Im sayin.
She took a long pull on the cigarette. She studied Bell. Sheriff, she said, I think Im probably just about as worried as I o be.
Hes goin to wind up killin somebody. Have you thought about that?
He never has.
He was inam.
I mean as a civilian.
He will.
She didnt answer.
You want some more coffee?
Im coffeed out. I didnt want o start with.
She looked off across the cafe. The empty tables. The night cashier was a boy about eighteen and he was bent over the glass ter reading a magazine. My mamas got cer, she said. She aint got all that long to live.
Im sorry to hear that.
I call her mama. Shes really my grandmother. She raised me and I was lucky to have her. Well. Lucky dont even say it.
Yes mam.
She never did much like Llewelyn. I dont know why. No reason in particular. He was always good to her. I thought after she got diagnosed shed be easier to live with but she aint. Shes got worse.
How e you live with her?
I dont live with her. I aint that ignorant. This is just temporary.
Bell nodded.
I o get back, she said.
All right. Have you got a gun?
Yeah. I got a gun. I guess you think Im just bait settin up here.
I dont know.
But thats what you think.
I t believe its all that good a situation.
Yeah.
I just hope youll talk to him.
I o think about it.
All right.
Id die and live in hell forever fore Id turn snit Llewelyn. I hope you uand that.
I do uand that.
I never did learn no shortcuts about things such as that. I hope I never do.
Yes mam.
Ill tell you somethin if you want to hear it.
I want to hear it.
You might think Im peculiar.
I might.
Or you might think it anyway.
No I dont.
When I got out of high school I was still sixteen and I got a job at Wal-Mart. I didnt know what else to do. We he money. What little it was. Anyway, the night before I went down there I had this dream. Or it was like a dream. I think I was still about half awake. But it e to me in this dream or whatever it was that if I went dowhat he would fi the Wal-Mart. I didnt know who he was or what his name was or what he looked like. I just khat Id know him when I seen him. I kept a dar and marked the days. Like when youre in jail. I mean I aint never been in jail, but like you would probably. And on the y-ninth day he walked in and he asked me where sportin goods was at and it was him. And I told him where it was at and he looked at me a on. And directly he e bad he read my ag and he said my name and he looked at me and he said: What time do you get off? And that was all she wrote. There was not no question in my mind. Not then, not now, not ever.
Thats a ory, Bell said. I hope it has a nidin.
It happened just like that.
I know it did. I appreciate you talkin to me. I guess Id better cut you loose, late as it is.
She stubbed out her cigarette. Well, she said. Im sorry you e all this way not to do er than what you done.
Bell picked up his hat and put it on and squared it. Well, he said. You do the best you . Sometimes things turns out all right.
Do you really care?
About your husband?
About my husband. Yes.
Yes mam. I do. The people of Terrell ty hired me to look after em. Thats my job. I get paid to be the first one hurt. Killed, for that matter. Id better care.
Youre askio believe what you say. But youre the one sayin it.
Bell smiled. Yes mam, he said. Im the one sayin it. I just hope youll think about what I did say. I aint makin up a word about the kind of trouble hes in. If he gets killed then I got to live with that. But I do it. I just want you to think about if you .
All right.
I ask you somethin?
You ask.
I know you aint supposed to ask a woman her age but I couldnt help but be a bit curious.
Thats all right. Im een. I look younger.
How long have you all been married?
Three years. Almost three years.
Bell nodded. My wife was eighteen when we married. Just had turned. Marryin her makes up for ever dumb thing I ever done. I even think I still got a few left in the at. I think Im way in the bla that. Are you ready?
She got her purse and rose. Bell picked up the ched squared his hat again and eased up from the booth. She put her cigarettes in her purse and looked at him. Ill tell you somethin, Sheriff. een is old enough to know that if you have got somethin that means the world to you its all that more likely itll get took away. Sixteen was, for that matter. I think about that.
Bell nodded. I aint a strao them thoughts, Carla Jean. Them thoughts is very familiar to me.
He was asleep in his bed and it still mostly dark out when the ph. He looked at the old radium dial clo the night table and reached and picked up the phone.
Sheriff Bell, he said.
He listened for about two mihen he said: I appreciate you callin me. Yep. Its just out and out war is what it is. I dont know no other name for it.
He pulled up in front of the sheriffs offi Eagle Pass at nine-fifteen in the m and he and the sheriff sat in the offid drank coffee and looked at the photos taken ireet two blocks away three hours earlier.
Theres days Im in favor of givin the whole damn place ba, the sheriff said.
I hear you, said Bell.
Dead bodies ireet. Citizens businesses all shot up. Peoples cars. Whoever heard of such a thing?
we go over and take a look?
Yeah. We go over.
The street was still roped off but there wasnt much to see. The front of the Eagle Hotel was all shot up and there was broken glass in the sidewalk down both sides of the street.
Tires and glass shot out of the cars and holes in the sheet-metal with the little rings of bare steel around them. The Cadillac had been towed off and the glass ireet swept up and the blood hosed away.
Who was it iel do you re?
Some Mexi dopedealer.
The sheriff stood smoking. Bell walked off a ways dowreet. He stood. He came back up the sidewalk, his boots grinding in the glass. The sheriff flipped his cigarette into the street. You go up Adams there about a half a block youll see a blood trail.
Goin yon way, I re.
If he had any sense. I think them boys in the car got caught in a crossfire. It looks to me like they was shootin towards the hotel and up the street yonder both.
What do you re their car was doin in the middle of the interse thataway?
I got no idea, Ed Tom.
They walked up to the hotel.
What kind of shells did you all pick up?
Mostly nine millimeter with some shotgun hulls and a few .380s. We got a shotgun and two maeguns.
Fully automatic?
Sure. Why not?
Why not.
They walked up the stairs. The porch of the hotel was covered in glass and the woodwork shot up.
The nightclerk got killed. About as bad a piece of luck as you could have, I re.
Caught a stray round.
Whered he catch it?
Right between the eyes.
They walked into the lobby and stood. Somebody had thrown a couple of towels over the blood in the carpet behind the desk but the blood had soaked through the towels. He wasnt shot, Bell said.
Who wasnt shot.
The nightclerk.
He wasnt shot?
No sir.
What makes you say that?
You get the lab report and youll see.
What are you sayiom? That they drilled his brains out with a Blad Decker?
Thats pretty close. Ill let you think about it.
Driving back to Sanderson it began to snow. He went to the courthouse and did some paperwork a just before dark. When he pulled up in the driveway behind the house his wife was looking out from the kit window. She smiled at him. The falling snow drifted and turned in the warm yellow light.
They sat itle diningroom and ate. Shed put on music, a violin certo. The phone didnt ring.
Did you take it off the hook?
No, she said.
Wires must be down.
She smiled. I think its just the snow. I think it makes people stop and think.
Bell nodded. I hope it es a blizzard then.
Do you remember the last time it snowed here?
No, I t say as I do. Do you?
Yes I do.
When was it.
Itll e to you.
Oh.
She smiled. They ate.
Thats nice, Bell said.
What is?
The music. Supper. Bein home.
Do you think she was telliruth?
I do. Yes.
Do you think that boy is still alive?
I dont know. I hope he is.
You may never hear another word about any of this.
Its possible. That wouldhe end of it though, would it?
No, I guess it wouldnt.
You t t oo kill one another off like this on a regular basis. But I expect some cartel will take it over sooner or later and theyll wind up just dealin with the Mexi Gover. Theres too much money in it. Theyll freeze out these try boys. It wont be long, her.
How much money do you think he has?
The Moss boy?
Yes.
Hard to say. Could be in the millions. Well, not too many millions. He carried it out of there on foot.
Did you want some coffee?
Yes I would.
She rose ao the sideboard and unplugged the percolator and brought it to the table and poured his cup and sat down again. Just dont e home dead some evenin, she said. I wont put up with it.
I better not do it then.
Do you think hell send for her?
Bell stirred his coffee. He sat holding the steaming spoon above the cup, then he laid it in the saucer. I dont know, he said. I know hed be a damn fool if he didnt.
THE OFFICE WAS ON the seveh floor with a view over the skyline of Houston and the open lowlands to the ship el and the bayou beyond. ies of silver tanks. Gas flares, pale in the day. When Wells showed up the man told him to e in and told him to shut the door. He didnt even turn around. He could see Wells in the glass. Wells shut the door and stood with his hands crossed before him at the wrist. The way a funeral direight stand.
The man finally turned and looked at him. You know Anton Chigurh by sight, is that correct?
Yessir, thats correct.
When did you last see him?
November tweh of last year.
How do you happen to remember the date?
I dont happen to remember it. I remember dates. Numbers.
The man nodded. He was standing behind his desk. The desk was of polished stainless steel and walnut and there wasnt anything on it. Not a picture or a piece of paper.
Nothing.
We got a loose on here. And were missing produd were out a bunoney.
Yessir. I uand that.
You uand that.
Yessir.
Thats good. Im glad Ive got your attention.
Yessir. You have my attention.
The man unlocked a drawer in the desk and took out a steel box and unlocked that and took out a card and closed the box and locked it and put it away again. He held up the card between two fingers and looked at Wells and Wells stepped forward and took it.
You pay your own expenses if I remember correctly.
Yessir.
This at will only give up twelve hundred dollars in any twenty-four hour period.
Thats up from a thousand.
Yessir.
How well do you know Chigurh.
Well enough.
Thats not an answer.
What do you want to know?
The man tapped his knuckles on the desk. He looked up. Id just like to know your opinion of him. In general. The invincible Mr Chigurh.
Nobodys invincible.
Somebody is.
Why do you say that?
Somewhere in the world is the most invincible man. Just as somewhere is the most vulnerable.
Thats a belief that you have?
No. Its called statistics. Just how dangerous is he?
Wells shrugged. pared to what? The bubonic plague? Hes bad enough that you called me. Hes a psychopathic killer but so what? Theres plenty of them around.
He was in a shoot-out at Eagle Pass yesterday.
A shoot-out?
A shoot-out. People dead ireets. You dohe papers.
No sir, I dont.
He studied Wells. Youve led something of a charmed life, havent you Mr Wells?
In all hoy I t say that charm has had a whole lot to do with it.
Yes, the man said. What else.
I guess thats it. Were these Pablos men?
Yes.
Youre sure.
Not in the sehat you mean. But reasonably sure. They werent ours. He killed two other men a couple of days before and those two did happen to be ours. Along with the three at that colossal goatfuck a few days before that. All right?
All right. I guess that will do it.
Good hunting, as we used to say. Once upon a time. In the long ago.
Thank you sir. I ask you something?
Sure.
I couldnt e back up in that elevator, could I?
Not to this floor. Why?
I was just ied. Security. Always iing.
It recodes itself after every trip. A randomly geed five digit number. It doesnt print out anywhere. I dial a number and it reads the code back over the phone. I give it to you and you punch it in. Does that answer your question?
Nice.
Yes.
I ted the floors from the street.
And?
Theres a floor missing.
Ill have to look into it.
Wells smiled.
You see yourself out? the man said.
Yes.
All right.
Oher thing.
What is that.
I wondered if I could get my parking ticket validated.
The man cocked his head slightly. This is an attempt at humor I suppose.
Sorry.
Good day, Mr Wells.
Right.
When Wells got to the hotel the plastic ribbons were gone and the glass and wood had bee up out of the lobby and the place en for business. There lywood nailed over the doors and two of the windows and there was a new clerk standing at the desk where the old clerk had been. Yessir, he said.
I need a room, Wells said.
Yessir. Is it just yourself?
Yes.
And for how many nights would that be.
Probably just the one.
The clerk pushed the pad toward Wells and turo study the keys hanging on the board. Wells filled out the form. I know youre tired of people asking, he said, but what happeo your hotel?
Im not supposed to discuss it.
Thats all right.
The clerk laid the key on the desk. Will that be cash or credit card?
Cash. How much is it?
Fourteen plus tax.
How much is it. Altogether.
Sir?
I said how much is it altogether. You o tell me how much it is. Give me a figure.
All in.
Yessir. That would be fourteey.
Were you here when all this took place?
No sir. I only started here yesterday. This is just my sed shift.
Then what is it youre not supposed to discuss?
Sir?
What time do you get off?
Sir?
Let me rephrase that. What time is your shift over.
The clerk was tall and thin, maybe Mexi and maybe not. His eyes darted briefly over the lobby of the hotel. As if there might be something out there to help him. I just came on at six, he said. The shift is over at two.
And who es on at two.
I dont know his name. He was the dayclerk.
He washe night before last.
No sir. He was the dayclerk.
The man who was on duty the night before last. Where is he?
Hes not with us anymore.
Have you got yesterdays paper here?
He backed away and looked uhe desk. No sir, he said. I think they threw it out.
All right. Send me up a couple of whores and a fifth of whiskey with some ice.
Sir?
Im just pulling y. You o relax. Theyre not ing back. I pretty near guara.
Yessir. I hope to hell not. I didnt even want to take this job.
Wells smiled and tapped the fiberboard keyfob twi the marble desktop a up the stairs.
He was surprised to find the police tape still across both of the rooms. He went on to his own room a his bag in the chair and got out his shavingkit a in the bathroom and turned on the藏书网 light. He brushed his teeth and washed his fad went bato the room and stretched out on the bed. After a while he got up ao the chair and turhe bag sideways and unzipped a partment itom and took out a suede leather pistolcase. He unzipped the case and took out a stainless steel .357 revolver a back to the bed and took off his boots and stretched out again with the pistol beside him.
When he woke it was almost dark. He rose ao the windoushed back the old lace curtain. Lights ireet. Long reefs of dull red cloud racked over the darkeniern horizon. Roofs in a low and squalid skyline. He put the pistol in his belt and pulled his shirt outside of his trousers to cover it a out and down the hallway in his sockfeet.
It took him about fifteen seds to get into Mosss room and he shut the door behind him without disturbing the tape. He leaned against the door and smelled the room. Theood there just looking things over.
The first thing he did was to walk carefully over the carpet. When he came across the depressiohe bed had been moved he swung the bed out into the room. He k and blew at the dust audied the nap of the carpet. He rose and picked up the pillows and smelled them and put them back. He left the bed standing quarterwise in the room and walked over to the wardrobe and opehe doors and looked in and closed them again.
He went into the bathroom. He ran his forefinger around the sink. A washcloth and handtowel had been used but not the soap. He ran his finger down the side of the tub and then wiped it along the seam of his trousers. He sat on the edge of the tub and tapped his foot oiles.
The other room was number 227. He went in and closed the door and turned and stood.
The bed had not bee in. The bathroom door en. A bloody towel lay in the floor.
He walked over and pushed the door all the way back. There was a bloodstained washcloth in the sink. The other towel was missing. Bloody handprints. A bloody handprint on the edge of the showercurtain. I hope you havent crawled off in a hole somewhere, he said. I sure would like to get paid.
He was abroad in the m at first light walking the streets and making notes in his head. The pavement had been hosed off but you could still see bloodstains in the crete of the here Moss had been shot. He went baain Street and started again. Bits of glass iters and along the sidewalks. Some of it windowglass and some of it from curbside automobiles. The windows that had been shot out were boarded up with plywood but you could see the pocks in the brickwork or the teardrop smears of lead that had e down from the hotel. He walked back to the hotel and sat oeps and looked at the street. The sun was ing up over the Aztec Theatre. Something caught his eye at the sed floor level. He got up and walked down and crossed the street and climbed the stairs. Two bulletholes in the windowglass. He tapped at the door and waited. Then he opehe door a in.
A darkened room. Faint smell of rot. He stood until his eyes were aced to the dimness. A parlor. A pianola or small an against the far wall. A chifforobe. A rogchair by the window where an old woman sat slumped.
Wells stood over the woman studying her. Shed been shot through the forehead and had tilted forward leaving part of the back of her skull and a good bit of dried brainmatter stuck to the slat of the rocker behind her. She had a neer in her lap and she was wearing a cotton robe that was black with dried blood. It was cold in the room. Wells looked around. A sed shot had marked a date on a dar on the wall behihat was three days hence. You could not help but notice. He looked around the rest of the room. He took a small camera from his jacket pocket and took a couple of pictures of the dead woman and put the camera ba his pocket again. Not what you had in mind at all, was it darling? he told her.
Moss woke in a ward with sheeting huween him and the bed to his left. A shadowshow of figures there. Voices in Spanish. Dim noises from the street. A motorcycle. A dog. He turned his fa the pillow and looked into the eyes of a man sitting on a metal chair against the wall holding a bouquet of flowers. How are you feeling? the man said.
Ive felt better. Who are you?
My name is Carson Wells.
Who are you?
I think you know who I am. I brought you some flowers.
Moss turned his head and lay staring at the ceiling. How many of you people are there?
Well, Id say theres only one youve got to worry abht now.
You.
Yes.
What about that guy that e to the hotel.
We talk about him.
Talk then.
I make him go away.
I do that myself.
I dont think so.
Youre entitled to your opinions.
If Acostas people hadnt shown up when they did I dont think you would have made out so good.
I didnt make out so good.
Yes you did. You made out extremely well.
Moss turned his head and looked at the man again. How long have you been here?
About an hour.
Just settin there.
Yes.
You dont have much to do, do you?
I like to do ohing at a time, if thats what you mean.
You look dumbern hell settin there.
Wells smiled.
Why dont you put them damn flowers down.
All right.
He rose and laid the bouquet on the bedside table and sat ba the chair again.
Do you know what two timeters is?
Yeah. Its a measurement.
Its about three quarters of an inch.
All right.
Thats the distahat round missed your liver by.
Is that what the doctor told you?
Yes. You know what the liver does?
No.
It keeps you alive. Do you know who the man is who shot you?
Maybe he didnt shoot me. Maybe it was one of the Mexis.
Do you know who the man is?
No. Am I supposed to?
Because hes not somebody you really want to know. The people he meets tend to have very short futures. ent, in fact.
Well good for him.
Youre not listening. You o pay attention. This man wont stop looking for you.
Even if he gets the money back. It wont make any differeo him. Even if you went to him and gave him the money he would still kill you. Just for having invenienced him.
I think I done a little more than invenience him.
How do you mean.
I think I hit him.
Why do you think that?
I sprayed double ought buckshot all over him. I t believe it done him a whole lot of good.
Wells sat ba the chair. He studied Moss. You think you killed him?
I dont know.
Because you didnt. He came out into the street and killed every one of the Mexis and the bato the hotel. Like you might go out a a paper or something.
He didnt kill ever one of them.
He killed the ohat were left.
You tellin me he wasnt hit?
I dont know.
You mean why would you tell me.
If you like.
Is he a buddy of yours?
No.
I thought maybe he was a buddy of yours.
No you didnt. How do you know hes not on his way to Odessa?
Why would he go to Odessa?
To kill your wife.
Moss didnt answer. He lay on the rough linen looking at the ceiling. He was in pain and it was getting worse. You dont know what the hell youre talkin about, he said.
I brought you a couple of photographs.
He rose and laid two photos on the bed and sat back down again. Moss gla them.
What am I supposed to make of that? he said.
I took those pictures this m. The woman lived in an apartment on the sed floor of one of the buildings you shot up. The bodys still there.
Youre full of shit.
Wells studied him. He turned and looked out the window. You dont have anything to do with any of this, do you?
No.
You just happeo find the vehicles out there.
I dont know what youre talkin about.
You didnt take the product, did you?
roduct.
The heroin. You dont have it.
No. I dont have it.
Wells nodded. He looked thoughtful. Maybe I should ask you what you io do.
Maybe I should ask you.
I dont io do anything. I dont have to. Youll e to me. Sooner or later. You dont have a choice. Im going to give you my mobile phone number.
What makes you think I wont just disappear?
Do you know how long it took me to find you?
No.
About three hours.
You might not get so lucky again.
No, I might not. But that wouldnt be good news for you.
I take it you used to work with him.
Who.
This guy.
Yes. I did. At oime.
Whats his name.
Chigurh.
Sugar?
Chigurh. Anton Chigurh.
How do you know I wont cut a deal with him?
Wells sat bent forward in the chair with his forearms across his knees, his fingers laced together. He shook his head. Youre not paying attention, he said.
Maybe I just dont believe what you say.
Yes you do.
Or I might take him out.
Are you in a lot of pain?
Some. Yeah.
Youre in a lot of pain. It makes it hard to think. Let me get the nurse.
I dont need you to do me no favors.
All right.
What is he supposed to be, the ultimate bad-ass?
I dont think thats how I would describe him.
How would you describe him.
Wells thought about it. I guess Id say that he doesnt have a sense of humor.
That aint a crime.
Thats not the point. Im trying to tell you something.
Tell me.
You t make a deal with him. Let me say it again. Even if you gave him the money hed still kill you. Theres no one alive on this plahats ever had even a cross word with him. Theyre all dead. These are not good odds. Hes a peculiar man. You could even say that he has principles. Principles that transd money s or anything like that.
So why would you tell me about him.
You asked about him.
Why would you tell me.
I guess because I think if I could get you to uand the position youre in it would make my job easier. I dont know anything about you. But I know youre not cut out for this. You think you are. But youre not.
Well see, wont we?
Some of us will. What did you do with the money?
I spent about two million dollars on whores and whiskey and the rest of it I just sort of blew it in.
Wells smiled. He leaned ba the chair and crossed his legs. He wore an expensive pair of Lucchese crocodile boots. How do you think he found you?
Moss didnt answer.
Have you thought about that?
I know how he found me. He wont do it again.
Wells smiled. Well good on you, he said.
Yeah. Good on me.
There itcher of water on a plastic tray on the bedside table. Moss no more than gla it.
Do you want some water? Wells said.
If I want somethin from you youll be the first son of a bitch to know about it.
Its called a transponder, Wells said.
I know what its called.
Its not the only way he has of finding you.
Yeah.
I could tell you some things that would be useful for you to know.
Well, I go back to what I just said. I dont need no favors.
Youre not curious to know why Id tell you?
I know why youd tell me.
Which is?
Youd rather deal with me than with this sugar guy.
Yes. Let me get you some water.
You go to hell.
Wells sat quietly with his legs crossed. Moss looked at him. You think you scare me with this guy. You dont know what youre talkin about. Ill take you out with him if thats what you want.
Wells smiled. He gave a little shrug. He 99lｉb?looked down at the toe of his boot and uncrossed his legs and passed the toe under his jeans to dust it and recrossed his legs again. What do you do? he said.
What?
What do you do.
Im retired.
What did you do before you retired?
Im a welder.
Acetylene? Mig? Tig?
Any of it. If it be welded I weld it.
Cast iron?
Yes.
I dont mean braze.
I didnt say braze.
Pot metal?
What did I say?
Were you in Nam?
Yeah. I was in Nam.
So was I.
So what does that make me? Your buddy?
I was in special forces.
I think you have me fused with somebody who gives a shit what you were in.
I was a lieutenant el.
Bullshit.
I dont think so.
And what do you do now.
I find people. Settle ats. That sort of thing.
Youre a hit man.
Wells smiled. A hit man.
Whatever you call it.
The sort of people I tract with like to keep a low profile. They dont like to get involved in things that draw attention. They dont like things in the paper.
Ill bet.
This isnt going to go away. Even if you got lucky and took out one or two people — which is unlikely — theyd just send someone else. Nothing would ge. Theyll still find you. Theres o go. You add to your troubles the fact that the people who were delivering the product dont have that either. So guess who theyre looking at?
Not to mention the DEA and various other law enfort agencies. Everybodys list has got the same name on it. And its the only name on it. You o throw me a bone.
I dont really have any reason to protect you.
Are you afraid of this guy?
Wells shrugged. Wary is the word Id use.
You didion Bell.
Bell. All right?
I take it you dont think much of him.
I dont think of him at all. Hes a redneck sheriff in a hick town in a hick ty. In a hick state. Let me get the nurse. Youre not very fortable. This is my number. I want you to think it over. What we talked about.
He stood and put a card oable o the flowers. He looked at Moss. You think you wont call me but you will. Just dont wait too long. That money belongs to my t.
Chigurh is an outlaw. Times not on your side. We eve you keep some of it. But if I have to recover the funds from Chigurh then it will be too late for you. Not to mention your wife.
Moss didnt answer.
All right. You might want to call her. When I talked to her she sounded pretty worried.
When he was gone Moss turned up the photographs lying on the bed. Like a player cheg his hole cards. He looked at the pitcher of water but then the nurse came in.
VI
YOUNG PEOPLE ANYMORE they seem to have a hard time growin up. I dont know why. Maybe its just that you dont grow up any faster than what you have to. I had a cousin utized peace officer when he was eighteen. He was married and had a kid at the time. I had a friend that I grew up with was a ordained Baptist preacher at the same age. Pastor of a little old try church. He left there to go to Lubbock after about three years and wheold em he was leavin they just set there in that church and blubbered. Men and women alike. Hed married em and baptized em and buried em.
He was twenty-one years old, maybe twenty-two. When he preached theyd be standin out in the yard listenin. It surprised me. He was always quiet in school. I was twenty- one when I went in the army and I was one of the oldest in our class at boot camp. Six months later I was in France shootin people with a rifle. I didnt even think it was all that peculiar at the time. Four years later I was sheriff of this ty. I never doubted but what I was supposed to be her. People anymore you talk abht and wrong theyre liable to smile at you. But I never had a lot of doubts about things like that. In my thoughts about things like that. I hope I never do.
Loretta told me that she had heard on the radio about some pertage of the children in this try bein raised by their grandparents. I fet what it retty high, I thought. Parents wouldnt raise em. We talked about that. What we thought was that when the geion e along and they dont want to raise their childreher then who is goin to do it? Their own parents will be the only grandparents around and they wouldnt even raise them. We didnt have a answer about that. On my better days I think that there is somethin I dont know or there is somethin that Im leavin out. But them times are seldom. I wake up sometimes way in the night and I know as certain as death that there aint nothin short of the sed in of Christ that slow this train.
I dont know what is the use of me layin awake over it. But I do.
I dont believe you could do this job without a wife. A pretty unusual wife at that. Cook and jailer and I dont know what all. Them boys dont know how good theyve got it. Well, maybe they do. I never worried about her bein safe. They get fresh garden stuff a good part of the year. Good bread. Soupbeans. Shes been known to fix em hamburgers and french fries. Weve had em to e back even years later and theyd be married and doin good. Bring their wives. Bring their kids even. They didnt e back to see me. Ive seeo introduce their wives or their sweethearts and then just go to bawlin. Growhat had done some pretty bad things. She knew what she was doin. She always did. So we go over budget on the jail ever month but what are you goin to do about that?
You aint goin to do nothin about it. Thats what yoin to do.
CHIGURH PULLED OFF of the highway at the jun of 131 and opehe telephone directory in his lap and folded over the bloodstained pages till he got to veterinarian. There was a ic outside Bracketville about thirty minutes away. He looked at the towel around his leg. It was soaked through with blood and blood had soaked into the seat. He threw the directory in the floor and sat with his hands at the top of the steering wheel. He sat there for about three mihe the vehicle in gear and pulled out onto the highway again.
He drove to the crossroads at La Pryor and took the road north to Uvalde. His leg was throbbing like a pump. On the highway outside of Uvalde he pulled up in front of the Cooperative and undid the sashcord from around his leg and pulled away the towel.
The out and hobbled in.
He bought a sack full of veterinary supplies. Cotton and tape and gauze. A bulb syringe and a bottle of hydrogen peroxide. A pair of forceps. Scissors. Some packets of four inch swabs and a quart bottle of Betadine. He paid a out and got in the Ramcharger and started the engine and then sat watg the building in the rearview mirror. As if he might be thinking of something else he needed, but that wasnt it. He put his fingers ihe cuff of his shirt and carefully blotted the sweat from his eyes. The the vehicle in gear and backed out of the parking spad pulled out onto the highway headed toward town.
He drove down Main Street and turned north oy a again on Nopal where he parked and shut off the engine. His leg was still bleeding. He got the scissors from the bag and the tape a a three inch round disc out of the cardboard box that held the cotto that together with the tape into his shirtpocket. He took a coathanger from the floor behind the seat and twisted the ends off and straighte out. Then he leaned and opened his bag and took out a shirt and cut off one sleeve with the scissors and folded it and put it in his pocket and put the scissors ba the paper bag from the Cooperative and opehe door and eased himself down, lifting his injured leg out with both hands under his knee. He stood there, holding on to the door.
Then he bent over with his head to his chest and stood that way for the better part of a mihen he raised up and shut the door and started dowreet.
Outside the drugstore on Maiopped and turned and leaned against a car parked there. He checked the street. No one ing. He unscrewed the gascap at his elbow and hooked the shirtsleeve over the coathanger and ran it down into the tank and drew it out agaiaped the cardboard over the open gastank and balled the sleeve wet with gasoline over the top of it and taped it down and lit it and turned and limped into the drugstore. He was little more than halfway down the aisle toward the pharmacy when the car outside exploded into flame taking out most of the glass in front of the store.
He let himself in through the little gate a down the pharmacists aisles. He found a packet of syringes and a bottle of Hydroe tablets and he came back up the aisle looking for penicillin. He couldnt find it but he fouracye and sulfa. He stuffed these things in his pocket and came out from behind the ter in the e glow of the fire a down the aisle and picked up a pair of aluminum crutches and pushed open the rear door a hobbling out across the gravel parking lot behind the store.
The alarm at the rear door went off but no one paid any attention and Chigurh never had even glaoward the front of the store which was now in flames.
He pulled into a motel outside of Hondo and got a room at the end of the building and walked in a his bag on the bed. He shoved the pistol uhe pillow a in the bathroom with the bag from the Cooperative and dumped the tents out into the sink. He emptied his pockets and laid out everything on the ter-keys, billfold, the vials of antibiotid the syringes. He sat on the edge of the tub and pulled off his boots and reached dout the plug iub and turned oap. Then he undressed and eased himself into the tub while it filled.
His leg was blad blue and swollen badly. It looked like a se. He laved water over the wounds with a washcloth. He turned his leg ier and studied the exit wound. Small pieces of cloth stuck to the tissue. The hole was big enough to put your thumb in.
When he climbed out of the tub the water ale pink and the holes in his leg were still leaking a pale blood dilute with serum. He dropped his boots ier and patted himself dry with the towel and sat ooilet and took the bottle of Betadine and the packet of swabs from the sink. He tore open the packet with his teeth and unscrewed the bottle and tipped it slowly over the wounds. The the bottle down ao work, pig out the bits of cloth, using the swabs and the forceps. He sat with the water running in the sink aed. He held the tip of the forceps uhe faucet and shook away the water ao his wain.
When he was done he disied the wound a final time and tore open packets of four by fours and laid them over the holes in his leg and bound them with gauze off of a roll packaged for sheep and goats. Then he rose and filled the plastic tumbler on the sink ter with water and drank it. He filled it and drank twice more. Then he went back into the bedroom and stretched out on the bed with his leg propped on the pillows.
Other than a light beading of sweat on his forehead there was little evidehat his labors had cost him anything at all.
When he went bato the bathroom he stripped one of the syringes out of the plastic er and sank the needle through the seal into the vial of tetracye and drew the glass barrel full and held it to the light and pressed the plunger with his thumb until a small bead appeared at the tip of the needle. Then he she syriwice with his finger a and slid the needle into the quadriceps of his right leg and slowly depressed the plunger.
He stayed iel for five days. Hobbling down to the cafe on the crutches for his meals and back again. He kept the television on a up in the bed watg it and he never ged els. He watched whatever came oched soap operas and the news and talk shows. He ged the dressing twice a day and ed the wounds with epsom salt solution and took the antibiotics. When the maid came the first m he went to the door and told her he did not need any service. Just towels and soap. He gave her ten dollars and she took the money and stood there uainly. He told her the same thing in Spanish and she nodded and put the money in her apron and pushed her cart back up the walkway aood there and studied the cars in the parking lot and then shut the door.
On the fifth night while he was sitting in the cafe two deputies from the Valdez ty Sheriffs Office came in and sat down and removed their hats and put them in the empty chairs at either side and took the menus from the e holder and opehem. One of them looked at him. Chigurh watched it all without turning or looking. They spoke.
Theher one looked at him. Then the waitress came. He finished his coffee and rose ahe money oable and walked out. Hed left the crutches in the room and he walked slowly and evenly along the walkast the cafe wind not to limp. He walked past his room to the end of the ramada and turned. He looked at the Ramcharger parked at the end of the lot. It could not be seen from the office or from the restaurant. He went back to the room and put his shavingkit and the pistol in his bag and walked out across the parking lot and got into the Ramcharger and started it and drove over the crete divider into the parking lot of the eleics shop door and out onto the highway.
Wells stood on the bridge with the wind off the river tousling his thin and sandy hair.
He turned and leaned against the fend raised the small cheap camera he carried and took a picture of nothing in particular and lowered the camera again. He was standing where Moss had stood fhts ago. He studied the blood on the walk. Where it trailed off to nothiopped and stood with his arms folded and his in his hand.
He didnt bother to take a picture. There was no og. He looked out downriver at the slow green water. He walked a dozen steps and came back. He stepped into the roadway and crossed to the other side. A truck passed. A light tremor in the superstructure. He went on along the walkway and theopped. Faint outline of a bootprint in blood. Fainter of another. He studied the -link feo see if there might be blood on the wire. He took his handkerchief from his pocket a with his tongue and passed it among the diamonds. He stood looking down at the river. A road down there along the Ameri side. Between the road and the river a thick stand of carrizo e. The e lashed softly in the wind off the river. If hed carried the money into Mexico it was gone. But he hadnt.
Wells stood bad looked at the bootprints again. Some Mexis were ing along the bridge with their baskets and dayparcels. He took out his camera and snapped a picture of the sky, the river, the world.
Bell sat at the desk signing checks and totting up figures on a hand calculator. When he was done he leaned ba his chair and looked out the window at the bleak courthouse lawn. Molly, he said.
She came and stood in the door.
Did you find anything on any of those vehicles yet?
Sheriff I found out everything there was to find. Those vehicles are titled aered to deceased people. The owner of that Blazer died twenty years ago. Did you wao see what I could find out about the mexi ones?
No. Lord no. Heres your checks.
She came in and took the big leatherette checkbook off his desk and put it under her arm.
That DEA agent called again. You dont want to talk to him?
Im goin to try and keep from it as much as I .
He said hes goin back out there and he wao know if you wao go with him.
Well thats cordial of him. I guess he go wherever he wants. Hes a certified agent of the Uates Gover.
He wao know what you were goin to do with the vehicles.
Yeah. Ive got to try ahem things at auore ty money dowoilet.
One of em has got a hot engine in it. We might be able to get a few dollars for that. No word from Mrs Moss?
No sir.
All right.
He looked at the clo the outer office wall. I wonder if I could get you to call Loretta and tell her Ive goo Eagle Pass and Ill call her from down there. Id call her but shell wao e home and I just might.
You wao wait till youve quit the buildin?
Yes I do.
He pushed the chair bad rose and got down his gu from the coatrack behind his desk and hung it over his shoulder and picked up his hat and put it on. What is it that Torbert says? About truth and justice?
We dedicate ourselves anew daily. Somethin like that.
I think Im goin to ence dedi myself twice daily. It may e to three fore its over. Ill see you in the mornin.
He stopped at the cafe and got a coffee to go and walked out to the cruiser as the flatbed was ing up the street. Powdered over with the gray desert dust. He stopped and watched it and then got in the cruiser and wheeled around and drove past the trud pulled it over. Whe out and walked back the driver was sitting at the wheel chewing gum and watg him with a sort of goodnatured arrogance.
Bell put one hand on the cab and looked in at the driver. The driver nodded. Sheriff, he said.
Have you looked at your load lately?
The driver looked in the mirror. Whats the problem, Sheriff?
Bell stepped back from the truck. Step out here, he said.
The man opehe door and got out. Bell oward the bed of the truck. Thats a damned e, he said.
The man walked bad took a look. One of the tiedowns is worked loose, he said.
He got hold of the loose er of the tarp and pulled it back up along the bed of the truck over the bodies lying there, each ed in blue reinforced plastic sheeting and bound with tape. There were eight of them and they looked like just that. Dead bodies ed and taped.
How many did you leave with? Bell said.
I aint lost none of em, Sheriff.
Couldnt you all of took a van out there?
We didnt have no van with four wheel drive.
He tied down the er of the tarp and stood.
All right, Bell said.
You aint goin to write me up for improperly secured load?
You get your ass out of here.
He reached the Devils River Bridge at sundown and half way across he pulled the cruiser to a halt and turned on the rooflights and got out and shut the door and walked around in front of the vehicle and stood leaning on the aluminum pipe that served for the top guardrail. Watg the su into the blue reservoir beyond the railroad bridge to the west. A westbound semi ing around the long curve of the span downshifted when the lights came into view. The driver leaned from the window as he passed. Dont jump, Sheriff. She aint worth it. Then he was gone in a long suck of wind, the diesel engine winding up and the driver double clutg and shifting gears. Bell smiled. Truth of the matter is, he said, she is.
Some two miles past the jun of 481 and 57 the box sitting in the passenger seat gave off a single bleep a silent again. Chigurh pulled onto the shoulder and stopped. He picked up the box and tur and tur back. He adjusted the knobs.
Nothing. He pulled out onto the highway again. The sun pooled in the low blue hills before him. Bleeding slowly away. A cool and shadowed twilight falling over the desert.
He took off his sunglasses and put them in the glovebox and closed the glovebox door and turned on the headlights. As he did so the box began to beep with a slow measured time.
He parked behind the hotel and got out and came limping around the truck with the box and the shotgun and the pistol all in a zipper bag and crossed the parking lot and climbed the hotel steps.
He registered and got the key and hobbled up the steps and down the hall to his room a in and locked the door and lay on the bed with the shotgun across his chest staring at the ceiling. He could think of no reason for the transponder sending unit to be iel. He ruled out Moss because he thought Moss was almost certainly dead.
That left the police. Or some agent of the Matacumbe Petroleum Group. Who must think that he thought that they thought that he thought they were very dumb. He thought about that.
When he woke it was ten-thirty at night and he lay there in the half dark and the quiet but he knew what the answer was. He got up and put the shotgun behind the pillows and stuck the pistol into the waistband of his trousers. Then he went out and limped down the stairs to the desk.
The clerk was sitting reading a magazine and when he saw Chigurh he stuck the magazine uhe desk and rose. Yessir, he said.
Id like to see the registration.
Are you a police officer?
No. Im not.
Im afraid I t do that sir.
Yes you .
When he came back up he stopped and stood listening in the hallway outside his door.
He went in and got the shotgun and the receiver and then walked down to the room with the tape across it ahe box to the door and tur on. He went down to the sed door and tried the reception there. Then he came back to the first room and opehe door with the key from the desk and stepped bad stood against the hallway wall.
He could hear traffi the street beyond the parking lot but still he thought the window was closed. There was no air moving. He looked quickly into the room. Bed pulled away from the wall. Bathroom door open. He checked the safety on the shotguepped across the doorway to the other side.
There was no one in the room. He sed the room with the box and found the sending unit in the drawer of the bedside table. He sat on the bed turning it in his hand. Small lozenge of burnished metal the size of a domino. He looked out the window at the parking lot. His leg hurt. He put the pieetal in his pocket and turned off the receiver and rose a, pulling the door shut behind him. Ihe room the phone rang. He thought about that for a mihen he? set the transponder on the windowsill in the hallway and turned a back down to the lobby.
And there he waited for Wells. No one would do that. He sat in a leather armchair pushed bato the er where he could see both the front door and the hallway to the rear. Wells came in at eleven-thirteen and Chigurh rose and followed him up the stairs, the shotgun ed loosely in the neer hed been reading. Half the stairs Wells turned and looked bad Chigurh let the paper fall and raised the shotgun to his waist. Hello, Carson, he said.
They sat in Wells room, Wells on the bed and Chigurh in the chair by the window. You dont have to do this, Wells said. Im a daytrader. I could just go home.
You could.
Id make it worth your while. Take you to an ATM. Everybody just walks away. Theres about fourteen grand in it.
Good payday.
I think so.
Chigurh looked out the window, the shotgun across his knee. Getting hurt ged me, he said. ged my perspective. Ive moved on, in a way. Some things have fallen into place that were not there before. I thought they were, but they werent. The best way I put it is that Ive sort of caught up with myself. Thats not a bad thing. It was overdue.
Its still a good payday.
It is. Its just in the wrong currency.
Wells eyed the distaween them. Senseless. Maybe twenty years ago. Probably not even then. Do what you have to do, he said.
Chigurh sat slouched casually in the chair, his resting against his knuckles.
Watg Wells. Watg his last thoughts. Hed seen it all before. So had Wells.
It started before that, he said. I didnt realize it at the time. When I went down on the border I stopped in a cafe in this town and there were some men in there drinking beer and one of them kept looking back at me. I didnt pay any attention to him. I ordered my dinner and ate. But when I walked up to the ter to pay the check I had to go past them and they were all grinning and he said something that was hard to ignore. Do you know what I did?
Yeah. I know what you did.
I ignored him. I paid my bill and I had started to push through the door when he said the same thing again. I turned and looked at him. I was just standing there pig my teeth with a toothpid I gave him a little gesture with my head. For him to e outside.
If he would like to. And then I went out. And I waited in the parking lot. And he and his friends came out and I killed him in the parking lot and then I got into my car. They were all gathered around him. They didnt know what had happehey didnt know that he was dead. One of them said that I had put a sleeper hold on him and thehers all said that. They were trying to get him to sit up. They were slapping him and trying to get him to sit up. An hour later I ulled over by a sheriffs deputy outside of Sonora Texas and I let him take me into town in handcuffs. Im not sure why I did this but I think I wao see if I could extricate myself by an act of will. Because I believe that one . That such a thing is possible. But it was a foolish thing to do. A vain thing to do. Do you uand?
Do I uand?
Yes.
Do you have any notion of how goddamned crazy you are?
The nature of this versation?
The nature of you.
Chigurh leaned back. He studied Wells. Tell me something, he said.
What.
If the rule you followed led you to this of what use was the rule?
I dont know what youre talking about.
Im talking about your life. In whiow everything be seen at once.
Im not ied in your bullshit, Anton.
I thought you might want to explain yourself.
I dont have to explain myself to you.
Not to me. To yourself. I thought you might have something to say.
You go to hell.
You surprise me, thats all. I expected something different. It calls past events into question. Dont you think so?
You think Id trade places with you?
Yes. I do. Im here and you are there. In a few minutes I will still be here.
Wells looked out the darkened window. I know where the satchel is, he said.
If you knew where the satchel was you would have it.
I was going to have to wait until there was no one around. Till night. Two in the m. Something like that.
You know where the satchel is.
Yes.
I know somethier.
Whats that.
I know where its going to be.
And where is that.
It will be brought to me and placed at my feet.
Wells wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. It wouldnt cost you anything. Its twenty minutes from here.
You know thats not going to happen. Dont you?
Wells didnt answer.
Dont you?
You go to hell.
You think you put it off with your eyes.
What do you mean?
You think that as long as you keep looking at me you put it off.
I dont think that.
Yes you do. You should admit your situation. There would be more dignity in it. Im trying to help you.
You son of a bitch.
You think you wont close your eyes. But you will.
Wells didnt answer. Chigurh watched him. I know what else you think, he said.
You dont know what I think.
You think Im like you. That its just greed. But Im not like you. I live a simple life.
Just do it.
You wouldnt uand. A man like you.
Just do it.
Yes, Chigurh said. They always say that. But they dont mean it, do they?
You piece of shit.
Its not good, Carson. You o pose yourself. If you dont respect me what must you think of yourself? Look at where you are.
You think youre outside of everything, Wells said. But youre not.
Not everything. No.
Youre not outside of death.
It doeso me what it does to you.
You think Im afraid to die?
Yes.
Just do it. Do it and goddamn you.
Its not the same, Chigurh said. Youve been giving up things for years to get here. I dont think I even uood that. How does a man decide in what order to abandon his life? Were in the same line of work. Up to a point. Did you hold me in supt?
Why would you do that? How did you let yourself get in this situation?
Wells looked out at the street. What time is it? he said.
Chigurh raised his wrist and looked at his watch. Eleven fifty-seven he said.
Wells nodded. By the old womans dar Ive got three more minutes. Well the hell with it. I think I saw all this ing a long time ago. Almost like a dream. Déjà vu. He looked at Chigurh. Im not ied in your opinions, he said. Just do it. You goddamned psychopath. Do it and goddamn you to hell.
He did close his eyes. He closed his eyes aurned his head and he raised one hand to fend away what could not be fended away. Chigurh shot him in the face. Everything that Wells had ever known or thought or loved drained slowly down the wall behind him. His mothers face, his First union, women he had known. The faen as they died on their knees before him. The body of a child dead in a roadside ravine in another try. He lay half headless on the bed with his arms outflung, most of his right hand missing. Chigurh rose and picked up the empty g off the rug and blew into it and put it in his pocket and looked at his watch. The new day was still a minute away.
He went down the back stairs and crossed the parking lot to Wells car and sorted out the doorkey from the ring of keys Wells carried and opehe door and checked the car inside front and rear and uhe seats. It was a rental car and there was nothing in it but the rental tra the doorpocket. He shut the door and hobbled bad opehe trunk. Nothing. He went around to the driver side and opehe door and popped the hood and walked up front and raised the hood and looked in the engine partment and then closed the hood and stood looking at the hotel. While he was standing there Wells ph. He fished the phone from his pocket and pushed the button and put it to his ear. Yes, he said.
Moss made his way down the ward and back again holding on to the nurses arm. She said encing things to him in Spanish. They tur the end of the bay and started back. The sweat stood on his forehead. Andale, she said. Qué bueno. He nodded. Damn right bueno, he said.
Late in the night he woke from a troubling dream and struggled down the hallway and asked to use the telephone. He dialed the number in Odessa and leaned heavily on the ter and listeo it ring. It rang a long time. Finally her mother answered.
Its Llewelyn.
She dont want to talk to you.
Yes she does.
Do you know what time it is?
I dont care what time it is. Dont you hang up this phone.
I told her what was goin to happen, didnt I? Chapter and verse. I said: This is what will e to pass. And now it has e to pass.
Dont you hang up this phone. You get her and you put her on.
When she picked up the phone she said: I didnt think youd do me thisaway.
Hello darlin, how are you? Are you all right, Llewelyn? What happeo them words?
Where are you.
Piedras Negras.
What am I supposed to do, Llewelyn?
Are you all right?
No Im not all right. How would I be all right? People callin here about you. I had the sheriff up here from Terrell ty. Showed up at the damn door. I thought you was dead.
I aint dead. What did you tell him?
What could I tell him?
He might you into sayin somethin.
Youre hurt, aint you?
What makes you say that?
I hear it in your voice. Are you okay?
Im okay.
Where are you?
I told you where I was.
You sound like youre in a bus station.
Carla Jean I think you o get out of there.
Out of where?
Out of that house.
Youre s me, Llewelyn. Out of here to go where?
It dont matter. I just dont think you should stay there. You could go to a motel.
And do what with Mama?
Shell be all right.
Shell be all right?
Yes.
You dont know that.
Llewelyn didnt answer.
Do you?
I just dont think anybody will bother her.
You dont think?
You o get out. Just take her with you.
I t take my mama to a motel. Shes sick if you aint fot.
What did the sheriff say.
Said he was lookin for you, what do you think he said?
What else did he say.
She didnt answer.
Carla Jean?
She sounded like she was g.
What else did he say, Carla Jean?
He said you was fixin to get yourself killed.
Well, thats what he would say.
She was quiet a long time.
Carla Jean?
Llewelyn, I dont even want the money. I just want us to be back like we was.
We will be.
No we wont. Ive thought about it. Its a false god.
Yeah. But its real money.
She said his name again and then she did begin to cry. He tried to talk to her but she didnt answer. He stood there listening to her sobbing quietly in Odessa. What do you wao do? he said.
She didnt answer.
Carla Jean?
I want things to be like they was.
If I tell you Ill try and fix everthing will you do what I asked you?
Yes. I will.
Ive got a number here I call. Somebody that help us.
you trust them?
I dont know. I just know I t trust nobody else. Ill call you tomorrow. I didnt think theyd find you up there or I never would of sent you. Ill call you tomorrow.
He hung up the phone and dialed the mobile hat Wells had given him. It answered on the sed ring but it wasnt Wells. I think I got the wrong number, he said.
You dont have the wrong number. You o e see me.
Who is this?
You know who it is.
Moss leaned on the ter, his forehead against his fist.
Wheres Wells?
He t help you now. What kind of a deal did you cut with him?
I didnt cut any kind of a deal.
Yes you did. How much was he going to give you?
I dont know what youre talkin about.
Wheres the money.
What did you do with Wells.
We had a difference of opinion. You doo yourself about Wells. Hes out of the picture. You o talk to me.
I doo talk to you.
I think you do. Do you know where Im going?
Why would I care where yoin?
Do you know where Im going?
Moss didnt answer.
Are you there?
Im here.
I know where you are.
Yeah? Where am I?
Youre in the hospital at Piedras Negras. But thats not where Im going. Do you know where Im going?
Yeah. I know where yoin.
You turn all this around.
Why would I believe you?
You believed Wells.
I didnt believe Wells.
You called him.
So I called him.
Tell me what you wao do.
Moss shifted his weight. Sweat stood on his for藏书网ehead. He didnt answer.
Tell me something. Im waiting.
I could be waitin for you when you get there you know, Moss said. Charter a plane. You thought about that?
That would be okay. But you wont.
How do you know I wont?
You wouldnt have told me. Anyway, I have to go.
You know they wohere.
It doesnt make any difference where they are.
So what are you goin up there for.
You know how this is going to turn out, dont you?
No. Do you?
Yes. I do. I think you do too. You just havent accepted it yet. So this is what Ill do. You brihe money and Ill let her walk. Otherwise shes atable. The same as you.
I dont know if you care about that. But thats the best deal yoing to get. I wont tell you you save yourself because you t.
Im goin t you somethin all right, Moss said. Ive decided to make you a special projeine. You aint goin to have to look for me at all.
Im glad to hear that. You were beginning to disappoint me.
You wont be disappointed.
Good.
You dont have to by god worry about bein disappointed.
He left before daylight dressed in the muslin hospital gown with the overcoat over it.
The skirt of the overcoat was stiff with blood. He had no shoes. In the inside pocket of the coat was the money hed folded away there, stiff and bloodstained.
He stood ireet looking toward the lights. Hed no notion where he was. The crete cold under his feet. He made his way down to the er. A feassed.
He walked down to the lights at the er and stopped and leaned with one hand against the building. He had two white lozenges in his overcoat pocket that hed saved aook one now, swallowing it dry. He thought he was going to vomit. He stood there for a long time. There was a windowsill there hed have sat on save that it was spiked with pointed iron bars to disce loiterers. A cab went by and he raised one hand but it kept going. He was going to have to go out into the street and after a while he did. Hed been t there for some time when another cab passed and he raised his hand and it pulled to the curb.
The driver studied him. Moss leaned on the window. you take me across the bridge?
he said.
To the other side.
Yes. To the other side.
You got monies.
Yes. I got monies.
The driver looked dubious. Twenty dollars, he said.
Okay.
At the gate the guard leaned down and regarded him where he sat in the dim rear of the cab. What try were you born in? he said.
The Uates.
What are ying in?
Not anything.
The guard studied him. Would you mind stepping out here? he said.
Moss pushed down on the doorhandle and leaned on the froo ease himself out of the cab. He stood.
What happeo your shoes?
I dont know.
You dont have any clothes on, do you?
I got clothes on.
The sed guard was waving the cars past. He pointed for the cabdriver. Would you please pull your cab over into that sed space there?
The driver put the cab in gear.
Would you mind stepping away from the vehicle?
Moss stepped away. The cab pulled into the parking area and the driver cut the engine.
Moss looked at the guard. The guard seemed to be waiting for him to say something but he didnt.
They took him inside and sat him in a steel chair in a small white office. Another man came in and stood leaning against a steel desk. He looked him over.
How much have you had to drink?
I aint had anything to drink.
What happeo you?
What do you mean?
What happeo your clothes.
I dont know.
Do you have any identification?
No.
Nothing.
No.
The man leaned b?
ve her I dont know what I would have. Well, yes I do. You wouldnt need a box to put it iher.
It was a cold blustery day when he walked out of the courthouse for the last time. Some men could put their arms around a g woman but it never felt natural to him. He walked doweps and out the back door and got in his trud sat there. He couldnt he feeling. It was sadness but it was something else besides. And the something else besides was what had him sitting there instead of starting the truck. Hed felt like this before but not in a long time and when he said that, then he knew what it was. It was defeat. It was beien. More bitter to him thah. You o get over that, he said. Thearted the truck.
XIII
Where you went out the back door of that house there was a stoer trough in the weeds by the side of the house. A galvanized pipe e off the roof and the trough stayed pretty much full and I remember stoppin there oime and squattin down and lookin at it and I got to thinkin about it. I dont know how long it had been there. A hundred years. Two hundred. You could see the chisel marks io was hewed out of solid rod it was about six foot long and maybe a foot and a half wide and about that deep. Just chiseled out of the rock. And I got to thinkin about the man that dohat. That try had not had a time of peace much of ah at all that I knew of. Ive read a little of the history of it sind I aint sure it ever had one. But this man had set down with a hammer and chisel and carved out a stoer trough to last ten thousand years. Why was that? What was it that he had faith in? It wasnt that nothin would ge. Which is what you might think, I suppose. He had to know bettern that. Ive thought about it a good deal. I thought about it after I left there with that house blown to pieces. Im goin to say that water trough is there yet. It would of took somethin to move it, I tell you that. So I think about him settin there with his hammer and his chisel, maybe just a hour or two after supper, I dont know. And I have to say that the only thing I think is that there was some sort of promise in his heart.
And I dont have no iions of carvin a stoer trough. But I would like to be able to make that kind of promise. I think thats what I would like most of all.
The other thing is that I have not said much about my father and I know I have not done him justice. Ive been older now than he ever was for almost twenty years so in a sense Im lookin back at a younger man. He went on the road tradin horses when he was not much more than a boy. He told me the first time or two he got skinned pretty good but he learned. He said this trader oime he put his arm around him and he looked down at him aold him, said: Son, Im goin to trade with you like you didnt even have a horse. Point bein some people will actually tell you what it is they aim 藏书网to do to you and whehey do you might want to listen. That stuck with me. He knew about horses and he was good with em. Ive seen him break a few and he knew what he was doin.
Very easy on the horse. Talked to em a lot. He never broke nothin in me and I owe him more than I would of thought. As the world might look at it I suppose I was a better man.
Bad as that sounds to say. Bad as that is to say. That has got to of been hard to live with.
Let alone his daddy. He would never of made a lawman. He went to college I think two years but he never did finish. Ive thought about him a lot less than I should of and I know that aint right her. I had two dreams about him after he died. I dont remember the first one all that well but it was about meetin him in town somewheres and he give me some money and I think I lost it. But the sed o was like we was both ba older times and I was on horseback goin through the mountains of a night. Goin through this pass in the mountains. It was cold and there was snow on the ground and he rode past me a on goin. Never said nothin. He just rode on past and he had this bla ed around him and he had his head down and when he rode past I seen he was carryin fire in a horn the eople used to do and I could see the horn from the light inside of it. About the color of the moon. And in the dream I khat he was goin on ahead and that he was fixin to make afire somewhere out there in all that dark and all that cold and I khat whenever I got there he would be there. And then I woke up.
ALSO BY CORMAC McCARTHY
Cities of the Plain
The Crossing
All the Pretty Horses
The Stonemason (a play)
The Gardeners Son (a splay)
Blood Meridian
Suttree
Child of God
Outer Dark
The Orchard Keeper
Set in our own time along the bloody frontier between Texas ..and Mexico, this is ac McCarthys first novel siies of the Plain pleted his acclaimed, best- selling Border Trilogy.
Llewelyn Moss, hunting antelope he Rio Grande, instead finds men shot dead, a load of heroin, and more than $2 million in cash. Pag the money out, he knows, will ge everything. But only after two more men are murderebbr>d does a victims burning car lead Sheriff Bell to the age out in the desert, and he soon realizes how desperately Moss and his young wife need prote. One party in the failed transa hires an ex-Special For藏书网ces officer to defend his is against a mesmerizing freelancer, while oher side are men aced to spectacular violend mayhem. The pursuit stretches up and down and across the border, each partit seemingly determio answer what one asks another: how does a man decide in what order to abandon his life?
A harrowing story of a war that society is waging on itself, and an enduriation oies of love and blood and duty ..that inform lives and shape destinies, No try for Old Men is a novel of extraordinary resonand power.天涯在线书库《www.tianyabook.com》