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I WAS SHERIFF OF this ty when I was twenty-five. Hard to believe. My father was not a lawman. Jack was my grandfather. Me and him was sheriff at the same time, him in Piano and me here. I think he retty proud of that. I know I was. I was just back from the war. I had some medals and stuff and of course people had got wind of that. I campaigned pretty hard. You had to. I tried to be fair. Jack used to say that any time youre throwin dirt youre losin ground but I think mostly it just wasnt in him. To speak ill of anybody. And I never did mind bein like him. Me and my wife has been married thirty-one years. No children. We lost a girl but I wont talk about that. I served two terms and then we moved to Denton Texas. Jack used to say that bein sheriff was one of the best jobs you could have and bein a ex-sheriff one of the worst. Maybe lots of things is like that. We stayed gone and stayed gone. I done different things. Was a detective <bdo></bdo>on the railroad for a while. By that time my wife wasnt all that sure about us in back here. About me runnin. But she seen I wao so thats what we done. Shes a better person than me, which I will admit to anybody that cares to listen. Not that thats sayin a whole lot. Shes a better person than anybody I know. Period.People think they know what they want but they generally dont. Sometimes if theyre lucky theyll get it anyways. Me I was always lucky. My whole life. I wouldnt be here otherwise. Scrapes I been in. But the day I seen her e out of Kerrs Mertile and cross the street and she passed me and I tipped my hat to her and got just almost a smile back, that was the luckiest.
People plain about the bad things that happen to em that they dont deserve but they seldom mention the good. About what they doo deserve them things. I dont recall that I ever give the good Lord all that much cause to smile on me. But he did.
WHEN BELL WALKED INTO the cafe on Tuesday m it was just daylight. He got his paper ao his table in the er. The men he passed at the big table o him and said Sheriff. The waitress brought him his coffee a back to the kit and ordered his eggs. He sat stirring the coffee with his spoon although there was nothing to stir since he drank it black. The Haskins boys picture was on the front page of the Austin paper. Bell read, shaking his head. His wife was twenty years old.
You know what you could do for her? Not a damn thing. Lamar had never lost a man in twenty some odd years. This is what he would remember. This is what hed be remembered for.
She came with his eggs and he folded the paper and laid it by.
He took Wendell with him and they drove down to the Desert Aire and stood at the door while Wendell knocked.
Look at the lock, Bell said.
Wendell drew his pistol and opehe door. Sheriffs department, he called.
There aint nobody here.
No reason not to be careful.
Thats right. No reason in the world.
They walked in and stood. Wendell would have holstered his pistol but Bell stopped him. Lets just keep to that careful routine, he said.
Yessir.
He walked over and picked up a small brass slug off of the carpet and held it up.
Whats that? said Wendell.
der out of the lock.
Bell passed his hand over t<s>.</s>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<u>..</u>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.
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