Cormac Mccarthy - No Country For Old Men

He stayed in the motel for five days. Hobbling down to the cafe on the crutches for his meals and back again. He kept the television on and he sat up in the bed watching it and he never changed channels. He watched whatever came on. He watched soap operas and the news and talk shows. He changed the dressing twice a day and cleaned the wounds with epsom salt solution and took the antibiotics. When the maid came the first morning 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 uncertainly. 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 and he stood 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 County Sheriff's 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 chrome holder and opened them. One of them looked at him. Chigurh watched it all without turning or looking. They spoke. Then the other one looked at him. Then the waitress came. He finished his coffee and rose and left the money on the table and walked out. He'd left the crutches in the room and he walked slowly and evenly along the walkway past the cafe window trying 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 concrete divider into the parking lot of the electronics shop next 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 fence and 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 four nights ago. He studied the blood on the walk. Where it trailed off to nothing he stopped and stood with his arms folded and his chin in his hand. He didnt bother to take a picture. There was no one watching. 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 then he stopped. Faint outline of a bootprint in blood. Fainter of another. He studied the chain-link fence to see if there might be blood on the wire. He took his handkerchief from his pocket and wet it with his tongue and passed it among the diamonds. He stood looking down at the river. A road down there along the American side. Between the road and the river a thick stand of carrizo cane. The cane lashed softly in the wind off the river. If he'd carried the money into Mexico it was gone. But he hadnt.

Wells stood back and looked at the bootprints again. Some Mexicans were coming 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 back in 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 and registered to deceased people. The owner of that Blazer died twenty years ago. Did you want me to see what I could find out about the mexican ones?

No. Lord no. Here's 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?

I'm goin to try and keep from it as much as I can.

He said he's goin back out there and he wanted to know if you wanted to go with him.

Well that's cordial of him. I guess he can go wherever he wants. He's a certified agent of the United States Government.

He wanted to know what you were goin to do with the vehicles.

Yeah. I've got to try and sell them things at auction. More county money down the toilet. 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 clock on the outer office wall. I wonder if I could get you to call Loretta and tell her I've gone to Eagle Pass and I'll call her from down there. I'd call her but she'll want me to come home and I just might.

You want me to wait till you've quit the buildin?

Yes I do.

He pushed the chair back and rose and got down his gun-belt 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 I'm goin to commence dedicatin myself twice daily. It may come to three fore it's over. I'll 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 coming 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 truck and pulled it over. When he got out and walked back the driver was sitting at the wheel chewing gum and watching 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. What's the problem, Sheriff?

Bell stepped back from the truck. Step out here, he said.

The man opened the door and got out. Bell nodded toward the bed of the truck. That's a damned outrage, he said.

The man walked back and took a look. One of the tiedowns is worked loose, he said.

He got hold of the loose corner of the tarp and pulled it back up along the bed of the truck over the bodies lying there, each wrapped in blue reinforced plastic sheeting and bound with tape. There were eight of them and they looked like just that. Dead bodies wrapped 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 corner 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 Devil's 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. Watching the sun set into the blue reservoir beyond the railroad bridge to the west. A westbound semi coming 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 clutching and shifting gears. Bell smiled. Truth of the matter is, he said, she is.

Some two miles past the junction of 481 and 57 the box sitting in the passenger seat gave off a single bleep and went silent again. Chigurh pulled onto the shoulder and stopped. He picked up the box and turned it and turned it 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.