No Country for Old Men (13 page)

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.

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 and
went 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 in the
hotel. 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
under the desk and rose. Yessir, he said.

I'd like to see the registration.

Are you a police officer?

No. I'm not.

I'm afraid I cant do that sir.

Yes you can.

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 and held the box to the door and turned it on. He went down to the second
door and tried the reception there. Then he came back to the first room and opened the
door with the key from the desk and stepped back and stood against the hallway wall.

He could hear traffic in 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 shotgun. He stepped across the
doorway to the other side.

There was no one in the room. He scanned 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 piece of metal in his pocket and turned off the receiver and
rose and left, pulling the door shut behind him. Inside the room the phone rang. He
thought about that for a minute. Then he set the transponder on the windowsill in the
hallway and turned and went back down to the lobby.

And there he waited for Wells. No one would do that. He sat in a leather armchair pushed
back into the corner 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 wrapped loosely in the newspaper he'd been reading. Halfway up the stairs Wells
turned and looked back and 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. I'm a daytrader. I could just go home.

You could.

I'd make it worth your while. Take you to an ATM. Everybody just walks away. There's about
fourteen grand in it.

Good payday.

I think so.

Chigurh looked out the window, the shotgun across his knee. Getting hurt changed me, he
said. Changed my perspective. I've 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 can put
it is that I've sort of caught up with myself. That's not a bad thing. It was overdue.

It's still a good payday.

It is. It's just in the wrong currency.

Wells eyed the distance between 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 chin resting against his knuckles.
Watching Wells. Watching his last thoughts. He'd 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 counter 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 picking my teeth
with a toothpick and I gave him a little gesture with my head. For him to come 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 happened. They didnt know that he was
dead. One of them said that I had put a sleeper hold on him and then the others 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 was pulled over by a sheriff's deputy outside of Sonora Texas
and I let him take me into town in handcuffs. I'm not sure why I did this but I think I
wanted to see if I could extricate myself by an act of will. Because I believe that one
can. That such a thing is possible. But it was a foolish thing to do. A vain thing to do.
Do you understand?

Do I understand?

Yes.

Do you have any notion of how goddamned crazy you are?

The nature of this conversation?

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 you're talking about.

I'm talking about your life. In which now everything can be seen at once.

I'm not interested 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, that's all. I expected something different. It calls past events into
question. Dont you think so?

You think I'd trade places with you?

Yes. I do. I'm 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 morning.
Something like that.

You know where the satchel is.

Yes.

I know something better.

What's that.

I know where it's 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. It's twenty
minutes from here.

You know that's not going to happen. Dont you?

Wells didnt answer.

Dont you?

You go to hell.

You think you can put it off with your eyes.

What do you mean?

You think that as long as you keep looking at me you can put it off.

I dont think that.

Yes you do. You should admit your situation. There would be more dignity in it. I'm 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 I'm like you. That it's just greed. But I'm not like you. I live a simple life.

Just do it.

You wouldnt understand. 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.

It's not good, Carson. You need to compose yourself. If you dont respect me what must you
think of yourself? Look at where you are.

You think you're outside of everything, Wells said. But you're not.

Not everything. No.

You're not outside of death.

It doesnt mean to me what it does to you.

You think I'm afraid to die?

Yes.

Just do it. Do it and goddamn you.

It's not the same, Chigurh said. You've been giving up things for years to get here. I
dont think I even understood that. How does a man decide in what order to abandon his
life? We're in the same line of work. Up to a point. Did you hold me in such contempt? 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 woman's calendar I've got three more minutes. Well the hell with
it. I think I saw all this coming a long time ago. Almost like a dream. Déjà vu. He looked
at Chigurh. I'm not interested 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 and he turned 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
mother's face, his First Communion, women he had known. The faces of men as they died on
their knees before him. The body of a child dead in a roadside ravine in another country.
He lay half headless on the bed with his arms outflung, most of his right hand missing.
Chigurh rose and picked up the empty casing 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 opened the door and checked the car inside
front and rear and under the seats. It was a rental car and there was nothing in it but
the rental contract in the doorpocket. He shut the door and hobbled back and opened the
trunk. Nothing. He went around to the driver side and opened the door and popped the hood
and walked up front and raised the hood and looked in the engine compartment and then
closed the hood and stood looking at the hotel. While he was standing there Wells' phone
rang. He fished the phone from his pocket and pushed the button and put it to his ear.
Yes, he said.