No Country for Old Men (19 page)

Yes, she said, sobbing. I do. I truly do.

Good, he said. That's good. Then he shot her.

The car that hit Chigurh in the intersection three blocks from the house was a ten year
old Buick that had run a stop-sign. There were no skidmarks at the site and the vehicle
had made no attempt to brake. Chigurh never wore a seatbelt driving in the city because of
just such hazards and although he saw the vehicle coming and threw himself to the other
side of the truck the impact carried the caved-in driver side door to him instantly and
broke his arm in two places and broke some ribs and cut his head and his leg. He crawled
out of the passenger side door and staggered to the sidewalk and sat in the grass of
someone's lawn and looked at his arm. Bone sticking up under the skin. Not good. A woman
in a housedress ran out screaming.

Blood kept running into his eyes and he tried to think. He held the arm and turned it and
tried to see how badly it was bleeding. If the median artery were severed. He thought not.
His head was ringing. No pain. Not yet.

Two teenage boys were standing there looking at him.

Are you all right, mister?

Yeah, he said. I'm all right. Let me just sit here a minute.

There's an ambulance comin. Man over yonder went to call one.

All right.

You sure you're all right.

Chigurh looked at them. What will you take for that shirt? he said.

They looked at each other. What shirt?

Any damn shirt. How much?

He straightened out his leg and reached in his pocket and got out his moneyclip. I need
something to wrap around my head and I need a sling for this arm.

One of the boys began to unbutton his shirt. Hell, mister. Why didnt you say so? I'll give
you my shirt.

Chigurh took the shirt and bit into it and ripped it in two down the back. He wrapped his
head in a bandanna and he twisted the other half of the shirt into a sling and put his arm
in it.

Tie this for me, he said.

They looked at each other.

Just tie it.

The boy in the T-shirt stepped forward and knelt and knotted the sling. That arm dont look
good, he said.

Chigurh thumbed a bill out of the clip and put the clip back in his pocket and took the
bill from between his teeth and got to his feet and held it out.

Hell, mister. I dont mind helpin somebody out. That's a lot of money.

Take it. Take it and you dont know what I looked like. You hear?

The boy took the bill. Yessir, he said.

They watched him set off up the sidewalk, holding the twist of the bandanna against his
head, limping slightly. Part of that's mine, the other boy said.

You still got your damn shirt.

That aint what it was for.

That may be, but I'm still out a shirt.

They walked out into the street where the vehicles sat steaming. The streetlamps had come
on. A pool of green antifreeze was collecting in the gutter. When they passed the open
door of Chigurh's truck the one in the T-shirt stopped the other with his hand. You see
what I see? he said.

Shit, the other one said.

What they saw was Chigurh's pistol lying in the floorboard of the truck. They could
already hear the sirens in the distance. Get it, the first one said. Go on.

Why me?

I aint got a shirt to cover it with. Go on. Hurry.

He climbed the three wooden steps to the porch and tapped loosely at the door with the
back of his hand. He took off his hat and pressed his shirtsleeve against his forehead and
put his hat back on again.

Come in, a voice called.

He opened the door and stepped into the cool darkness. Ellis?

I'm back here. Come on back.

He walked through to the kitchen. The old man was sitting beside the table in his chair.
The room smelled of old bacon-grease and stale woodsmoke from the stove and over it all
lay a faint tang of urine. Like the smell of cats but it wasnt just cats. Bell stood in
the doorway and took his hat off. The old man looked up at him. One clouded eye from a
cholla spine where a horse had thrown him years ago. Hey, Ed Tom, he said. I didnt know
who that was.

How are you makin it?

You're lookin at it. You by yourself?

Yessir.

Set down. You want some coffee?

Bell looked at the clutter on the checked oilcloth. Bottles of medicine. Breadcrumbs.
Quarterhorse magazines. Thank you no, he said. I appreciate it.

I had a letter from your wife.

You can call her Loretta.

I know I can. Did you know she writes me?

I guess I knew she'd wrote you a time or two.

It's more than a time or two. She writes pretty regular. Tells me the family news.

I didnt know there was any.

You might be surprised.

So what was special about this letter then.

She just told me you was quittin, that's all. Set down.

The old man didnt watch to see if he would or he wouldnt. He fell to rolling himself a
cigarette from a sack of tobacco at his elbow. He twisted the end in his mouth and turned
it around and lit it with an old Zippo lighter worn through to the brass. He sat smoking,
holding the cigarette pencilwise in his fingers.

Are you all right? Bell said.

I'm all right.

He wheeled the chair slightly sideways and watched Bell through the smoke. I got to say
you look older, he said.

I am older.

The old man nodded. Bell had pulled out a chair and sat and he put his hat on the table.

Let me ask you somethin, he said.

All right.

What's your biggest regret in life.

The old man looked at him, gauging the question. I dont know, he said. I aint got all that
many regrets. I could imagine lots of things that you might think would make a man
happier. I reckon bein able to walk around might be one. You can make up your own list.
You might even have one. I think by the time you're grown you're as happy as you're goin
to be. You'll have good times and bad times, but in the end you'll be about as happy as
you was before. Or as unhappy. I've knowed people that just never did get the hang of it.

I know what you mean.

I know you do.

The old man smoked. If what you're askin me is what made me the unhappiest then I think
you already know that.

Yessir.

And it aint this chair. And it aint this cotton eye.

Yessir. I know that.

You sign on for the ride you probably think you got at least some notion of where the
ride's goin. But you might not. Or you might of been lied to. Probably nobody would blame
you then. If you quit. But if it's just that it turned out to be a little roughern what
you had in mind. Well. That's somethin else.

Bell nodded.

I guess some things are better not put to the test.

I guess that's right.

What would it take to run Loretta off?

I dont know. I guess I'd have to do somethin that was pretty bad. It damn sure wouldnt be
just cause things got a little rough. She's done been there a time or two.

Ellis nodded. He tipped the ash from his smoke into a jar-lid on the table. I'll take your
word on that, he said.

Bell smiled. He looked around. How fresh is that coffee?

I think it's all right. I generally make a fresh pot here ever week even if there is some
left over.

Bell smiled again and rose and carried the pot to the counter and plugged it in.

They sat at the table drinking coffee out of the same crazed porcelain cups that had been
in that house since before he was born. Bell looked at the cup and he looked around the
kitchen. Well, he said. Some things dont change, I reckon.

What would that be? the old man said.

Hell, I dont know.

I dont either.

How many cats you got?

Several. Depends on what you mean by got. Some of em are half wild and the rest are just
outlaws. They run out the door when they heard your truck.

Did you hear the truck?

How's that?

I said did you… You're havin a little fun with me.

What give you that idea?

Did you?

No. I seen the cats skedaddle.

You want some more of this?

I'm done.

The man that shot you died in prison.

In Angola. Yes.

What would you of done if he'd been released?

I dont know. Nothin. There wouldnt be no point to it. There aint no point to it. Not to
any of it.

I'm kindly surprised to hear you say that.

You wear out, Ed Tom. All the time you spend tryin to get back what's been took from you
there's more goin out the door. After a while you just try and get a tourniquet on it.
Your grandad never asked me to sign on as deputy with him. I done that my own self. Hell,
I didnt have nothin else to do. Paid about the same as cowboyin. Anyway, you never know
what worse luck your bad luck has saved you from. I was too young for one war and too old
for the next one. But I seen what come out of it. You can be patriotic and still believe
that some things cost more than what they're worth. Ask them Gold Star mothers what they
paid and what they got for it. You always pay too much. Particularly for promises. There
aint no such thing as a bargain promise. You'll see. Maybe you done have.

Bell didnt answer.

I always thought when I got older that God would sort of come into my life in some way. He
didnt. I dont blame him. If I was him I'd have the same opinion about me that he does.

You dont know what he thinks.

Yes I do.

He looked at Bell. I can remember one time you come to see me after you all had moved to
Denton. You walked in and you looked around and you asked me what I intended to do.

All right.

You wouldnt ask me now though, would you?

Maybe not.

You wouldnt.

He sipped the rank black coffee.

You ever think about Harold? Bell said.

Harold?

Yes.

Not much. He was some older than me. He was born in ninety-nine. Pretty sure that's right.
What made you think about Harold?

I was readin some of your mother's letters to him, that's all. I just wondered what you
remembered about him.

Was they any letters from him?

No.

You think about your family. Try to make sense out of all that. I know what it did to my
mother. She never got over it. I dont know what sense any of that makes either. You know
that gospel song? We'll understand it all by and by? That takes a lot of faith. You think
about him goin over there and dyin in a ditch somewheres. Seventeen year old. You tell me.
Because I damn sure dont know.

I hear you. Did you want to go somewheres?

I dont need nobody haulin me around. I aim to just set right here. I'm fine, Ed Tom.

It aint no trouble.

I know it.

All right.

Bell watched him. The old man stubbed out his cigarette in the lid. Bell tried to think
about his life. Then he tried not to. You aint turned infidel have you Uncle Ellis?

No. No. Nothin like that.

Do you think God knows what's happenin?

I expect he does.

You think he can stop it?

No. I dont.

They sat quietly at the table. After a while the old man said: She mentioned there was a
lot of old pictures and family stuff. What to do about that. Well. There aint nothin to do
about it I dont reckon. Is there?

No. I dont reckon there is.

I told her to send Uncle Mac's old cinco peso badge and his thumb-buster to the Rangers. I
believe they got a museum. But I didnt know what to tell her. There's all that stuff here.
In the chifforobe in yonder. That rolltop desk is full of papers. He tilted the cup and
looked into the bottom of it.

He never rode with Coffee Jack. Uncle Mac. That's all bull. I dont know who started that.
He was shot down on his own porch in Hudspeth County.

That's what I always heard.

They was seven or eight of em come to the house. Wantin this and wantin that. He went back
in the house and come out with a shotgun but they was way ahead of him and they shot him
down in his own doorway. She run out and tried to stop the bleedin. Tried to get him back
in the house. Said he kept tryin to get hold of the shotgun again. They just set there on
their horses. Finally left. I dont know why. Somethin scared em, I reckon. One of em said
somethin in injun and they all turned and left out. They never come in the house or
nothin. She got him inside but he was a big man and they was no way she could of got him
up in the bed. She fixed a pallet on the floor. Wasnt nothin to be done. She always said
she should of just left him there and rode for help but I dont know where it was she would
of rode to. He wouldnt of let her go noway. Wouldnt hardly let her go in the kitchen. He
knew what the score was if she didnt. He was shot through the right lung. And that was
that. As they say.

When did he die?

Eighteen and seventy-nine.

No, I mean was it right away or in the night or when was it.

I believe it was that night. Or early of the mornin. She buried him herself. Diggin in
that hard caliche. Then she just packed the wagon and hitched the horses and pulled out of
there and she never did go back. That house burned down sometime back in the twenties.
What hadnt fell down. I could take you to it today. The rock chimney used to be standin
and it may be yet. There was a good bit of land proved up on. Eight or ten sections if I
remember. She couldnt pay the taxes on it, little as they was. Couldnt sell it. Did you
remember her?

No. I seen a photograph of me and her when I was about four. She's settin in a rocker on
the porch of this house and I'm standin alongside of her. I wish I could say I remember
her but I dont.

She never did remarry. Later years she was a schoolteacher. San Angelo. This country was
hard on people. But they never seemed to hold it to account. In a way that seems peculiar.
That they didnt. You think about what all has happened to just this one family. I dont
know what I'm doin here still knockin around. All them young people. We dont know where
half of em is even buried at. You got to ask what was the good in all that. So I go back
to that. How come people dont feel like this country has got a lot to answer for? They
dont. You can say that the country is just the country, it dont actively do nothin, but
that dont mean much. I seen a man shoot his pickup truck with a shotgun one time. He must
of thought it done somethin. This country will kill you in a heartbeat and still people
love it. You understand what I'm sayin?