No Country for Old Men (16 page)

He was standing in front of the motel office when the cab pulled up. He climbed into the
rear seat, got his breath, then reached and shut the door. He regarded the face of the
driver in the rearview mirror. Do you want to make some money? he said.

Yeah. I want to make some money.

Moss took five of the hundreds and tore them in two and passed one half across the back of
the seat to the driver. The driver counted the torn bills and put them in his shirtpocket
and looked at Moss in the mirror and waited.

What's your name?

Paul, said the driver.

You got the right attitude, Paul. I wont get you in trouble. I just dont want you to leave
me somewheres that I dont want to be left.

All right.

Have you got a flashlight?

Yeah. I got a flashlight.

Let me have it.

The driver passed the flashlight to the back.

You're the man, Moss said.

Where are we going.

Down the river road.

I aint pickin nobody up.

We're not pickin anybody up.

The driver watched him in the mirror. No drogas, he said.

No drogas.

The driver waited.

I'm goin to pick up a briefcase. It belongs to me. You can look inside if you want. Nothin
illegal.

I can look inside.

Yes you can.

I hope you're not jerkin me around.

No.

I like money but I like stayin out of jail even better.

I'm the same way myself, Moss said.

They drove slowly up the road toward the bridge. Moss leaned forward over the seat. I want
you to park under the bridge, he said.

All right.

I'm goin to unscrew the bulb out of this domelight.

They watch this road round the clock, the driver said.

I know that.

The driver pulled off of the road and shut off the engine and the lights and looked at
Moss in the mirror. Moss took the bulb from the light and laid it in the plastic lens and
handed it across the seat to the driver and opened the door. I should be back in just a
few minutes, he said.

The cane was dusty, the stalks close grown. He pushed his way through carefully, holding
the light at his knees with his hand partly across the lens.

The case was sitting in the brake rightside up and intact as if someone had simply set it
there. He switched off the light and picked it up and made his way back in the dark,
taking his sight by the span of the bridge overhead. When he got to the cab he opened the
door and set the case in the seat and got in carefully and shut the door. He handed the
flashlight to the driver and leaned back in the seat. Let's go, he said.

What's in there, the driver said.

Money.

Money?

Money.

The driver started the engine and pulled out onto the road.

Turn the lights on, Moss said.

He turned the lights on.

How much money?

A lot of money. What will you take to drive me to San Antonio.

The driver thought about it. You mean on top of the five hundred.

Yes.

How about a grand all in.

Everthing.

Yes.

You got it.

The driver nodded. Then how about the other half of these five caesars I already got.

Moss took the bills from his pocket and handed them across the back of the seat.

What if the Migra stop us.

They wont stop us, Moss said.

How do you know?

There's too much shit still down the road that I got to deal with. It aint goin to end
here.

I hope you're right.

Trust me, Moss said.

I hate hearin them words, the driver said. I always did.

Have you ever said them?

Yeah. I've said em. That's how come I know what they're worth.

He spent the night in a Rodeway Inn on highway 90 just west of town and in the morning he
went down and got a paper and climbed laboriously back to his room. He couldnt buy a gun
from a dealer because he had no identification but he could buy one out of the paper and
he did. A Tec-9 with two extra magazines and a box and a half of shells. The man delivered
the gun to his door and he paid him in cash. He turned the piece in his hand. It had a
greenish parkerized finish. Semiautomatic. When was the last time you fired it? he said.

I aint never fired it.

Are you sure it fires?

Why would it not?

I dont know.

Well I dont either.

After he left Moss walked out onto the prairie behind the motel with one of the motel
pillows under his arm and he wrapped the pillow about the muzzle of the gun and fired off
three rounds and then stood there in the cold sunlight watching the feathers drift across
the gray chaparral, thinking about his life, what was past and what was to come. Then he
turned and walked slowly back to the motel leaving the burnt pillow on the ground.

He rested in the lobby and then climbed up to the room again. He bathed in the tub and
looked at the exit hole in his lower back in the bathroom mirror. It looked pretty ugly.
There were drains in both holes that he wanted to pull out but he didnt. He pulled loose
the plaster on his arm and looked at the deep furrow the bullet had cut there and then
taped the dressing back again. He dressed and put some more of the bills into the back
pocket of his jeans and he fitted the pistol and the magazines into the case and closed it
and called a cab and picked up the document case and went out and down the stairs.

He bought a 1978 Ford pickup with four wheel drive and a 460 engine from a lot on North
Broadway and paid the man in cash and got the title notarized in the office and put the
title in the glovebox and drove away. He drove back to the motel and checked out and left,
the Tec-9 under the seat and the document case and his bag of clothes sitting in the floor
on the passenger side of the truck.

At the onramp at Boerne there was a girl hitchhiking and Moss pulled over and blew the
horn and watched her in the rearview mirror. Running, her blue nylon knapsack slung over
one shoulder. She climbed in the truck and looked at him. Fifteen, sixteen. Red hair. How
far are you goin? she said.

Can you drive?

Yeah. I can drive. It aint no stick shift is it?

No. Get out and come around.

She left her knapsack on the seat and got out of the truck and crossed in front of it.
Moss pushed the knapsack into the floor and eased himself across and she got in and put
the truck in drive and they pulled out onto the interstate.

How old are you?

Eighteen.

Bullshit. What are you doin out here? Dont you know it's dangerous to hitchhike?

Yeah. I know it.

He took off his hat and put it on the seat beside him and leaned back and closed his eyes.
Dont go over the speed limit, he said. You get us stopped by the cops and you and me both
will be in a shitpot full of trouble.

All right.

I'm serious. You go over the speed limit and I'll set your ass out by the side of the road.

All right.

He tried to sleep but he couldnt. He was in a lot of pain. After a while he sat up and got
his hat off the seat and put it on and looked over at the speedometer.

Can I ask you somethin? she said.

You can ask.

Are you runnin from the law?

Moss eased himself in the seat and looked at her and looked out at the highway. What makes
you ask that?

On account of what you said back yonder. About bein stopped by the police.

What if I was?

Then I think I ought to just get out up here.

You dont think that. You just want to know where you stand.

She looked at him out of the corner of her eye. Moss studied the passing country. If you
spent three days with me, he said, I could have you holdin up gas stations. Be no trick at
all.

She gave him a funny little half smile. Is that what you do? she said. Hold up gas
stations?

No. I dont have to. Are you hungry?

I'm all right.

When did you eat last.

I dont like for people to start askin me when I eat last.

All right. When did you eat last?

I knowed you was a smart-ass from the time I got in the truck.

Yeah. Pull off up here at this next exit. It's supposed to be four miles. And reach me
that machinegun from under the seat.

Bell drove slowly across the cattleguard and got out and closed the gate and got back in
the truck and drove across the pasture and parked at the well and got out and walked over
to the tank. He put his hand in the water and raised a palmful and let it spill again. He
took off his hat and passed his wet hand through his hair and looked up at the windmill.
He looked out at the slow dark elliptic of the blades turning in the dry and windbent
grass. A low wooden trundling under his feet. Then he just stood there paying the brim of
his hat slowly through his fingers. The posture of a man perhaps who has just buried
something. I dont know a damn thing, he said.

When he got home she had supper waiting. He dropped the keys to the pickup in the kitchen
drawer and went to the sink to wash his hands. His wife laid a piece of paper on the
counter and he stood looking at it.

Did she say where she was? This is a West Texas number.

She just said it was Carla Jean and give the number.

He went to the sideboard and called. She and her grandmother were in a motel outside of El
Paso. I need for you to tell me somethin, she said.

All right.

Is your word good?

Yes it is.

Even to me?

I'd say especially to you.

He could hear her breathing in the receiver. Traffic in the distance.

Sheriff?

Yes mam.

If I tell you where he called from do you give your word that no harm will come to him.

I can give my word that no harm will come to him from me. I can do that.

After a while she said: Okay.

The man sitting at the little plywood table that folded up from the wall onto a hinged leg
finished writing on the pad of paper and took off the headset and laid it on the table in
front of him and passed both hands backwards over the sides of his black hair. He turned
and looked toward the rear of the trailer where the second man was stretched out on the
bed. Listo? he said.

The man sat up and swung his legs to the floor. He sat there for a minute and then he rose
and came forward.

You got it?

I got it.

He tore the sheet off the pad and handed it to him and he read it and folded it and put it
into his shirtpocket. Then he reached up and opened one of the kitchen cabinets and took
out a camouflage-finished submachinegun and a pair of spare clips and pushed open the door
and stepped down into the lot and shut the door behind him. He crossed the gravel to where
a black Plymouth Barracuda was parked and opened the door and pitched the machinegun in on
the far seat and lowered himself in and shut the door and started the engine. He blipped
the throttle a couple of times and then pulled out onto the blacktop and turned on the
lights and shifted into second gear and went up the road with the car squatting on the big
rear tires and fishtailing and the tires whining and unspooling clouds of rubbersmoke
behind him.

No Country for Old Men by Cormac McCarthy

No Country for Old Men by Cormac McCarthy

I've lost a lot of friends over these last few years. Not all of em older than me neither.
One of the things you realize about gettin older is that not everbody is goin to get older
with you. You try to help the people that're payin your salary and of course you cant help
but think about the kind of record you leave. This county has not had a unsolved homicide
in forty-one years. Now we got nine of em in one week. Will they be solved? I dont know.
Ever day is against you. Time is not on your side. I dont know as it'd be any compliment
if you was known for second guessin a bunch of dopedealers. Not that they have all that
much trouble second guessin us. They dont have no respect for the law? That aint half of
it. They dont even think about the law. It dont seem to even concern em. Of course here a
while back in San Antonio they shot and killed a federal judge. I guess he concerned em.
Add to that that there's peace officers along this border gettin rich off of narcotics.
That's a painful thing to know. Or it is for me. I dont believe that was true even ten
years ago. A crooked peace officer is just a damned abomination. That's all you can say
about it. He's ten times worse than the criminal. And this aint goin away. And that's
about the only thing I do know. It aint goin away. Where would it go to?

And this may sound ignorant but I think for me the worst of it is knowin that probably the
only reason I'm even still alive is that they have no respect for me. And that's very
painful. Very painful. It has done got way beyond anything you might of thought about even
a few years ago. Here a while back they found a DC-4 over in Presidio County. Just settin
out in the desert. They had come in there of a night and graded out a sort of landin strip
and set out rows of tarbarrels for lights but there was no way you could of flown that
thing back out of there. It was stripped out to the walls. Just had a pilot's seat in it.
You could smell the marijuana, you didnt need no dog. Well the sheriff over there — and I
wont say his name — he wanted to get set up and nail em when they come back for the plane
and finally somebody told him that they wasnt nobody comin back. Never had been. When he
finally understood what it was they was tellin him he just got real quiet and then he
turned around and got in his car and left.

When they was havin them dope wars down across the border you could not buy a half quart
masonjar nowheres. To put up your preserves and such. Your chow chow. They wasnt none to
be had. What it was they was usin them jars to put handgrenades in. If you flew over
somebody's house or compound and you dropped grenades on em they'd go off fore they hit
the ground. So what they done was they'd pull the pin and stick em down in the jar and
screw the lid back on. Then whenever they hit the ground the glass'd break and release the
spoon. The lever. They would preload cases of them things. Hard to believe that a man
would ride around at night in a small plane with a cargo such as that, but they done it.

I think if you were Satan and you were settin around tryin to think up somethin that would
just bring the human race to its knees what you would probably come up with is narcotics.
Maybe he did. I told that to somebody at breakfast the other mornin and they asked me if I
believed in Satan. I said Well that aint the point. And they said I know but do you? I had
to think about that. I guess as a boy I did. Come the middle years my belief I reckon had
waned somewhat. Now I'm startin to lean back the other way. He explains a lot of things
that otherwise dont have no explanation. Or not to me they dont.

Moss set the case

in the booth and eased himself in after it. He lifted the menu from the wire rack where it
stood along with the mustard and ketchup. She scooted into the booth opposite. He didnt
look up. What are you havin, he said.

I dont know. I aint looked at the menu.

He spun the menu around and slid it in front of her and turned and looked for the waitress.

What are you? the girl said.

What am I havin?

No. What are you. Are you a character?

He studied her. The only people I know that know what a character is, he said, is other
characters.

I might just be a fellow traveler.

Fellow traveler.

Yeah.

Well you are now.

You're hurt, aint you?

What makes you say that?

You cant hardly walk.

Maybe it's just a old war injury.

I dont think so. What happened to you?

You mean lately?

Yeah. Lately.

You dont need to know.

Why not?

I dont want you gettin all excited on me.

What makes you think I'd get excited?

Cause bad girls like bad boys. What are you goin to have?

I dont know. What is it you do?

Three weeks ago I was a law abidin citizen. Workin a nine to five job. Eight to four,
anyways. Things happen to you they happen. They dont ask first. They dont require your
permission.

That's the truth if I ever heard it told, she said.

You hang around me you'll hear some more of it.

You think I'm a bad girl?

I think you'd like to be.

What's in that briefcase?

Briefs.

What's in it.

I could tell you, but then I'd have to kill you.

You aint supposed to carry a gun in a public place. Did you not know that? In particular a
gun such as that.

Let me ask you somethin.

Go ahead.

When the shootin starts would you rather be armed or be legal?

I dont want to be around no shootin.

Yes you do. It's wrote all over you. You just dont want to get shot. What are you havin?

What are you?

Cheeseburger and a chocolate milk.

The waitress came and they ordered. She got the hot beef sandwich with mashed potatoes and
gravy. You aint even asked me where I was goin, she said.

I know where you're goin.

Where am I goin then.

Down the road.

That aint no answer.

It's more than just a answer.

You dont know everthing.

No I dont.

You ever kill anybody?

Yeah, he said. You?

She looked embarrassed. You know I aint never killed nobody.

I dont know that.

Well I aint.

You aint, then.

You aint done, either. Are you?

Done what.

What I just said.

Killin people?

She looked around to see if they might be overheard.

Yes, she said.

Be hard to say.

After a while the waitress brought their plates. He bit the corner off a packet of
mayonnaise and squeezed out the contents over his cheeseburger and reached for the
ketchup. Where you from? he said.

She took a drink of her iced tea and wiped her mouth with the paper napkin. Port Arthur,
she said.

He nodded. He took up the cheeseburger in both hands and bit into it and sat back,
chewing. I aint never been to Port Arthur.

I aint never seen you there.

How could you of seen me there if I aint never been there?

I couldnt. I was just sayin I aint. I was agreein with you.

Moss shook his head.

They ate. He watched her.

I reckon you're on your way to California.

How did you know that?

That's the direction you're headed in.

Well that's where I'm goin.

You got any money?

What's it to you?

It aint nothin to me. Do you?

I got some.

He finished the cheeseburger and wiped his hands on the paper napkin and drank the rest of
the milk. Then he reached in his pocket and took out the roll of hundreds and unfolded
them. He counted out a thousand dollars onto the formica and pushed it toward her and put
the roll back in his pocket. Let's go, he said.

What's that for?

To go to California on.

What do I gotta do for it?

You dont have to do nothin. Even a blind sow finds a acorn ever once in a while. Put that
up and let's go.

They paid and walked out to the truck. You wasnt callin me a sow back yonder was you?

Moss ignored her. Give me the keys, he said.

She took the keys from her pocket and handed them over. I thought maybe you'd forgot I had
em, she said.

I dont forget much.

I could of just slipped off like I was goin to the ladies room and took your truck and
left you settin there.

No you couldnt of.

Why not?

Get in the truck.

They got in and he set the case between them and pulled the Tec-9 out of his belt and slid
it under the seat.

Why not? she said.

Dont be ignorant all your life. In the first place I could see all the way to the front
door and out the parkin lot clear to the truck. In the second place even if I was dumb-ass
enough to set with my back to the door I'd of just called a cab and run you down and
pulled you over and beat the shit out of you and left you layin there.

She got real quiet. He put the key in the ignition and started the truck and backed it out.

Would you of done that?

What do you think?

When they pulled into Van Horn it was seven oclock at night. She'd slept a good part of
the way, curled up with her knapsack for a pillow. He pulled into a truckstop and shut off
the engine and her eyes snapped open like a deer's. She sat up and looked at him and then
looked out at the parking lot. Where are we? she said.

Van Horn. You hungry?

I could eat a bite.

You want some diesel fried chicken?

What?

He pointed to the sign overhead.

I aint eatin nothin like that, she said.

She was in the ladies room a long time. When she came out she wanted to know if he'd
ordered.

I did. I ordered some of that chicken for you.

You aint done it, she said.

They ordered steaks. Do you live like this all the time? she said.

Sure. When you're a big time desperado the sky's the limit.

What's that on that chain?

This?

Yeah.

It's a tush off of a wild boar.

What do you wear that for?

It aint mine. I'm just keepin it for somebody.

A lady somebody?

No, a dead somebody.

The steaks came. He watched her eat. Does they anybody know where you're at? he said.

What?

I said does anybody know where you're at.

Like who?

Like anybody.

You.

I dont know where you're at because I dont know who you are.

Well that makes two of us.

You dont know who you are?

No, silly. I dont know who you are.

Well, we'll just keep it that way and they wont neither of us be out nothin. All right?

All right. What'd you ask me that for?

Moss mopped up steak gravy with a half a roll. I just thought it was probably true. For
you it's a luxury. For me it's a necessity.

Why? Because they's somebody after you?

Maybe.

I do like it that way, she said. You got that part right.

It dont take long to get a taste for it, does it?

No, she said. It dont.

Well, it aint as simple as it sounds. You'll see.

Why is that.

There's always somebody knows where you're at. Knows where and why. For the most part.

Are you talkin about God?

No. I'm talkin about you.

She ate. Well, she said. You'd be in a fix if you didnt know where you was at.

I dont know. Would you?

I dont know.

Suppose you was someplace that you didnt know where it was. The real thing you wouldnt
know was where someplace else was. Or how far it was. It wouldnt change nothin about where
you was at.

She thought about that. I try not to think about stuff like that, she said.

You think when you get to California you'll kind of start over.

Them's my intentions.

I think maybe that's the point. There's a road goin to California and there's one comin
back. But the best way would be just to show up there.

Show up there.

Yeah.

You mean and not know how you got there?

Yeah. And not know how you got there.

I dont know how you'd do that.

I dont either. That's the point.

She ate. She looked around. Can I get some coffee? she said.

You can get anything you want. You got money.

She looked at him. I guess I aint sure what the point is, she said.

The point is there aint no point.

No. I mean what you said. About knowin where you are.

He looked at her. After a while he said: It's not about knowin where you are. It's about
thinkin you got there without takin anything with you. Your notions about startin over. Or
anybody's. You dont start over. That's what it's about. Ever step you take is forever. You
cant make it go away. None of it. You understand what I'm sayin?

I think so.

I know you dont but let me try it one more time. You think when you wake up in the mornin
yesterday dont count. But yesterday is all that does count. What else is there? Your life
is made out of the days it's made out of. Nothin else. You might think you could run away
and change your name and I dont know what all. Start over. And then one mornin you wake up
and look at the ceilin and guess who's layin there?

She nodded.

You understand what I'm sayin?

I understand that. I been there.

Yeah, I know you have.

So are you sorry you become a outlaw?

Sorry I didnt start sooner. Are you ready?

When he came out of the motel office he handed her a key.

What's that?

That's your key.

She hefted it in her hand and looked at him. Well, she said. It's up to you.

Yes it is.

I guess you're afraid I'll see what's in that bag.

Not really.

He started the truck and pulled down the parking lot behind the motel office.

Are you queer? she said.

Me? Yeah, I'm queer as a coot.