No Country for Old Men (2 page)

He squatted and unslung the rifle from off his shoulder and laid it in the grass and took
the H&K and pushed back the follower with the heel of his hand. There was a live round in
the chamber but the magazine held only two more rounds. He sniffed at the muzzle of the
piece. He ejected the clip and slung the rifle over one shoulder and the machinepistol
over the other and walked back to the Bronco and held the clip up for the man to see.
Otra, he said. Otra.

The man nodded. En mi bolsa.

You speak english?

He didnt answer. He was trying to gesture with his chin. Moss could see two clips sticking
out of the canvas pocket of the jacket he was wearing. He reached into the cab and got
them and stepped back. Smell of blood and fecal matter. He put one of the full clips into
the machinepistol and the other two in his pocket. Agua, cuate, the man said.

Moss scanned the surrounding country. I told you, he said. I aint got no water.

La puerta, the man said.

Moss looked at him.

La puerta. Hay lobos.

There aint no lobos.

Si, si. Lobos. Leones.

Moss shut the door with his elbow.

He went back to the first truck and stood looking at the open door on the passenger side.
There were no bulletholes in the door but there was blood on the seat. The key was still
in the ignition and he reached in and turned it and then pushed the windowbutton. The
glass ratcheted slowly up out of the channel. There were two bulletholes in it and a fine
spray of dried blood on the inside of the glass. He stood there thinking about that. He
looked at the ground. Stains of blood in the clay. Blood in the grass. He looked out down
the track south across the caldera back the way the truck had come. There had to be a last
man standing. And it wasnt the cuate in the Bronco begging for water.

He walked out on the floodplain and cut a wide circle to see where the track of the tires
in the thin grass would show in the sun. He cut for sign a hundred feet to the south. He
picked up the man's trail and followed it until he came to blood in the grass. Then more
blood.

You aint goin far, he said. You may think you are. But you aint.

He quit the track altogether and walked out to the highest ground visible holding the H&K
under his arm with the safety off. He glassed the country to the south. Nothing. He stood
fingering the boar's tusk at the front of his shirt. About now, he said, you're shaded up
somewheres watchin your backtrack. And the chances of me seein you fore you see me are
about as close to nothin as you can get without fallin in.

He squatted and steadied his elbows on his knees and with the binoculars swept the rocks
at the head of the valley. He sat and crossed his legs and went over the terrain more
slowly and then lowered the glasses and just sat. Do not, he said, get your dumb ass shot
out here. Do not do that.

He turned and looked at the sun. It was about eleven oclock. We dont even know that all of
this went down last night. It could of been two nights ago. It might even could of been
three.

Or it could of been last night.

A light wind had come up. He pushed back his hat and wiped his forehead with his bandanna
and put the bandanna back in the hip pocket of his jeans. He looked across the caldera
toward the low range of rock on the eastern perimeter.

Nothin wounded goes uphill, he said. It just dont happen.

It was a good hard climb to the top of the ridge and it was close to noon by the time he
got there. Far off to the north he could see the shape of a tractor-trailer moving across
the shimmering landscape. Ten miles. Maybe fifteen. Highway 90. He sat and swept the new
country with the glasses. Then he stopped.

At the foot of a rockslide on the edge of the bajada was a small piece of something blue.
He watched it for a long time through the binoculars. Nothing moved. He studied the
country about. Then he watched it some more. It was the better part of an hour before he
rose and started down.

The dead man was lying against a rock with a nickelplated government .45 automatic lying
cocked in the grass between his legs. He'd been sitting up and had slid over sideways. His
eyes were open. He looked like he was studying something small in the grass. There was
blood on the ground and blood on the rock behind him. The blood was still a dark red but
then it was still shaded from the sun. Moss picked up the pistol and pressed the grip
safety with his thumb and lowered the hammer. He squatted and tried to wipe the blood off
the grips on the leg of the man's trousers but the blood was too well congealed. He stood
and stuck the gun in his belt at the small of his back and pushed back his hat and blotted
the sweat from his forehead with his shirtsleeve. He turned and stood studying the
countryside. There was a heavy leather document case standing upright alongside the dead
man's knee and Moss absolutely knew what was in the case and he was scared in a way that
he didnt even understand.

When he finally picked it up he just walked out a little ways and sat down in the grass
and slid the rifle off his shoulder and laid it aside. He sat with his legs spaced and the
H&K in his lap and the case standing between his knees. Then he reached and unbuckled the
two straps and unsnapped the brass latch and lifted the flap and folded it back.

It was level full of hundred dollar banknotes. They were in packets fastened with banktape
stamped each with the denomination $10,000. He didnt know what it added up to but he had a
pretty good idea. He sat there looking at it and then he closed the flap and sat with his
head down. His whole life was sitting there in front of him. Day after day from dawn till
dark until he was dead. All of it cooked down into forty pounds of paper in a satchel.

He raised his head and looked out across the bajada. A light wind from the north. Cool.
Sunny. One oclock in the afternoon. He looked at the man lying dead in the grass. His good
crocodile boots that were filled with blood and turning black. The end of his life. Here
in this place. The distant mountains to the south. The wind in the grass. The quiet. He
latched the case and fastened the straps and buckled them and rose and shouldered the
rifle and then picked up the case and the machinepistol and took his bearings by his
shadow and set out.

He thought he knew how to get to his truck and he also thought about wandering through the
desert in the dark. There were Mojave rattlesnakes in that country and if he got bit out
here at night he would in all likelihood be joining the other members of the party and the
document case and its contents would then pass on to some other owner. Weighed against
these considerations was the problem of crossing open ground in broad daylight on foot
with a fully automatic weapon slung across one shoulder and carrying a satchel containing
several million dollars. Beyond all this was the dead certainty that someone was going to
come looking for the money. Maybe several someones.

He thought about going back and getting the shotgun with the drum magazine. He was a
strong believer in the shotgun. He even thought about leaving the machinepistol behind. It
was a penitentiary offense to own one.

He didnt leave anything behind and he didnt go back to the trucks. He set out across
country, cutting through the gaps in the volcanic ridges and crossing the flat or rolling
country between. Until late in the day he reached the ranch road he'd come down that
morning in the dark so long ago. Then in about a mile he came to the truck.

He opened the door and stood the rifle in the floor. He went around and opened the driver
door and pushed the lever and slid the seat forward and set the case and the
machine-pistol behind it. He laid the .45 and the binoculars in the seat and climbed in
and pushed the seat back as far as it would go and put the key in the ignition. Then he
took off his hat and leaned back and just rested his head against the cold glass behind
him and closed his eyes.

When he got to the highway he slowed and rattled over the bars of the cattleguard and then
pulled out onto the blacktop and turned on the headlights. He drove west toward Sanderson
and he kept to the speed limit every mile of the way. He stopped at the gas station on the
east end of town for cigarettes and a long drink of water and then drove on to the Desert
Aire and pulled up in front of the trailer and shut off the motor. The lights were on
inside. You live to be a hundred, he said, and there wont be another day like this one. As
soon as he said it he was sorry.

He got his flashlight from the glovebox and climbed out and took the machinepistol and the
case from behind the seat and crawled up under the trailer. He lay there in the dirt
looking up at the underside of it. Cheap plastic pipe and plywood. Bits of insulation. He
wedged the H&K up into a corner and pulled the insulation down over it and lay there
thinking. Then he crawled back out with the case and dusted himself off and climbed the
steps and went in.

She was sprawled across the sofa watching TV and drinking a Coke. She didnt even look up.
Three oclock, she said.

I can come back later.

She looked at him over the back of the sofa and looked at the television again. What have
you got in that satchel?

It's full of money.

Yeah. That'll be the day.

He went into the kitchen and got a beer out of the refrigerator.

Can I have the keys? she said.

Where you goin.

Get some cigarettes.

Cigarettes.

Yes, Llewelyn. Cigarettes. I been settin here all day.

What about cyanide? How are we fixed for that?

Just let me have the keys. I'll set out in the damn yard and smoke.

He took a sip of the beer and went on back into the bedroom and dropped to one knee and
shoved the case under the bed. Then he came back. I got you some cigarettes, he said. Let
me get em.

He left the beer on the counter and went out and got the two packs of cigarettes and the
binoculars and the pistol and slung the .270 over his shoulder and shut the truck door and
came back in. He handed her the cigarettes and went on back to the bedroom.

Where'd you get that pistol? she called.

At the gettin place.

Did you buy that thing?

No. I found it.

She sat up on the sofa. Llewelyn?

He came back in. What? he said. Quit hollerin.

What did you give for that thing?

You dont need to know everthing.

How much.

I told you. I found it.

No you never done no such a thing.

He sat on the sofa and put his legs up on the coffeetable and sipped the beer. It dont
belong to me, he said. I didnt buy no pistol.

You better not of.

She opened one of the packs of cigarettes and took one out and lit it with a lighter.
Where have you been all day?

Went to get you some cigarettes.

I dont even want to know. I dont even want to know what all you been up to.

He sipped the beer and nodded. That'll work, he said.

I think it's better just to not even know even.

You keep runnin that mouth and I'm goin to take you back there and screw you.

Big talk.

Just keep it up.

That's what she said.

Just let me finish this beer. We'll see what she said and what she didnt say.

When he woke it was 1:06 by the digital clock on the bedside table. He lay there looking
at the ceiling, the raw glare of the vaporlamp outside bathing the bedroom in a cold and
bluish light. Like a winter moon. Or some other kind of moon. Something stellar and alien
in its light that he'd come to feel comfortable with. Anything but sleep in the dark.

He swung his feet from under the covers and sat up. He looked at her naked back. Her hair
on the pillow. He reached and pulled the blanket up over her shoulder and got up and went
into the kitchen.

He took the jar of water from the refrigerator and unscrewed the cap and stood there
drinking in the light of the open refrigerator door. Then he just stood there holding the
jar with the water beading cold on the glass, looking out the window and down the highway
toward the lights. He stood there for a long time.

When he went back to the bedroom he got his shorts off the floor and put them on and went
into the bathroom and shut the door. Then he went through into the second bedroom and
pulled the case from under the bed and opened it.

He sat in the floor with the case between his legs and delved down into the bills and
dredged them up. The packets were twenty deep. He shoved them back down into the case and
jostled the case on the floor to level the money. Times twelve. He could do the math in
his head. Two point four million. All used bills. He sat looking at it. You have to take
this seriously, he said. You cant treat it like luck.

He closed the bag and redid the fasteners and shoved it under the bed and rose and stood
looking out the window at the stars over the rocky escarpment to the north of the town.
Dead quiet. Not even a dog. But it wasnt the money that he woke up about. Are you dead out
there? he said. Hell no, you aint dead.

She woke while he was getting dressed and turned in the bed to watch him.

Llewelyn?

Yeah.

What are you doin?

Gettin dressed.

Where are you goin?

Out.

Where are you goin, baby?

Somethin I forgot to do. I'll be back.

What are you goin to do?

He opened the drawer and took the .45 out and ejected the clip and checked it and put it
back and put the pistol in his belt. He turned and looked at her.

I'm fixin to go do somethin dumbern hell but I'm goin anyways. If I dont come back tell
Mother I love her.

Your mother's dead Llewelyn.

Well I'll tell her myself then.

She sat up in the bed. You're scarin the hell out of me, Llewelyn. Are you in some kind of
trouble?