No Country for Old Men (3 page)

No. Go to sleep.

Go to sleep?

I'll be back in a bit.

Damn you, Llewelyn.

He stepped back into the doorway and looked at her. What if I was to not come back? Is
them your last words?

She followed him down the hallway to the kitchen pulling on her robe. He took an empty
gallon jug from under the sink and stood filling it at the tap.

Do you know what time it is? she said.

Yeah. I know what time it is.

Baby I dont want you to go. Where are you goin? I dont want you to go.

Well darlin we're eye to eye on that cause I dont want to go neither. I'll be back. Dont
wait up on me.

He pulled in at the filling station under the lights and shut off the motor and got the
survey map from the glovebox and unfolded it across the seat and sat there studying it. He
finally marked where he thought the trucks should be and then he traced a route cross
country back to Harkle's cattle-gate. He had a good set of all-terrain tires on the truck
and two spares in the bed but this was some hard country. He sat looking at the line he'd
drawn. Then he bent and studied the terrain and drew another one. Then he just sat there
looking at the map. When he started the engine and pulled out onto the highway it was
two-fifteen in the morning, the road deserted, the truck radio in this outland country
dead even of static from one end of the band to the other.

He parked at the gate and got out and opened it and drove through and got out and closed
it again and stood listening to the silence. Then he got back in the truck and drove south
on the ranch road.

He kept the truck in two wheel drive and drove in second gear. The light of the unrisen
moon before him spread out along the dark placard hills like scrimlights in a theatre.
Turning below where he'd parked that morning onto what may have been an old wagonroad that
bore eastward across Harkle's land. When the moon did rise it sat swollen and pale and ill
formed among the hills to light up all the land about and he turned off the headlights of
the truck.

A half hour on he parked and walked out along the crest of a rise and stood looking over
the country to the east and to the south. The moon up. A blue world. Visible shadows of
clouds crossing the floodplain. Hurrying on the slopes. He sat in the scabrock with his
boots crossed before him. No coyotes. Nothing. For a Mexican dopedealer. Yeah. Well.
Everbody is somethin.

When he got back to the truck he left the trace and steered by the moon. He crossed under
a volcanic headland at the upper end of the valley and turned south again. He had a good
memory for country. He was crossing terrain he'd scouted from the ridge earlier that day
and he stopped again and got out to listen. When he came back to the truck he pried the
plastic cover from the domelight and took the bulb out and put it in the ashtray. He sat
with the flashlight and studied the map again. When next he stopped he just shut off the
engine and sat with the window down. He sat there for a long time.

He parked the truck a half mile above the upper end of the caldera and got the plastic jug
of water out of the floor and put the flashlight in his hip pocket. Then he took the .45
off the seat and shut the door quietly with his thumb on the latchbutton and turned and
set off toward the trucks.

They were as he'd left them, hunkered down on their shot-out tires. He approached with the
.45 cocked in his hand. Dead quiet. Could be because of the moon. His own shadow was more
company than he would have liked. Ugly feeling out here. A trespasser. Among the dead.
Dont get weird on me, he said. You aint one of em. Not yet.

The door of the Bronco was open. When he saw that he dropped to one knee. He set the
waterjug on the ground. You dumb-ass, he said. Here you are. Too dumb to live.

He turned slowly, skylighting the country. The only thing he could hear was his heart. He
made his way to the truck and crouched by the open door. The man had fallen sideways over
the console. Still trussed in the shoulderbelt. Fresh blood everywhere. Moss took the
flashlight from his pocket and shrouded the lens in his fist and turned it on. He'd been
shot through the head. No lobos. No leones. He shone the hooded light into the cargo space
behind the seats. Everything gone. He switched off the light and stood. He walked out
slowly to where the other bodies lay. The shotgun was gone. The moon was already a quarter
ways up. All but day bright. He felt like something in a jar.

He was half way back up the caldera to his truck when something made him stop. He
crouched, holding the cocked pistol across his knee. He could see the truck in the
moonlight at the top of the rise. He looked off to one side of it to see it the better.
There was someone standing beside it. Then they were gone. There is no description of a
fool, he said, that you fail to satisfy. Now you're goin to die.

He shoved the .45 into the back of his belt and set off at a trot for the lava ridge. In
the distance he heard a truck start. Lights came on at the top of the rise. He began to
run.

By the time he got to the rocks the truck was halfway down the caldera, the lights bobbing
over the bad ground. He looked for something to hide behind. No time. He lay face down
with his head between his forearms in the grass and waited. Either they'd seen him or they
hadnt. He waited. The truck went by. When it was gone he rose and began to clamber up the
slope.

Halfway up he stopped and stood sucking air and trying to listen. The lights were
somewhere below him. He couldnt see them. He climbed on. After a while he could see the
dark shapes of the vehicles down there. Then the truck came back up the caldera with the
lights off.

He lay flattened against the rocks. A spotlight went skittering over the lava and back
again. The truck slowed. He could hear the engine idling. The slow lope of the cam. Big
block engine. The spotlight swept over the rocks again. It's all right, he said. You need
to be put out of your misery. Be the best thing for everbody.

The engine revved slightly and idled down again. Deep guttural tone to the exhaust. Cam
and headers and God knows what else. After a while it moved on in the dark.

When he got to the crest of the ridge he crouched and took the .45 out of his belt and
uncocked it and put it back again and looked out to the north and to the east. No sign of
the truck.

How would you like to be out there in your old pickup tryin to outrun that thing? he said.
Then he realized that he would never see his truck again. Well, he said. There's lots of
things you aint goin to see again.

The spotlight came on again at the head of the caldera and moved across the ridge. Moss
lay on his stomach watching. It came back again.

If you knew there was somebody out here afoot that had two million dollars of your money,
at what point would you quit lookin for em?

That's right. There aint no such a point.

He lay listening. He couldnt hear the truck. After a while he rose and made his way down
the far side of the ridge. Studying the country. The floodplain out there broad and quiet
in the moonlight. No way to cross it and nowhere else to go. Well Bubba, what are your
plans now?

It's four oclock in the mornin. Do you know where your darlin boy is at?

I'll tell you what. Why dont you just get in your truck and go on out there and take the
son of a bitch a drink of water?

The moon was high and small. He kept his eye on the plain below as he climbed along the
slope. How motivated are you? he said.

Pretty damn motivated.

You better be.

He could hear the truck. It came around the foreland head of the ridge with the lights off
and started down the edge of the floodplain in the moonlight. He flattened himself in the
rocks. In addition to the other bad news his thoughts ran to scorpions and rattlesnakes.
The spotlight kept rowing back and forth across the face of the ridge. Methodically.
Bright shuttle, dark loom. He didnt move.

The truck crossed to the other side and came back. Tooling along in second gear, stopping,
the motor loping. He pushed himself forward to where he could see it better. Blood kept
running into his eye from a cut in his forehead. He didnt even know where he'd gotten it.
He wiped his eye with the heel of his hand and wiped his hand on his jeans. He took out
his kerchief and pressed it to his head.

You could head south to the river.

Yeah. You could.

Less open ground.

Less aint none.

He turned, still holding the handkerchief to his forehead. No cloud cover in sight.

You need to be somewhere come daylight.

Home in bed would be good.

He studied the blue floodplain out there in the silence. A vast and breathless
amphitheatre. Waiting. He'd had this feeling before. In another country. He never thought
he'd have it again.

He waited a long time. The truck didnt come back. He made his way south along the ridge.
He stood and listened. Not a coyote, nothing.

By the time he'd descended onto the river plain the sky to the east carried the first
faint wash of light. It was the darkest this night was going to get. The plain ran to the
breaks of the river and he listened one last time and then set out at a trot.

It was a long trek and he was still some two hundred yards from the river when he heard
the truck. A raw gray light was breaking over the hills. When he looked back he could see
the dust against the new skyline. Still the better part of a mile away. In the dawn quiet
the sound of it no more sinister than a boat on a lake. Then he heard it downshift. He
pulled the .45 from his belt so that he wouldnt lose it and set out at a dead run.

When he looked back again it had closed a good part of the distance. He was still a
hundred yards from the river and he didnt know what he'd find when he got there. A sheer
rock gorge. The first long panes of light were standing through a gap in the mountains to
the east and fanning over the country before him. The truck was ablaze with lights, roof
rack and bumper spots. The engine kept racing away into a howl where the wheels left the
ground.

They wont shoot you, he said. They cant afford to do that.

The long crack of a rifle went caroming out over the pan. What he'd heard whisper overhead
he realized was the round passing and vanishing toward the river. He looked back and there
was a man standing up out of the sunroof, one hand on top of the cab, the other cradling a
rifle upright.

Where he reached the river it made a broad sweep out of a canyon and carried down past
great stands of carrizo cane. Downriver it washed up against a rock bluff and then bore
away to the south. Darkness deep in the canyon. The water dark. He dropped into the cut
and fell and rolled and rose and began to make his way down a long sandy ridge toward the
river. He hadnt gone twenty feet before he realized that he had no time to do that. He
glanced back once at the rim and then squatted and shoved himself off down the side of the
slope, holding the .45 before him in both hands.

He rolled and slid a good ways, his eyes almost shut against the dust and sand he was
plowing up, the pistol clutched to his chest. Then all that stopped and he was simply
falling. He opened his eyes. The fresh world of morning above him, turning slowly.

He slammed into a gravel bank and gave out a groan. Then he was rolling through some sort
of rough grass. He came to a stop and lay there on his stomach gasping for air.

The pistol was gone. He crawled back through the flattened grass until he found it and he
picked it up and turned to scan the rim of the river breaks above him, whacking the
pistolbarrel across his forearm to shake out the dirt. His mouth was full of sand. His
eyes. He saw two men appear against the sky and he cocked the pistol and fired at them and
they went away again.

He knew he didnt have time to crawl to the river and he just rose and made a run for it,
splashing across the braided gravel flats and down a long sandbar until he came to the
main channel. He got out his keys and his billfold and buttoned them into his shirtpocket.
The cold wind blowing off the water smelled of iron. He could taste it. He threw away the
flashlight and lowered the hammer on the .45 and shoved it into the crotch of his jeans.
Then he shucked off his boots and pulled them inside his belt upside down at either side
and tightened the belt as far as he could pull it and turned and dove into the river.

The cold took his breath. He turned and looked back toward the rim, blowing and
backpedaling through the slate-blue water. Nothing there. He turned and swam.

The current carried him down into the bend of the river and hard up against the rocks. He
pushed himself off. The bluff above him rose dark and deeply cupped and the water in the
shadows was black and choppy. When he finally spilled out into the tailwater and looked
back he could see the truck parked at the top of the bluff but he couldnt see anyone. He
checked to see that he still had his boots and the gun and then turned and began to stroke
for the far shore.

By the time he dragged himself shivering out of the river he was the better part of a mile
from where he'd gone in. His socks were gone and he set out at a jog barefoot toward the
standing cane. Round cups in the shelving rock where the ancients had ground their meal.
When he looked back again the truck was gone. Two men were trotting along the high bluff
silhouetted against the sky. He was almost to the cane when it rattled all about him and
there was a heavy whump and then the echo of it from across the river.

He was hit in the upper arm by a buckshot and it stung like a hornet. He put his hand over
it and dove into the cane, the lead ball half buried in the back of his arm. His left leg
kept wanting to give out beneath him and he was having trouble breathing.

Deep in the brake he dropped to his knees and knelt there sucking air. He undid his belt
and let the boots drop into the sand and reached down and got the .45 and laid it to one
side and felt the back of his arm. The buckshot was gone. He unbuttoned his shirt and took
it off and pulled his arm around to see the wound. It was just the shape of the buckshot,
bleeding slightly, pieces of shirtfiber packed into it. The whole back of his arm was
already becoming an ugly purple bruise. He wrung the water out of his shirt and put it on
again and buttoned it and pulled on the boots and stood and buckled his belt. He picked up
the pistol and took the clip out of it and ejected the round from the chamber and then
shook the gun and blew through the barrel and reassembled it. He didnt know if it would
fire or not but he thought it probably would.