No Country for Old Men

Bell tells us that he is supposed to be a war hero, but he won’t talk about the war because he lost a whole squad of men, saying, “They died and I got a medal” (195). Furthermore, Bell tells a story about the problems teachers reported in schools in the 1930s compared to a recent survey. In the 1930s, the worst problems were copying homework, talking in class, or chewing gum. Forty years later the problems the teachers face, at the same schools, are rape, arson, murder, drugs, and suicide. He says that people need to wake up to what is happening around them, before it’s too late.

Chigurh. Chigurh breaks into the Houston office of the man who hired him, the same man who hired Wells to kill him. Chigurh shoots him in the throat with a birdshot shell from his shotgun. He tells the man that he didn’t want to risk blowing out the glass in the window and hurting people below; Chigurh also tells him that he’s the person he sent Wells to kill. Chigurh watches the man die, then leaves.

Carla Jean. Carla Jean gets her mother into the bus station headed for El Paso, Texas. The old woman complains the entire time, telling Carla Jean that she had known that it would come to this for the last three years. Carla Jean patiently gets the woman settled on the bus, walker and all. Her mother tells everyone she encounters that she has cancer.

Chigurh. Chigurh arrives in Odessa at Carla Jean’s mother’s house. He breaks in using the pneumatic gun. He searches the house, drinks an orange soda from the refrigerator, reads the old lady’s prescription bottles, sorts through Carla Jean’s clothes and photo albums, and reads through their mail and bills. Carla Jean and her mother are not there.

Moss. Moss has spent the night in a cheap motel. He showers, shaves, brushes his teeth, and cleans and redresses his wounds. He dresses in his new clothes and gets a taxi. He directs the taxi driver to an area below the bridge to retrieve the money case. Then, he asks the driver to take him to San Antonio.

In San Antonio, he buys a gun and ammunition from an ad in the newspaper. Then he buys a used Ford pickup truck and takes off on the highway toward El Paso. At an onramp, he sees a young girl hitchhiking and he pulls over. He asks her to drive. She is about 15 or 16 years old and has red hair. They trade sarcastic banter; she believes that he’s on the run from the law. He tells her to pull over for food at the next exit.

Bell. Discouraged, Bell arrives back home. His wife has dinner waiting for him. Telling him that Carla Jean called, she gives him her telephone number. He calls and learns that Carla Jean and her mother are in a motel outside El Paso. She tells Bell where Moss is headed for, after making him promise that no harm will come to Moss. The sheriff promises.

Mexican Drug Dealers. Mexican drug dealers in a trailer intercept Sheriff Bell’s phone call to Carla Jean. They hear Carla Jean tell Sheriff Bell where she is and where Moss is headed that night. One of the drug dealers grabs a submachine gun and drives off in a black Plymouth Barracuda.

Sheriff Bell mourns the fact that he has nine unsolved homicides on his hands, at one time, after being sheriff for 41 years without one. He doesn’t know if he’ll be able to solve them. The new breed of criminal dope dealers doesn’t even consider the law a factor in their lives; they assume that they will never be caught or prosecuted. There are also plenty of corrupt law men taking drug money. Bell knows that the only reason that he’s still alive is that the drug dealers have no respect for him and know he’s not a threat. Bell finds that notion extremely depressing.

Moss. Moss and the young hitchhiker stop for a meal. He pays for her meal and gives her $1000 to help her get started in California, her destination. They drive to Van Horn and stop for dinner at a truck stop. Moss asks the girl if anyone knows where she is. No one does, and she never tells Moss her name. She doesn’t ask him his name either. She knows enough to know that he’s in trouble, but she is also attracted to Moss.

Moss has no intention of taking advantage of her, and he doesn’t. He pays for her to have her own motel room. They share dinner, and a beer, and he returns to his room. Moss shares some of his philosophy with her, warning her that it won’t be easy for her to go to California and just start over with a clean slate, because you are still the same person with the same baggage and issues you had before. He does tell her that some bad people are after him and that he’s going to El Paso to meet up with his wife.

When the young girl directly propositions him, he refuses her.

Mexican Drug Dealer. The man driving the Barracuda stops at a car wash. There is blood all over his car, so he washes it off and gets back on the highway, heading west.

Bell. Sheriff Bell races to intercept Moss in Van Horn. He sees a burning car by the side of the road about 20 miles outside Van Horn, which gives him an uneasy feeling.

He reaches Van Horn too late. He finds a motel parking lot cordoned off with yellow tape and two county police cruisers all lit up in the lot. He talks to the sheriff on the scene, whom he knows. A Mexican man driving a black Barracuda took the young hitchhiker hostage. When another man came out of his room, the Mexican had his gun to her head, and the man put his gun down. The Mexican shot both of them. The girl died instantly, and the man fell down the steps, but managed to shoot and injure the Mexican.

Bell asks the sheriff to go with him to the hospital to identify the people involved in the shooting. At the hospital, the nurse tells them that both the girl and man were DOA, while the Mexican man was helicoptered to another hospital. The dead man is Moss.

Bell leaves for El Paso, but he turns around because something doesn’t feel right. He heads back to the motel.

Chigurh and Bell. Chigurh arrives in Van Horn and rents a room on the eastbound expressway. He watches the motel on the other side of the freeway with binoculars. When all of the police have gone, he waits a little longer. At about 1 a.m. he drives his truck over to Moss’s hotel. He enters Moss’s room, 117, using the pneumatic gun and unscrews the plate in front of the air vent. He removes the money case from the air vent and leaves the room. He returns to his car. As he is about to start the engine, he sees a Terrell County police cruiser pull into the motel lot and park.

Sheriff Bell gets out of his car and goes to room 117. He immediately sees the air vent plate sitting on the table and recognizes that the lock has been shot out like the others, using the slaughterhouse weapon. He knows that the man he seeks is nearby. He quickly shuts the door and looks out of the window, watching the parking lot. He gets out his pistol and thinks about what he’s going to do. Nothing moves in the parking lot. He returns to his cruiser and appears to drive away. He stops out of sight and calls the sheriff’s department; they are coming, only seven minutes away.

He rolls his cruiser back so that he can see the entrances to the parking lot and the access road. No one leaves. The sheriff’s deputies arrive and search the lot, vehicle by vehicle, but find nothing. Bell’s quarry has escaped.

Bell drives toward El Paso, stopping to sleep at a motel for a few hours. He arrives at the motel where Carla Jean is staying early in the morning. She answers the door, and he tells her he is sorry, repeatedly; she immediately knows that Moss is dead. She cries and tells Bell that if he says sorry one more time that she’ll get out her gun and shoot him.