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Let me ask you somethin.
All right.
Last year nineteen felony charges were filed in the Terrell County Court. How many of those would you say were not drug related?
I dont know.
Two. In the meantime I got a county the size of Delaware that is full of people who need my help. What do you think about that?
I dont know.
I dont either. Now I just need to eat my breakfast here. I got kindly a full day ahead.
He and Torbert drove out in Torbert's four wheel drive truck. All was as they'd left it. They parked a ways from Moss's truck and waited. It's ten, Torbert said.
What?
It's ten. Deceased. We forgot about old Wyrick. It's ten.
Bell nodded. That we know about, he said.
Yessir. That we know about.
The helicopter arrived and circled and set down in a whirl of dust out on the bajada. Nobody got out. They were waiting for the dust to blow away. Bell and Torbert watched the rotor winding down.
The DEA agent's name was McIntyre. Bell knew him slightly and liked him about well enough to nod to. He got out with a clipboard in his hand and walked toward them. He was dressed in boots and hat and a Carhartt canvas jacket and he looked all right until he opened his mouth.
Sheriff Bell, he said.
Agent McIntyre.
What vehicle is this?
It's a '72 Ford pickup.
McIntyre stood looking out down the bajada. He tapped the clipboard against his leg. He looked at Bell. I'm happy to know that, he said. White in color.
I'd say white. Yes.
Could use a set of tires.
He went over and walked around the truck. He wrote on his clipboard. He looked inside. He folded the seat forward and looked in the back.
Who cut the tires?
Bell was standing with his hands in his back pockets. He leaned and spat. Deputy Hays here believes it was done by a rival party.
Rival party.
Yessir.
I thought these vehicles were all shot up.
They are.
But not this one.
Not this one.
McIntyre looked toward the chopper and he looked down the bajada toward the other vehicles. Can I get a ride down there with you?
Sure you can.
They walked toward Torbert's truck. The agent looked at Bell and he tapped the clipboard against his leg. You dont intend to make this easy, do you?
Hell, McIntyre. I'm just messin with you.
They walked around in the bajada looking at the shot-up trucks. McIntyre held a kerchief to his nose. The bodies were bloated in their clothes. This is about the damnedest thing I ever saw, he said.
He stood making notes on his clipboard. He paced distances and made a rough sketch of the scene and he copied out the numbers off the license plates.
Were there no guns here? he said.
Not as many as there should of been. We got two pieces in evidence.
How long you think they've been dead?
Four or five days.
Somebody must have got away.
Bell nodded. There's another body about a mile north of here.
There's heroin spilled in the back of that Bronco.
Yep.
Mexican black tar.
Bell looked at Torbert. Torbert leaned and spat.
If the heroin is missing and the money is missing then my guess is that somebody is missing.
I'd say that's a reasonable guess.
McIntyre continued writing. Dont worry, he said. I know you didnt get it.
I aint worried.
McIntyre adjusted his hat and stood looking at the trucks. Are the rangers coming out here?
Rangers are comin. Or one is. DPS drug unit.
I've got.380's,.45's, nine millimeter parabellum, twelve gauge, and.38 special. Did you all find anything else?
I think that was it.
McIntyre nodded. I guess the people waiting for their dope have probably figured out by now that it's not coming. What about the Border Patrol?
Everbody's comin as far as I know. We expect it to get right lively. Might could be a bigger draw than the flood back in '65.
Yeah.
What we need is to get these bodies out of here.
McIntyre tapped the clipboard against his leg. Aint that the truth, he said.
Nine millimeter parabellum, said Torbert.
Bell nodded. You need to put that in your files.
Chigurh picked up the signal from the transponder coming across the high span of the Devil's River Bridge just west of Del Rio. It was near midnight and no cars on the highway. He reached over into the passenger seat and turned the dial slowly forward and then back, listening.
The headlights picked up some kind of a large bird sitting on the aluminum bridgerail up ahead and Chigurh pushed the button to let the window down. Cool air coming in off the lake. He took the pistol from beside the box and cocked and leveled it out the window, resting the barrel on the rearview mirror. The pistol had been fitted with a silencer sweated onto the end of the barrel. The silencer was made out of brass mapp-gas burners fitted into a hairspray can and the whole thing stuffed with fiberglass roofing insulation and painted flat black. He fired just as the bird crouched and spread its wings.
It flared wildly in the lights, very white, turning and lifting away into the darkness. The shot had hit the rail and caromed off into the night and the rail hummed dully in the slipstream and ceased. Chigurh laid the pistol in the seat and put the window back up again.
Moss paid the driver and stepped out into the lights in front of the motel office and slung the bag over his shoulder and shut the cab door and turned and went in. The woman was already behind the counter. He set the bag in the floor and leaned on the counter. She looked a little flustered. Hi, she said. You fixin to stay a while?
I need another room.
You want to change rooms or you want another one besides the one you've got?
I want to keep the one I got and get another one.
All right.
Have you got a map of the motel?
She looked under the counter. There used to be a sort of a one. Wait a minute. I think this is it.
She laid an old brochure on the counter. It showed a car from the fifties parked in front. He unfolded it and flattened it out and studied it.
What about one forty-two?
You can have one next to yours if you want it. One-twenty aint took.
That's all right. What about one forty-two?
She reached and got the key off the board behind her. You'll owe for two nights, she said.
He paid and picked up the bag and walked out and turned down the walkway at the rear of the motel. She leaned over the counter watching him go.
In the room he sat on the bed with the map spread out. He got up and went into the bathroom and stood in the tub with his ear to the wall. A TV was playing somewhere. He went back and sat and unzipped the bag and took out the shotgun and laid it to one side and then emptied the bag out onto the bed.
He took the screwdriver and got the chair from the desk and stood on it and unscrewed the airduct grille and stepped down and laid it dustside up on the cheap chenille bedspread. Then he climbed up and put his ear to the duct. He listened. He stood down and got the flashlight and climbed back up again.
There was a junction in the ductwork about ten feet down the shaft and he could see the end of the bag sticking out. He turned off the light and stood listening. He tried listening with his eyes shut.
He climbed down and got the shotgun and went to the door and turned off the light at the switch there and stood in the dark looking out through the curtain at the courtyard. Then he went back and laid the shotgun on the bed and turned on the flashlight.
He untied the little nylon bag and slid the poles out. They were lightweight aluminum tubes three feet long and he assembled three of them and taped the joints with duct tape so that they wouldnt pull apart. He went to the closet and came back with three wire hangers and sat on the bed and cut the hooks off with the sidecutters and wrapped them into one hook with the tape. Then he taped them to the end of the pole and stood up and slid the pole down the ductwork.