No Country For Old Men

You aint goin to help me, are you?

I done told you all I know to tell. You seen the report. That's all I know to tell you.

Bell sat watching him. Then he got up and put on his hat and left.

In the morning he went to the high school and got some names from DeMarco's teacher. The first one he talked to wanted to know how he'd found him. He was a big kid and he sat with his hands folded and looked down at his te

There's somethin you all aint tellin me.

The boy shook his head.

Did he threaten you?

Naw.

What did he look like? Was he Mexican?

I dont think so. He was kindly dark complected is all.

Were you afraid of him?

I wasnt till you showed up. Hell, Sheriff, I knew we shouldnt of took the damn thing. It was a dumb-ass thing to do. I aint goin to set here and say it was David's idea even if it was. I'm big enough to say no.

Yes you are.

It was all just weird. Them boys in the car was dead. Am I in trouble over this?

What else did he say to you.

The boy looked around the lunchroom. He looked almost in tears. If I had it to do over again I'd do it different. I know that.

What did he say.

He said that we didnt know what he looked like. He give David a hundred dollar bill.

A hundred dollars.

Yeah. David give him his shirt. To make a sling for his arm.

Bell nodded. All right. What did he look like.

He was medium height. Medium build. Looked like he was in shape. In his mid thirties maybe. Dark hair. Dark brown, I think. I dont know, Sheriff. He looked like anybody.

Like anybody.

The kid looked at his shoes. He looked up at Bell. He didnt look like anybody. I mean there wasnt nothin unusual lookin about him. But he didnt look like anybody you'd want to mess with. When he said somethin you damn sure listened. There was a bone stickin out under the skin on his arm and he didnt pay no more attention to it than nothin.

All right.

Am I in trouble over this?

No.

I appreciate it.

You dont know where things will take you, do you?

No sir, you dont. I think I learned somethin from it. If that's any use to you.

It is. Do you think DeMarco learned anything?

The boy shook his head. I dont know, he said. I cant speak for David.

XI

I got Molly to run down his relatives and we finally found his dad in San Saba. I left to go up there on a Friday evenin and I remember thinkin to myself when I left that this was probably another dumb thing I was fixin to do but I went anyways. I'd done talked to him on the phone. He didnt sound like he was waitin to see me or he wasnt waitin but he said to come on so here I went. Checked in a motel when I got there and drove out to his house in the mornin.

His wife had died some years back. We set out on the porch and drunk iced tea and I guess we'd of set there from now on if I hadnt of said somethin. He was a bit oldern me. Ten years maybe. I told him what I'd come to tell him. About his boy. Told him the facts. He just set there and nodded. He was settin in a swing and he just rocked back and forth a little and held that glass of tea in his lap. I didnt know what else to say so I just shut up and we set there for quite some time. And then he said, and he didnt look at me, he just looked out across the yard, and he said: He was the best rifleshot I ever saw. Bar none. I didnt know what to say. I said: Yessir.

He was a sniper in Vietnam you know.

I said I didnt know that.

He was not in no drug deals.

No sir. He was not.

He nodded. He wasnt raised that way, he said.

Yessir.

Was you in the war?

Yes I was. European theatre.

He nodded. Llewelyn when he come home he went to visit several families of buddies of his that had not made it back. He give it up. He didnt know what to say to em. He said he could see em settin there lookin at him and wishin he was dead. You could see it in their faces. In the place of their own loved one, you understand.

Yessir. I can understand that.

I can too. But aside from that they'd all done things over there that they'd just as soon left over there. We didnt have nothin like that in the war. Or very little of it. He smacked the tar out of one or two of them hippies. Spittin on him. Callin him a babykiller. A lot of them boys that come back, they're still havin problems. I thought it was because they didnt have the country behind em. But I think it might be worse than that even. The country they did have was in pieces. It still is. It wasnt the hippies' fault. It wasnt the fault of them boys that got sent over there neither. Eighteen, nineteen year old.

He turned and looked at me. And then I thought he looked a lot older. His eyes looked old. He said: People will tell you it was Vietnam brought this country to its knees. But I never believed that. It was already in bad shape. Vietnam was just the icin on the cake. We didnt have nothin to give to em to take over there. If we'd sent em without rifles I dont know as they'd of been all that much worse off. You cant go to war like that. You cant go to war without God. I dont know what is goin to happen when the next one comes. I surely dont.

And that was pretty much all that was said. I thanked him for his time. The next day was goin to be my last day in the office and I had a good deal to think about. I drove back to I-10 along the back roads. Drove down to Cherokee and took 501. I tried to put things in perspective but sometimes you're just too close to it. It's a life's work to see yourself for what you really are and even then you might be wrong. And that is somethin I dont want to be wrong about. I've thought about why it was I wanted to be a lawman. There was always some part of me that wanted to be in charge. Pretty much insisted on it. Wanted people to listen to what I had to say. But there was apart of me too that just wanted to pull everbody back in the boat. If I've tried to cultivate anything it's been that. I think we are all of us ill prepared for what is to come and I dont care what shape it takes. And whatever comes my guess is that it will have small power to sustain us. These old people I talk to, if you could of told em that there would be people on the streets of our Texas towns with green hair and bones in their noses speakin a language they couldnt even understand, well, they just flat out wouldnt of believed you. But what if you'd of told em it was their own grandchildren? Well, all of that is signs and wonders but it dont tell you how it got that way. And it dont tell you nothin about how it's fixin to get, neither. Part of it was I always thought I could at least someway put things right and I guess I just dont feel that way no more. I dont know what I do feel like. I feel like them old people I was talkin about. Which aint goin to get better neither. I'm bein asked to stand for somethin that I dont have the same belief in it I once did. Asked to believe in somethin I might not hold with the way I once did. That's the problem. I failed at it even when I did. Now I've seen it held to the light. Seen any number of believers fall away. I've been forced to look at it again and I've been forced to look at myself. For better or for worse I do not know. I dont know that I would even advise you to throw in with me, and I never had them sorts of doubts before. If I'm wiser in the ways of the world it come at a price. Pretty good price too. When I told her I was quittin she at first didnt take me to mean it literally but I told her I did so mean it. I told her I hoped the people of this county would have better sense than to even vote for me. I told her I didnt feel right takin their money. She said well you dont mean that and I told her I meant it ever word. We're six thousand dollars in debt over this job too and I dont know what I'm goin to do about that either. Well we just set there for a time. I didnt think it would upset her like it done. Finally I just said: Loretta, I cant do it no more. And she smiled and she said: You aim to quit while you're ahead? And I said no mam I just aim to quit. I aint ahead by a damn sight. I never will be. One other thing and then I'll shut up. I would just as soon that it hadnt of got told but they put it in the papers. I went up to Ozona and talked to the district attorney up there and they said I could talk to that Mexicans lawyer if I wanted and maybe testify at the trial but that was all they would do. Meanin that they wouldnt do nothin. So I wound up doin that and of course it didnt come to nothin and the old boy got the death penalty. So I went up to Huntsville to see him and here is what happened. I walked in there and set down and he of course knew who I was as he had seen me at the trial and all and he said: What did you bring me? And I said I didnt bring him nothin and he said well he thought I must of brung him somethin. Some candy or somethin. Said he figured I was sweet on him. I looked at the guard and the guard looked away. I looked at this man. Mexican, maybe thirty-five, forty year old. Spoke good english. I said to him that I didnt come up there to be insulted but I just wanted him to know that I done the best I could for him and that I was sorry because I didnt think he done it and he just rared back and laughed and he said: Where do they find somebody like you? Have they got you in diapers yet? I shot that son of a bitch right between the eyes and drug him back to his car by the hair of the head and set the car on fire and burned him to grease.