No Country For Old Men

Well. These people can read you pretty good. If I had of smacked him in the mouth that guard would not of said word one. And he knew that. He knew that.

I seen that county prosecutor comin out of there and I knowed him just a little to talk to and we stopped and visited some. I didnt tell him what had happened but he knew about me tryin to help that man and he might could of put two and two together. I dont know. He didnt ask me nothin about him. Didnt ask me what I was doin up there or nothin. There's two kinds of people that dont ask a lot of questions. One is too dumb to and the other dont need to. I'll leave it to you to guess which one I figure him to be. He was just standin there in the hall with his briefcase. Like he had all the time in the world. He told me that when he got out of law school he had been a defense attorney for a while. He said it made his life too complicated. He didnt want to spend the rest of his life bein lied to on a daily basis just as a matter of course. I told him that a lawyer one time told me that in law school they try and teach you not to worry about right and wrong but just follow the law and I said I wasnt so sure about that. He thought about that and he nodded and he said that he pretty much had to agree with that lawyer. He said that if you dont follow the law right and wrong wont save you. Which I guess I can see the sense of But it dont change the way I think. Finally I asked him if he knew who Mammon was. And he said: Mammon?

Yes. Mammon.

You mean like in God and Mammon?

Yessir.

Well, he said, I cant say as I do. I know it's in the bible. Is it the devil?

I dont know. I'm goin to look it up. I got a feelin I ought to know who it is.

He kindly smiled and he said: You sound like he might be getting ready to take up the spare bedroom.

Well, I said, that would be one concern. In any case I feel I need to familiarize myself with his habits.

He nodded. Kind of smiled. Then he did ask me a question. He said: This mystery man you think killed that trooper and burned him up in his car. What do you know about him?

I dont know nothin. I wish I did. Or I think I wish it.

Yeah.

He's pretty much a ghost.

Is he pretty much or is he one?

No, he's out there. I wish he wasnt. But he is.

He nodded. I guess if he was a ghost you wouldnt have to worry about him.

I said that was right, but I've thought about it since and I think the answer to his question is that when you encounter certain things in the world, the evidence for certain things, you realize that you have come upon somethin that you may very well not be equal to and I think that this is one of them things. When you've said that it's real and not just in your head I'm not all that sure what it is you have said.

Loretta did say one thing. She said somethin to the effect that it wasnt my fault and I said it was. And I had thought about that too. I told her that if you got a bad enough dog in your yard people will stay out of it. And they didnt.

When he got home she wasnt there but her car was. He walked out to the barn and her horse was gone. He started to go back to the house but then he stopped and he thought about her maybe being hurt and he went to the tackroom and got his saddle down and carried it out into the bay and whistled at his horse and watched his head come up over the stall door down at the end of the barn with his ears scissoring.

He rode out with the reins in one hand, patting the horse. He talked to the horse as he went. Feels good to be out, dont it. You know where they went? That's all right. Dont you worry about it. We'll find em.

Forty minutes later he saw her and stopped and sat the horse and watched. She was riding along a red dirt ridge to the south sitting with her hands crossed on the pommel, looking toward the last of the sun, the horse slogging slowly through the loose sandy dirt, the red stain of it following them in the still air. That's my heart yonder, he told the horse. It always was.

They rode together out to Warner's Well and dismounted and sat under the cottonwoods while the horses grazed. Doves coming in to the tanks. Late in the year. We wont be seein them much longer.

She smiled. Late in the year, she said.

You hate it.

Leavin here?

Leavin here.

I'm all right.

Because of me though, aint it?

She smiled. Well, she said, past a certain age I dont guess there is any such thing as good change.

I guess we're in trouble then.

We'll be all right. I think I'm goin to like havin you home for di

I like bein home any time.

I remember when Daddy retired Mama told him: I said for better or for worse but I didnt say nothin about lunch.

Bell smiled. I'll bet she wishes he could come home now.

I'll bet she does too. I'll bet I do, for that matter.

I shouldnt ought to of said that.

You didnt say nothin wrong.

You'd say that anyways.

That's my job.

Bell smiled. You wouldnt tell me if I was in the wrong?

Nope.

What if I wanted you to?

Tough.

He watched the little brindled desert doves come stooping in under the dull rose light. Is that true? he said.

Pretty much. Not altogether.

Is that a good idea?

Well, she said. Whatever it was I expect you'd get it figured out with no help from me. And if it was somethin we just disagreed about I reckon I'd get over it.

Where I might not.

She smiled and put her hand on his. Put it up, she said. It's nice just to be here.

Yes mam. It is indeed.

XII

I'll wake Loretta up just bein awake myself. Be layin there and she'll say my name. Like askin me if I'm there. Sometimes I'll go in the kitchen and get her a ginger ale and we'll set there in the dark. I wish I had her ease about things. The world I've seen has not made me a spiritual person. Not like her. She worries about me, too. I see it. I reckon I thought that because I was older and the man that she would learn from me and in many respects she has. But I know where the debt lies.

I think I know where we're headed. We're bein bought with our own money. And it aint just the drugs. There is fortunes bein accumulated out there that they dont nobody even know about. What do we think is goin to come of that money? Money that can buy whole countries. It done has. Can it buy this one? I dont think so. But it will put you in bed with people you ought not to be there with. It's not even a law enforcement problem. I doubt that it ever was. There's always been narcotics. But people dont just up and decide to dope theirselves for no reason. By the millions. I dont have no answer about that. In particular I dont have no answer to take heart from. I told a reporter here a while back – young girl, seemed nice enough. She was just tryin to be a reporter. She said: Sheriff how come you to let crime get so out of hand in your county? Sounded like a fair question I reckon. Maybe it was a fair question. Anyway I told her, I said: It starts when you begin to overlook bad ma