Cormac McCarthy’s “No Country for Old Men” is the story of a failed drug deal in Terrell County, Texas, near the Tex-Mex border in 1980 and follows its aftermath from the viewpoint of three principal characters: Llewelyn Moss, a Vietnam veteran who finds drug money; Anton Chigurh, a psychopathic killer hired by one of the drug runners to retrieve the drug money; and Ed Tom Bell, the sheriff of the county in which most of the events unfold, who attempts to bring the law to bear in the situation.
The novel’s plot hinges on Moss returning to the crime scene to administer an act of mercy. While this shows Moss as a compassionate character, it also presents a naivete that seems hard to believe in a character so experienced in worldly things as he is.
The story opens with Llewellyn Moss hunting antelope in the hills in the desert. In his introduction, he comes upon the scene of a botched drug deal, seeing abandoned vehicles and dead bodies. He escapes with a suitcase of money he finds in the hands of a dead man at the scene with 2.4 million dollars inside.
A belated twinge of compassion for a dying man who asked him for water nags at Moss. That night, he drives over to the murder scene with water, only to find the man shot and his assailants lurking close. The story’s rising action occurs when the killers detect and pursue Moss, who abandons his car and flees on foot, eventually evading capture by swimming across a river in the valley.
Moss realizes that his pursuers, discovering his car, could easily trace him through his vehicle registration information. When he returns home, he urges his wife Carla Jean to take refuge with her grandmother in Odessa, as information their home would soon become exposed to and a likely target of the drug dealers. Moss himself goes on the run with the drug, briefly staying in various motels to evade capture.
Meanwhile, Anton Chigurh, a psychopathic killer whose weapon of choice is a cattle stun bolt gun and who uses a coin toss to decide whether his victims would live or die, is hired by one of the drug runners to retrieve the money. Under arrest, he kills a deputy to escape and is soon on the trail of Moss, paying a visit to his abandoned home and shadowing his escape route.
While Chigurh’s introduction is chillingly violent and dramatic, I wonder if it is at odds with his character. Chigurh allows himself to be captured by the police and kills a sheriff and a motorist to escape. This unnecessary act of violence does not seem as consistent with his ethos as an agent of fate.
Also joined in the chase is Sheriff Bell, in whose county the murders occur and whose deputy Chigurh murdered. Sheriff Bell discovers Moss’s involvement in the incident. A sense of duty to his county and its inhabitants set him on the path of saving Moss from the killers and bringing the killers to book.
Sheriff Bell knows the Mosses enough to guess where to find Carla Jean. When they meet in Odessa, he spells out the great danger in which Moss is and how he is interested in helping the couple. Before he leaves, he tries to persuade her to give him any information about Moss that might lead him to find and save Moss from the ruthless killers after him. She refuses, trusting in her husband’s ability to protect himself.
Moss discovers a transponder hidden among the money bills that transmits his location. The novel’s climax unfolds as Anton Chigurh tracks Moss to the motel, and a shootout ensues that also involves a third party: a rival group of Mexican drug dealers. Moss and Chigurh are injured, and the drug dealers are killed. Moss escapes to Mexico but hides the money among grasses by the river on the American side.
When Moss and Chigurh met, Moss had the advantage and could have eliminated Chigurh first. However, Moss’s moral scruples, which Chigurh lacked, prevented him from taking such an advantage. I wonder how the story would have ended if he had taken the chance.
Both Moss and Chigurh need treatment for their wounds. Moss receives treatment in a hospital on the Mexican part of the border while Chigurh treats himself in his motel room using stolen medical supplies. At the hospital, Carson Wells, an agent of one of the drug dealers sent to reclaim the money, visits Moss. A veteran like Moss, Wells tries to convince Moss that he stands no chance of running away and should give up the money to him in exchange for his life. Wells makes the case that this offer is better for Moss than dealing with Chigurh, as Chigurh is bent on taking both the money and Moss’ life. Wells’ mission, it appears, also includes eliminating Chigurh, who he characterizes as crazy. Moss refuses this offer, but Wells leaves his contact information with Moss anyway, hoping that Moss will change his mind in time.
When Wells returns to his motel, Chigurh, already lying in wait, kills him. Therefore, when Moss calls Wells to negotiate, he reaches Chigurh instead. He presents Moss with two alternate choices. Moss had to bring him the money and forfeit his life. Otherwise, he would come for the money and kill Moss and Carla Jean. Moss spurns the offer.
In the novel’s turning point, Moss retrieves the money and commits to making a run for it. He calls Carla Jean to arrange for them to meet in El Paso. Carla Jean, meanwhile, calls Sheriff Bell to inform him of Moss’s proposed meeting with her. One of the parties to the failed drug deal eavesdrops on the call, and they track down Moss and kill him. While driving out to intercept Moss, the sheriff of the town where Moss was killed calls Sheriff Bell to identify his dead body.
The character of Anton Chigurh escapes death so often and incredibly that he attains near-mythic immortality. He also has incredible luck, which normal stories reserve for the main character. The story begins to give me a sense that, unlike other characters in the story, Chigurh is not human at all.
In the novel’s falling action, Anton Chigurh finds the money at the motel where Moss dies, and he returns the money to the owner. Also, Chigurh hunts down Carla Jean at her grandmother’s and kills her, as he promised Moss he would. On driving away from the murder, a driver running a stop light rams into his car, severely injuring him. However, he survives and walks away from the scene.
At the story’s resolution, Sheriff Bell retires. He feels old, powerless, and inadequate, having failed to protect the ones he’d sworn to protect and bring the criminals to justice.
As much as I enjoyed the story, the ending left me feeling like I was left mid-sentence. One does not know what happened to Chigurh; in the end, our protagonist dies, and even Sheriff Bell’s retirement seems to belong entirely to another tale.
