No country for old men - By Cormac McCarthy Page 0,14
what you mean.
I got a feelin he aint.
Yessir. I do too.
Wendell, you ready?
Wendell leaned and spat. Yessir, he said. I’m ready. He looked at Torbert. You get stopped with that old boy in the turtle just tell em you dont know nothin about it. Tell em somebody must of put him in there while you was havin coffee.
Torbert nodded. You and the sheriff goin to come down and get me off of death row?
If we cant get you out we’ll get in there with you.
You all dont be makin light of the dead thataway, Bell said.
Wendell nodded. Yessir, he said. You’re right. I might be one myself some day.
Driving out 90 toward the turnoff at Dryden he came across a hawk dead in the road. He saw the feathers move in the wind. He pulled over and got out and walked back and squatted on his bootheels and looked at it. He raised one wing and let it fall again. Cold yellow eye dead to the blue vault above them.
It was a big redtail. He picked it up by one wingtip and carried it to the bar ditch and laid it in the grass. They would hunt the blacktop, sitting on the high powerpoles and watching the highway in both directions for miles. Any small thing that might venture to cross. Closing on their prey against the sun. Shadowless. Lost in the concentration of the hunter. He wouldnt have the trucks running over it.
He stood there looking out across the desert. So quiet. Low hum of wind in the wires. High bloodweeds along the road. Wiregrass and sacahuista. Beyond in the stone arroyos the tracks of dragons. The raw rock mountains shadowed in the late sun and to the east the shimmering abscissa of the desert plains under a sky where raincurtains hung dark as soot all along the quadrant. That god lives in silence who has scoured the following land with salt and ash. He walked back to the cruiser and got in and pulled away.
When he pulled up in front of the sheriff’s office in Sonora the first thing he saw was the yellow tape stretched across the parking lot. A small courthouse crowd. He got out and crossed the street.
What’s happened, Sheriff?
I dont know, said Bell. I just got here.
He ducked under the tape and went up the steps. Lamar looked up when he tapped at the door. Come in, Ed Tom, he said. Come in. We got hell to pay here.
They walked out on the courthouse lawn. Some of the men followed them.
You all go on, said Lamar. Me and the sheriff here need to talk.
He looked haggard. He looked at Bell and he looked at the ground. He shook his head and looked away. I used to play mumbledypeg here when I was a boy. Right here. These youngsters today I dont think would even know what that was. Ed Tom this is a damned lunatic.
I hear you.
You got anything to go on?
Not really.
Lamar looked away. He wiped his eyes with the back of his sleeve. I’ll tell you right now. This son of a bitch will never see a day in court. Not if I catch him he wont.
Well, we need to catch him first.
That boy was married.
I didnt know that.
Twenty-three year old. Clean cut boy. Straight as a die. Now I got to go out to his house fore his wife hears it on the damn radio.
I dont envy you that. I surely dont.
I think I’m goin to quit, Ed Tom.
You want me to go out there with you?
No. I appreciate it. I need to go.
All right.
I just have this feelin we’re looking at somethin we really aint never even seen before.
I got the same feelin. Let me call you this evenin.
I appreciate it.
He watched Lamar cross the lawn and climb the steps to his office. I hope you dont quit, he said. I think we’re goin to need all of you we can get.
When they pulled up in front of the cafe it was one-twenty in the morning. There were only three people on the bus.
Sanderson, the driver said.
Moss made his way forward. He’d seen the driver eyeing him in the mirror. Listen, he said. Do you think you could let me out down at the Desert Aire? I got a bad leg and I live down there but I got nobody to pick me up.
The driver shut the door. Yeah, he said. I can do that.