No country for old men - By Cormac McCarthy Page 0,47

bits of cloth, using the swabs and the forceps. He sat with the water running in the sink and rested. He held the tip of the forceps under the faucet and shook away the water and bent to his work again.

When he was done he disinfected the wound a final time and tore open packets of four by fours and laid them over the holes in his leg and bound them with gauze off of a roll packaged for sheep and goats. Then he rose and filled the plastic tumbler on the sink counter with water and drank it. He filled it and drank twice more. Then he went back into the bedroom and stretched out on the bed with his leg propped on the pillows. Other than a light beading of sweat on his forehead there was little evidence that his labors had cost him anything at all.

When he went back into the bathroom he stripped one of the syringes out of the plastic wrapper and sank the needle through the seal into the vial of tetracycline and drew the glass barrel full and held it to the light and pressed the plunger with his thumb until a small bead appeared at the tip of the needle. Then he snapped the syringe twice with his finger and bent and slid the needle into the quadriceps of his right leg and slowly depressed the plunger.

He stayed in the motel for five days. Hobbling down to the cafe on the crutches for his meals and back again. He kept the television on and he sat up in the bed watching it and he never changed channels. He watched whatever came on. He watched soap operas and the news and talk shows. He changed the dressing twice a day and cleaned the wounds with epsom salt solution and took the antibiotics. When the maid came the first morning he went to the door and told her he did not need any service. Just towels and soap. He gave her ten dollars and she took the money and stood there uncertainly. He told her the same thing in spanish and she nodded and put the money in her apron and pushed her cart back up the walkway and he stood there and studied the cars in the parking lot and then shut the door.

On the fifth night while he was sitting in the cafe two deputies from the Valdez County Sheriff’s Office came in and sat down and removed their hats and put them in the empty chairs at either side and took the menus from the chrome holder and opened them. One of them looked at him. Chigurh watched it all without turning or looking. They spoke. Then the other one looked at him. Then the waitress came. He finished his coffee and rose and left the money on the table and walked out. He’d left the crutches in the room and he walked slowly and evenly along the walkway past the cafe window trying not to limp. He walked past his room to the end of the ramada and turned. He looked at the Ramcharger parked at the end of the lot. It could not be seen from the office or from the restaurant. He went back to the room and put his shavingkit and the pistol in his bag and walked out across the parking lot and got into the Ramcharger and started it and drove over the concrete divider into the parking lot of the electronics shop next door and out onto the highway.

Wells stood on the bridge with the wind off the river tousling his thin and sandy hair. He turned and leaned against the fence and raised the small cheap camera he carried and took a picture of nothing in particular and lowered the camera again. He was standing where Moss had stood four nights ago. He studied the blood on the walk. Where it trailed off to nothing he stopped and stood with his arms folded and his chin in his hand. He didnt bother to take a picture. There was no one watching. He looked out downriver at the slow green water. He walked a dozen steps and came back. He stepped into the roadway and crossed to the other side. A truck passed. A light tremor in the superstructure. He went on along the walkway and then he stopped. Faint outline of a bootprint in blood. Fainter of another. He studied the chainlink fence