No country for old men - By Cormac McCarthy Page 0,49

Devil’s River Bridge at sundown and half way across he pulled the cruiser to a halt and turned on the rooflights and got out and shut the door and walked around in front of the vehicle and stood leaning on the aluminum pipe that served for the top guardrail. Watching the sun set into the blue reservoir beyond the railroad bridge to the west. A westbound semi coming around the long curve of the span downshifted when the lights came into view. The driver leaned from the window as he passed. Dont jump, Sheriff. She aint worth it. Then he was gone in a long suck of wind, the diesel engine winding up and the driver double clutching and shifting gears. Bell smiled. Truth of the matter is, he said, she is.

Some two miles past the junction of 481 and 57 the box sitting in the passenger seat gave off a single bleep and went silent again. Chigurh pulled onto the shoulder and stopped. He picked up the box and turned it and turned it back. He adjusted the knobs. Nothing. He pulled out onto the highway again. The sun pooled in the low blue hills before him. Bleeding slowly away. A cool and shadowed twilight falling over the desert. He took off his sunglasses and put them in the glovebox and closed the glovebox door and turned on the headlights. As he did so the box began to beep with a slow measured time.

He parked behind the hotel and got out and came limping around the truck with the box and the shotgun and the pistol all in a zipper bag and crossed the parking lot and climbed the hotel steps.

He registered and got the key and hobbled up the steps and down the hall to his room and went in and locked the door and lay on the bed with the shotgun across his chest staring at the ceiling. He could think of no reason for the transponder sending unit to be in the hotel. He ruled out Moss because he thought Moss was almost certainly dead. That left the police. Or some agent of the Matacumbe Petroleum Group. Who must think that he thought that they thought that he thought they were very dumb. He thought about that.

When he woke it was ten-thirty at night and he lay there in the half dark and the quiet but he knew what the answer was. He got up and put the shotgun behind the pillows and stuck the pistol into the waistband of his trousers. Then he went out and limped down the stairs to the desk.

The clerk was sitting reading a magazine and when he saw Chigurh he stuck the magazine under the desk and rose. Yessir, he said.

I’d like to see the registration.

Are you a police officer?

No. I’m not.

I’m afraid I cant do that sir.

Yes you can.

When he came back up he stopped and stood listening in the hallway outside his door. He went in and got the shotgun and the receiver and then walked down to the room with the tape across it and held the box to the door and turned it on. He went down to the second door and tried the reception there. Then he came back to the first room and opened the door with the key from the desk and stepped back and stood against the hallway wall.

He could hear traffic in the street beyond the parking lot but still he thought the window was closed. There was no air moving. He looked quickly into the room. Bed pulled away from the wall. Bathroom door open. He checked the safety on the shotgun. He stepped across the doorway to the other side.

There was no one in the room. He scanned the room with the box and found the sending unit in the drawer of the bedside table. He sat on the bed turning it in his hand. Small lozenge of burnished metal the size of a domino. He looked out the window at the parking lot. His leg hurt. He put the piece of metal in his pocket and turned off the receiver and rose and left, pulling the door shut behind him. Inside the room the phone rang. He thought about that for a minute. Then he set the transponder on the windowsill in the hallway and turned and went back down to the lobby.

And there he waited for Wells. No one would do that. He sat in a leather