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No Country for Old Men Chapter VIII Summary

How It All Goes Down

  • It's time for Sheriff Bell's Old Guy Whine Time. Same Old Guy Time, Same Old Guy Station.
  • A summary: I keep gettin older but criminals stay the same age. They aint got no respect. Drug wars are getting more violent. No one respects me. Narcotics are the worst.
  • Llewelyn buys the redheaded hitchhiker dinner and chats her up.
  • Llewelyn's as forthcoming with her as he was with his wife, telling her nothing about himself.
  • Llewelyn and the hitchhiker check into a hotel and sit outside while Llewelyn gives life advice. Then they ponder the existence of good luck and bad luck.
  • Llewelyn goes to his own room to sleep.
  • Whoops. Looks like he has bad luck. He's dead now.
  • No, seriously. Llewelyn, one of our main characters, just died during the section break.
  • The drug runners' Barracuda pulls into a car wash, and the driver washes off all the blood, while Bell shows up at the hotel in Van Horn to investigate the crime scene.
  • Llewelyn and the hitchhiker girl are dead.
  • Bell isn't looking forward to telling Llewelyn's wife that he's dead.
  • Bell sets off on the 120-mile journey to El Paso.
  • That night, Chigurh breaks into the crime scene and finds the moneybag hidden in the air duct.
  • He retrieves it and returns to his truck. Just as he does, Bell arrives to scope out the crime scene again. Chigurh waits silently in the darkness.
  • Bell sees the dismantled air grate and realizes that someone has been there. That someone could still be there.
  • Bell returns to his cruiser and radios for backup, then drives a bit down the road to scope out the parking lot. He doesn't see any vehicles leave.
  • When his backup arrives, Bell searches all the vehicles in the parking lot, but he doesn't find anyone. Where did Chigurh go?
  • Bell travels to Carla Jean's house to deliver the bad news. She starts to cry.
  • The Sheriff apologizes again and again, and Carla Jean snaps. "Damn you. […] My husband is dead. Do you understand that? You say you're sorry one more time and by God if wont get my gun and shoot you" (8.2.447).