No Country for Old Men: Chapter 9 Summary & Analysis

Bell, once again issuing a monologue from the present, wishes he could have told Carla Jean that Moss didn’t sleep with the young woman he picked up, and was instead just trying to help her. He called Carla Jean to try to explain all this, but she hangs up on him. The reader is told that Chigurh kills Carla Jean before Bell gets the chance to explain, though the scene of the murder is not dramatized until later. When he got the call from Odessa that Chigurh had killed Carla Jean, he drove out and tried to get some fingerprints from the scene, but the FBI database drew a blank. Bell says that Chigurh is a ghost, and tells himself that maybe it is over, but he knows Chigurh is out there somewhere. Bell then tells about his father, who told him as a young boy to always do his best and tell the truth. Nothing will set a man’s mind at ease like waking up and not having to decide who you were. Bell says that the truth is always simple, that it needs to be simple enough for a child to understand, or it would be too late by the time you figured it out.

The narrative moves away from the present tense, and back to the events of the narrative in the past. Chigurh returns the briefcase and its money to its rightful owner, an unnamed man working in an office in an undisclosed location. The man grows worried that he is in danger, but Chigurh tells him nobody else is coming—Chigurh is in charge of who comes and who doesn’t. Chigurh says he wants the man to consider his services in the future. He suggests the man consider how he lost the money in the first place, whom he listened to, and what happened. Chigurh says they will be dealing with new people now. The man asks about the old people, and Chigurh tells him they have moved onto other things. Not everyone is cut out for this work, Chigurh says. The old people made the mistake of pretending they were in control of things they weren’t. One’s stance on uncertain ground invites attention from enemies. The man asks about Chigurh’s enemies, and Chigurh says he has none; he does not permit such things.

Carla Jean’s grandmother passes away, and she goes to her funeral. She is surprised by the number of people who show up, and stands with her family members. The entire time she feels like someone is watching her. She gets home after dark and sits at the kitchen table crying over her grandmother. When she goes upstairs, she finds Chigurh sitting in the bedroom. She tells him she doesn’t have the briefcase, but Chigurh tells her it is too late. She says she hasn’t even paid for her grandmother’s funeral. Chigurh tells her not to worry about that. Carla Jean tells Chigurh that he has no reason to hurt her, but he tells her that he gave his word to Moss that he would kill her, and he intends to stand by it.

Carla Jean tries to reason with Chigurh. She tells him that her husband is dead, and the promise Chigurh made to Moss to kill her should no longer matters. Chigurh disagrees, saying that his word is not dead, and nothing can change that. He tells Carla Jean that Moss had the power to remove her from harms way, but he chose not to. Carla Jean doesn’t understand what she has done to deserve this, but Chigurh tells her there is a reason for everything.

Chigurh asks Carla Jean if she has any final words. She says she has nothing to say to him. Chigurh tells her not to worry about dying, that it doesn’t make a difference whether she thinks he is a bad person or not. Death is hard to understand, he tells her. He has seen many people struggle with it. They all tell him he doesn’t have to kill them, but he does. He tells her it is not her fault; it is just bad luck.

Chigurh pulls a coin from his pocket and holds it up for Carla Jean to see. He wants her to see the justice of it. He flips the coin and puts it down on his wrist. He tells her to call it, but she refuses at first, saying God wouldn’t want her to do such a thing. Chigurh says of course God would want her to try to save herself. She calls heads, but the coin reads tails. She tells Chigurh that he makes it out to be the coin’s fault, but he is the one making the choice. Perhaps, he says, but the coin arrived the same way he did.

Before shooting Carla Jean, Chigurh tells her that every moment in her life is a turning and every one a choosing. At some point, she made a choice and all of this followed. The accounting is scrupulous. He tells her he could have told her how all of this would end, but he wanted to give her a glimmer of hope before killing her. She begs him to spare her, but he says that would make him vulnerable, and he can never do such a thing. He tells her this is the end, despite her belief that things could have turned out differently. He asks her if she understands, and she says she truly does. He says that is good, and kills her.

As Chigurh drives away from the house, a Buick runs a stop sign and strikes his truck. His arm breaks in two places, ribs break, and he is cut on his forehead and leg. Two teenage boys stand there looking at him. He asks one of the boys what it would cost to buy his shirt. One of the boys, David DeMarco, gives him his shirt for free. He asks the boy to tie the shirt in a sling around his arm. Chigurh takes some money from his money clip and gives it to the boys. He tells them not to tell anyone what he looks like. One of the boys tells the other that part of the money should be his, and they squabble over who gets what. As they walk away, they see Chigurh’s pistol lying on the floorboard of the truck. They steal the gun, and leave.

The narrative jumps to Bell as he visits his Uncle Ellis who still lives in the family homestead. His uncle Ellis is a former sheriff, and someone who Bell looks up to. The house smells of bacon grease, wood smoke, and urine. Ellis is sitting in his wheelchair the kitchen. He was shot in the line of duty, and now must use the wheelchair. He looks at Bell with one clouded eye he lost years ago after being thrown from a horse onto a cactus. Ellis tells Bell that Loretta has been writing him letters, and he has heard that Bell is thinking about quitting his job as sheriff. Ellis rolls a cigarette and lights it with a zippo lighter that is worn through to the brass. Bell tells Ellis he looks older, and Ellis says he is older.

Bell asks Ellis what his biggest regret in his life is. Ellis tells him he does not have many regrets. He thinks by the time a person is grown, he or she is as happy as they are going to get. Despite good and bad times, you end up as happy as you were before the good or bad times. Ellis tells Bell that if he quit because he didn’t know where the ride would take him, that is one thing, but if he quit because it was rougher than he thought, that would be another. Ellis asks what it would take for Bell to lose his marriage to Loretta. Bell says it would take a lot more than things getting a bit rough.

Bell and Ellis continue talking while they drink some coffee out of the same porcelain cups that had been in the house before Bell was born. Bell asks if the man who shot Ellis died in prison. Ellis says he died in a prison called Angola. Ellis says he wouldn’t have done anything to the man if he were released. Ellis tells Bell it wouldn’t have been worth it, that while you are trying to get back what has been taken, everything else is leaving out the back door. After a while you just need to get a tourniquet on it.

Ellis tells Bell that his grandfather did not ask him, (Ellis) to become a sheriff. Instead, Ellis signed on because he had nothing better to do, and it paid as much as being a cowboy. He was too young for WWI and too old for WWII, so policing became his outlet. Ellis states that you can be patriotic and still see the costs of war and disagree with it. He tells Bell to go talk with the mothers that lost their children in battle, suggesting they paid too much.

Ellis tells Bell that he thought God would come into his life when he was older, but he never came. Ellis doesn’t think God has a good opinion of him, but he doesn’t blame God. He doesn’t feel worthy. Bell says Ellis doesn’t know what God thinks, but Ellis tells him he does know. Bell asks Ellis if he ever thinks about his brother Harold who was killed in WWI. Bell has been reading some letters that Ellis’s mother wrote to his brother. Ellis says his mother never got over his brother’s death, and that he still can’t make sense of his brother dying in a ditch at the age of seventeen. Ellis says he expects God knows what is happening in the world, but He can’t do anything to stop it.

Ellis tells a story about another relative whom Native American’s killed in 1879. This story clears up the untruth of a family myth. The story suggests the man was heroic in battle, but the truth is that he was killed on his porch, and his wife buried him the next day. She couldn’t pay the taxes on the land, so she left. The house burned down, but the chimney remained standing. Bell doesn’t remember the woman, but he wishes he could. Ellis tells him this country is hard on its people, but people do not criticize the country for it, they remain loyal. This country will kill a person in a heartbeat, Ellis says, but people still love it. He admits that he still loves it, but he also admits he is as ignorant as a box of rocks.

Bell tells Ellis about how we got his decoration as a war hero. He was in an abandoned farmhouse in Europe with his squad. They were listening for the enemy with a radio, and could hear nothing but the rain. Suddenly a bomb exploded, and Bell woke up outside the house. His men were buried in the fallen structure. When he looked up, a group of German riflemen were approaching from the woods. He fended them off with a .30 caliber machine gun. Once night fell, Bell abandoned his men and ran to safety. Ellis asks whether running seemed like a good idea at the time. Bell says it did, that he would have died if he stayed.

Bell tells Ellis about the shame he feels about receiving the bronze star for his heroics in battle. He tried to refuse the medal, but the sergeant would not let him turn it down. Bell guesses the military had to make it look like the death of his men, and the war in general, counted for something. So, he accepted the medal.

Ellis tells Bell he didn’t have a choice, but Bell says he could have stayed behind. Ellis reminds him he couldn’t have helped the men. Bell says he thought after all of the years the shame would go away, but he has realized it won’t, so he tries to make up for it other ways. Ellis tells him he ought to ease up on himself. Bell says that going into battle is a blood oath to stick by your men, and he didn’t. He believes that if he was supposed to die and had given his word to stick by his men, he should have died. He feels like he stole his life, and though he has done his best to live well, his life is not his.

Bell asks Ellis what he thinks his father would have done in that situation. Bell thinks he would have stuck it out and died with his men, and Ellis agrees. Ellis asks if Bell thinks that makes his father a better man than he. Bell does. Ellis says he could tell Bell some things about his father that might change his mind, but Bell doubts if he could. Ellis says Bell’s father lived in a different time, but if he had been born fifty years later Bell’s father might have had a different view of things. Ellis asks if he is going to tell Loretta he is quitting. Bell says yes, and Ellis says it will likely go better than he thinks.