No Country for Old Men(17)

Where you at?





Just past Sanderson Canyon.





Turn around and come back.





All right. What about Torbert?





Call him and tell him to just set tight. I'll come get him this afternoon.





Yessir.





Go to the house and get the keys to the truck from Loretta and hook up the horsetrailer. Saddle my horse and Loretta's and load and I'll see you out there in about a hour.





Yessir.





He hung up the speaker and got up and went down to check on the jail.





They drove through the gate and closed it again and drove down along the fence about a hundred feet and parked. Wendell unlatched the trailer doors and led the horses out. Bell took the reins of his wife's horse. You ride Winston, he said.





You sure?





Oh I'm more than sure. Anything happens to Loretta's horse I can tell you right now you damn sure dont want to be the party that was aboard him.





He handed Wendell one of the lever action rifles he'd brought and swung up into the saddle and pulled his hat down. You ready? he said.





They rode side by side. We've drove all through their tracks but you can still see what it was, Bell said. Big offroad tires.





When they got to the car it was just a blackened hulk.





You were right about the plates, Wendell said.





I lied about the tires though.





How's that.





I said they'd still be burnin.





The car sat in what looked like four puddles of tar, the wheels wrapped in blackened skeins of wire. They rode on. Bell pointed at the ground from time to time. You can tell the day tracks from the night ones, he said. They were drivin out here with no lights. See there how crooked the track is? Like you can just see far enough ahead to duck the brush in front of you. Or you might leave some paint on a rock like that right yonder.





In a sandwash he got down and walked up and back and then looked away toward the south. It's the same tire tread comin back as was goin down. Made about the same time. You can see the stripes real clear. Which way they're a goin. They's two or more trips each way, I'd say.





Wendell sat his horse, his hands crossed on the big roping pommel. He leaned and spat. He looked off to the south with the sheriff. What do you reckon it is we're fixin to find down here?





I dont know, Bell said. He put his foot in the stirrup and stood easily up into the saddle and put the little horse forward. I dont know, he said again. But I cant say as I'm much lookin forward to it.





When they reached Moss's truck the sheriff sat and studied it and then rode slowly around it. Both doors were open.





Somebody's pried the inspection plate off the door, he said.





The numbers is on the frame.





Yeah. I dont think that's why they took it.





I know that truck.





I do too.





Wendell leaned and patted the horse on the neck. The boy's name is Moss.





Yep.





Bell rode back around the rear of the truck and turned the horse to the south and looked at Wendell. You know where he lives at?





No sir.





He's married, aint he.





I believe he is.





The sheriff sat looking at the truck. I was just thinkin it'd be a curious thing if he was missin two or three days and nobody said nothin about it.





Pretty curious.





Bell looked down toward the caldera. I think we got some real mischief here.





I hear you, Sheriff.





You think this boy's a doperunner?





I dont know. I wouldnt of thought it.





I wouldnt either. Let's go down here and look at the rest of this mess.





They rode down into the caldera carrying the Winchesters upright before them in the saddlebow. I hope this boy aint dead down here, Bell said. He seemed a decent enough boy the time or two I seen him. Pretty wife too.





They rode past the bodies on the ground and stopped and got down and dropped the reins. The horses stepped nervously.





Let's take the horses out yonder a ways, Bell said. They dont need to see this.





Yessir.





When he came back Bell handed him two billfolds he'd taken from the bodies. He looked toward the trucks.





These two aint been dead all that long, he said.





Where they from?





Dallas.





He handed Wendell a pistol he'd picked up and then he squatted and leaned on the rifle he was carrying. These two is been executed, he said. One of their own, I'd say. Old boy never even got the safety off that pistol. Both of em shot between the eyes.





The othern didnt have a gun?





Killer could of took it. Or he might not of had one.





Bad way to go to a gunfight.





Bad way.





They walked among the trucks. These sumbitches are bloody as hogs, Wendell said.





Bell glanced at him.