No Country for Old Men(40)

Outside the drugstore on Main he stopped and turned and leaned against a car parked there. He checked the street. No one coming. He unscrewed the gascap at his elbow and hooked the shirtsleeve over the coathanger and ran it down into the tank and drew it out again. He taped the cardboard over the open gastank and balled the sleeve wet with gasoline over the top of it and taped it down and lit it and turned and limped into the drugstore. He was little more than halfway down the aisle toward the pharmacy when the car outside exploded into flame taking out most of the glass in front of the store.





He let himself in through the little gate and went down the pharmacist's aisles. He found a packet of syringes and a bottle of Hydrocodone tablets and he came back up the aisle looking for penicillin. He couldnt find it but he found tetracycline and sulfa. He stuffed these things in his pocket and came out from behind the counter in the orange glow of the fire and went down the aisle and picked up a pair of aluminum crutches and pushed open the rear door and went hobbling out across the gravel parking lot behind the store. The alarm at the rear door went off but no one paid any attention and Chigurh never had even glanced toward the front of the store which was now in flames.





He pulled into a motel outside of Hondo and got a room at the end of the building and walked in and set his bag on the bed. He shoved the pistol under the pillow and went in the bathroom with the bag from the Cooperative and dumped the contents out into the sink. He emptied his pockets and laid out everything on the counter-keys, billfold, the vials of antibiotic and the syringes. He sat on the edge of the tub and pulled off his boots and reached down and put the plug in the tub and turned on the tap. Then he undressed and eased himself into the tub while it filled.





His leg was black and blue and swollen badly. It looked like a snakebite. He laved water over the wounds with a washcloth. He turned his leg in the water and studied the exit wound. Small pieces of cloth stuck to the tissue. The hole was big enough to put your thumb in.





When he climbed out of the tub the water was a pale pink and the holes in his leg were still leaking a pale blood dilute with serum. He dropped his boots in the water and patted himself dry with the towel and sat on the toilet and took the bottle of Betadine and the packet of swabs from the sink. He tore open the packet with his teeth and unscrewed the bottle and tipped it slowly over the wounds. Then he set the bottle down and bent to work, picking out the 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.