Summary
At the beginning of Part III, Sheriff Bell considers the benefits and drawbacks of new technology, and claims, "I dont know that law enforcement benefits all that much from new technology. Tools that comes into our hands comes into theirs too" (62). He admits that there are some benefits to new equipment and technology, but fails to offer any examples; instead, he describes the old equipment that works just as well if not better than the new stuff. His cruiser, for example. He claims the newer engines "wouldnt outrun a fatman" (62).
Bell then moves to the topic of execution. He's highly uncomfortable with execution as a spectacle. He talks about how people dress to witness it happen, and discusses the behavior of the men facing it right before it happens. He finds it all peculiar and inexplicable. He then discusses the role of being sheriff in the community and how in Texas there are no prerequisites to being voted sheriff. He reminisces about the days when sheriffs knew everyone's phone number by heart, and wonders whether the new technology and modern attitudes will see an end to the personal touch of law enforcement and governing.
Moss sees Carla Jean off on her bus to Odessa. He tells her that he'll call her from a pay phone in a few days, and she tells him not to hurt anyone. He says that he can't make that promise.
Bell answers a call during dinner about a car fire on the interstate. He goes to inspect the scene with a few deputies, and his wife comes along with him. He connects the Ford that was set ablaze to the stolen Ford owned by the dead man they found on the interstate. The next day the sheriff and a few other lawmen ride on horseback to the scene of the massacre. They find Moss's truck with the inspection plate ripped off and speculate on his involvement. All the men present agree that they would be surprised if Llewelyn is involved in drug trafficking. They find the bodies down in the desert and suspect that they aren't the first group (or even the second) to be inspecting the scene.
Deputy Torbert informs Bell of the autopsy report from Austin on the man found on the interstate. They conclude that he was shot in the head by "what looked to be a large caliber bullet" (78) but could not say for certain what weapon was used, nor could they find a bullet despite the fact that there is no exit wound. This information confounds Sheriff Bell, but he has no choice to accept it.
Chigurh breaks into Llewelyn's trailer and finds no one home. He drinks milk out of the fridge, pockets their mail, and goes to the front office of the trailer park to inquire about Llewelyn. The woman at the front desk refuses to give Chigurh any more information. Chigurh opens their mail and figures out Llewelyn's place of business and finds two numbers on their phone bill, one of which is an Odessa number. He calls both numbers, and the Odessa number (presumably Carla Jean's mother's number) picks up, but gives Chigurh no futher information. Chirgurh goes to Llewelyn's place of work, and they don't give him much information either.
Moss takes a bus to Del Rio and checks into a cheap motel. He shoves the suitcase full of money deep into the air vent of his motel room and sleeps. He crosses the border and wanders around Ciudad Acuna and has dinner. When he returns to the hotel by cab, he notices the window blinds are slightly parted in a way that he doesn't recall leaving them, so he has the cabbie drive him to another motel. The next day he goes to a sporting goods store and buys a shotgun, shells, and a tent. Then he goes to a hardware store and buys a hacksaw and other materials to make a sawn-off shotgun.
At the beginning of Part IV, Bell reflects on the fortunes of his life, like meeting his wife, who he says is the best person he knows, and running for sheriff. He considers himself a lucky man, and says that the Lord smiles upon him more than he thinks he deserves.
Bell takes his coffee and eggs at the local cafe and reads the morning paper, where he sees a write up about the young deputy who was strangled at the jail. Then Bell visits the Moss residence with a deputy and finds the lock of his front door has been shot out across the room. Bell and the deputy determine that Moss left in a hurry and that he knows he's being hunted. Then he and the deputy meet with a DEA agent named McIntyre at the scene of the massacre, and together they take stock of the situation.
Moss goes back to the first motel he stayed in and checks into a room opposite his old room. He then uses the tent poles from the tent he bought to pull the suitcase out of the vent. Meanwhile, Chigurh stalks the perimeter of the motel. He has a tracking device that chirps when it is close to the case of money. Chigurh bursts into a motel room and finds two men armed with machine guns. He kills them both with his silenced military shotgun. Chigurh checks the air vent for the case of money but finds that it has already been pulled out. He sees its tracks in the dust in the vent.
Moss checks into yet another motel. This time, once he's back in his room, he opens the briefcase and rummages through to look for a tracking device. He finds one in a hollowed stack of small bills and flushes it down the toilet. He asks the front desk clerk to call him if anyone new checks into the hotel and runs a shower. He hears commotion before he gets in the shower and slides under the bed, shotgun at the ready, pointed toward the door. Chigurh walks into the room. Moss watches his feet cross to the bathroom. Moss pops out from under the bed and walks Chigurh to the lobby of the motel at gunpoint. Then, Moss makes a break for it, leaving Chigurh in the lobby. By the time he's across the street, Chigurh stands on the motel balcony. He hits Moss with three shots.
Moss makes his way back to the border and buys a coat off of a group of teenagers to keep warm and conceal the fact that he's covered in blood. He then pays a man to point him in the direction of a hospital. Meanwhile, Chigurh finishes off the firefight that erupted in front of the motel when Llewelyn ran away. He kills the cartel members who are also looking for the money. Chigurh has been shot in the leg and bleeds profusely, but he betrays no sense of dread or fear.
Analysis
As the murderous path of Anton Chigurh winds through Bell's county, the sheriff further considers the themes of evil and predestination. In earlier chapters, Bell wonders whether there is a "new kind" of person in the world, true agents of chaos and emissaries of sorts to Satan. Sheriff Bell is a God-fearing man and appears to be somewhat compassionate and sympathetic to his constituents. He also has quite traditional notions about good and evil; though he has only seen one execution in his long career, his conclusion about how to deal with this "new kind" of person who is totally without remorse seems to favor eradication over rehabilitation. His notions about how to govern "good" people versus "bad" people intertwine with his feeling that the office of sheriff is a peculiar one with very few checks in place; a "bad" man as sheriff has the potential to do as much "evil" as one of the iredeemable criminals he references. He relates these two trains of thought at the start of Part III:
It’s a odd thing when you come to think about it. The opportunities for abuse are just about everwhere. There’s no requirements in the Texas State Constitution for bein a sheriff. Not a one. There is no such thing as a county law. You think about a job where you have pretty much the same authority as God and there is no requirements put upon you and you are charged with preservin nonexistent laws and you tell me if that’s peculiar or not. Because I say that it is. Does it work? Yes. Ninety percent of the time. It takes very little to govern good people. Very little. And bad people cant be governed at all. Or if they could I never heard of it. (64)
Bell also tends to tack caveats to the end of his declarations, which characterizes him as humble. The statement that it takes "very little to govern good people," and that "bad people can't be governed at all" are two huge claims that make far-reaching assumptions about human nature, the existence of good and evil, and justice. But Bell then follows his statement up with a qualifier, that what he says is true in his own experience. Notions of experience and acquaintance emerge as important factors in governing this rural community. For example, when Bell finds Llewelyn's truck near the scene of the massacre, he bases his hypothesis about Llewelyn's involvement on his own limited interactions with Moss. He says he would be surprised if Llewelyn is a "doperunner" and that he seems like "a decent enough boy" (72).
The novel reinforces Bell's notion of Chigurh as an inhuman, remorseless predator by arming Chigurh with a cattle gun as his primary weapon of choice. When Bell realizes that Chigurh uses a cattle gun to kill and break locks, he tells his deputy about the mechanism of the weapon. ""They use a airpowered gun that shoots a steel bolt out of it. Just shoots it out about so far. They put that thing between the beef’s eyes and pull the trigger and down she goes. It’s that quick" (106). The impersonal, clinical description of the process and the way he refers to the cows as "the beef" demonstrate, by extension, the way Chigurh thinks of human beings and the complete lack of value he ascribes to a human life.
