This chapter-by-chapter summary contains plot spoilers!

Buy on Amazon: No Country for Old Men (Vintage International)

Navigate the Summary Parts: Part 1: Moss finds the money Part 2: Moss gets chased Part 3: Chigurh flips a coin Part 4: Bell investigates Part 5: Moss goes to Mexico Part 6: Shoot-out with Chigurh Part 7: Bell visits Carla Part 8: Wells talks to Moss Part 9: Chigurh talks to Wells Part 10: Moss returns to U.S. Part 11: Moss meets a girl Part 12: Bell catches up Part 13: Chigurh flips a coin Part 14: Bell visits his uncle Part 15: Conclusion

No Country for Old Men
by Cormac McCarthy: 
Pages 300 - 309

Go to the beginning

(Brought to you by jat snortyville.) Bell gets home but his wife isn't there. He notices her horse is gone, and he goes off on his own horse to find her. He sees her riding along a ridge. He meets up with her and they ride to a stand of cottonwoods and sit under them while the horses graze. She asks him if he's going to hate leaving town, and he says he doesn't, but she asks him if he's doing it for her, and he agrees. She says that she'll like having him at home more. He wonders if that's the case, but she assures him that it is. She grasps his hand and says it nice to be here, and he agrees.

He thinks about how he'd wake her up sometimes when he was awake himself, and how she seems to be someone much more at ease than he is. He reflects that money is behind much of what is wrong with the world, and that in many cases, people bring it on themselves because of their reliance on things such as money and drugs. He also thinks about the people of his generation or older, and how they don't seem in touch with the world today. He also thinks about his wife, and how he doesn't know what he'd do without her.

In a final scene Bell is walking out of the courthouse for the last time. He gets into his truck and sits for a while. He feels something, but it takes him awhile to recognize that he feels like he's been defeated. He then tells himself to get over it, and starts the truck.

In the final flashback, he thinks about a house with a trough for water by the side. He remembers how the house that he had guarded during WWII also had a trough, and he wonders if the people that built the houses ever thought their houses would eventually fall.

He also thinks about his father, and how he taught him everything he knew but that in his father's own mind, Bell had surpassed him by becoming a lawman. He recalls two dreams about his father, one about getting money from his father and losing it, the other about seeing his father riding, and how he had a blanket wrapped around him to stay warm. Then, he says, he wakes up. The end.
Go to the beginning
Go to the Index of Summaries
What to Read Next!
Go to the current novel on Twenty Pages a Day