No Country for Old Men Chapter V Summary & Analysis

Chapter V

Summary: Chapter V

Bell reflects on family history. Although stories are told, the truth always exists. He recalls ways that a sheriff is part of the community.

Bell drives to Odessa to talk to Carla Jean. She doesn’t know Moss’s location and hasn’t heard from him. She doesn’t want to talk about the money, even when Bell explains that dangerous people will kill Moss for it. Carla Jean believes that Moss can take care of himself. She reveals she had a dream that she would meet a man at her job and that’s where Moss first asked her out. Bell wants to protect her and Moss, so he suggests that if Moss turns in the money, the men may leave him alone. He also fears the men will come after her. Carla Jean, however, thinks giving Bell any information about her husband’s whereabouts would be snitching.

Bell receives a call about the shootout in Eagle Pass. Along with the local sheriff, he goes to the hotel to investigate. The sheriff thinks the night clerk got killed in the crossfire, but Bell knows the report will show something different. At home, he discusses the case with Loretta.

The narrative switches to the office of a Houston high rise, where Wells meets a man who hires him to track down Chigurh. The man asks what he thinks of Chigurh, and Wells calls him a psychopathic killer. The man tells Wells about the shootout in Eagle Pass and says the men in the car likely worked for a Mexican drug dealer but the men who showed Chigurh the scene of the botched drug deal worked for him. Before leaving, Wells asks about the man’s elaborate elevator security system.

Wells checks in at the Hotel Eagle and questions the clerk, who knows little about the previous shooting. Two rooms still have police tape in front of them. That night Wells breaks into Moss’s room and then the second room, where he finds bloody linens in the bathroom.

Moss wakes up to find Wells beside his hospital bed in Mexico. Wells says Chigurh will not stop looking for Moss, even if he gets the money, and that he might even go to Odessa to kill Carla Jean. Wells says he can take care of Chigurh on Moss’s behalf. Wells gives Moss his cell phone number, expecting that he will call him for help. He also offers to let Moss keep some of the money. Moss, however, believes that he can handle Chigurh himself.

Analysis: Chapter V

Chapter V centers around various people’s efforts to resolve the escalating situation. Both law enforcement and the drug dealers comprehend how dangerous Moss’s predicament is. Only Moss and his wife believe that he can get out of this mess on his own. However, Bell and Wells, who both want to help Moss in different ways, have seen Chigurh at work. Bell has seen the dead bodies carelessly strewn across Southwest Texas, and Wells has worked with Chigurh in the past and believes he is a psychopathic killer. In addition to Chigurh, Moss also has regular hitmen after him, willing to kill him on sight, like the men in Eagle Pass. He would have to be almost superhuman to get out of this mess.

Readers first see Bell appeal to Carla Jean to get Moss to turn himself and the money in. Unfortunately, Carla Jean has misplaced faith in Moss’s ability to survive. Part of Carla Jean’s belief stems from Moss being 17 years older than her and a Vietnam veteran. Part of it comes from her belief that their relationship is fated, which gives the relationship an almost mythical, eternal quality. However, her belief also stems from something even more basic: Because Moss comports himself so independently and decisively, she can’t fathom his needing help from anyone else.

Wells also tries to get Moss to deal with him, not because he cares about Moss’s survival but because he wants to find the money for his client. Much like Carla Jean, Moss believes that he can handle himself. By this point in the novel, however, most readers will likely concur with Bell and Wells that Moss faces almost certain death with Chigurh on his track. While Moss has shown ingenuity in his flight, up until Chigurh found him at the Hotel Eagle, his life and his chances at a future have gone down significantly since then. Chigurh’s sheer ruthlessness is fully evident. He kills the night clerk and anyone else who gets in his way, simply because he has no regard for their life and humanity.

In Chapter V, the drug trade steps into the legitimate world, where a businessman in a fancy building hires Wells to track down Chigurh. While he has none of the obvious trappings of a man involved in the illegal drug trade, other than high-level security features, this businessman reveals himself to be a powerful figure. Through all his interactions with Wells, he behaves like someone used to others serving him. The physical trappings imply he is working out of a legitimate business office, but he has ready access to hitmen. By now, readers understand that two parties were directly involved in the shootout in the canyon. The businessman is concerned with recovering the money, but he also wants to “contain” Chigurh, which really means to kill him. Chigurh’s killing spree is already drawing far too much attention from numerous agencies to the drug deals in this part of Texas. The businessman is careful never to directly tell Wells to kill Chigurh, however, thus protecting himself.

Previous section Chapter IV Next section Chapter VI