No Country for Old Men Chapter VI Summary & Analysis

Chapter VI

Summary: Chapter VI

Bell muses that in his day, young people got married, held important jobs, and fought in wars. He also thinks about all the kids being raised by grandparents. He says he couldn’t do his job without his wife.

The narration shifts back to Chigurh. With a heavily bleeding leg, Chigurh drives to a veterinary clinic to buy first aid supplies. He also needs medication, so he sets off a car explosion to create a diversion and sneaks into a drugstore to steal drugs. He then checks into a motel and takes care of his injury. He stays for five days, leaving only after he spots sheriff deputies in the motel café.

Wells follows Moss’s blood trail to where he stopped on the bridge, trying to figure out where Moss hid the money.

Back in his office, Bell learns that all the American vehicles involved were registered to dead people. He decides to go back to Eagle Pass. As he gets into his cruiser, he sees a flatbed truck with a loose tarp that is carrying the dead bodies from the crime scene.

While Chigurh is driving, the transponder receiver bleeps, leading him back to the Hotel Eagle. Certain that Moss is dead, he wonders why the transponder would still be in the hotel. He asks the clerk to show him the registration, but the clerk says no. Chigurh then uses a key to unlock Moss’s taped-off room, where he finds the transponder in a drawer. He waits for Wells in the lobby and then forces him to his room at gunpoint. Wells bargains for his life, offering money, but Chigurh says money is the wrong currency. He talks about killing a rude stranger and then letting himself get handcuffed and arrested by a deputy just to see if he could free himself through his own will. These experiences have changed his nature. Wells tells Chigurh that he knows where the money is, but Chigurh believes the bag will be brought to him. Once Wells accepts that he can’t bargain with Chigurh, he urges the man to just kill him. Wells closes his eyes, and Chigurh shoots him. Chigurh is searching Wells’ car when the cellphone rings. He answers.

In the hospital, Moss calls Carla Jean, who tells him about Bell’s visit. He wants her to go to a motel, but she wants things to go back to normal. She doesn’t believe Moss when he says they will. Afterward, Moss calls Wells for help, but Chigurh answers the phone. He tells Moss that the only way to spare “her” is to bring the money and that Moss can’t save himself. Moss responds that he is going to come after Chigurh. He leaves the hospital and takes a cab across the bridge, where the U.S. border guard questions him before allowing him entry. Back in Eagle Pass, Moss goes into a store to buy new clothes.

Bell learns from another sheriff that the Hotel Eagle is closed, that he never expected the killer to come back, and that Chigurh killed the clerk. They return to the crime scene and find the transponder and Wells’ body.

Analysis: Chapter VI

Chapter VI provides an abrupt change at its end. Just as quickly as Wells was introduced in the previous chapter, he now is killed by Chigurh. Though Wells moves in and out of the plot rather quickly, he does carry out one crucial act: he provides the first (and only) tangible link between Moss and Chigurh. In the brief time that Wells is on the job, he tracks down Moss, and when Moss calls his phone, Chigurh answers instead. In their one conversation, the stakes between the two men rise. Carla Jean, more so than the money, emerges as the main subject of contention between them. This makes sense because Chigurh suggests that he will harm Carla Jean if Moss doesn’t bring the money. One question that then arises is why Moss doesn’t take this opportunity to save his wife and turn over the bag of money. On one hand, the choice Moss makes is his only chance of survival—Chigurh promises to kill him either way. On the other hand, Moss might be responding to the threat against his own life as opposed to the threat against his wife. While Wells offered Moss the potential for a way to reunite with his wife, once Chigurh kills Wells, that possibility vanishes. Moss, once again, is on his own to figure out a solution to his problem. Although the conversation began with Moss’s call to Wells for help, he ends it believing that he alone can solve the problem.

Wells’ murder further underscores Chigurh’s power. Whereas Wells shows his capabilities by easily tracking Moss to the hospital in Mexico, he also makes several careless errors that cost him his life, particularly returning to the hotel that was the scene of the earlier shootout. Like the sheriff, he assumes that Chigurh as the killer would not dare show his face at the Hotel Eagle, which shows how much he underestimates Chigurh’s confidence and ability to inflict violence on anyone who might cross him. All in all, Wells is no match for Chigurh in terms of ruthlessness and depravity. The ease with which Chigurh manages to kill another hitman does not bode well for Moss’s survival. Many of the details included in this chapter solidify the reader’s perception of Chigurh as some type of superhuman who is immune to what hurts others.

As readers have seen throughout, McCarthy leaves out significant details in the narrative. Most notable in this chapter is the transition between the clerk turning down Chigurh’s request to see the registration, and then Chigurh standing outside the room with the key. Readers will assume that he found some method of getting the key and learned that Wells checked in. While some may suspect that Chigurh killed the clerk, such confirmation doesn’t come until the end of the chapter, when the sheriffs discuss the clerk. As with earlier chapters, this technique draws readers into the story, almost transforming them into a character who also must figure out the mystery.

While most of the chapter focuses on Chigurh, Wells, and Moss, Bell’s opening monologue talks about the changing world. However, even by his own admission, the world of the past he talks about isn’t that long ago. Moss is 21 years younger than Bell, but he, too, fought in a war. Carla Jean was only 16 when she married. The opening chapter of the novel features a young deputy who risks his life to keep the people of his community safe, which certainly seems to qualify as an important job. This section reflects Bell’s penchant for romanticizing the past and seeing the world in black and white.

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