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Chapters X–XIII 

Summary: Chapter X

Bell struggles with what he should do about a Mexican man in jail for killing a state trooper, wrongly, in his opinion. He knows that his recent experience will stick with him for a long time. Bell tried to ignore his war experience, but it kept him focused. Now he will quit his job to avoid having to hunt Chigurh again. Bell feels like he is making the same choice that he did in World War II. He recollects that his aunt kept Harold’s letters. Reading them, Bell could tell that the world after the war would be different, but his aunt didn’t know that, just as he doesn’t know the changes in store for the current world. Bell ends on the strange and bloody past of this country. He talks to his deceased daughter and listens to what she has to say. She makes sense—Bell gave her the heart he wished he had. 

The narrative shifts back to the past, when Bell learns that the Odessa police recovered the gun that killed Carla Jean. A teenager named David DeMarco took it from a truck that had been in an accident. Bell meets DeMarco at a café. The teen says little, only providing a generic description of the driver. Though DeMarco claims he was alone, Bell tracks down his friend, who says that the driver told them to keep quiet and describes him as someone you wouldn’t want to mess with. 

Summary: Chapter XI

Bell recalls visiting Moss’s father to deliver the news. Moss returned from Vietnam, where he was a sniper, to a broken country, one that failed those it sent to war. As Bell drove home, he tried to understand why he went into law enforcement. He wanted to save people. Bell worries that no one is prepared for what the future brings. He no longer feels that he can fix wrongs. When Bell told Loretta he was quitting, she didn’t even believe him at first. 

Bell remembers visiting the Mexican man who was sentenced to death for killing the trooper. He told the man he thought he was innocent. Laughing, the man claimed that he shot the officer between the eyes. On his way out, Bell bumped into the county prosecutor. The prosecutor asked who Bell believed killed the trooper. Bell said it was a ghost, still out there. The prosecutor thought that meant Bell did not have to worry about him, but Bell’s been thinking about it. Bell thinks he met someone to whom he is not equal. At home, Bell rides to meet Loretta on horseback. They talk about his quitting the job and being together.

Summary: Chapter XII

Bell has an idea about where the world is heading. He knows that corrupt people are making money off everybody and their addictions, likely pushed by the drug dealers. When a reporter asked Bell about crime in his county, he answered that it started with bad manners and eventually reached into all aspects of society. He also thinks this is evident in old people, who just look crazy these days. Bell asked Loretta if the Bible had anything to say about the world. 

Bell leaves his office in the courthouse for the last time. He feels an emotion he can’t name, part sadness, part the feeling of being beaten. This feeling is more bitter than death, but Bell tells himself to get over it. 

Summary: Chapter XIII

Bell describes the farmhouse from the war. It had a stone trough that would last thousands of years. Bell thinks that the man who made it must have had faith in something, in some promise. Bell would like to make that kind of promise. 

Bell mentions that he has not said much about his father, a horse trader. He has accomplished more than his father and, in that sense, might be considered the better man. Bell had two dreams after his father’s death. One was vague, about Bell’s losing money his father gave him. The second, much clearer dream put both men back in older times on horseback. It was dark and cold, but his father rode past, carrying fire, without saying a word. Bell knew that his father was going ahead to start a blaze for his arrival. His father would be waiting for him. Then Bell woke up.

Analysis: Chapters X–XIII

Bell is the focus of these final chapters of No Country for Old Men. Chigurh has conducted his business and gotten what he wants, the money has been returned, and Moss and Carla Jean are dead. Now it is left to Bell to pick up the pieces of the case, his life, and his sense of morality. In these chapters, Bell’s monologues become far more complex, covering a range of topics. He emerges as a man who still firmly believes in justice and truth, even when these are not to be found. Chigurh’s elusive nature and Bell’s inability to catch and face the man turn Chigurh into a bogeyman who continues to haunt Bell. Bell is so far from comprehending Chigurh, evidenced by the fact that Bell never even uncovers his name let alone any meaningful details about him. It’s no wonder Bell considers Chigurh to be a ghost. The man will remain a mystery to him despite all the time and effort he has spent trying to catch Chigurh and understand and stop his actions.

The last chapters include many details about Bell that more fully realize him as a character. For instance, he reveals that he often talks to his deceased daughter, whom he fleetingly mentioned early on, and that she is the person he wishes he could be. In his mind, Bell gives his dead daughter all the courage and wisdom that he believes he lacks. Even though Bell says in Chapter XIII that many people would think he was a better man than his father, he knows this is not the case. He believes everything that happened—all the killing—is his fault because he wasn’t threatening enough to keep the bad guys away. Bell’s self-incrimination is similar to his reaction to his World War II experience, for which he blames himself but which also made him the man he is today—one who primarily cares about trying to save people.

On two separate occasions in these final chapters, Bell mentions a Mexican man who is in prison for the murder of a state trooper. Bell strongly believes he is innocent. For Bell to be so confident that the Mexican man did not kill the trooper, he must have another suspect in mind, and his reference to a “ghost” committing the crime shows he’s thinking of Chigurh. Bell, however, doesn’t provide any evidence to support his belief. Readers likely will wonder about this man and his role in the greater story arc. Bell may believe that Chigurh killed the trooper and set the car on fire on his way to Van Horn to find Moss—Bell did see a burning car during the journey. It’s also possible that Bell simply equates Chigurh’s murder of the deputy with the murder of the state trooper. Either way, or if the unknown reason is something else, this imprisoned man, who laughs at Bell’s efforts to help, represents more of the callousness and cruelty of the world that Bell finds so difficult to accept.

In the final chapter, Bell talks about two things that seem unrelated: the trough of the farmhouse in Europe and the dreams he had about his father. Bell says that to build something that will last, the person who created it must have felt some kind of promise that Bell lacks. The promise seems to be that no matter how bad the world gets, simply existing is still worth it. The stone trough alongside the farmhouse would have lasted through wars and regime changes, population shifts, and economic shifts. It likely still survives. That trough symbolizes the steadiness and permanence of life and history. The dreams might be, for Bell, his own sort of promise. The first dream reveals his negative beliefs about himself. In that dream, Bell’s losing the money represents his fear of letting his father—who was the better man—down. The second dream, however, shows Bell’s acknowledgment that although he has let his father down, his father will still take care of him. The novel ends on this curious note. Bell is not the lucky man he once thought he was, but readers can find a reason to hope that Bell will continue to try to uphold the promise to be the better man he always longed to be.

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