No Country for Old Men Page #12

Moss walks unsteadily up. He tilts the beer bottle in salute

at the guard.

The guard impassively lets him proceed.

EXT. MEXICAN SQUARE - DAWN

BLACK:

In black, an insanely cheerful mariachi song.

Fade in on the mariachis. We are looking steeply up at them,

dutch-angled. They beam down at us, energetically thumping

their oversized guitars and bajo sextos.

We boom woozily up and start to un-dutch.

Reverse on Moss struggling to a sitting position on the park

bench where he'd been lying. A public square.

Back to the mariachis. Beaming, singing.

Their smiles gradually fade.

The playing falls off to silence.

In the silence, birds chirp. The musicians are looking

quizzically down.

Moss's arm swings up in the foreground, extending a bloody

hundred-dollar bill.

On Moss. His coat has swung open to expose his bloody midriff.

His look up is glazed.

MOSS:

Doctor.

The mariachis stare. Moss waggles the bill.

MOSS:

...Medico. Por favor.

INT. RAMCHARGER/EXT. WAL-MART - DAY

We are close on a patch of its front seat. Day. The pickup

is parked. The piece of upholstery we are looking at has

blood soaked into it.

On the sound of the door opening we cut wider. We are in the

parking lot of a Wal-Mart. Chigurh, climbing in, tosses a

brown paper bag onto the passenger side. He has a dark towel

wrapped around one leg. As he slides behind the wheel the

wrapped part of his leg slides over the bloodstain.

INT. RAMCHARGER/EXT. PHARMACY - DAY

TRAVELING POINT OF VIEW

A small-town main street. We are driving past a pharmacy.

Chigurh, looking.

He parks.

He takes a scissors from the Wal-Mart bag and a box of cotton.

He opens the box and cuts a little disc out of the cardboard.

He takes a new shirt out of the bag and begins to cut through

one sleeve.

EXT. PHARMACY - DAY

SHOOTING PAST A PARKED CAR

Chigurh limps toward us. He holds a coat hanger bent straight

with the balled-up shirtsleeve hooked at one end.

Chigurh arrives, looks up and down the street.

He unscrews the gas cap, feeds the coat hanger in to soak

the shirt, pulls it back out. He tapes the cardboard disc

over the open gas tank. He unhooks the wet shirtsleeve and

jams it up over the disk. He lights it and exits.

INSIDE THE PHARMACY - DAY

A beat pulling Chigurh limping up the aisle, and then the

car explodes out front. The plate glass storefront blows in.

The few people inside rush out; Chigurh doesn't react.

The pharmacy counter in back is deserted. Chigurh lifts a

hinged piece of counter to enter and starts looking through

the stock.

He pulls out a packet of syringes, Hydrocodone tablets,

penicillin.

INT. SMALL TOWN MOTEL ROOM - DAY

Chigurh dumps the pharmaceuticals into the bathroom sink.

In the room outside he sits on the bed and takes off his

boots. He unknots the towel from around his leg and stands

and unbuttons his pants and starts cutting from the crotch

down with a heavy scissors. One thigh is a mess of clotted

blood and torn fabric.

INT. MOTEL BATHROOM - DAY

BATH:

Chigurh lowers himself into bath water that quickly turns

pink. He laves water over his bloody thigh. There is a dark

red hole, one half inch across, pulsing blood into the bath

water Torn pieces of fabric from his pants are embedded in

the bleeding skin.

A SHAVING MIRROR

We are looking at the wound in a magnifying mirror. Forceps

enter and pluck a tiny piece of blood-soaked fabric from the

skin.

RUNNING WATER:

A bathroom tap. The forceps enter. They are rinsed, shaken

off.

Wider:
Chigurh sits on the closed toilet with the mirror

sitting on the edge of the tub, angled toward the wound.

Chigurh works on cleaning it.

INT. SMALL TOWN MOTEL ROOM - DAY

The main room. The TV is on now. Chigurh enters from the

bathroom with his leg bandaged. He sits on the bed and tears

open the packaging of a syringe.

He plunges it into an ampule of penicillin.

He injects himself.

INT. SHERIFF'S OFFICE - DAY

Sheriff Bell sits writing in a large leatherette checkbook.

He projects:

BELL:

Anything on those vehicles yet?

A raised female voice from the front office:

VOICE:

Sheriff I found out everything there

was to find. Those vehicles are titled

and registered to deceased people.

Molly, the secretary, appears at the doorway.

VOICE:

...The owner of that Blazer died

twenty years ago. Did you want me to

see what I could find out about the

Mexican ones?

BELL:

No. Lord no.

He holds out the checkbook.

BELL:

...This month's checks.

MOLLY:

That DEA agent called again. You

don't want to talk to him?

BELL:

I'm goin' to try and keep from it as

much as I can.

MOLLY:

He's goin' back out there and he

wanted to know if you wanted to go

with him.

Sheriff Bell is putting things away.

BELL:

Well that's cordial of him. I guess

he can go wherever he wants. He's a

certified agent of the United States

Government.

He rises.

BELL:

...Could I get you to call Loretta

and tell her I've gone to Odessa?

goin' to visit with Carla Jean Moss.

MOLLY:

Yes Sheriff.

BELL:

I'll call Loretta when I get there.

I'd call now but she'll want me to

come home and I just might.

MOLLY:

You want me to wait til you've quit

the building?

BELL:

Yes I do. You don't want to lie

without what it's absolutely

necessary.

Molly trails him into the front office.

BELL:

...What is it that Torbert says?

About truth and justice?

MOLLY:

We dedicate ourselves daily anew.

Something like that.

BELL:

I think I'm goin' to commence

dedicatin' myself twice daily. It

may come to three times before it's

over...

A loud truck-by from the street outside. Sheriff Bell's eyes

track the passing vehicle.

BELL:

...What the hell?

EXT. STREET - DAY

Sanderson outskirts.

Sheriff Bell passes a flatbed truck with a flapping tarp and

briefly blurps his siren to pull it over. He parks on the

shoulder in front of the truck and then walks back to the

driver who watches his approach, chewing gum with blithe

unconcern.

DRIVER:

Sheriff.

BELL:

Have you looked at your load lately?

A MINUTE LATER:

Both men are at the back of the truck.

BELL:

That's a damned outrage.

DRIVER:

Oh. One of the tiedowns worked lose.

Bell whips the tarp back to expose eight corpses wrapped

blue sheeting bound with tape.

BELL:

How many did you leave with?

The driver is still smiling.

DRIVER:

I ain't lost none of 'em, Sheriff.

BELL:

Couldn't you all of took a van out

there?

DRIVER:

Didn't have no van with four-wheel

drive.

Sheriff Bell pulls the tarp down and ties it. The driver

watches without helping.

DRIVER:

...You going to write me up for

improperly secured load?

Sheriff Bell cinches the knot tight.

BELL:

You get your ass out of here.

INT. HOSPITAL ROOM - DAY

Moss, in bed, stirs at an off screen voice:

VOICE:

I'm guessin'... this is not the future

you pictured for yourself when you

first clapped eyes on that money.

Moss blearily focuses on:

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