No Country for Old Men Page #4

There is the clank of its tailgate being dropped and sounds

of activity on the hollow metal of its bed.

Moss tucks his boots into his belt and runs splashing into

the fast-moving water. A look back:

Something shakes the scrub down the steep slope.

Moss backpedals deeper.

Bursting out of the scrub at the foot of the slope: a huge

black dog with a large head and clipped ears. It bounds toward

Moss.

Moss turns and half stumbles, half dives into the river.

Underwater a very dull whump followed by the fizz of buckshot.

Moss breaks the surface of the water, gasping, and looks

back:

Figures on the ridge. Below, the dog hitting the water.

Another gunshot from the bank. Where it hits we don't know.

River current and Moss's strokes speed him away.

EXT. RIVER BEND - DAWN

He sweeps around a bend. He finds his feet under him and

staggers onto a sandbar and then splashes through some outwash

to the far bank.

The pursuing dog's head bobs rhythmically in the water.

Moss pulls the gun from his belt. He takes the clip out and

ejects the chamber round.

The dog finds his stumpy legs much closer to the sandbar:

his massive head dips and waggles as he lurches out of his

swim. He emerges from the river and bounds across the sand.

Moss shakes the gun and blows into the barrel.

The dog splashes through the riverwash that separates him

from the human.

Moss reinserts the clip. He chambers a round as the dog runs

snarling and as the dog leaps he fires.

Moss fires twice more quickly, not waiting to see whether

the first round told.

The dog lands, stopped but not dead. It jerks and gurgles.

MOSS:

Goddamnit.

He is looking out at the river. His boots are drifting by.

EXT. RIVER BANK - DAY

Moss has climbed the far bank and found a seat on a rock.

It is now full day. Moss has taken off his shirt and has his

neck craned round and his back upper arm twisted toward him.

Where the buckshot hit, his arm is purpled and pinpricked.

He meticulously picks shirt fiber out from where buckshot

packed it into the flesh.

He finishes. He rips swatches from his shirt. He starts

wrapping his bare feet as he gazes off.

His point-of-view: a lot of landscape, a highway in the

distance. An eighteen-wheeler shimmies along in the heat.

EXT. GAS STATION/GROCERY - SHEFFIELD - DAY

At an isolated dusty crossroad. It is twilight. The Ford

sedan that Chigurh stopped is parked alongside the pump.

INT. GAS STATION/GROCERY - DAY

Chigurh stands at the counter across from the elderly

proprietor. He holds up a bag of cashews.

CHIGURH:

How much?

PROPRIETOR:

Sixty-nine cent.

CHIGURH:

This. And the gas.

PROPRIETOR:

Y'all getting any rain up your way?

CHIGURH:

What way would that be?

PROPRIETOR:

I seen you was from Dallas.

Chigurh tears open the bag of cashews and pours a few into

his hand.

CHIGURH:

What business is it of yours where

I'm from, friendo?

PROPRIETOR:

I didn't mean nothin' by it.

CHIGURH:

Didn't mean nothin'.

PROPRIETOR:

I was just passin' the time.

CHIGURH:

I guess that passes for manners in

your cracker view of things.

A beat.

PROPRIETOR:

Well sir I apologize. If you don't

wanna accept that I don't know what

else I can do for you.

Chigurh stands chewing cashews, staring while the old man

works the register and puts change on the counter.

PROPRIETOR:

...Will there be somethin' else?

CHIGURH:

I don't know. Will there?

Beat.

The proprietor turns and coughs. Chigurh stares.

PROPRIETOR:

Is somethin' wrong?

CHIGURH:

With what?

PROPRIETOR:

With anything?

CHIGURH:

Is that what you're asking me? Is

there something wrong with anything?

The proprietor looks at him, uncomfortable, looks away.

PROPRIETOR:

Will there be anything else?

CHIGURH:

You already asked me that.

PROPRIETOR:

Well... I need to see about closin'.

CHIGURH:

See about closing.

PROPRIETOR:

Yessir.

CHIGURH:

What time do you close?

PROPRIETOR:

Now. We close now.

CHIGURH:

Now is not a time. What time do you

close.

PROPRIETOR:

Generally around dark. At dark.

Chigurh stares, slowly chewing.

CHIGURH:

You don't know what you're talking

about, do you?

PROPRIETOR:

Sir?

CHIGURH:

I said you don't know what you're

talking about.

Chigurh chews.

CHIGURH:

...What time do you go to bed.

PROPRIETOR:

Sir?

CHIGURH:

You're a bit deaf, aren't you? I

said what time do you go to bed.

PROPRIETOR:

Well...

A pause.

PROPRIETOR:

...I'd say around nine-thirty.

Somewhere around nine-thirty.

CHIGURH:

I could come back then.

PROPRIETOR:

Why would you be comin' back? We'll

be closed.

CHIGURH:

You said that.

He continues to stare, chewing.

PROPRIETOR:

Well... I need to close now --

CHIGURH:

You live in that house behind the

store?

PROPRIETOR:

Yes I do.

CHIGURH:

You've lived here all your life?

A beat.

PROPRIETOR:

This was my wife's father's place.

Originally.

CHIGURH:

You married into it.

PROPRIETOR:

We lived in Temple Texas for many

years. Raised a family there. In

Temple. We come out here about four

years ago.

CHIGURH:

You married into it.

PROPRIETOR:

...If that's the way you wanna put

it.

CHIGURH:

I don't have some way to put it.

That's the way it is.

He finishes the cashews and wads the packet and sets it on

the counter where it begins to slowly unkink. The proprietor's

eyes have tracked the packet. Chigurh's eyes stay on the

proprietor.

CHIGURH:

...What's the most you've ever lost

on a coin toss?

PROPRIETOR:

Sir?

CHIGURH:

The most. You ever lost. On a coin

toss.

PROPRIETOR:

I don't know. I couldn't say.

Chigurh is digging in his pocket. A quarter: he tosses it.

He slaps it onto his forearm but keeps it covered.

CHIGURH:

Call it.

PROPRIETOR:

Call it?

CHIGURH:

Yes.

PROPRIETOR:

For what?

CHIGURH:

Just call it.

PROPRIETOR:

Well -- we need to know what it is

we're callin' for here.

CHIGURH:

You need to call it. I can't call it

for you. It wouldn't be fair. It

wouldn't even be right.

PROPRIETOR:

I didn't put nothin' up.

CHIGURH:

Yes you did. You been putting it up

your whole life. You just didn't

know it. You know what date is on

this coin?

PROPRIETOR:

No.

CHIGURH:

Nineteen fifty-eight. It's been

traveling twenty-two years to get

here. And now it's here. And it's

either heads or tails, and you have

to say. Call it.

A long beat.

PROPRIETOR:

Look... I got to know what I stand

to win.

CHIGURH:

Everything.

PROPRIETOR:

How's that?

CHIGURH:

You stand to win everything. Call

it.

PROPRIETOR:

All right. Heads then.

Chigurh takes his hand away from the coin and turns his arm

to look at it.

CHIGURH:

Well done.

He hands it across.

CHIGURH:

...Don't put it in your pocket.

PROPRIETOR:

Sir?

CHIGURH:

Don't put it in your pocket. It's

your lucky quarter.

PROPRIETOR:

...Where you want me to put it?

CHIGURH:

Anywhere not in your pocket. Or it'll

get mixed in with the others and

become just a coin. Which it is.

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