No Country for Old Men: Chapter 11 Summary & Analysis

Bell tracks down Moss’s father and goes to visit him. They sit on the front porch and drink iced tea while Bell tells Moss’s father about what happened. Moss’s father tells Bell that Moss was the best rifle shot he’d ever seen, and he was a sniper in Vietnam. Bell assures Moss’s father that Moss was not involved in drugs, and his father says he wasn’t raised that way. Moss’s father tells Bell that he fought in WWII, and explains that when Moss came back from Vietnam he visited the families of the men who had died in the Vietnam. Later, Moss told his father that when he visited those family members that they had wished he, meaning Moss, was dead instead of their loved ones. Bell says he can understand that, and Moss’s father says he can too.

Moss’s father tells Bell about the difference between WWII and Vietnam. When the Vietnam veterans came back they were treated poorly for their involvement in the war, but he suspects it is worse than that. The country that the Vietnam veterans came back to was in pieces, and it still is. Moss’s father says that it wasn’t Vietnam that brought the nation to its knees. The U.S. was in bad shape before the war. A nation can’t go to war without God, he says, and he worries about the next war to come.

On the drive home, Bell reflects on his career as sheriff. He realizes that some part of him always wanted to be in charge, but another part of him just wanted to protect and save people. People aren’t prepared for what is coming. He notes that the old people would have never guess that young people would be walking around Texas with green hair and bones in their noses. He’d always thought that his role as sheriff would allow him to set these problems right, but he understands now that he can’t. He states that he is standing for something he doesn’t have the same belief in anymore.

Bell tells Loretta that he is quitting his job as sheriff. He doesn’t feel right taking the people’s money. She says he doesn’t mean that, but he says he truly does; he just can’t do it anymore.

Bell goes to Ozana and talks to the district attorney about the Mexican man they are charging with the murder of the police officer. The D.A. tells him he can testify at the trial, but that was all he could do. He testifies, but the man is given the death penalty anyways. Before the man’s execution, Bell goes to the prison to visit the man. The man asks what Bell brought him. Bell says he brought nothing, and the man says he should have brought him some candy or something. Bell tells him he didn’t come to be insulted, but came to tell the man that he tried to help him, and he is sorry. The man laughs, and suggests that he didn’t think there were people like Bell out in the world. He then admits to the murder.

On the way out of the visit, Bell runs into the county prosecutor. The prosecutor tells him when he got out of law school he had been a defense attorney, but he grew tired of being lied to. Bell tells him a lawyer once told him that in law school they teach you not to worry about right and wrong, but to simply follow the law. The prosecutor agrees, stating that if you don’t follow the law, right and wrong won’t save you.

Bell asks the prosecutor if he knows who Mammon is. The prosecutor knows it’s in the Bible, but doesn’t know exactly what it is. He asks if it is the devil. Bell doesn’t know either, but he is going to look it up. Before Bell leaves, the prosecutor asks him what he knows about Chigurh. Bell says he knows nothing, calling him a ghost. He knows that Chigurh is out there somewhere. The prosecutor states that if Chigurh is a ghost, they have nothing to worry about. On the way out, Bell reflects on this statement, noting that sometimes you encounter something that you are not powerful enough to overcome, and he believes Chigurh is one of those things.

When Bell gets home, he notices that Loretta has taken her horse out for a ride. He worries that maybe she has been hurt, and gets his horse. He rides out and sees Loretta in the distance riding along a ridge. He says, “That’s my heart yonder…it always was.” They meet, and get off their horses. They sit beneath a cottonwood tree, talking about the decision he has made to quit. She says she is glad he will be home with her. Bell worries about his decision to quit, but Loretta tells him not to worry, it’s just nice to be there with him.