He hiked on along the ridge with his thumb hooked in the shoulderstrap of the rifle, his hat pushed back on his head. The back of his shirt was already wet with sweat. The rocks there were etched with pictographs perhaps a thousand years old. The men who drew them hunters like himself. Of them there was no other trace.
At the end of the ridge was a rockslide, a rough trail leading down. Candelilla and scrub catclaw. He sat in the rocks and steadied his elbows on his knees and scanned the country with the binoculars. A mile away on the floodplain sat three vehicles.
He lowered the binoculars and looked over the country at large. Then he raised them again. There looked to be men lying on the ground. He jacked his boots into the rocks and adjusted the focus. The vehicles were four wheel drive trucks or Broncos with big all-terrain tires and winches and racks of rooflights. The men appeared to be dead. He lowered the glasses. Then he raised them again. Then he lowered them and just sat there. Nothing moved. He sat there for a long time.

He raised his head and looked out across the bajada. A light wind from the north. Cool. Sunny. One oclock in the afternoon. He looked at the man lying dead in the grass. His good crocodile boots that were filled with blood and turning black. The end of his life. Here in this place. The distant mountains to the south. The wind in the grass. The quiet. He latched the case and fastened the straps and buckled them and rose and shouldered the rifle and then picked up the case and the machinepistol and took his bearings by his shadow and set out.

Chigurh poured more cashews into his palm. I could come back then, he said.
We'll be closed then.
That's all right.
Well why would you be comin back? We'll be closed.
You said that.
Well we will.
You live in that house behind the store?
Yes I do.
You've lived here all your life?
The proprietor took a while to answer. This was my wife's father's place, he said. Originally.
You married into it.
We lived in Temple Texas for many years. Raised a family there. In Temple. We come out here about four years ago.
You married into it.
If that's the way you want to put it.
I dont have some way to put it. That's the way it is.
Well I need to close now.
Chighurh poured the last of the cashews into his palm and wadded the little bag and placed it on the counter. He stood oddly erect, chewing.
You seem to have a lot of questions, the proprietor said. For somebody that dont want to say where it is they're from.
What's the most you ever saw lost on a coin toss?
Sir?
I said what's the most you ever saw lost on a coin toss.
Coin toss?
Coin toss.
I dont know. Folks dont generally bet on a coin toss. It's usually more like just to settle somethin.
What's the biggest thing you ever saw settled?
I dont know.
Chigurh took a twenty-five piece from his pocket and flipped it spinning into the bluish glare of the fluorescent lights overhead. He caught it and slapped it onto the back of his forearm just above the bloody wrappings. Call it, he said.
Call it?
Yes.
For what?
Just call it.
Well I need to know what it is we're callin here.
How would that change anything?
The man looked at Chigurh's eyes for the first time. Blue as lapis. At once glistening and totally opaque. Like wet stones.
You need to call it, Chigurh said. I cant call it for you. It wouldnt be fair. It wouldnt even be right. Just call it.
I didnt put nothing up.
Yes you did. You've been putting it up your whole life. You just didnt know it. You know what the date is on this coin?
No.
It's nineteen fifty-eight. It's been traveling twenty-two years to get here. And now it's here. And I'm here. And I've got my hand over it. And it's either heads or tails. And you have to say. Call it.
I dont know what it is I stand to win.
In the blue light the man's face was beaded thinly with sweat. He licked his upper lip.
You stand to win everything, Chigurh said. Everything.
You aint making any sense, mister.
Call it.
Heads then.

We got another execution here Sheriff?
No, I believe this one's died of natural causes.
Natural causes?
Natural to the line of work he's in.

The office was on the seventeenth floor with a view over the skyline of Houston and open lowlands to the ship channel and the bayou beyond. Colonies of silver tanks. Gas flares, pale in the day. When Wells showed up the mean told him to come in and told him to shut the door. He didnt even turn around. He could see Wells in the glass. Wells shut the door and stood with his hands crossed before him at the wrist. The way a funeral director might stand.
The man finally turned and look at him. You know Anton Chigurh by sight, is that correct?

How well do you know Chigurh.
Well enough.
That's not an answer.
What do you want to know?
The man tapped his knuckles on the desk. He looked up. I'd just like to know your opinion of him. In general. The invincible Mr Chigurh.
Nobody's invincible.
Somebody is.
Why do you say that?
Somewhere in the world is the most invincible man. Just as somewhere is the most vulnerable.
That's a belief that you have?
No. It's called statistics. Just how dangerous is he?
Wells shrugged. Compared to what? The bubonic plague? [...] He's a psychopatic killer but so what? There's plenty of them around.

You can see yourself out? the man said.
Yes.
All right.
One other thing.
What is that.
I wondered if I could get my parking ticket validated.
The man cocked his head slightly. This is an attempt at humor I suppose.
Sorry.
Good day, Mr Wells.
Right.

He did close his eyes. He closed his eyes and he turned his head and he raised one hand to fend away what could not be fended away. Chigurh shot him in the face. Everything that Wells had ever known or thought or loved drained slowly down the wall behind him. His mother's face, his First Communion, women he had known. The faces of men as they died on their knees before him. The body of a child dead in a roadside ravine in another country. He lay half headless on the bed with his arms outflung, most of his right hand missing. Chigurh rose and picked up the empty casing off the rug and blew into it and put in his pocket and looked at his watch. The new day was still a minute away.

You think when you get to California you'll kind of start over.
Them's my intentions.
I think maybe that's the point. There's a road goin to California and there's one comin back. But the best way would be just to show up there.
Show up there.
Yeah.
You mean and not know how you got there?
Yeah. And not know how you got there.
I dont know how you'd do that.
I dont either. That's the point.
She ate. She looked around. Can I get some coffee? she said.
You can get anything you want. You got money.
She looked at him. I guess I aint sure what the point is, she said.
The point is there aint no point.
No. I mean what you said. About knowing where you are.
He looked at her. After a while he said: It's not about knowing where you are. It's about thinking you got there without taking anything with you. Your notions about starting over. Or anybody's. You dont start over. That's what it's about. Ever step you take is forever. You cant make it go away. None of it. You understand what I'm saying?
I think so.
I know you dont but let me try it one more time. You think when you wake up in the morning yesterday dont count. But yesterday is all that does count. What else is there? Your life is made out of the days it's made out of. Nothing else. You might think you could run away and change your name and I dont know what all. Start over. And then one mornin you wake up and look at the ceilin and guess who's layin there?
She nodded.
You understand what I'm sayin?
I understand that. I been there.
Yeah, I know you have.

[...] Every moment in your life is a turning and every one is a choosing. Somewhere you made a choice. All followed to this. The accounting is scrupulous. The shape is drawn. No line can be erased. I had no belief in your ability to move a coin to your bidding. How could you? A person's path through the world seldom changes and more seldom will it change abruptly. And the shape of your path was visible from the beginning.

[...] When I came into your life your life was over. It had a beginning, a middle, an end. This is the end. You can say that things could have turned out differently. That they could have been some other way. But what does that mean? They are not some other way. They are this way. You're asking that I second say the world. Do you see?