First Half Summary

No Country for Old Men is story of Mexican and American drug lords, a Texas good old boy caught in the middle, a psychotic serial killer, and a sheriff trying to hold off the violence before it engulfs his county. Everyone thinks that they have complete control of their own situation, but outside forces and pure stubbornness are bound to put a schism in each individual’s plans. Thus far it is a violent adventure into the human mind, posing the question; how far will man go to get what he views as his?
The novel opens with Sheriff Bell recounting the one and only person he has ever arrested and sent to death. This sets the tone of Bell’s monologues, he often ponders what has happened to mankind, how much different the human mind and action are compared to when he was younger, and about people’s soul’s.
Anton Chigurh (the relentless, merciless, psychotic serial killer) has been arrested and is being processed in a small county police office by the deputy (the only other person in the building). Chigurh manages to slip his cuffed hands from behind his back and strangles the deputy using the chains holding his hands together. He then steals the cop car, pulls over an innocent driver, kills him, and steals his car; commencing the start of the bloodbath. This is the first place where Chigurh’s mystery killing machine is revealed; he appears to carry an oxygen tank with the tube running into his arm. But Sheriff Bell and his deputy figure out that it is a stun gun which is used in a slaughterhouse. Chigurh places his hand upon someone’s forehead and the end of the tube pokes out from his wrist, where he then fires it and the victim has a big hole in their head without an exist wound stumping forensic labs.
Llewellyn Moss, a Texas good old boy is hunting antelope one morning and happens to stumble upon a drug deal gone horribly wrong. Instead of contacting the authorities like a sane person would when stumbling upon four bodies he investigates the site. He finds multiple firearms, a great deal of Mexican black tar heroin, and two million dollars. He takes the money, wipes down the scene, and returns home. Moss returns to the scene later that night to aide the man that was still clinging to life. Moss instead finds the drug dealer’s men and Chigurh ready to kill him. After an extremely long night of dodging bullets Moss returns home. He and his wife then leave town and Moss set’s out on the run.
Moss knows it will only be a matter of time before they find him. Chigurh kills the dealer’s men and set’s out for Moss on his own. Paying his trailer a visit and then tracking him down to the motel he is staying in. In this time Sheriff Bell has found the scene and is now trying to find Moss and Chigurh before it is to late, even talking to his wife which gave him no further clues.
Chigurh finally catches up to Moss at the Eagle Hotel. Moss hears him coming and prepares himself. Moss ends up just barely escaping the hotel but not without injury. He sustains a buckshot bullet from Chigurh and three others from Chigurh or the group of the dealer’s men. Moss stumbles into a park and pays a man to take him to the hospital. Chigurh kill’s nearly every one of the dealer’s men and some hotel employees merely because they were there. Chigurh, himself only sustained one bullet to the leg.
After the bloodbath is over the dealer hires Carson Wells and Vietnam Veteran turned “settler of accounts” or hit man to track and kill Chigurh, return his money and drugs. Wells finds and visits Moss warning him how dangerous Chigurh is and offers to help and even give part of the drug money if he cooperates. Moss still believes that he can beat Chigurh and declines help from Wells. But Wells leaves a lasting impression, stating that Chigurh wouldn’t think twice about killing his wife before he came for him. Even if Moss gave Chigurh the money, he would still be killed, that is the type of man Chigurh is.