No Country for Old Men Chapter XI Summary

How It All Goes Down

  • Bell pays a visit to Llewelyn's father, who tells Bell that Llewelyn was a sniper in 'Nam.
  • "He was not in no drug deals" (11.1.5), Papa Moss says.
  • Pops says that Llewelyn was in bad shape after the war because no one respected the Vietnam War veterans.
  • But Pops believes it wasn't Vietnam that hurt the country. The country was already in bad shape, he says. 'Nam was just the icing on the crappy cake.
  • Bell returns home, trying to make sense of everything—but he can't. How can anyone make sense of all this chaos?
  • Bell feels old and tells his wife he wants to retire.
  • Bell tells us one more thing: it seems a Mexican man confessed to the crime of shooting a man, putting him in the trunk of a car, and setting the car on fire.
  • Bell believes the Mexican man didn't do it. He thinks the crazy man (that's Chigurh, but Bell has never learned Chigurh's name) did it.
  • Bell testifies, but the Mexican man still gets the death penalty.
  • Seems like Chigurh's job is working out okay. For him.
  • Bell goes home and feels like everything's all his fault.
  • Bell gets home, and his wife isn't there.
  • Don't worry, Bell's wife's not dead. Bell gets on his horse and finds her out in the fields.
  • The Bells have a sweet little moment and watch the sunset.