66 pages 2 hours read

Cormac McCarthy

No Country for Old Men

Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2005

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Chapters 6-8Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Chapter 6 Summary

Sheriff Bell states that young people today seem to have a hard time growing up, perhaps because people only grow up if they have to. He recollects that he went to war at 21 years old, and he was one of the oldest in boot camp. He had childhood friends who were ordained ministers or police officers at eighteen, and even married with a child at that age. Bell himself was elected sheriff of Terrell County for the first time at 25 years old. He never frets over knowing the difference between right and wrong.

He reports that he couldn’t do this job without Loretta. She cooks and looks after the prisoners. Years later, the men come back to see her, bringing their wives and kids, crying and wanting her to see that their lives are straightened out.

Chigurh. Chigurh buys veterinary supplies to treat his bullet wound. Then he creates a diversion in front of a small-town pharmacy by setting a car on fire and steals antibiotics and painkillers from it, sneaking out the back door. In Hondo, he gets a hotel room and treats his own bullet wound, which has both an entrance and an exit.