Sheriff Ed Tom Bell quotes from No Country for Old Men (2007)

Sheriff Ed Tom Bell

I was Sheriff of this county when I was 25 years old. Hard to believe. My grandfather was a lawman, father too. Me and him was sheriffs at the same time, him up in Plano and me out here. I think he's pretty proud of that. I know I was. Some of the old time Sheriffs never even wore a gun. A lotta folks find that hard to believe. Jim Scarborough never carried one. That's the younger Jim. Gaston Borkins wouldn't wear one up in Comanche County. I always liked to hear about the old-timers. Never missed a chance to do so. You can't help but compare yourself against the old-timers. Can't help but wonder how they'd have operated in these times. There was this boy I sent to the electric chair at Huntsville here awhile back, my arrest and my testimony. He killed a 14 year-old girl. Papers said it was a crime of passion but he told me there wasn't any passion to it. Told me that he'd been plannin' to kill somebody for about as long as he could remember. Said that if they turned him out, he'd do it again. Said he knew he was going to hell, be there in about fifteen minutes. I don't know what to make of that. I surely don't. The crime you see now, it's hard to even take its measure. It's not that I'm afraid of it. I always knew you had to be willin' to die to even do this job. but I don't want to push my chips forward and go out and meet somethin' I don't understand. A man would have to put his soul at hazard. He'd have to say: "Okay, I'll be part of this world."

This is turnin' into a hell of a mess, ain't it, Sheriff?

Sheriff Ed Tom Bell

If it isn't, it'll do until the mess gets here.

Sheriff Ed Tom Bell

Aw, now that's aggravatin'.

Sheriff?

Bell

Still sweatin'.

Oh, Sheriff! We just missed him! We gotta circulate this, on radio!

Bell

Alright. Then what do we circulate? Lookin' for a man who's recently drunk milk?

Oh, Sheriff, that's aggravatin'.

Bell

I'm ahead of you, there.

You think this boy Moss has got any notion of the sorts of sons of bitches that're on him?

Bell

I don't know, he ought to. He's seen the same things I've seen, and it's certainly made an impression on me.

Ellis

Loretta tells me you're quittin'. How come you're doin' that?

Ed Tom Bell

I don't know. I feel overmatched. I always figured when I got older, God would sort of come into my life in some way, and He didn't. And I don't blame Him. If I was Him, I'd have the same opinion of me that He does.

Ellis

You don't know what He thinks.

Ellis

I sent Uncle Mac's thumb buster and badge over to the Rangers, to put in their museum. Daddy ever tell you how Uncle Mac come to his reward? [Ed Tom shakes his head] Gunned down on his own porch, over in Hudspeth County. Seven or eight of 'em come up there, wantin' this and wantin' that. Uncle Mac went back in the house to get the shotgun, and well, they was ahead of him. Shot him in his doorway. Aunt Ella come out, to try and stop the bleedin', and Uncle Mac all the while tryin' to get that shotgun. They just sat there on their horses, watchin' him die. After a while, one of 'em said somethin' in Indian, and they turned and left out. Uncle Mac knew the score, even if Aunt Ella didn't. Shot through the left lung. And that was that, as they say.

Ed Tom Bell

When'd he die?

Ellis

Nineteen-zero and, uh, nine?

Bell

No, I mean was it right away, or in the night, or when was it?

Ellis

I believe it was that night. She buried him the next mornin', diggin' in that hard old caliche. What you got, ain't nothin' new. This country's hard on people. You can't stop what's comin'. It ain't all waitin' on you. That's vanity.

How'd you sleep?

Ed Tom Bell

I don't know. Had dreams.

Well, you got time for 'em now. Anything interesting?

Ed Tom

Well, they always is to the party concerned.

Ed Tom, I'll be polite.

Ed Tom

All right then. Two of 'em. Both had my father in 'em. It's peculiar. I'm older now than he ever was by twenty years. So, in a sense, he's the younger man. Anyway, the first one I don't remember too well but, it was about meetin' him in town somewheres and he give me some money. I think I lost it. The second one, it was like we was both back in older times and I was on horseback goin' through the mountains overnight. Goin' through this pass in the mountains. It was cold and there was snow on the ground and he rode past me and kept on goin'. Never said nothin' goin' by, just rode on past. And he had his blanket wrapped around him and his head down. When he rode past, I seen he was carryin' fire in a horn the way people used to do, and I-I could see the horn from the light inside of it - about the color of the moon. And in the dream I knew that he was goin' on ahead and he was fixin' to make a fire somewhere out there in all that dark and all that cold. And I knew that whenever I got there, he'd be there. And then I woke up.