And then one day there is an accounting. And after that nothing is the same” (McCarthy 57). The Sheriff Rugged individualism not only allows the epidemic to thrive, it also undermines the “good guys.” Consider Sheriff Ed Tom Bell, a man who, by his own admission, has been lucky: lucky to have met the love of his life, Loretta, in his teens (they’re still happily married more than 30 years later); lucky to have followed his father and grandfather into law enforcement in Terrell County; lucky to have sent only one person to the gas chamber in his career as the sheriff (1). But when Moss finds briefcase and Chigurh turns Terrell County on its head, that luck seems to take a turn. Under the leadership of Bell, the Terrell County Police Department is responsible for hunting down the killer and stopping his rampage and for locating and ensuring the safety of Moss, a citizen of Terrell County. However, they remain several steps behind Chigurh and Moss, not even identifying the killer as Chigurh until near the end of novel. They even fail to identify Chigurh’s weapon until the majority of the novel’s violence has passed. Bell incorrectly informs his men it is a wadcutter (they have no idea what a wadcutter is) (78, 106, 291). They fail to communicate with Chigurh (43) and follow up a lead to Moss’s whereabouts too late as he moves on to escape the killer’s relentless pursuit (135). This litany of failures results in disaster for Terrell County as a whole: motels are shot up, a pharmacy explodes, citizens die in shoot-outs in the middle of town. Bell himself must inform the townsmen’s wives (including Carla Jean) that their husbands have been killed as a result of drug-cartel-related gang violence. In the midst of this carnage, McCarthy distinguishes Bell’s character as one of the only ones with whom to sympathize. He has a sense of right and wrong, critiquing corrupt lawmen and apathetic citizens. He holds himself above corruption despite recognizing that, “The opportunities for abuse are just about everywhere” (64). He resents hypocritical cops who imprison drugs dealers but use and deal themselves (218). He prefers negotiation to violence, and prides himself in not feeling the need to carry a gun on the job (216). And yet for all Bell’s awareness of problems, he takes no active steps to stop them. While the cowboy is navigating his individualistic hellscape and the killer is wreaking havoc, the Sheriff only watches. He is dispassionate and disengaged: asked by a neighboring county sheriff if he has a “dog in the [the] hunt,” Bell answers, “Not really. A couple of kids from my county that might be sort of involved that ought not to be.” When asked if these kids are “kin,” he answers, “No. Just people from my county. People I’m supposed to be looking after” (197). Bell finally says out loud what has been implied to this point in the novel. He doesn’t really care. He does not consider the endangered citizens of his county as kin, despite being a third-generation Terrell lawman. 104
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