Outside the drugstore on Main he stopped and turned and leaned against a car parked there. He checked the street. No one coming. He unscrewed the gascap at his elbow and hooked the shirtsleeve over the coathanger and ran it down into the tank and drew it out again. He taped the cardboard over the open gastank and balled the sleeve wet with gasolineover the top of it and taped it down and lit it and turned and limped into the drugstore. He was little more than half way down the aisle toward the pharmacy when the car outside exploded into flame taking out most of the glass in front of the store. He let himself in through the little gate and went down the pharmacist’s aisles. He found a packet of syringes and a bot¬ tle of Hydrocodone tablets and he came back up the aisle looking for penicillin. He couldnt find it but he found tetra¬ cycline and sulfa. He stuffed these things in his pocket and came out from behind the counter in the orange glow of the fire and went down the aisle and picked up a pair of aluminum crutches and pushed open the rear door and went hobbling out across the gravel parking lot behind the store. The alarm at the rear door went off but no one paid any attention and Chigurh never had even glanced toward the front of the store which was now in flames.

Part 6