Chigurh is one strand in the twisted plot. Ed Tom Bell , the sheriff played by Jones, is another. The third major player is Llewelyn Moss ( Josh Brolin ), a poor man who lives with his wife in a house trailer, and one day, while hunting, comes across a drug deal gone wrong in the desert. Vehicles range in a circle like an old wagon train. Everyone on the scene is dead. They even shot the dog. In the back of one pickup are neatly stacked bags of drugs.

Llewelyn realizes one thing is missing: the money. He finds it in a briefcase next to a man who made it as far as a shade tree before dying.