This is the way I took it, Rasch (not that you're still confused).

Ed Tom (TLJ) has decided on retirement rather than bringing the killer to justice. He found the killer but he retires because he realizes that Texas is essentially No Country for Old Men. So he tells his wife about a dream: heading into snowy, dangerous mountains on horseback and his father carrying fire, goes on ahead of him to await him.

This idea of father & son carrying fire is also explored in The Road, McCarthy's follow-up to NCFOM, as the man and the boy seek to establish their place in the overwhelming bleakness of their existence.

The Sheriff knows he's outmatched by this new kind of evil (Bardem) and since he's older now than his father ever was, the dream is kind of an acceptance of his retirement, a "letting-go" of this hazardous job so he can follow the fire of his father. Perhaps he feels he owes it to his father to continue to survive, since he's older.

Like Bob Dylan said, "Momma, take this badge offa me, ... I feel I'm knockin on heaven's door."

I was JUST going to post this, because I saw it again last night. Excellent ending once you've chewed on it for a while. First time I was completely surprised that it ended there, but after more thought and repeat viewings it makes more sense.

*dark *talks

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1) This was an awesome ending, and anyone who says otherwise is a jerk.

2) If you think this was abrupt, watch A Serious Man. This looks positively conclusive in comparison.

^The man speaks the truth! A Serious Man feels a lot like No Country... but Jewish.

I read the ending differently:

1. The money was an analogy for what he was supposed to do in life as a law man. Ed is unable to make any sense of the killings in the desert (the work of man) or of Chigur (the work of elemental evil), so he's lost what he was supposed to do as a law man. Lost his father's purpose.

2. The second dream says the first one doesn't matter. His father has gone on before him -- died -- and is waiting for him beyond. No matter what Ed does, in the end, he'll die. He just lived longer than his father, but made the same difference. In the end, it doesn't matter.