"A neurotoxin, you say?"
The bizarre awkwardness of their conversation wasn't fading when the gray-haired man placed a fresh cup of coffee in front of Mike and sat down on the small wooden table of the sparsely furnished room.
From what little Mike had been able to discern so far, they were in a small cabin in the higher elevations, the mountaintops slowly disappearing as the scarce daylight coming through the rain clouds vanished for the night.
Everything except for a few kitchen utensils was hand-made, some of the spoons were even carved out of hardwood. To the right of the cooking area were several large shelving units full of glass jars and bottles containing seeds, powders and liquids of various colors and consistencies.
If he didn't know any better, Mike swore he'd entered a different world altogether since getting knocked out.
"Yeah, well, see, contrary to what you might believe, Stone, I am a pretty decent and easy-going guy. But I do get hungry. And I love pelts and such. I spent far too many years of my life using guns, so I prefer the traps. The problem is that they're inhumane. I always hated that."
When he said that, the stranger's brown eyes fell on the .38 lying on the small table by his steaming coffee cup, his expression changing to profound disdain. Finally, with a deep sigh, he pushed it away from his position and back in front of its original owner.
"Anyways, I learned enough about plants and seeds over the years that I was able to create a potion that upon contact, basically paralyzes the neurotransmitters in the animals' brains, they stop breathing and die. Beats sitting in a trap fighting for your life for hours on end, right? Then I just swing by, pick them up and process them out. Any traces of the potion cook out when you heat up the meat, so I never had any trouble consuming it."
"That was the oily residue I saw on the jaws of the trap.", Mike noted and put the .38 back in his holster.
As he slowly sipped on the flavorful coffee in front of him, he couldn't stop his hands from shaking ever so slightly, as overexertion and this strange situation were taking their toll.
"Right. So, imagine my delight when I saw you two fools instead of my dinner. I knew that no doctor or hospital were close enough to help your partner in time before the toxins would take effect. And it wouldn't have mattered, because his symptoms would have looked like the regular onset of shock. They would have never treated him correctly. He would have stopped breathing and gone into cardiac arrest while they scratched their heads."
"And naturally, instead of explaining things, you knocked me out.", Mike snorted angrily.
Pounding his fist onto the table, the stranger grunted in return, not appreciating the lack of gratitude. After a moment of silence, he ran a hand through his long, damp hair.
"Don't expect royal treatment if you trespass into my area. You had no business being there in the first place, so show some respect…As it is, the kid was damn lucky, you both are. I keep herbs on me that'll counteract the poison in case I cut myself on the trap. I gave him everything I had of it, whether he liked it or not. And he's a feisty creature. There was no time to explain anything. I didn't know how long he'd been exposed to the poison by the time I found you guys, and honestly, I've never gotten this much of it in my system, so I wasn't sure what to expect. I had to prepare for the worst when he started to get all shocky and have seizures on the way back. I tied him down as best as I could and removed any outside stimuli, hoping it would get his nerves to settle down and that seemed to help a lot. He's been completely out of it ever since, even when I stitched him back up with some good old fishing line I had lying around. Don't worry though, he never stopped breathing or became critical, so I think the worst is over with. See, the poison has a very short lifespan, I make it fresh from scratch, so hopefully the rest will flush out of his system shortly and he'll just sleep it off. But I would recommend to leave him tied up and resting until we know how he's going to react. Thankfully your exposure was minimal, Stone, but you might still feel some residual tingling and numbness."
"So, you are the apothecary we heard about."
Mike's voice had quieted significantly as he glanced up at the other man, who seemed so utterly irritable, as if he'd lost most of his social skills while living out in the woods. Noting his brown eyes staring right back at him, he held the gaze for many long moments.
"Gee, what gave that away?", taking another sip of coffee, the apothecary savored the gulp for a moment, before continuing, "Ironically, I have been trying to leave civilization behind for years and somehow, my reputation precedes me all the way to the Bay. Here I thought you guys were Feds trying to bust me for something. But you're just plain old city cops. What in the hell are you doing all the way over here?"
"We came to ask you what you were doing all the way over in San Francisco? And when you last saw Sarah Roberts."
His question caused the other man to raise his eyebrows, before pointing at the fur pelt he still wore, seemingly belonging to a coyote or two back in the day.
"Stone, do I look like I get out that often? I haven't left the area in over two months."
