The Lonely Dead

'Oh crap,' Tom said. 'That's the sheriff.'

Tom watched as Connolly and the reporter looked each other up and down. Then the policeman turned his attention to Tom.

'Mr Kozelek,' he said. 'See you just haven't been able to give up Sheffer's hospitality yet.'

'Who was it?' Tom asked. 'The waitress? One of the old boys in the corner booth?'

'Can't say I understand what you mean,' Connolly said.

'Think he's implying that someone let you know he was still in town,' Henrickson said. 'I'm inclined to believe he's right.'

'This isn't Twin Peaks, son. I just happened to be coming up the way, saw you two coming in.'

Henrickson took a sip of his beer, and looked at the policeman over the top of his glass. 'Do you have some kind of problem with us, Sheriff?'

'Don't even know who you are.'

'I'm a writer.'

'And what would someone like you be doing up in Sheffer?'

'Big feature article. Charming vacation towns of the North West.'

'Mr Kozelek helping you out, is he?'

'You could say that.'

'Never really had much time for writers,' Connolly said. 'Most of them seem to be full of shit.'

Tom didn't like the way the two men were looking at each other. He tried to think of something to say, something so banal that it might defuse the atmosphere. Then he looked up at the sound of the bar door opening again. Two people came into the room, shaking rain out of their hair.

'Hello,' said one of them, a woman. Tom realized it was the doctor who'd examined him. She came over and joined the group.

'Melissa,' she said, helpfully. 'Don't worry — you were pretty zonked when we met. How are you feeling?'

'Fine,' Tom said. Her husband was behind her. He nodded at Connolly and headed around the other side of the bar, towards the pool table in the far corner. He had the air of a man who didn't do polite conversation.

'That's good,' Melissa said, looking at Tom in that way doctors do: with bright, detached assessment, as if implying that his own opinion of his state of health, while mildly interesting, was of no diagnostic import whatsoever. 'No nausea? Headaches?'

'No,' he lied. 'I feel fine. Thank you.'

'Excellent. Oh — if I were you, I'd go easy on the herbal remedies for a while. You never know the effects of some of those things.'

Connolly seemed to stiffen slightly. 'That's been cleared up,' the policeman said. 'They didn't belong to Mr Kozelek.'

Henrickson cocked his head. 'Herbs?'

Melissa smiled tentatively, as if suddenly uncertain what she had wandered into. 'I found some,' she said. 'A little bunch. In Mr Kozelek's bag.'

'Melissa — do me a favour, would you?' Connolly said. 'Be glad to join you two in a moment. But there's something I need to discuss with these boys first.'

'Sure,' she said, stepping back affably. Normally she might have felt dismissed, but, as it happened, some of what Tom had seen in her eyes was not professional appraisal but the pleasantly lingering effects of a pretty major joint. 'You want a beer?'

'That would be great.'

The three men watched as she walked around the other side of the bar, and then turned to look at one another once more.

'So if these plants didn't belong to Tom,' Henrickson said, 'how did they get there, exactly?'

'Thought you didn't know what I was talking about.'

'I'm sorry if you got that impression. Actually, I believe you're talking about the valerian and skullcap Tom had in his bag.'

'What?' Tom said. He turned to the policeman. 'What is he talking about?'

'Beats me,' the cop said.

'I don't think so.' Henrickson reached into his jacket and pulled out a small plastic bag. He laid it on the counter. 'This the kind of stuff the doctor found?'

Connolly looked away. 'Plants mostly look the same to me.'

'Not to me. I know these are both medicinal herbs, and I know that both were used by a particular group of people.'

'The local Indians.'

'Little earlier than that, actually. So tell me, Sheriff. Judging by Tom's reaction when I found these earlier, I don't think he had anything to do with them winding up in his bag. But presumably you'll be able to tell me how that happened?'

'They were put there by a woman called Patrice Anders.'

Henrickson grinned. 'Is that right? This would be the woman with the boots.'

'When she came across Mr Kozelek's belongings in the forest it was clear to her that they belonged to someone in a poor state of mind. Mrs Anders has an interest in alternative therapies. She left these materials in his bag in the hope that, if he returned, he might recognize them and use them.'

This time Henrickson laughed outright. 'You're kidding, right?'

'That's what she told me.'

'Let me get this straight. She happens to be stomping around out there in her novelty footwear — kind of conveniently — and finds Tom's little camp. She divines from this that Tom's head is fucked up, and so she decides to leave some medicinal herbs in his bag on the off-chance he will work out that's what they are, and decide to take them? Herbs she just happened to be carrying around with her on a walk in the woods? And herbs that most modern people would dispense in a tincture, or at the very least in a tea?'

'People do strange things.'

'Yeah, they do. They surely do. Well, thank you, Sheriff. Those plants had been bothering me ever since I found them. I'm glad to have heard such a straightforward and credible explanation.' Henrickson stood, and grinned at Tom. 'Well, my friend, it's a shame we didn't run into this gentleman earlier. He seems to have all the answers. And now I'm kind of tired from our hike today, and so I think it's time to hit the sack.'

Connolly didn't move. 'I really would prefer it if you gentlemen would consider relocating to another charming North West town.'

'Maybe you would,' Henrickson said. 'And I'd prefer it if you'd stop trying to bully my friend. He knows what he saw, and so do you. He saw a Bigfoot.'

'There isn't any such thing. He saw a bear.'

'Right. You keep believing that. But unless you're going to make an official deal out of hassling him, I'd say it's time you got out of his face.'

Henrickson winked, and headed for the door without looking back. Extremely confused, and not sure whether things had just gotten better or worse, Tom followed him.

As soon as they were outside the journalist started walking fast, heading back towards the motel through rain that was beginning to turn to sleet.

'Jim?' Tom said, struggling to keep up. 'What the hell was that all about?'

'I knew I was onto something when I found that stuff in your bag. I just wasn't expecting it to be handed to me on a plate.'

'Explain.'

'You've heard of herbal medicine, right?'

'Sure. People using plants to cure illnesses, instead of pharmaceuticals. Like, I don't know, aromatherapy.'

'No,' Henrickson said, as he stepped over the low fence into the motel parking lot. 'Different thing. People have been using plants for a long, long time. Medicine's nothing more than a specialized form of food, right? In the 1970s they found a Neanderthal burial in Northern Iraq. The body had been buried with eight different flowers, almost all of which are still used by herbalists today. The Neanderthals knew about this stuff at least sixty thousand years ago, probably a lot longer. And that's why they're in your bag.'

'I don't get it. Why?'

'Because the creature you saw did come back. He came back and put this stuff where you might find it.'

Tom stopped walking. 'A Neanderthal man prescribed me herbs?'

'Got it in one.' Henrickson held his car keys up and pressed a button. The lights of his Lexus flashed. 'Hop in.'

'What now?'

'Get in the car, and I'll tell you.'