"Eight," Jessie said.
"Ten," Buck said.
"Then I can take ten too," Jessie said.
"I'm bigger than you," Buck objected, looking over his shoulder into the backseat at his younger brother.
"But I'm faster than you," Jessie countered.
"Let's split the difference at nine,” Leland said. “I'll say I can take nine as well. That makes twenty-seven hyenas altogether. Do you think there are more than twenty-seven hyenas in that mansion right now?" Leland asked.
"Possibly," Jessie said from the backseat.
"Let's just do this. No more talking," Buck said, pulling open his door handle.
He slid out of the truck before Leland could object. He followed his brother, realizing in that moment that Buck was a strong second-in-command for the family. They walked together up to the front doors of the mansion, and Buck lifted his fist to pound on the front door.
They were greeted by a female servant, dressed in a traditional French maid's uniform. For a moment, Leland thought that she was the entertainment until she behaved like a servant and showed them inside.
"The Updikes will be right with you, gentlemen," she said in a hollow voice before moving away from the Kincaid brothers.
Leland could tell the woman was a shifter. Something in the small canine family. Maybe a fox. She didn't smell like a hyena, but he had a feeling that the pack was keeping her against her will. That made Leland furious. He gritted his teeth as his grizzly growled. He refused to lose control of himself even in this chaos.
The Updike brothers hurried down the stairs, dressed in trendy athletic wear with gold chains and baseball caps tilted to the side. Leland could barely stand what he was looking at, and wanted to shoot them right then and there.
"This isn't the Jersey shore," Jessie said with a growl, crossing his tattooed arms over his taut muscled chest as he caressed the pistol under his arm.
"The same for you. Hick boy," said Chuck.
"What the fuck do you want?" Brandon spit out, staring directly at Leland.
"Where is she?" Leland said, cocking his chin and caressing his pistol with his thumb, meaningfully.
"You didn't have to bring your guns if you wanted women, gentlemen," Chuck said with a cruel laugh.
Leland scoffed.
"Sylvia Becker, my mate. Where is she?" Leland said, staring Chuck in the eyes.
"You found yourself a mate? Now all the fun is over for you," Brandon laughed bitterly.
"My mate is everything to me. And I know you have something to do with her disappearance.”
"If your woman went missing, maybe it’s because you aren't a very good lover," Chuck said.
Leland growled and started to charge toward the hyena, his teeth bared and his grizzly clawing to come out. Buck lifted his fist and stopped Leland as his arm connected with his chest. The blow from his brother brought him back to his senses. Getting into a physical altercation wouldn’t help anything. He couldn't smell her scent. Even if they did know something, she obviously wasn't here.
"You're right, Updike," Leland said. “We should get the police involved with this."
"Go ahead. But the police no longer have any power on Fate Mountain," Brandon said.
"You think the Bear Patrol no longer has power on Fate Mountain?” Buck said with a sharp laugh.
"Not like it used to. But I'll let you idiots believe it does."
"Well, thanks for your help,” Leland said, backing towards the door. “Why don't we get lunch sometime, and catch up on old times?" He twisted the doorknob as his brothers followed him.
The Updike brothers grinned as their hyenas shined through their eyes.
"Sure, if you pay," Brandon said.
The Kincaids covered each other as they walked out and made their way back to the truck. Once they were in the safety of the cab, Leland hurried down the drive and back onto the highway. He hadn't smelled Sylvia’s scent anywhere on the property. Going there was a dead end.
“They would have known we’d go there first. I bet someone else took her,” Leland said.
“I’m calling Rollo,” Buck said, dialing his cell phone.
Leland could hear Rollo's angry voice over the speakerphone and his fist slamming into his desk.
"If only it were just the humans we had to worry about anymore," Rollo growled.
"Are the shifters so much worse?" Buck asked.
"These hyena shifters are running us ragged. We can't keep up with the petty theft, the crime, the muggings. Fate Mountain is not the safe place it used to be."
"Have you brought in more support?" Buck asked.
"We have. But the law isn't as popular as it used to be with shifters. A lot of men are wounded from the war. They’re turning to crime instead of order.”
"In some ways, you can't really blame them," Jessie pondered.
"Oh, I can blame them, all right," Rollo said. "We'll do everything we can to find your mate, Leland. You can count on that."
"Thank you, Commander Morris," Leland said before Buck hung up the phone.
"I guess being out on the range sheltered me from things I should have known about,” Leland concluded.
"The hyena problem is not isolated to Fate Mountain," Buck said. "But it is affecting Fate Mountain more than most other places."
"It's probably because there's so many shifters here already.”
"You may be right," Leland said. “But none of that makes any difference. We have to get Sylvia back.”
"We should go home and gear up to go back out tomorrow at daylight," Buck said. "Try to get some sleep."
Leland nodded in agreement. His younger brother was right again. He was getting too emotional because his mate was in danger. He needed his brothers to help get her back to safety.
He made his way home, his anger building by the moment. He doubted he could sleep a wink with her gone like this. He wanted to call down the entire shifter army to search the entire area all night long, but he knew that it wasn't possible. Buck was right, they had to wait till daylight.
When they made it home, everyone went off to their own rooms to prepare for the next day and to try to get some rest. Leland tossed and turned most of the night, unable to settle the enraged grizzly inside him.
Finally, he got out of bed and ripped off all his clothes as he made his way out into the cool night air. Under a waning moon, he roared up into the sky, his thick breath puffing out in front of him. He shifted with a strangled roar and fell on his four massive paws. The grizzly was angry and in need of blood. He sniffed the air, picking up the scent of the cattle grazing in the north pasture.
Breaking into the pasture and hunting the cattle would be like shooting fish in a barrel for his grizzly. The animal started to move up the driveway toward the sleeping cattle. Leland's human mind screamed inside him, trying to regain control of his inner beast.
He charged toward a barbed wire fence, but yanked himself away at the last moment. He picked up the scent and shot off into the woods. He charged and roared, crashing through the woods, bashing at small creatures and scratching at tree trunks. He didn't know how many small woodland creatures he crushed in the night.
In the morning, he found himself naked and smeared with blood. There was a small bird dead beside him in the dewy grass. He pressed his eyes closed with guilt. The grizzly inside him scratched at his eyeballs, reminding him that his mate was in danger.
Standing in the chill forest morning, Leland stretched and tried to clear his mind. It was still quite early, and the sun was barely eking out over the eastern mountains.
As he padded down the slope to the road, walking on bare feet along the gravel driveway toward the house, he heard a motor screeching behind him. Leland snapped his head around and immediately shifted into his bear.
Chapter 20
He could see Sylvia's terrified eyes as the truck barreled toward him. His grizzly reared up on his back paws and jumped onto the trunk of the truck. The driver screeched to a halt a
nd two men jumped out of each door. They had guns trained on Leland’s grizzly, but all he could sense was Sylvia's fear wafting out of the cab of the truck.
"You had your chance," one of them said.
"Sell the ranch now or you both die," said the other.
The two strange hyenas had their pistols pointed at Leland as he charged onto the hood of the old pick up. He crushed the engine and the gas tank started to leak. His grizzly was out of control, ferociously roaring into the air. Sylvia inched toward the open door as Leland’s grizzly snapped at the hyena shifters.
She slid through the door, her mouth gagged and her hands tied behind her back, and backed behind the truck and ran toward Buck's house. The hyena shifter who had come out of the passenger door turned to her and gritted his teeth, jumping into his hyena form to give chase.
Leland jumped from the hood of the car and charged at him, bashing at the smaller animal with his heavy front paw, just as the animal was peeling out of its human clothes. The other man shot a bullet right past Leland's shoulder. Sylvia screamed through her gag and the sound ignited Leland's rage. He turned to the shifter holding the gun and charged at him, knocking the weapon from his hand.
A shot cracked from the front porch of Buck's house down the road and hit at the rocky cliff over the bed of the old truck parked in the road. Leland's younger brother was shirtless in his jeans and boots, charging up the driveway with a shotgun in his hands. Without another word, he sent a second bullet that hit the leaking gas pooled on the ground.
It ignited.
The hyenas jumped on Leland’s grizzly as Sylvia ran passed Buck and was caught by Jessie on the way and rushed into Buck's house. Leland was in a fit of rage and blood and teeth and fangs as he fought the two hyena shifters.
One of them bit into his shoulder and the other jumped onto his back, trying to throw him off balance. Buck shot again, trying to cause a distraction. Leland glanced toward Buck's house. He didn’t see Sylvia. She had to be safe. He growled as he craned his neck to bite the hyena on his back. They were much smaller than him, but fast and vicious.
Buck shot at the cliff one more time, trying to get the hyenas to stand down. The truck exploded, throwing Leland and the shifters down the road. Fragments of the car smashed into the cliff. Buck growled and shifted into his own grizzly, joining his brother on the gravel road. The two grizzlies took out the crazed hyenas as the truck burned and smoldered. Smoke billowed high in the air.
Sirens announced the Bear Patrol closing in. Buck and Leland stood over the incapacitated hyenas on the ground when the police car rolled up behind the burning truck. Leland shifted and stood up. Rocks had started to fall from the cliff, and among them, huge chunks of shining gold spilled onto the ground. Commander Morris and Deputy Carter went about arresting the hyenas as Buck and Leland stared at the gold dripping from the hillside, nude, scratched, and bloodied in the cool morning air.
“Where is Sylvia?” Leland growled.
“She’s safe,” Jessie said, joining his brothers with wool blankets in hand.
"Is that what I think it is?" Buck asked, wrapping a blanket around his waist.
Leland had never seen the gold nuggets up close before. "Could it be?" Leland said, stepping forward to pick up one of the chunks.
“We were supposed to get a percentage,” one of the hyenas whined.
“Shut up. Hyenas never squeal,” said the second.
Leland sniffed the chunk and tasted it, testing it with his teeth. He had no idea what gold was supposed to taste or smell like; never really owned any gold jewelry except the ring he'd given to Sylvia.
Sylvia.
He dropped the gold nugget in his brother's hand, then ran past the police car and charged naked all the way back to his brother's front door. He swung the door open with a crash and barreled into the house. He found her shaking and quiet, lying in a fetal position on the couch in Buck's living room.
Leland rushed to her and sank to his knees, touching her gently on the shoulder. There were bruises on her wrists and on her face and it was clear that she had been crying. Her eyes were rimmed red and puffy, her mouth was swollen from a gag. Everything in him wanted to go back outside and murder the men who had done this to her.
"Are you all right?" he asked softly.
She threw her arms around his neck and collapsed on her knees on the floor beside him. He gathered her in his arms and stood, carrying her back to his house. Gently and slowly, he took her upstairs, where he set her on his bed and gave her a soft kiss on the forehead.
"I'm going to run you a bath, baby," he said.
He went to the master bathroom and started to run a bath in the big garden tub. When it was full of warm water, he went back to get her. He helped her into the bath and wrapped himself in a towel to sit beside her as he slowly ran a sponge over her shoulders.
"Did they hurt you?" he asked. He needed to know that she was all right, that they hadn't violated her so badly she needed to go to the doctor.
"I'm okay," she said, her voice growing stronger. "My wrists hurt and I'm shaken up, but I'm going to be all right. I heard the police siren. Did they get the bastards?"
"They did. They kept demanding that I sell the ranch."
"They thought they could use me as a bargaining tool.”
"It didn't work out very well for them," he growled.
"Do you think it had something to do with the Updikes?"
"I'm positive it does. But until the Bear Patrol investigates, there's no way to connect the Updike's to those two losers. I don't even know why the Updikes would want Timber Bear Ranch. They aren't going to work the land."
"Maybe they just wanted to resell it for profit."
"Maybe they knew about the gold," he muttered.
"Gold?" she said, standing from the bath.
Leland grabbed a bathrobe and draped it around her shoulders as she climbed from the tub onto a fluffy bath mat on the floor. After she dressed, they found Jessie and Buck waiting in the parlor, their eyes wide with disbelief.
"Did they take that scum away?" Leland asked.
"A while ago," Buck said.
"What about those rocks?" Leland asked, steeling himself for disappointment.
He was probably just excited from the fight and the fear over his mate's safety and been confused about what he'd seen.
"We've been looking at it. We can't test it yet, but from everything I see on the Internet, this stuff is most likely gold," Jessie said.
"Most likely gold?" Leland quizzed.
"Probably gold," Buck continued.
"There's gold on Timber Bear Ranch?" Sylvia asked, stunned as well.
"Well, if there is," Jessie said with a laugh, "then we won't have to sell the ranch or the herd or any of our equipment."
All three Kincaid brothers smiled, exchanging happy, satisfied glances.
22
After several weeks of mining the depths of the gold vein on the Timber Bear Ranch, the brothers had collected a hefty sum. Leland joked that they would bring the five hundred thousand dollars down to the auditors in gold dust and hand it directly to Sylvia's boss.
She asked him not to, even though it made her giggle every time he said it. Even though he didn’t want to let her go, she had to go back home to take care of her job and her cat Charlie.
Leland, Buck, and Jessie piled into Leland’s truck and made their way down the highway to the city. The whole way there, the brothers joked and laughed, holding their big sacks of gold dust. When they arrived at the tax headquarters, they all piled out of the truck, hefting their sacks as they walked across the parking lot.
"I can't believe we’re doing this," Leland said as they approached the front door of the office.
"How could we not?" Buck asked.
"I wish Cyrus were here," Jessie said.
"Me too," Leland said, pulling open the door.
They marched into the office with big smiles on their faces and set the set sacks down on the reception desk.
The girl behind the counter looked up at them with raised eyebrows. They were all dressed in wranglers and flannel shirts, topped proudly with cowboy hats. She looked from one brother to the other, to the next, obviously growing more confused with each passing moment.
"Can I help you?" she asked.
"We have an appointment with Sylvia Becker," he said.
"Right," she said, pressing a button on her telephone.
She picked up the receiver and spoke when Sylvia picked up on the other end.
"There are gentlemen here to see you. They say they have an appointment. Your name, sir?" she asked.
"Leland Kincaid and the Kincaid brothers from Timber Bear Ranch," he said proudly.
"It's the Kincaid brothers from Timber Bear Ranch," the woman said.
"I'll be right there." Sylvia's excited voice carried through the earpiece of the telephone.
"Very good," said the receptionist said before setting down the receiver.
"She's on her way," the receptionist said just as Sylvia burst through the door.
"Leland," she said, running to him.
"Sylvia," he said, wrapping her in his arms.
The people sitting in the waiting room stared at them strangely as Buck and Jessie picked up the three bags of gold dust. Leland planted a kiss on her lips and Sylvia lifted her pretty, kitten-heeled foot into the air behind her.
"This probably isn't appropriate office behavior," Leland said, stepping back with a grin.
Sylvia giggled. "Right this way, Kincaids," she said, leaving the brothers into the back side of the office.
They passed two rows of cubicles until they came to a conference room where a group of auditors in sharp gray and black suits waited for the Kincaids arrival. Everyone walked in and sat down. Mr. Stands sat at the far end of the table, staring the brothers down. Mr. Stands’ fingertips pressed together, forming a sharp triangle out of his arms over the table.
"You are here to make a formal payment toward your obligation?" Mr. Stands asked.
"That's right," Leland said.
"And what are those sacks?" he asked, raising his eyebrow at the brothers. He leaned back in his chair and crossed his arms.
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