Leland's grizzly hobbled out of the canyon and made his way around the cliff. He smelled the scent of his brother’s bear on every scratched tree trunk he passed.

Anticipation built in his gut for the confrontation he knew would be coming. Cyrus had always been a grouchy bear. Even as a child.

Leland's grizzly climbed up a rocky rise, full of scraggly pines and a dusting of melting snow. When he came up to the crest and the view stretched out below for him, he saw the gentle slope down into a clearing where his brother's cabin sat. Smoke billowed into the overcast gray sky and Leland grunted in the cool mountain air. Walking slowly toward his brother's cabin, he tasted the air with his tongue, trying to get a sense of his brother’s mood.

Before he could come within fifteen yards of his brother’s cabin, the front door burst open, kicked by a booted foot. His brother stepped out, holding a shotgun in his grizzled hands. His brother’s beard was long and his eyes were sharp and blue, focused directly on Leland's bear. The shotgun pointed directly at his head. Leland sat in the rocky clearing with a huff and grunted, irritated that his brother didn't recognize him.

Slowly, Cyrus lowered the gun, a look of realization blooming in his eyes.

"Leland? Is that you?" Cyrus asked.

Leland shifted with a roar and slowly stood in his human form. Cyrus lowered the shotgun and set it against a bench on the front porch before disappearing inside, only to reappear a moment later with a long wool blanket that he swept around Leland's shoulders.

"What are you doing up here?”

"There is so much that you need to know," Leland said.

"Come inside."

Leland followed his brother into the cabin and sat in a chair beside a roaring fire in a stone hearth.

Cyrus poured a cup of something dark into a mug from a pot on the stove and handed it to Leland. He sniffed the brew and smelled a mixture of roots and herbs. He took a sip and blanched.

"It's my coffee substitute," Cyrus said, moving around his one room cabin to prepare a midday meal. The mountain man threw a pair of bloody venison steaks into a cast-iron pan. The meat sizzled in the lard and Cyrus poked it with a sharpened steel fork.

"So, what brings you up the mountain, brother?” Cyrus said as he flipped his steaks in the pan.

Leland wrapped the wool blanket around his waist and continued to sip the bitter brew that his brother had given him. It was invigorating, and felt warm in his chest after the cold trek up the mountain in bear form.

"A lot has happened in the last few weeks," Leland started, turning to the table when his brother set his lunch in front of him. "Father died."

Cyrus sat across from Leland with his fork in hand and stared at his brother for a long moment before, looking down at his steak. He sliced off a piece and shoved in his mouth. He shook his head several times and swallowed his food.

"What happened to the bastard?" Cyrus finally asked.

"Heart attack," Leland said.

"Let me guess, you are now Alpha of Timber Bear Ranch."

"That is indeed a fact."

"How does Buck feel about that?"

"As well as he possibly could. Look, I don't understand why Dad left me the farm. He should have left it to Buck. He's been here all along. He's the only one who's been making any money on the ranch for years, while Dad ran the place into the ground.

“We’re being audited for a decade of back taxes. I have no idea why Dad would have stopped paying his debts. Money was sliding through his fingers everywhere, but it doesn't make sense where the original debt came from. We haven't been able to track it down."

"You know Dad liked to gamble, right?" Cyrus said.

“Gamble?" Leland asked. “I’ve never seen him gamble.”

“It started after mom died and got pretty bad during the war. He was in bad shape when we all came home. I think it made him more defensive than usual. I know how he was with me,” Cyrus said with a growl, shoving more venison into his mouth.

“There is a chance we’ll all be accused of fraud.”

Cyrus spurted out the sip of coffee substitute he’d been drinking and then wiped his face.

“No way I’ll go to trial for Dad’s debts,” Cyrus growled.

“I don’t see how you will be able to avoid it. We all own shares in the company. Dad’s mismanagement will come back to haunt us all.”

“You were the one who was supposed to stand up to him, Leland,” Cyrus said in a dark voice.

“I shouldn’t have backed down when I came back from the war. I could see it back then. He’d been mismanaging the cattle, and I couldn’t take it. He wouldn’t let me help him. I was a coward, and I left it to the rest of you to deal with.”

“Buck deserves a lot of credit for keeping it together with only Jessie there to support him.”

“Buck and Jessie have things worked out pretty well between them. Jessie helps Buck take care of his machines and Buck manages the timber. He’s done a good job for the last seven years.”

“Buck always was the dependable one,” Cyrus growled.

Leland knew that Cyrus had spent most of his childhood being compared to his older brothers. Cyrus had been the black sheep, his nose buried in one of his books. His dark, brooding irritability was something no one understood. Except maybe Jessie, the baby of the family.

Jessie had always looked up to Cyrus in a way the rest of the family couldn’t understand. Bears were supposed to be happy and free, dependable and focused on family. Cyrus had never been that, and only Jessie really got why. As reckless as the youngest Kincaid brother could be, Leland knew Jessie got along with each his brothers better than anyone else in the family. It had always been that way.

“Jessie said you came down from the mountain a few months ago?”

“Yeah, he helps me arrange selling my wares in town and on the Internet. It helps me buy my supplies.”

“Jessie sells things for you on the Internet?” Leland asked, surprised.

“Believe it or not, Jessie can use a computer,” Cyrus grumbled.

“When are you going to come down off this mountain and rejoin society?” Leland asked.

“Probably when they carry me out of here in a casket,” Cyrus grumbled. “What else can I tell you about Dad?”

“You said he gambled? How did you know that?”

“I caught him on the phone with an angry bookie after Mom died.”

“But this debt can’t have started back then. Mom died twenty years ago.”

“He made some bad bets around the end of the war. He was acting like a psycho when I came home so I asked him if he’d lost money on the horses. He gave me this look like he could kill me. But I knew I’d touched a nerve. I wouldn’t doubt this all started around that time.

“Maybe he got a loan from some shady loan shark. That’d be my guess. Dad was pretty bad. I thought everyone could see it so I didn’t say anything. I try to avoid other people’s drama, not get in the middle of it.”

“A loan shark? That makes sense. But I’m afraid it doesn’t help me pay off the debt.”

“Can’t help you there.”

“What do you think will happen if we lose the ranch?” Leland asked.

“No one’s coming up here. I’m invisible.”

“No one is invisible.”

Cyrus growled and bared his teeth.

“I’ve told you all I know. I have nothing, save what I need to survive. I don’t know what else I have to offer.”

“You’re right, Cyrus. I just need to know you’ve got my back, and stand by the family.”

“Always,” Cyrus said, standing to clasp his brother’s bare shoulder with his rough hand.

“Good,” Leland said. “I’d best be getting back down the mountain. Thanks for the warm meal.”

Leland stood and met his brother’s eyes. They were of equal height and build. Though Cyrus had bulkier muscles and less body fat from years of strenuous survival.

“It was good to see you, brother,” Leland said in a low voice.

Cyrus clasped Leland around the shoulders and the brothers embraced, slapping each other’s backs a few times before stepping back.

“Don’t be a stranger,” Cyrus said.

Leland took one last sip of his drink and started out the front door of the cabin. Out on the porch, he threw the wool blanket on the bench and walked out into the yard. He shifted quickly and started into the forest.