Cougar Chaos, page 18
Brock gripped the arms of his chair. “Landon is my husband. We were legally married two weeks ago.”
“That’s all very new to some of us. But right now I’d appreciate it if you and your”—he sighed—“husband would pack up and leave. The excitement is over. Now all we have to do is get all the collected evidence sorted out and processed so we can wrap things up. Officer Cunningham can handle that; he doesn’t need you around holding his hand.”
A wave of anger washed over Brock. He wanted to stand up and shout in the sheriff’s face, calling him a bigot and worse, but he knew they’d be leaving town soon, and then Cunningham would be left to deal with the fallout. Neither Cunningham nor other members of the department would appreciate it if he blew up at the sheriff and they had to rebuild a decent working relationship with the man. “We’re planning on leaving soon.”
Unger nodded with a smug smile. “Good. I want you to know that we actually do appreciate tourists of all persuasions here in Routt County. It’s just I’m ready for things to go back to being quiet for a while. I’m sure you understand what quiet is like.”
With a short, angry nod, Brock exhaled heavily. “I do.”
“Then we understand each other. Once Mr. Weir is done with his report, you’re both free to leave. Parks and Wildlife has already told me that I have no reason to hold either of you since you were working on their behalf, and from what we can determine, other than trespassing, Mr. Weir didn’t break any laws. With Faraday soon to be pushing up daisies, he can’t file charges against Mr. Weir.”
Brock needed to get out of the office before he said something he’d regret. “Is that all?” he asked through gritted teeth.
Unger gestured toward the door. “As far as I know. If I find any discrepancies in your reports, I’ll call you and hope you don’t need to come back in, since it will be a bit of a drive from Teller County.”
“That it would be.” Brock rose from his chair and didn’t bother offering his hand to the sheriff. He kept his stride steady as he headed out the door and down the hall. It was all he could do to not slam the sheriff’s door as he left. Cunningham doesn’t deserve the grief he’d get if I rock the boat and make a scene.
At the cheerful receptionist’s desk, Landon was handing his report to her as Brock cleared the hall.
Brock strolled over to him. “We’re done here.”
The phone on the desk beeped. The receptionist answered it. “Sheriff?” She frowned. “Are you sure? Okay.”
Landon glanced from her to Brock, then raised an eyebrow. “What happened?”
“Truck,” Brock said.
“You can go.” The receptionist tapped Landon’s slightly longer report like she’d done Brock’s. She turned her chair away from them.
“I know.” Brock took Landon’s elbow. For a moment he wanted to kiss Landon right there in the sheriff’s office, just to see if the receptionist would keel over from heart failure, but he contented himself with escorting Landon out of the place and back into the clear air of Steamboat Springs.
Landon didn’t drag his heels and went with Brock in silence until they got into the truck and started down the road back toward their hotel.
“What happened?” Landon asked, putting a comforting hand on Brock’s leg.
“Unger is a complete and total asshole bigot,” Brock muttered, trying to will his jaw to relax after it had gotten uncomfortably tight.
“What did he say? Did you give him a piece of your mind?”
Brock related the incident. A new wave of anger washed over him as he spoke.
Landon patted his leg in support. Bear hung his head over the backseat and panted at them.
With a long sigh, Brock turned into their hotel parking lot. “I guess my coming out at work went a lot easier than I expected it to.” After turning off the truck, he turned in his seat to see Landon better. “You’ve made everything so easy for me. I want everyone to know how happy you make me and to know that we’re married. When I find people who don’t want to understand that love is love, I want to hurt them until they do understand.”
A warm, sexy smile brightened Landon’s handsome face. “I can relate to that. Although hurting people to make them understand isn’t always the best way to get a point across. We live by example, and the best we can do is set a good one. Our world is quickly changing, and for every Unger who wants to hold onto outdated ideas, there’re three to five people like Foster who are willing to open their minds to the differences and embrace them.”
“I know.” Brock laid his head against his headrest. “I just wish we hadn’t encountered this on our honeymoon. This was supposed to be our special time.”
Landon touched Brock’s jaw and brushed across the week’s worth of stubble there. “It was our special time. So it didn’t go as we planned. We didn’t get in as much hiking or as much playing around as we wanted. I don’t care. The important thing is that I was with you, and we managed to stop the bad guys.”
The soft caress of Landon’s fingers sent shivers through Brock and helped push back the anger. “I know. I’m so happy that you understand.” He caught Landon’s hand and kissed it.
“I’ll always understand,” Landon said.
Bear whined in the backseat, making both of them laugh.
Brock looked back at the dog. “Bear, are you trying to tell us that you want to get out of the truck?”
Bear pushed his head against Brock’s hand and gave him a pathetic, pleading look.
Landon leaned across the truck and gave Brock a quick kiss. “So Unger is an asshole. It doesn’t matter. We’re going home soon and won’t bother him again.”
“I hope we don’t have to come back up here.” Brock turned and opened his door. “It’s a pretty area, but I don’t know if I want to be up here much longer.”
“And we won’t.” Landon unclipped his seat belt before sliding out of the truck.
Before Brock could get Bear out of the backseat, his phone rang. He glanced at it. “Hey, Cunningham,” he said after sliding his finger across the screen to answer the call.
“Brock, we’re about to move the surviving cats up to High Mountain Wildlife. Could you and Landon come out and give us a hand? I’m not sure any of us knows as much about moving big wildlife as you two do.”
Pulling the phone away from his ear, he glanced at Landon. “Hey, they want help moving the cats up to Elisabeth. You up for that?”
“Sure.” Landon leaned against the side of the truck. “We’d better walk Bear first.”
“Okay.” Brock put the phone back next to his head. “Sure, we’ll be out there soon.”
“Okay. I appreciate all the help today.”
“Not a problem.” Brock put the phone back in his pocket after the call ended. “Come on, Bear. We get to go back out to the game ranch. Have some big cats to deal with.” He hoped things would go smoothly, and he and Landon could get out of Routt County and back where they belonged.
Chapter 29
LANDON LOOKED through the fence at the female mountain lion, who appeared more haggard than she had days earlier. The big cat was listless and sad. Watching her came close to breaking Landon’s heart.
“Do you think Elisabeth can rehab her enough to release her back to the wild?” Brock said, drawing Landon’s attention away from the cat.
“I hope so.” He forced his eyes away from the cat and looked at the other animals in the enclosures around them. The coyotes had been shot and killed, as had the old male cougar. He had no idea how the female was still alive. On the other side of the female, a yearling male prowled, acting like it felt a lot better than the other animals.
“It’s going to be a lot of hard work.” Elisabeth Bradley appeared, her dark hair in its customary knot. “I wish we could get a good portion of their seized assets to help offset the cost of rehab. Big cats aren’t cheap to help out.”
Landon nodded. “Do you have any volunteers who are good at crowdsourcing?”
She gave him a puzzled look. “What?”
“Crowdsourcing… crowd funding,” Landon explained. “It’s a fairly new concept for raising money. You put together a video and write up about the situation and post it on one of the sites that handles things like this and ask for money. In a case like this, particularly if there’s any hope at all of getting the animals back to the wild, there should be a lot of donations showing up.”
Elisabeth’s broad shoulders drooped. “I stay so busy with the animals, we barely have time to keep up a website, let alone learn about something like this.”
“I’ll give one of my volunteers a call and have her get in touch with you. She’s great with the computer and keeping things up-to-date. She’ll probably have the money rolling in within a couple of hours. It’s been a while since we had to do anything like this, but a few years ago, when there were some big fires in our area, we got a lot more animals in than normal, and most of the local charity money was going to human fire victims, Camille and Shelia set up a funding page for us, and we had nearly a hundred thousand come in within a few days. People want to help animals. A lot of the time, they just don’t know what to do. The Internet helps with that.”
“I hope these are the right tranquilizers.” Cunningham appeared with a dart rifle and a hard case full of tranq darts. “They’re all I could find.”
Landon took the case and opened it. The darts all had small numbers and letters on them. The ones he needed were in there. He nodded. “These will work.” He pulled out a dart with the right dosage to drop a cougar, then handed the case to Brock and held out his hand for the rifle.
When he pointed the rifle through the chain-link fence at the female cat, she snarled at him, obviously recognizing the rifle for what it was. Landon sighted in on her and slowly squeezed the trigger. The rifle gave a soft puff as opposed to a loud crack. The dart hit the cat in the shoulder, where he wanted.
The cat screamed at him and threw herself into the back of the enclosure.
“It’s going to take her a couple of minutes to go down.” Landon motioned for Brock to hand him another dart as he went to the next cage and the younger cat.
The second cat was harder to track as it set up an uneasy pacing and kept glancing over at the female as she became groggy and sank to the dirty concrete floor of her pen. The first shot missed by a hair. The next shot hit the cat. Its scream was a higher pitch than the female’s.
“You only brought two transport cages?” Landon pointed the rifle at the ground as he turned to Elisabeth.
“That’s right. It’s all I’ve got.”
“Bring your truck up to the gate. We’ll need to get these two loaded quickly, so you’ve got time to get them back to your center before the drugs wear off.” Landon handed the rifle to Cunningham as he opened the female’s cage to walk in and inspect her slowly breathing form.
Her ribs were extremely prominent. Landon couldn’t tell if they were sticking out from mistreatment or hard life before her capture. He ran a hand over her belly and wasn’t surprised to find that her teats showed signs of recent use. Somewhere out there is at least one cub that may or may not be starving because of these men stealing its mother. Her right leg had a heavy scab on two sides, and he felt there, trying to see if the leg was broken. The bone felt like it was intact. He’d let Elisabeth decide if she wanted to X-ray it or not. Once they got her to High Mountain Wildlife, he wouldn’t question what she did. But he would call from time to time to see what happened.
The sound of a truck engine pulled his attention up. Brock appeared in the open cage door. “Sounds like Elisabeth is ready for her. I looked around and can’t find a litter or anything we can carry her out with.”
“We can carry her. She’s in rough shape, but even in her prime, with the two of us working together, we could carry her long enough to load her.” Landon knew it would be easier on the cat if they had a litter or board so her body couldn’t sag, but the two of them carrying her would get her loaded faster.
“Okay.” Brock came into the enclosure. “Which end to you want, the one that bites, or the smelly end?” His smile helped loosen the knots of stress that tied up Landon’s guts.
“I’ll take the head.” Landon always took the head of any animal he was moving. It made him feel better. If an accident happened and the animal was harmed, it would be his fault. Regardless of how an accident happened, he’d blame himself, but the possibility of major damage was greater if the person holding the front end faltered.
“I guess we should be happy it’s not one of the tigers.” Brock hefted his end as Landon got a firm hold on the cat’s shoulders and lifted. “I heard the animal control guys who ended up cleaning up the dead tiger complaining about the size of the carcass and the difficulty they had in getting it out of the house.”
“Tigers are the biggest of the big cats. I’ve heard rumors that some of these captive-bred cats can get up to a thousand pounds due to bad diet and general laziness. This girl might be a hundred pounds, but I’m betting less.” They cleared the gate, and he settled into an easy backward walk, knowing Brock would help him maneuver through the maze of enclosures. “Have they decided what they’re going to do with the buffalo and other hoofed stock?”
“Not that I’ve heard. It might be a couple of days before a suitable facility can be found.” Brock jerked his head to the right. “Turn right. Every endangered or threatened animal out here will have to be tested for genetic purity. The buffalo particularly. If they are pureblood, there will be several ranches begging to take them.”
“Then let’s hope.” Landon angled right again as Brock nodded once more.
“If we weren’t being chased out of town, I’d want to hang out and make sure everything is being handled correctly.” Brock’s look darkened again, like it had in the truck on the way from the sheriff’s office.
“At least we can keep in contact with Elisabeth and Cunningham to make sure everything gets taken care of.” He flashed Brock a weak smile. “We’ll be leaving everything in good hands.”
“I know. It just feels like it’s unfinished, even though the bad guys have been stopped.” Brock nodded to the left.
“Over here,” Elisabeth said. “I hope I didn’t back up too close to the gate.”
Landon glanced over his shoulder to where she stood just outside the fence. The gap between the fence and the back of the truck looked to be just wide enough for them to get the cat and themselves through. “Should be good. Which side of the truck does the transport cage open to?”
“The left,” she replied. “I’ll guide you. I’m glad you two are here to help with this.”
“Don’t want to leave until it’s done.” Landon stepped out of the compound and carefully shifted to avoid stumbling into the truck’s large chrome bumper. When he reached the side of the truck, he shifted so he could slide the cat into the transport cage there. The cage was large enough that it sat across the truck bed walls. Next to it was a second cage. They were both tied down with heavy ropes so they couldn’t move when the truck was in motion.
Once the cat was secured in the cage, Landon rolled his shoulders to try to relieve some of the stiffness.
Beside him, Brock did the same. “I’m glad she wasn’t a tiger. We’d have to find some heavy equipment in that case.”
“It’s a working ranch,” Elisabeth said, turning from closing the cage door. “I bet they have a couple of tractors or forklifts around here somewhere.”
“Yeah, but then we’d have to find keys for them, and it would take too long.” Landon shifted his shoulders again and started back for the young male. “We better get him out of there quickly so he doesn’t wake up before we can get them into your enclosures.”
Elisabeth nodded. “Good idea.”
IT TOOK them nearly half an hour to get to High Mountain Wildlife. Brock parked their truck while Landon got out and jogged to get the big gate leading into Elisabeth’s main compound. She pulled through, and he waited for Brock to trot up to him before he closed the gate.
“How much time do we have before the cats come out of sedation?” Brock asked as they hurried about Elisabeth’s truck.
“Not long. Since the female’s in bad shape, there’s a chance she’ll come out of it after the male.”
Elisabeth got out of her truck just as two women came rushing out of the long structure that served as her main building. “Did you gals get the two enclosures set up?”
“Sure, the first and second pens are ready.” One of the women who looked enough like Elisabeth to be a relative ran past them and opened a gate. “How many more are we going to need?”
“Four.” Landon stopped next to the truck.
“Six cougars coming in on the same day?” the other woman asked.
“And the tiger cubs,” Elisabeth added. “We can’t forget the tiger cubs.”
“They brought you the tiger cubs?” Brock asked. “I thought they were going to get them to a big cat rescue since they’re exotics.”
“They are, but right now someone needs to take care of them, and that someone is me.” Elisabeth looked into the two travel cages. “Looks like they’re both still out. Are you two up for moving them again? It’s closer this time.”
“Sure.” Landon smiled at her. “That’s one of the reasons we’re here.” He glanced at Brock. “Let’s move the male first. I bet he shakes it off before she does.”
“And I really don’t want to be holding him when he wakes up.” Brock walked over to the male’s cage and opened the door. “Yeah, he looks like he’s still out of it.”
“Good.” Landon exhaled slowly and shook his hands out. “Okay. Let’s do this.” The male was heavier than the female by nearly twice.
Brock reached into the cage and grabbed the cat’s haunches and pulled slowly. Landon moved to support the middle until the shoulders cleared the cage, and then the cat’s weight settled into his hands. For a second his back complained about the weight; then the adrenaline of carrying a dangerous animal kicked in and pushed the pain away.
