Sheriff Ben Kodiak stared outside of his office window and longed to frolic among the great pines and the thick underbrush or wade in the mountain streams and run through fields of wildflowers. 

He sighed and pulled himself back to his paperwork. No one ever said it would be easy to be the law keeper between werebears and humans. Luckily for him it never really got too out of hand… a drunk werebear once in a while or a love triangle between bears and humans that should never have started in the first place. But those were stories for another time.

Most of the humans that lived up in the Pinecrest Mountains had no idea there was a population of werebears living among them…or that there were several clans of them. And as long as Ben was on the job they never would. Most of the werebears were mistaken for Sasquatch sightings and he got more than a few reports, even some fuzzy photos, of a bear in mid-transformation, ducking into the thick forest trees. That was fine with Ben. He even had a hand in letting those reports flourish… it took the attention off the real tribes that roamed the forest. 

As the unofficial peacekeeper between humans and werebears and between each of the bear clans, Ben had his hands, or paws quite full. He was a werebear himself, from one of the oldest tribes on the mountains. The Village of Briar River was the home of his people and where his office was located, on the outskirts between town lines. Most human inhabitants thought of the werebear villages or towns as Native American reservations and that was fine with him. That way they would normally just visit or pass through instead of trying to buy property in Briar River or Bramble Point, and instead made their homes in the human town of Coldbrook further down the mountains.  

Still, the Pinecrest Mountains were a very popular hiking and camping destination for everyone, outsiders included, and it was tough work keeping everything balanced. Luckily the forest rangers worked closely with Ben and had become close friends. He just saw one of them ride by in a Jeep through his window on their way to the trailheads. That’s what Ben wished he was doing, heading for a hike in the many trails, but duty called. 

There had been a small fight, a slight altercation really, in the werebear bar in Briar River’s town center last night. A human stranger had a little too much and picked a fight with one of the local werebears. Luckily for the stranger, Buck Halberd kept his cool and didn’t put him through a wall. Still, the drunken human stumbled out of the bar and fled down the road just before closing time. 

Ben needed to head over to the bar and get a statement and description. If the human was still in the area he could be in some trouble or causing some trouble. Either way, those were two scenarios Ben would rather not see play out. Time to get his ass into gear.