The run to Glendive began before dawn, when the world was still half asleep and the cold tasted like metal.
Libby’s small convoy rolled out in a low, steady growl — two diesel trucks, a flatbed stacked with crates of salt, grain, and wire coils, and a trailer loaded with trade goods covered under a canvas tarp. The headlights cut narrow paths through the mist. Behind the wheel of the lead truck, Hank Ward’s steady hands gripped the wheel like he could feel the road through the steel.
Thane sat in the passenger seat, quiet and still. His claws drummed the door once every mile. Gabriel rode in the back, legs stretched out beside the radio crate, strumming his guitar softly. Mark rode with Marta in the second truck, laptop perched on his knees, antenna array taped to the side mirror.
The air smelled of pine, diesel, and anticipation. They’d never traded this far east before.
Glendive had power. That was the rumor — a working generator and barrels of old fuel hoarded like relics. But rumors traveled fast in a broken world, and most of them were lies. Still, Libby needed oil, mechanical parts, and medicine, and the only way to get them was to roll into places that still pretended to be civilized.
It took three days of driving broken highways and backroads before they saw the first sign of life: a sheet of metal nailed to a post that read “WELCOME TO GLENDIVE — HONEST TRADE ONLY.”
Gabriel muttered under his breath, “That’s a bit on the nose.”
Thane grunted. “Honesty doesn’t usually need a sign.”
When the convoy crossed into town, the air changed. The streets were clean — too clean — lined with lamps burning recycled oil, and guards with mismatched uniforms stood at every intersection. Their rifles were polished, but their eyes were tired.
A man waited for them in front of what had once been a hardware store. He was tall and lean, wearing a neatly pressed jacket that didn’t fit his frame. His smile was wide and confident, his eyes too sharp.
“Welcome to Glendive,” he said, voice smooth as fresh paint. “Rex Halden. Mayor, trader, facilitator. We don’t get many visitors from Libby.”
Marta stepped forward, extending her hand. “We’re hoping to change that.”
Rex shook it, his gaze flicking briefly toward Thane — and then past him, to Gabriel’s black-furred silhouette stepping off the truck. The smile wavered for just a heartbeat. “And you brought… muscle.”
Thane’s gravel voice rolled out like slow thunder. “We brought what keeps us alive.”
The crowd that had gathered to watch kept a wide berth. Whispers trailed through the air like smoke — wolves… actual wolves… A child gasped when Thane turned his head, and a mother hurried him indoors.
Rex gestured to the store. “Please, inside. You’ll find our hospitality honest and our prices fair.”
Gabriel leaned close to Thane as they walked. “If that man was any smoother, I’d slip on him.”
Thane didn’t smile. “Keep your ears open. This town smells wrong.”
Inside, the air was stale — candlelight, sweat, old dust. A long table sat in the center of the room, laid out with trade goods: jars of oil, batteries, bolts of cloth, and a single small crate labeled MEDICAL SUPPLY.
Marta got right to work. She talked terms, bartered cleanly, her pen scratching on old ledger paper. Hank kept the conversation polite, measured. Mark checked the inventory with his usual quiet precision.
But Thane’s attention wasn’t on the table. He was listening.
Beneath the hum of talk and the scrape of paper, there was another sound — faint, rhythmic, mechanical. A radio. Someone in the back room whispering coordinates.
Mark caught it too. He looked up from his tablet and gave Thane a single glance. That was all it took.
“Rex,” Marta was saying cheerfully, “we can trade you three crates of salt and a spool of copper wire for the medicals and fuel.”
“Reasonable,” Rex said smoothly. “But there’s the matter of—”
Thane’s voice cut through the air like a blade. “You planning to kill us before we leave, or after?”
The room froze. The paper in Marta’s hand stopped mid-turn.
Rex blinked. “Excuse me?”
“You’ve got a coded transmission running out the back,” Thane said. “Coordinating movement. Your men outside have shifted formation twice since we parked. You don’t look like a man who trusts his guests.”
Rex’s smile flickered, then returned too fast. “You’re mistaken. Probably just routine communication.”
Gabriel stood, slowly — tall, black-furred, ice-eyed. “Then you won’t mind if I break your radio.”
The guards near the door twitched. One raised his rifle halfway — just enough to regret it. Thane didn’t have to move far. A single step, a growl under his breath, and the man froze.
Rex swallowed. “There’s no need for—”
“Stop,” Thane said, calm as stone. “You thought Libby would walk in soft. You thought a few rifles would scare us. You were wrong.”
Gabriel circled to the back room, kicked open the door. A guard inside nearly dropped his headset. “We’re not— it’s not—” he stammered.
Gabriel plucked the radio from his hands and dropped it on the table in front of Rex. The device still crackled faintly: “Positions ready. Wait for sundown.”
The mayor’s last shred of pretense cracked. He looked from Thane’s unblinking eyes to Gabriel’s claws resting on the table — to Mark, already copying the radio’s frequency data.
Marta spoke softly, but there was iron under it. “We came for trade, not trouble. But if you want the latter, you’ll find we don’t lose sleep over cleaning up after it.”
Rex’s mouth opened and closed once. “We— we were told Libby had supplies. That you were soft. That we could—”
Thane leaned forward, voice like gravel and smoke. “That you could take what others built.”
Silence. Then, quietly: “We won’t be trying that again.”
“No,” Thane agreed. “You won’t.”
He gestured to the ledger. “We’ll finish the trade you offered. Full price. And then we’ll leave. You’ll tell anyone who asks that Libby came, traded fair, and left peacefully.”
Rex nodded quickly. “Understood.”
The rest of the deal was finished in tense silence. The oil drums were loaded onto the trucks, the medicine packed and sealed. Thane stood outside while they worked, scanning the horizon, watching as the sun dipped low and the lamps flickered to life across Glendive.
The townspeople didn’t speak, but they watched — wide-eyed, careful, reverent in a way that had nothing to do with worship and everything to do with survival.
When the convoy engines rumbled back to life, Thane climbed onto the flatbed beside Gabriel. The black-furred wolf flicked an ear. “That went well.”
Thane grunted. “No one died. That’s about as good as it gets.”
Marta leaned out from the cab. “Think they’ll try again someday?”
Thane looked back at Glendive — the lamplight, the figures moving like shadows behind windows. “Not soon,” he said. “Fear’s a better teacher than I’ll ever be.”
The convoy rolled west into the rising dark, the scent of oil and pine trailing behind them. The wolves sat watch over the supplies, silent guardians of the fragile peace that still held the world together.
And back in Glendive, under flickering lamps and shaking hands, the townsfolk learned a new story to tell travelers:
That Libby wasn’t to be feared because of its monsters.
It was to be respected because its monsters protected.