A week of ordinary days had settled over Libby like a warm blanket.
Mornings in the cabin came with familiar sounds: the hiss and burble of the coffee pot, the low murmur of Kade and Varro talking patrol logistics at the table, Holt rummaging for breakfast like a bear in a pantry, Rime checking the front latch because “door not feel right,” Gabriel tuning his guitar in the corner, Mark muttering over a clipboard of maintenance tasks.
School bells rang now. Glacier Bank opened and closed on a regular schedule. KTNY’s signal drifted from open windows, music and voices threading through Main Street. People grumbled about laundry, laughed about weather, worried about nothing more deadly than burned stew or short tempers.
It felt like the valley had finally remembered how to breathe.
By late afternoon, Rime and Kade were padding up the steps to the sheriff’s office, claws ticking on the worn boards, fur still dusted with forest grit. They had spent the day on the outer loops of the Quiet Circle, checking the tree lines, watching for smoke where it didn’t belong, listening for engines that shouldn’t be there. They’d found nothing more dangerous than a stubborn elk and a squirrel that had tried to throw a pinecone at Kade’s head.
Inside, Hank Daltry sat behind his desk, glasses low on his nose, studying a map. A chipped mug of coffee steamed beside him. His younger deputy, Taylor, sorted papers at the side table, boots up, looking entirely too comfortable.
Hank glanced up as the wolves ducked through the doorway.
“Afternoon,” he said. “You two look like you scared the forest straight.”
Rime rolled a shoulder, sending a faint cascade of dust onto the floor. “Forest quiet. Patrol good.”
Kade nodded, unrolling a hand-drawn map onto the desk. His lines were neat, measured, with written notes along the margins. “No signs of tracks beyond the usual. We checked the north ridge, the river trail, and the old logging road. Only deer, elk, two black bears, and one extremely offended squirrel.”
Taylor snorted. “Offended how?”
Kade’s mouth twitched. “He threw a pinecone at me. Rime laughed. I will never hear the end of it.”
Rime’s ears flicked forward, pleased. “Was good throw.”
Hank leaned back in his chair, satisfied. “I’ll take angry squirrels over raiders any day.”
He was about to say more when the phone on his desk rang, the old landline’s bell cutting through the easy silence. He reached for it automatically.
“Sheriff Daltry.” He listened, eyebrow lifting. “Uh-huh. Fourth and Cedar. And how long…?” Another pause. “Alright, ma’am, we’ll come take a look.”
He hung up, rubbing the bridge of his nose with one thick finger.
Taylor raised a brow. “What’s the crisis?”
“Noise complaint,” Hank said. “Neighbor doesn’t like late-night guitar and singing.”
Taylor grinned. “Oh no. Music. Civilization truly is collapsing.”
Hank gave him a flat look but there was humor there. “Easy. Folks are still learning how to live with each other again. They’re wound tight. They get to be.”
He looked back at Rime and Kade. “You two feel like coming along? Might as well make it a community relations call. People behave better when they see who’s keeping watch.”
Rime’s ears perked. “Noise… like music?”
“Supposedly,” Hank said. “One neighbor thinks it’s a concert, the other says it’s therapy. Let’s go find out.”
Kade nodded. “We’re in. Better to help when it’s small than when it festers.”
They stepped back out into the late-afternoon light. Hank’s truck sat at the curb rather than a cruiser—currently in for maintenance. The wolves trotted alongside as he drove, but once they hit the edge of Main Street he slowed and they hopped into the bed, settling down with practiced ease, claws scraping metal, tails easing into relaxed curves.
Fourth and Cedar lay in one of the quieter residential areas, a mix of restored pre-Fall houses and newer patched-together builds. Power lines hummed overhead. Someone’s radio played KTNY faintly from a porch. Children’s chalk drawings still colored the sidewalk from earlier in the day.
Hank parked at the corner. As they climbed out, a woman in her sixties stepped off the front porch of a small blue house. Her gray hair was pulled back in a rough bun, and she wore a faded sweater that looked like it had survived as much as she had.
“Hank,” she said, relief and irritation tangled together. “Thank God. I about lost my mind last night.”
“Evening, Marion,” Hank said. “This the one you called about?”
“That’s right.” Marion jerked a thumb toward the house next door, pale yellow with a wide porch and a sagging swing. “Him. All hours with that guitar. I like music, Hank—you know I do—but not at midnight, not at one, not at two. I can’t sleep. The walls are rattling. We survived sirens and explosions and men screaming in the dark for years and now I’m supposed to listen to off-key ballads till dawn?”
Her gaze slid past Hank to Rime and Kade and softened, embarrassed. “Sorry. No offense to any wolves who enjoy off-key ballads.”
Rime tilted his head, amber eyes gentle. “Off-key bad,” he said. “But music… not.”
Marion sighed. “I know. I know it’s silly compared to… everything. But I’m tired, Hank. My nerves never went back to what they were. When the world goes quiet at night, I need it to stay quiet.”
Kade stepped forward slightly, posture relaxed, hands open. His voice was calm, even. “Marion, quiet is important. You’re not silly. You’re just honest.”
She looked at him, gratitude flickering beneath the frustration.
Hank nodded. “Alright. Anyone hurt?”
“No,” Marion said. “Just me, in the sleep department.”
“Then we’re dealing with a disagreement, not a crime,” Hank said. “Which means talking first. If talking doesn’t fix it, we talk harder.”
Rime blinked slowly. “Is good method.”
Hank shot him a small smile, then looked back at Marion. “He inside now?”
“Of course he’s inside.” She folded her arms tightly. “If he was outside, you’d already be hearing him. He’s in there strumming like the world’s ending in minor chords.”
Taylor had stayed by the truck, watching the street; now he joined them, hand resting loosely on his belt. Hank gestured for everyone to follow as he walked up the neighbor’s walkway.
A light shone in the front window of the yellow house. As they got close, the soft edge of a guitar chord slipped through the glass, followed by a low, tuneful voice. Not performance-level perfect, but not bad either—just a man singing to himself and whoever might be listening.
Hank rapped on the door.
The music stopped mid-line. Footsteps crossed the floor. The door opened a cautious crack, then a little wider when the occupant saw Hank instead of something worse.
The man was in his thirties, maybe, with sun-browned skin, shaggy dark hair, and a long-sleeved shirt with the sleeves pushed up. The guitar strap still crossed his chest, the instrument hanging at his side. His eyes flicked to Taylor, then to the wolves.
His shoulders tensed. “Uh. Evening, Sheriff.”
“Evening, Jonah,” Hank said. “Can we come in and talk a minute?”
Jonah swallowed. “I—Did I do something wrong?”
Rime leaned sideways slightly, peering, ears pricking forward with interest at the sight of the guitar. “Wrong… maybe loud,” he said. “Not crime.”
Kade gave a small, reassuring nod. “We’re here to talk. That’s all.”
Jonah hesitated only a moment more before stepping back and opening the door fully. “Sure. Yeah. Come in. Watch the… uh… everything.” His eyes went again to Rime and Kade, tracing the claws, the height, the scars, and somehow relaxing rather than tensing further. The wolves of Libby were known now. Feared by some, respected by most.
The living room was small but cared for. A few mismatched chairs, a patched couch, a crate serving as a coffee table. A string of solar fairy lights hugged the ceiling, giving the space a soft glow. A battered notebook lay open on the crate, pages filled with lines of lyrics and chords.
Hank stayed standing, letting Jonah decide whether to sit. “We got a call from Marion next door,” he said. “She says you’ve been playing late. Real late.”
Jonah winced. “Yeah. I… yeah. I probably have.”
“She says it’s keeping her up. You know she’s jumpy at night,” Hank continued. “Most folks still are.”
Jonah shifted his weight, looking more like a kid dragged into the principal’s office than a grown man. “Look, I don’t mean to bother her. Or anybody. I’m not trying to be… you know, that guy. It’s just…”
He faltered, hand tightening on the guitar neck.
Kade spoke gently. “It was very quiet for a long time,” he said. “Too quiet.”
Jonah’s eyes flashed to him, surprised. “Yeah. Exactly that. Thank you. Before the Fall, I played in bars and little coffee shops. No one thought about it. Noise ordinances, sure, but… sound was just life. Cars, chatter, music leaking from ten different places on Main Street. Then the world went dark and we spent years listening to… to bad sounds. Glass breaking. Guns. People screaming. Or worse—nothing at all.”
He looked down at the guitar. “Now I can plug this into that little amp and people can hear it again. It feels like proof that the world came back. That we didn’t imagine it.”
Rime stepped slowly around the room, careful of the furniture, eyes taking everything in. He stopped near the window, gazing at the street. “When world broke,” he said, words slightly halting but clear, “we had… no music. Only wind. Howls. Sometimes… crying.”
Jonah looked at him, fully listening.
“First time Gabriel play for us,” Rime continued, “we sit in dark cabin. Lantern small. Guitar big.” His mouth curved slightly, memory warming his eyes. “He play soft. Not loud. Just… enough. Pack calm. Heart slow. Noise… but good noise.”
He tapped his chest lightly with one claw. “This remember good noise now. But Marion’s heart maybe remember bad noise. Same sound, different heart.”
Jonah’s throat worked. “I hadn’t thought about it like that.”
Hank nodded, glancing between them. “There it is. You’re both telling the truth. You play to feel like the world’s alive again. She needs quiet to feel like it’s safe again.”
“And we don’t want this turning into a wedge,” Taylor added quietly. “You know how hard folks worked to get to a place where the biggest complaint we take is ‘he’s playing too much guitar.’ That’s a victory, not a problem.”
Jonah sank onto the edge of a chair, setting the guitar carefully across his knees. “I thought… honestly, when you showed up with two wolves, I thought I was in real trouble. Like this was some kind of… official town thing. ‘No playing unless it’s approved by law enforcement,’ or something.”
Kade actually chuckled. “If that were the law, Holt would have been arrested many times for singing.”
Rime made a wounded sound. “Holt singing good. Loud… but good.”
“He’s still learning pitch,” Kade said diplomatically.
Jonah cracked a startled laugh, tension easing from his shoulders. “Wait… Holt sings?”
“Sometimes,” Rime said. “Gabriel teach him guitar. Big paws, soft touch.”
Kade leaned on the back of the couch with easy familiarity. “Here’s the thing, Jonah. Music is good. Very good. It’s part of what makes this place feel alive again. But now we have neighbors again. We have school in the morning. We have early shifts at the dam and the bank and the bakery. That means we also have… what’s the phrase?”
“Noise complaints,” Taylor supplied.
“Boundaries,” Kade corrected mildly. “Pack word: boundaries. Wolves howl, but not all night. We hunt, then we rest. We make noise, then we make silence. Sharing space means sharing noise, too.”
Jonah frowned thoughtfully. “So you’re saying… I can play?”
Hank folded his arms. “No one’s trying to take music away from you, son. We just need some reasonable hours. Start earlier. Wrap up before people who wake at dawn are ready to put their heads down. You can pour your heart into this guitar from, say, early evening to… ten?”
“Eleven on weekends,” Taylor suggested.
Hank gave him a look. “We’ll negotiate Friday nights after we see if this works.”
Rime tilted his head. “Maybe make… quiet songs late,” he said. “Soft. Not shout-singing.”
“Ballads instead of bangers,” Taylor muttered.
Jonah leaned back, thinking. “So if I start around supper, keep it down some, and shut it off by… ten, you think she’d be okay?”
“We’ll talk to her,” Hank said. “But that sounds like a civilized plan.”
Kade hesitated, then added, “There is something else. A way to give your music more ears without blasting it through one wall.”
Jonah looked up, interested. “I’m listening.”
“Gabriel plays in the town square during markets and events,” Kade said. “He loves having the valley hear him. Guitar, sometimes old songs, sometimes new. Humans gather, wolves listen, children dance. If you want to be heard, that is the place. Join him.”
Rime’s ears perked. “Yes. Gabriel like company. He say sometimes, ‘I wish another guitar play here. Make sound bigger, warmer.’” He gestured with his hands, miming the shape of overlapping sound. “And Holt learning. He… very happy to play with others.”
“Holt,” Jonah said slowly, imagining it. “The big one. The one who laughs loud.”
“Yes,” Rime said firmly. “Big wolf. Big laugh. Big paws. But soft touch on strings.”
Taylor smiled. “You end up in a band, just promise me you won’t name it something like ‘The Post-Fall Howlers.’”
Jonah’s eyes were brighter now. “You really think Gabriel would… want that? Me playing with him in the square?”
“He would be thrilled,” Kade said. “He loves sharing things. Music, stories, coffee. He taught half the pack to keep tempo with their claws.”
Jonah ran a hand over the guitar body, thoughtful. The weight of the instrument seemed to shift, like it was no longer just armor but opportunity.
“I…” He swallowed. “I’d like that. Playing for people who actually want to listen. In a place that feels right. Not sneaking joy through the walls like contraband.”
Hank nodded. “Then here’s what we’ll propose. You keep the hours sensible—start earlier, end by ten, try not to rattle the windows off the hinges. We make sure Marion understands that you’re not ignoring her; you’re adjusting for her. And we introduce you to Gabriel so you can take some of that energy to the square where loud is welcome.”
Jonah gave a small, earnest nod. “Deal. And… if she ever wants to hear something during the day, I’ll play whatever she wants. Old songs, hymns, whatever. I owe her the sleep.”
Rime’s gaze softened. “Good trade. Night quiet, day music.”
Kade straightened. “Alright. Let’s go talk to her.”
They stepped back out onto the porch, the evening light slipping toward gold. Across the way, Marion watched from her steps, arms folded but expression wary rather than hostile.
“Well?” she called.
Hank walked over with the wolves and Taylor flanking him. “Well,” he said, “Jonah didn’t know how much it was getting to you. He’ll start earlier, end by ten. No more midnight concerts. And he’s going to take louder playing to the town square, where you can hear him at reasonable hours with everyone else, if you want to.”
Marion sniffed. “He said that, did he?”
“He also said,” Kade added gently, “that if you ever want to hear something during the day, he’ll play what you like. You’ve got seniority in this neighborhood. Might as well use it.”
Rime nodded. “He feels bad. Not… bad-wolf bad. Just… ‘I am sorry’ bad.”
Marion looked between them, lips pressed tight, then exhaled slowly. The lines around her eyes softened. “I don’t hate his playing,” she admitted. “Truth is, when he started up the first time, I cried. I hadn’t heard live music since before the world ended. Thought my heart would crack open.”
She shook her head. “But then it kept going. And my body doesn’t know how to tell the difference between last year’s screaming and today’s guitar. It just knows: noise at night means danger. I’m tired of waking up with my heart in my throat.”
“That makes sense,” Kade said. “Your body remembers. It’ll learn new memories over time. Soft ones.”
She looked at him with quiet gratitude. “You talk like someone who’s had to relearn a lot himself.”
Kade’s mouth twitched. “I have.”
Hank tipped his chin toward the yellow house. “He’s not your enemy, Marion. He just wants the world to sound alive again. You want it to feel safe. Those aren’t opposite things. We can make them fit.”
Marion let out another breath. “Alright. Ten o’clock. And he keeps the windows closed when he can.”
Hank smiled faintly. “I’ll tell him.”
She hesitated, then added, “And… maybe I’ll come out to the square next time there’s a market. If he’s going to be playing with Gabriel… well. That sounds like something worth yelling at my knees to walk across town for.”
Rime’s tail gave a small, pleased swish. “Good idea. Pack there too. Safe, loud, happy.”
Marion’s gaze moved to him, and she studied his calm, amber eyes. “Rime, right?”
He dipped his head. “Yes.”
“You ever think you’d spend your days worrying about noise complaints instead of manhunts?”
Rime considered, then smiled with all his teeth, the expression oddly gentle on a predator’s face. “Never. But I like this better.”
Hank and Taylor walked back with the wolves to Jonah’s porch, relaying Marion’s side of the compromise. Jonah agreed without hesitation. The idea of playing in the square burned bright in his eyes.
“I’ll come by the station tomorrow,” he said. “Ask Gabriel when the next market’s running. Maybe… maybe we can work out some songs. I know some old ones. And I can learn new.”
“He’ll like that,” Kade said. “Holt will, too. He’s proud of every chord he can manage.”
Jonah grinned, more relaxed than he had been since the door first opened. “I’ll try not to get shown up by a wolf who just learned which end of the guitar to hold.”
“Do not bet on that,” Rime murmured. “Holt very serious about music.”
They left Jonah at his door, the guitar now an invitation rather than a wedge. The street felt quieter, not because the music was gone, but because the tension had eased.
As Hank, Taylor, Rime, and Kade walked back toward the truck, evening settling around them, Taylor blew out a breath. “I can’t believe it. We really just handled a noise complaint.”
Hank scratched at his beard. “Feels good, doesn’t it?”
Taylor nodded slowly. “Yeah. Yeah, it does.”
Kade looked up at the paling sky, faint stars beginning to appear. “Where I came from, loud things at night meant someone was dying,” he said. “Or someone was being broken on purpose. Here… it’s just a man trying to remember that the world can sing. We guide it a little. Shape it. Make sure everyone can rest. That is… better.”
Rime walked beside them, humming under his breath—a low, tuneless thing at first, then gradually falling into a pattern that sounded suspiciously like one of Gabriel’s soft evening melodies. He tapped his claws lightly against his leg in rhythm, careful not to scratch.
Hank listened for a moment. “That one Gabriel wrote?”
Rime nodded. “Yes. For nights on porch. He say it is song for ‘nothing wrong.’”
“Seems fitting,” Hank said.
They reached the truck. The wolves climbed into the bed again, sitting with easy balance as Hank got behind the wheel. As they rolled back toward Main Street, the town’s lights glowed softly ahead: homes, the bank, the station, the diner, the schoolhouse.
Behind one window on Fourth and Cedar, Marion turned off her porch light and headed inside, comforted by the promise of a quiet night.
Behind another, Jonah sat back down with his guitar, strummed a few gentle chords barely loud enough to carry past the glass, and smiled to himself, already imagining a makeshift stage in the town square, Gabriel beside him, Holt grinning too big for any spotlight.
The truck rumbled on.
Libby cooled into night, held in the hush between heartbeats—a town where the scars of the old world were healing, where wolves and humans alike were learning that peace sometimes sounded like nothing more dramatic than arguing about guitar volume and agreeing, together, on when to turn it down and when to turn it up.
The valley rested. The pack watched. And in the quiet, the promise of future songs waited patiently for their cue.