The flatbed rolled into Libby trailing dust and the smell of old oil, its cargo lashed down in tidy stacks that made Marta clap the moment she saw them. The afternoon light slanted warm across the square; people looked up from their work, a few hands lifting in easy waves as the engine coughed and settled.
Mark hopped down first, landing soft on the cobbles. “Panels intact,” he called, patting the top frame like a favorite dog. “Inverters, charge controllers, wiring, and a box of mechanical odds and ends that’ll save us a month of cursing.”
Marta jotted as he spoke, eyes bright. “If you brought me spare breakers I’ll name a loaf of bread after you.”
“Two crates,” Mark said, deadpan. “One sourdough, one rye.”
She grinned. “Done.”
Thane climbed out of the bed and started cutting straps with clean, decisive flicks of his claws. The Northern Ferals fanned around the truck without being told—Rime and Holt shoulder-lifting panels two at a time, younger wolves ferrying coils of cable like oversized bracelets. Gabriel tossed down a battered PA head wrapped in burlap and waggled his eyebrows. Marta arched a brow.
“Festival plans?” she asked.
“Community morale enhancer,” Gabriel said. “Also known as music.”
“Then I’m doubly grateful,” Marta said, stepping aside as two ferals padded past with a stack of batteries balanced between them. “City warehouse is open—Hank’s boys cleared a bay. Mark, I want your brain on the inventory.”
“You already have it,” Mark replied, following her with a clipboard he clearly hadn’t been handed yet. “We’ll stage by system: solar, power distribution, comms, and ‘things Mark will regret not finding six months from now.’”
As they filed into the warehouse, cool air breathed out—concrete, dust, and the faint tang of old oil. Rime set a panel down with careful fingers. “Safe place,” he said, testing the floor with a tap of his claw. “Good den for hard things.”
“Exactly,” Marta said. “No rain. No curious raccoons. No ‘oops I thought this was a table’ incidents.”
Gabriel whistled innocently while setting the PA head on an actual table. The nearest feral smothered a laugh.
Holt came through the door hauling two huge 24-volt lead-acid batteries, one in each paw. A human volunteer froze mid-step to stare. “That’s… that’s not possible,” he said, half to himself.
Holt set them down gently, not even breathing hard. “Possible,” he said. “Heavy, not clever.”
“Both are useful,” Mark said, pencil behind his ear, already sketching a rough plan on the clipboard Marta had indeed produced from nowhere. “Panels in rows along the southern wall. Inverters next to breaker crates. Cables looped and tagged by gauge. Please do not coil the 10-gauge like a garden snake.”
Gabriel nudged Thane’s shoulder with his elbow as they unlashed the last strap. “He’s in his happy place.”
“He earned it,” Thane said. “We all did.”
For an hour they worked in simple rhythm: carry, place, stack, label. Humans and wolves moved around each other like they’d practiced for years. Hank wandered through at one point, counted panels, and let out a low whistle. “If raiders get ideas again,” he said, “we’ll blind them with reflected sunlight.”
“Preferably from behind a wall,” Thane replied.
When the truck bed finally showed wood, not cargo, Marta capped her pen with a satisfied pop. “If I could frame this feeling I would. Thank you. All of you.”
Rime dipped his head. “Town helped our river,” he said. “We help your sun.”
Holt wiped a smudge of grease on his fur with zero success. Gabriel pressed a rag into his paw and whispered, “Rub, then pretend it worked.”
Holt, enormous and unbothered, made two perfunctory passes and nodded solemnly. “Fixed.”
Marta squeezed Mark’s shoulder. “Get some food, then go home. You look three bolts past done.”
“Two bolts,” Mark corrected, but he smiled. “We’ll head out.”
They said their goodbyes in the square. The ferals lingered at the edge—no hurry in them, curious eyes flicking from faces to windows to the sky settling toward evening. Thane cut a glance to Gabriel; Gabriel lifted one shoulder, grin crooked. The wolves drifted after the three of them when they left town, as casual as leaves following a current.
On the forest road, a young feral trotted at Thane’s side. “We come?” he asked, not really asking.
Thane’s mouth tipped. “Looks like you already are.”
The cabin sat where pines crowded close, its roof dark with needles, its steps worn smooth by years of barepaws. The generator shed was quiet; the solar bank winked soft along the eaves. Thane pushed the door open and stood aside.
The ferals hesitated at the threshold like they were about to step onto a river. One by one, they crossed in, claws ticking on wooden floorboards, eyes everywhere. Warmth rolled out—old wood and coffee, a memory of smoke in the stone fireplace. A pot sat near the sink, a stack of tin cups beside it; a woven rug spread its reds like a low-burning ember. Two wolf-head medallions glinted briefly in the lamplight as Thane and Gabriel moved past the hooks by the door.
“This is… den,” Rime said softly. Not a question. Reverence carried in it.
“A good den,” Holt added, taking in the battered leather sofa, the shelves with their careful chaos of tools and books and coils of wire. He looked up at a framed photo hung crooked—three wolves and a mountain behind them, no date, just a memory.
Gabriel flopped on the sofa like he’d been shot, guitar already sliding into his hands. He didn’t tune it so much as nudge it into agreement, then let his claws brush the strings. The first chords rolled out warm and easy, filling the small room with something that loosened shoulders.
A laugh hiccuped from one of the younger ferals near the doorway. “Furniture is… soft,” he said, pressing both palms into the arm of a chair and then quickly pulling back as if he’d broken some rule. The chair survived. He pressed again, delighted. “Soft!”
“Don’t let them discover mattresses,” Mark said, disappearing into the kitchen and reappearing with a dented kettle. “We’ll have to pry them out with a crowbar.”
“Cloud dens,” another wolf murmured, testing the rug with his toes. “Floor is not cold. Floor is soft too.”
Gabriel shifted to a brighter pattern, a little run that danced and came back to the root like a friend returning. Holt stood motionless in the center of the room, eyes fixed on Gabriel’s hands. His ears were forward, his body suddenly still, as if movement might scare the sound away.
“You want to sit?” Thane asked him, amused, and the big wolf startled, then sank cross-legged on the rug with surprising care.
The others snickered, not unkindly—just that easy pack teasing that drifts toward whoever looks earnest. “Holt wants story-sound,” someone said.
“Holt wants learn,” another chimed.
Holt’s jaw set. “Yes,” he said simply. “I want learn.”
More laughter, sharp at the edges. “Big paws for small strings,” a young male grinned. “He break it in two shakes.”
Holt’s head snapped, the humor gone from his eyes. The room bristled; even the guitar string buzzed under Gabriel’s fingers as if catching the change. The teasing wolf took one more breath and that was the end of his good choices.
Holt moved like rockfall. One paw on the other’s throat, not crushing, but enough to stop words. The pinned wolf yelped, paws scrabbling at Holt’s wrist.
Thane was across the room before the echo faded, gravel voice so low it barely stirred the air. His paw settled on Holt’s shoulder, weight there but not force. “No one doubts you’re the strongest in this room,” he said. “With strength comes responsibility. We do not hurt our pack.”
The words landed and held. Holt’s breath came fast once, twice. His ears eased back; his claws eased away. He stood, stepped back, and put both paws open at his sides. The pinned wolf rolled to a sit, rubbing his throat, ears hot with embarrassment, pride dented but intact.
Gabriel’s voice came in dry as kindling. “Teasing a wolf bigger than a motorcycle: bold. Maybe don’t.”
Snorts of laughter circled the room, the tension evaporating as quickly as it had come. Holt looked at Gabriel, eyes still tight. “Teach?” he asked, tone back to the simple want he’d started with.
Gabriel patted the sofa cushion beside him. “C’mere, giant.”
Holt approached like it might be a trap. Gabriel turned the guitar and laid it across Holt’s thighs. It looked small there, but not ridiculous—like seeing a blacksmith hold a violin with reverence. Gabriel positioned Holt’s right paw above the strings. “Your claws are picks,” he said. “Short strokes. No hammering. Gentle. Think like you’re brushing fur, not digging.”
Holt glanced at Thane. Thane nodded once. Holt flexed his claws as if promising them they’d be delicate, then glanced back down.
“Left paw on the neck,” Gabriel went on, guiding one thick finger at a time to press in a chord shape. “Here, here, and here. Not the tips—roll them. You’re strong, so you’ll overdo it at first. Breathe. Now hit the low string…”
Holt struck too hard and winced at the twang. The room chuckled. Gabriel’s mouth curved. “Again. Like you’re afraid to be heard.”
Holt brushed. The low note bloomed warm and honest. Holt didn’t move.
“That’s it,” Gabriel said softly. “Again. Now add the next one. Slow. Let it ring.”
Holt’s tongue poked from the corner of his mouth, the rigid set of his shoulders easing by inches as a three-note pattern found itself under his paw. He tried it a second time. Cleaner. The third time, the smallest smile touched the corner of his lips—a boyish look that didn’t know his own face could make it.
Behind him, someone muttered, grudging but impressed: “Holt has soft claws.”
“Shocking development,” Mark said from the kitchen doorway, steam trailing from the kettle. “The boulder is also a harp.”
Holt flicked a look up and then resolutely back to the strings. Gabriel shifted him into a simple melody, rearranging two fingers, tapping one knuckle, telling him when to lift and when to leave it alone. The notes came halting at first, then with more confidence—something like a lullaby from a far-off place, the skeleton of a tune stepping out of fog.
When Holt finished the phrase without tripping over it, his ears shot up. “Did,” he said, quiet but fierce. “I did.”
“You did,” Gabriel said. “Now don’t stop doing. Again.”
Holt played it again. This time the room stayed silent until the last note hung and faded into the log walls. Then the young wolf who’d been pinned earlier clapped once, awkward and sincere. The others followed, a ripple of paws on palms, a few grins being hidden with bad grace.
Gabriel shifted the guitar back to his own lap and rolled his shoulders like a boxer warming up. “Alright, Holt Strength-Claws,” he said, eyes sliding mischievous. “You just bought yourself a song.”
Holt blinked. “Bought?”
“With effort,” Gabriel said, already shaping chords. He looked up at Thane for half a second; Thane’s mouth twitched. Gabriel set a steady pulse and sang in that effortless, low baritone that could make even a shopping list sound like a pledge.
“Big paws, soft touch, learned to listen more than bite,
Strong back, steady heart, found the music in the light.
You can pin the world, sure, but hear the harder art—
Hold the pack up with your hands and never break a heart.”
He glanced at Holt, who stared like the words were being carved into stone. Gabriel’s claws drummed a quick flourish on the soundboard, then settled into the melody Holt had just learned, weaving it into a chorus.
“Strength we carry, strength we keep,
Claws for building, claws for peace,
We are louder when we’re kind,
We are strongest when we find—
Big paws, soft touch.”
By the second chorus, Holt’s paw had found the pattern again and was playing under Gabriel’s voice, tentative but steady. The others watched with a mixture of resignation and dawning pride, shoulders bumping, a few nudges meaning “you see this?” without needing the words.
Mark leaned the kettle against the stove, watching from the doorway. “Did we just invent wolf guitar lessons?”
“Add to curriculum,” Thane said, dry.
“Prereqs: don’t maul the teacher,” Mark replied.
Rime moved closer to the hearth and sat, forearms on knees, listening like he was taking notes he couldn’t write. “Song teaches,” he said simply.
Gabriel finished with a little slide and left the last chord open to breathe. Holt stared at the guitar like it might be a living thing that had chosen him. He set his paw flat over the strings, not pressing—just resting there like a promise.
“Again tomorrow,” Gabriel said. “You’ll curse me twice and then thank me.”
“Twice,” Holt repeated gravely, as if this were part of the ritual. The room laughed, and Holt’s grin came free and easy this time.
The light outside had softened to blue by the time Mark started handing out tin cups. “Tea,” he announced. “Not coffee.” He made pointed eye contact with Holt.
Holt accepted his cup with exaggerated innocence. “Tea,” he agreed, though his eyes darted briefly to the shelf where Gabriel kept beans. The room snickered on cue.
A young feral found the courage to sink into the armchair and discovered the angle where it hugged back. His eyes went round. “Cloud den for sitting,” he whispered.
“Careful,” Gabriel said. “They’re habit-forming.”
Another drifted down the hall, peered into the spare room, and made a reverent sound. “Beds,” he breathed. “Big cloud dens.”
“You’re not sleeping here,” Thane said from the doorway, not unkind, and the wolf startled, then grinned and retreated. Thane’s gaze tracked him back into the living room and softened at the edges when he passed Holt and the guitar.
Outside, the forest breathed and settled. Inside, the cabin soaked up the last of the day—the clink of cups, the soft thrum of strings as Holt tried the pattern again, the quiet mutter of feral voices learning the names of small domestic things. No one hurried them out. No one needed to. When they finally rose, it was as a group, uncoiling slowly like a warm animal.
On the steps, Rime paused and looked back. “Good den,” he said. “Good music.” He touched his chest with the back of his paw, then toward Gabriel. “Teach makes strong in here.” He tapped his sternum. “Not only in here.” He flexed his forearm with a grin.
Gabriel saluted with the guitar pick he hadn’t used once. “Come back with better jokes.”
Holt stopped beside Thane, fingers grazing the neck of the instrument still in Gabriel’s lap. “Tomorrow,” he said.
“Tomorrow,” Thane agreed.
The ferals slid into the trees like they’d always been there. The cabin door clicked shut on a draft that smelled of pine and promise. In the quiet that followed, Gabriel relaxed back into the sofa and plucked the melody one more time, softer now, as if not to scare it. Mark rinsed cups with the last of the kettle water, humming under his breath. Thane stood a moment longer in the entry, listening to the forest settle and the small sounds of a den at peace.
“Big paws, soft touch,” Gabriel murmured, amused and pleased with himself.
Thane’s rumble came from the doorway like a low chord. “It’ll stick.”
Gabriel’s grin flashed. “That’s the plan.”
The lamp burned warm. The guitar sang something simple. And out under the darkening pines, a huge wolf padded along a path with his claws tapping out a rhythm against his thigh, quiet as a promise he intended to keep.