Levi sat at the kitchen table and carefully inspected the two Colt Army revolvers he had managed to bring home from the war, taken from a couple cavalrymen that didn't need them anymore. He checked the wax and oil seal on the cylinders and made sure the powder under was still dry, he replaced a cap that looked like it maybe wouldn't fire if he needed it to. Next, he checked the Henry carbine, another trophy from the war. It was a prize many sought after the conflict, the rifle being able to hold seven bullets at once and able to reload quickly with the lever under the trigger.

Molly spoke to him about what Emrys had told her earlier. "The newcomer is from out east somewhere. Baltimore, I think he said? I guess many of the packs out that way have been hit just as hard from the war, and from the people coming home from it. I got the suspicion that this particular pack ran a little too hard afoul of the law and had to skedaddle right quick." Molly handed Levi his well-worn riding boots and looked at him hard. "I think they are looking for a new place to settle and want to join up with our pack on friendly terms. They know the war and the Dakota uprising a few years back hit us hard."

Levi nodded as he pulled his boots onto his feet and stood to go out, pistols at his sides and carbine in hand. "I'll see what HE wants to do about it." The he in question was Levi's father, the Alpha of the small pack that had settled here in the Minnesota river valley, in the town of New Ulm. Originally from Germany, the Gunther's had found a good spot to settle in the heavy German and Bohemian population. 

Levi gave Molly one last goodbye kiss as he plopped a grey wide-brimmed hat onto his shaggy blonde head, his whiskers and mustache tickling Molly. "I'm still not entirely sure about this new facial hair you came home sporting." She rubbed her lip with a hand, "makes my lip itch every time I kiss you."

Levi chuckled as he stepped out the door and closed it. He could still feel her with their mate-bond, she was a mixture of emotions to him, happy, content, and an undertone of anxious he hadn't noticed before.

He saw Emrys standing outside by the hitching rail as he stepped out onto the porch. His brother had saddled his gelding for him as he waited for Levi to come out and answer their father's summons.

"Mornin' sleepy head!" Emerys smiled at him from under his own hat. "Half the mornings burned away waiting for you! Pa is fit to be tied with this stranger wanting to talk and his heir nowhere to be found!"

Levi grunted in reply and slid the Henry carbine into the scabbard on the saddle, he rubbed his horse's nose before swinging into the seat alongside Emrys. The horses had been another boon of the war. Most horses shied from the scent of a werewolf. These horses had been through the war though, and the two men had purchased them from an artillery unit who was disbanded. The smell of the wolf men on their backs was pleasant to the horses' nostrils compared to the smoke and blood they had become accustomed too, hauling cannons to and from the battlefields of Virginia, Pennsylvania and elsewhere. 

The men rode in silence for a time, they passed burnt out shells of buildings. Remnants of the Dakota Uprising that had occurred in the summer of 1862. Due to the war the US government hadn't kept up on its promises for the Indians living in the reservations nearby. Naturally the starving natives had pushed back, launching an attack that rocked Southern Minnesota and left thousands dead and tens of thousands displaced from terror at the prospect of more attacks. It was only after the Confederacy surrendered and the war officially over those settlers had started coming back to the areas most effected by the bloodshed.

Levi stopped his horse briefly at one particular burned out home. It had been their eldest brother Wilhelm's house. He had died during the Dakota attacks as he helped defend the town of New Ulm. His wife and children now lived with their parents.

Levi nodded at the burned broken timbers. "Wilhelm was supposed to be the heir. Remember how father forbade him from signing up? His hide was worth too much to risk fighting on the battlefields. Irony is him dying here safe at home and us coming back unscathed from danger."

Emrys grunted, "Not unscathed, nobody leaves those bloody hell pits unscathed, no matter how healthy they look" He spat a stream of tobacco to the side. With the war over trade was finally starting to make its way up the river, bringing commodities and new settlers with it.

Levi glanced at his brother as they started the horses towards town again. "I thought you enjoyed the war?"

"I did! Ended too fast, best hunting I've ever done." Emrys looked up at the sky, "But even I can admit there ain't no glory in watching a cannonball rip through a man from a mile away, and nothin you can do about it." He stared thoughtfully at Levi. "Best fight I had wasn't the charge, wasn't Pickett sendin his men into our guns to be cut down in huge swathes. No, it was one lonely night on watch, I could smell him, Levi." Emrys eye's shone with an exultant light. Levi had heard the story before, he had even half witnessed it, but his brother loved telling the story.

"I could smell him pacing our lines, looking for sleeping pickets to drag down. You and I did much the same on night raids. I caught a glimpse of him through the trees, stalking closer. I slipped into the brush and let the wolf take over. He was a big bastard! From a southern pack, silver coat, I hit him blindside, and I hit him hard. That was a fight! Any farm boy can put a bullet into another man with a lucky shot, no skill whatsoever. But to feel flesh rip in your teeth and skip away from the counter stroke of an opponent! Hamstring him and drag him down!" Emrys flashed a not so friendly grin, "That was the best fight of the war brother!"

Levi remembered that night as well, he was on his way to relieve his brother on watch. He had smelled the other wolf too. He found his brother's musket and clothes near a tree and had guessed what had happened. Then the night exploded with howls and pained yips, horrible growls and a scream cut short. Several men had woken up terrified in the camp at the racket. Levi then watched the large gray wolf of his brother come padding through the underbrush, teeth and snout covered in blood, gold eyes shining in the moonlight. His brother shifted back and told him about the brutal exchange excitedly. 

There had been many such exchanges throughout the war. Pack feuds that had lasted generations set aside as a new common enemy was found, Nothern wolves and Southern wolves having their own private wars at night, terrifying friends and foe alike with the ferocity heard all through the woods as what sounded like huge packs of wolves fought viciously in the dark.

Levi had always found something colder and more personal in those moonlit fights. He didn't seek them out like his brother, but he had answered any challenge that came along. Emrys was secretly annoyed that his older brother had actually defeated more opponents in these private battles than he had without ever looking for one. He had even witnessed the end of a fight where three wolves had tried to take down his gold-coated brother after luring him into a trap. The Golden Wolf of the North had quickly spread through packs of the Southern armies and challengers sought out the Minnesota regiment specifically wherever they happened to camp. The golden coated wolf had become something of a legend among the other Minnesotans who took the frequent sightings as a good luck charm, never knowing the truth.

As they rode northwards, soon the homes and hovels of  Gänseviertel or Goosetown as the New Ulm residents called it, came into view. A gathering of German and Bohemian residents along the shores of the Minnesota River where their large flocks of geese grazed along the waterfront giving the community its name. Although it was technically still part of New Ulm, the railroad tracks divided the area off away from the rest of the town where the so-called respectable citizens lived. In the main town there was still much evidence left of the attacks the natives had launched on the town. It was in the last attack where the defenders made a desperate charge out of the barricades at the larger force of Dakota warriors that Wilhelm had died. After which Flandrau, the elected military leader, ordered the buildings outside the town that the Dakota had used for cover burned. This left close to 2500 people to be housed in less than fifty homes. The townsfolk had later been able to evacuate to nearby Mankato without incident. 

Much had been rebuilt in the years since, but charred scorched buildings still remained. Levi had been surprised to learn that the brewery on the hill above the town had remained untouched by the Dakota warriors. August Schell, the owner, had maintained friendly relations with the natives. Giving them free beer and food on several occasions. As such, the brewery still pumped out lager and beer to the German population without much pause in production.

The men nodded to neighbors and friends from the community as they rode through the dusty streets. Most of the men were working in the rolling mills, the grain being put onto river barges and shipped out from the farming community. They came to a stop and got down from their mounts. Levi took the Henry from the scabbard, and Emerys pulled his own long barreled Sharps rifle, capable of firing a large hunk of lead accurately to a thousand yards. Emry's preferred the close quarters fighting he normally used his knives for, but he had taken the rifle from a dead sharpshooter and regarded it more as a trophy than a weapon he actually used. Though he had used it, to devastating effect, before.

Levi noticed the usual pack members hanging around the butcher shop that acted as the pack headquarters. His own boys would be down the street at the small school his family sponsored. Even though the butcher shop was the front for the pack, they had money in many of the goings on of the town. 

Levi nodded to Samuel and Troy, a couple of the pack heavies wearing matching red flannel who leaned against the front of the building. "Guten Morgen" he said to the men in German. They nodded in respect to him and Emrys returning the greeting. Levi also noted the two men who stood on the other side of the porch front. Clearly not from the area they wore tweed suits than Levi supposed were stifling hot. The two men smiled and nodded at Levi and Emrys, the smiles didn't quite reach their eyes Levi noticed. He could smell them too, an acrid scent that mad his nose itch. Clearly, they were with the man who had come to discuss negotiations with his father as the packs Alpha. He could smell the apprehension in the air between the two groups, if they were in wolf form hackles would be raised and teeth barred. As they stood now however a forced nonchalance hung heavy in the air between them.

"These are the men who arrived to talk with father?" Levi asked Samuel in German.

"Ja" Samuel answered, still in German. "They arrived yesterday and stayed at the hotel. They have been here waiting for you for nearly an hour. Alpha is not happy about the delay." Samuel warned him.

Levi waved a hand at that; his father truly didn't need him there. It was more a diplomatic nicety.

"It's not polite to speak a different tongue in front of guests." One of the strangers spoke abruptly, still with that unfriendly smile. He had an accent; Levi had heard before from some of the regiments from Maryland and Massachusetts. So, Molly had probably been correct with her Baltimore guess.

Levi flashed a smile at the man, "Very sorry, but if I had wanted to address you sir, be assured I would have spoken in English for you. As it is, I believe I am required inside where the big dogs are wanted, not on the step with the mutts." 

He heard a curse behind him as he stepped into the building, Emrys following with a chuckle. "You do have a way with words Levi." 

Levi supposed he should have been a bit more diplomatic about it, but he was irritated. He had wanted to come home from the war, see his family, and then take Molly and the boys west to the territories to make their own way. With Wilhelm's death his father had forbade the new heir from doing any such thing. His reasoning was that the pack needed him here for stability, that they were already a small pack to begin with and after the war and the Dakota Uprising, he was needed to rebuild here. Not start something new hundreds of miles away.

Levi looked to his mother; she was standing behind the shop counter with various cuts of meat on display. She smiled warmly as her two surviving boys had come through the door. They had had a younger brother, Wulfrum, but he had not survived his first shifting. The shock of having had a son so frail had strained his parents' relationship, his mother blaming herself for not preparing him better, and his father blaming her for having weak genetics, despite the three older boys proving that to not be the case.

The small woman came around the corner and hugged the two men. Her babies were still her babies. "Here." she said handing them each a piece of smoked goose meat. "You are too thin." Her English was heavily accented with her German roots. She had made it a personal mission to make her two boys fatter than when they had left for the war. They had always been lean, but after coming home she had deemed them to be "skinny" a far greater travesty than even the Confederacy seceding from the union.

Levi's stomach growled at the smell of the meat he held as he gobbled it down ravenously, realizing he had skipped breakfast. His mother's eyes went wide as the meat disappeared and she quickly went back behind the counter for more. "Here! Eat! Eat! You cannot have proper discussions on a hungry belly ja?"

Levi smiled with genuine affection at his mother. "We must hurry Mutter; we have already kept Alpha waiting too long." Levi used the title for his father to stress the matter. 

"Ja, I know, I know. You take one more piece then go, ja?"

Levi ate another piece and looking back at his brother who beckoned him forward, he sighed heavily and opened the door to go into the back office.