Wolfskin Ledger (Version 2)

Intro

Ledger bound in wolfskin, spine cracked like a jaw

Grandfather wrote in ash what the bank refused to draw

Every entry balanced, not with coin but with the cost

Some debts get paid in silver, some get paid in frost

Verse

Nineteen-forty winter, snow up past the gate

He owed the mill his harvest, nothing left upon the plate

So he walked the tree line, checked the traps at dawn

Wolf blood on his knuckles by the time the light was gone

Skinned it in the shed, hands too cold to feel the blade

Nailed the hide to settle what the harvest hadn't paid

Mill man took the pelt, marked the ledger with a line

Said a wolf's worth thirty bushels if you catch it right in time

Grandpa caught eleven 'fore the thaw came through in March

Wore the scars like stripes, said the cold don't feel like hurt when you're starched

Passed the book to daddy, told him keep the numbers square

Every man's a debtor, question's what you got to spare

Daddy paid in labor when the pelts got hard to find

Broke his back on gravel roads to keep the ledger aligned

Handed it to me with ash still on the seam

Said the balance never closes, boy, it just changes team

Chorus

Every debt gets paid in something — mine got paid in hide

Wolfskin ledger keeps the score of everything I tried

Ash where the ink should be, scars where the sum should close

That's the only interest that a hungry family knows

Verse

Now the traps are different, but the winter's still as cold

Corner store extending credit that the bank would never hold

I don't sign my name, I sign it with the work I put in

Every favor that I owe becomes a favor that I win

Block gates got the same rust as that mill man's ledger drawer

Every plate I filled for somebody settled something more

They call it hustle, I call it inheritance in code

Grandpa's wolfskin logic riding shotgun down the road

Some nights I'm the creditor, some nights I owe the debt

Keep the numbers moving so my people never forget

Ash on my knuckles same as ash was on his hide

Difference is the paperwork, the hunger's still inside

I don't flex what's borrowed, I return it with the years

Every scar's a receipt for the interest paid in tears

Ledger's getting heavier, but the binding's holding strong

Already passed a page along to the next one coming on

Chorus

Every debt gets paid in something