Wolf Winter Wages (Version 2)

Intro

Cold don't ask permission, it just takes what ain't nailed down

My scale kept the difference between starving men and drowned

Verse

My uncle ran the post before the rail line came through

Handed me the ledger and a coat two sizes too

Said every trapper's hungry but the wolf don't care who's fair

Weigh the pelt at midnight, keep the lamp oil rare

Scale had two brass plates, one was always warped

Men with a heavy thumb, I learned to watch and thwart

Gate froze shut by morning, had to kick it twice to break

Ash from the woodstove settled thick on everything I'd stake

Trappers came in starving, snow crusted on their brows

Some tried to slip a stone inside the bundled skins somehow

I caught it every time, held the lamp up to the light

Told them short weight buys you nothing but a colder night

Frostbite carved two scars where my fingers used to bend

Still I counted every cent, never let the numbers bend

By March the post was legend, not for gold but for the scale

Men would ride an extra day just to know the weight won't fail

Hook

Wolf winter wages, paid in full, never late

Snow can bury bodies but it can't bury weight

I kept the scale honest when the whole camp learned to cheat

Wolf winter wages built the only house I keep

Verse

Now the post is timber dust, the rail line rusted through

But the men who knew my scale still nod when I walk through

I sell what I got left, count it slow like I was taught

Never let a hungry look talk me into what it's not

City tries the same old trick, dressed in different snow

Say the number's bigger if you don't look close, you know

I still hold the lamp up, still I check the seam

Truth don't need decoration, weight's the only thing that's clean

My hands remember cold before my mouth remembers words

Every deal I close gets weighed against the wolves I've heard

Some men chase a fortune, I just chase an honest ounce

Rather starve one winter than let one lie get pronounced

They call me old school, call the ledger obsolete

I call it the only reason my name still walks the street

Legends ain't the ones who took the most they could hold