But what am I saying? Ideas of wrong or right never occurred to me when I was a live wolf. Abstractions of any kind, in fact. Only the particular was important. In fact my attention to detail kept me alive.
I lost two of my siblings to traps. One of them indirectly, because he would not leave his sister. I took the more cowardly option. Previously I saw my mother shot and badly hurt, and stayed with her, and was shot at in turn. So I ran away.
My sole remaining brother was poisoned, or so I believe. My mother knew the ways of men, and warned us not to eat dead meat unless we were sure it was not killed by them. Only eat your own kills. My brother was greedy and there was something rank on his breath just before he died, like old cheese.
I am a wary creature, or was. Ever since then any hint of that smell, any hint of man, I hide. I've had moments of boldness. Once I dug up three balls of offal, which smelled good. They didn't smell human, but nor did they smell of any other predator who might have buried them. And anyway, I hadn't killed them. They were spaced about 100 yards apart. I gathered them together in a pile and shat on them.
Traps are easy. Usually you can see the earth's been disturbed, and smell the metal, so long as you're not going too fast. And if you have to go fast, don't use the usual tracks. I know, easier said than done. But always best to hide. I've only had two face to face encounters with humans. And I'm dead because of the second one. Anyway I used to like digging up those metal traps and setting them off. That, and shitting on their poisoned bait, was as near as I got to a conversation with death with a human. Ironic that now I'm dead I'm talking to humans.
