The Price of Greed: How the Wolf Paid the Butcher’s Bill

Late one evening, a butcher was driving home after closing up his shop. In the back of his pickup truck sat the last unsold cut of prime pork—leftover from the day’s sales. As he slowed at a red light, a lone wolf lurking near the roadside caught the scent. Salivating, the predator locked onto the meat and began trailing the truck at a distance.

Glancing in his rearview mirror, the butcher noticed the wolf keeping pace, its eyes gleaming under the streetlights. Uneasy, he rolled down his window and brandished his cleaver, shouting, “Back off!” The wolf hesitated but didn’t flee.

The butcher’s grip tightened on the wheel. This isn’t safe. Then, an idea struck him. All it wants is the meat. If I leave it somewhere out of reach, maybe it’ll give up. Spotting a tall metal fence by an abandoned lot, he pulled over, hooked the pork onto one of the spikes, and drove off, relieved to see the wolf sniffing the air, distracted.

The next morning, curiosity nagged at him. Had the wolf taken the bait and left? Returning to the spot, he squinted at the fence—something was dangling from it. Not the pork, but… a body?

Heart pounding, he crept closer. Then he froze.

It was the wolf—dead, jaws still clamped around the pork, its throat impaled on the fence spike. The butcher burst out laughing. Wolf pelts sold for a fortune these days, especially rare ones like this. He hauled the carcass into his truck, grinning. Sometimes, luck favored the clever.