"Think about it. A drunk guy staggering around. What's that look like to you?"
"Uh...a drunk guy staggering around?" I said.
"Well, to a wolf, it looks a hell of a lot like a calf that's been wounded. And that triggers the prey drive. Didn't matter that the wolves know Lark, or work with him every day. The way he was moving was enough to make him lose his identity to the pack. They would have killed him, if they could have."
He jabbed his shovel into the ground so that it stood upright like a soldier. "It's a good life lesson, whether or not you ever work with wolves, Edward," my father said. "No matter what you do for someone - no matter if you feed him a bottle as a baby or curl up with him at night to keep him warm or give him food so he's not hungry - make one wrong move at the wrong moment, and you become someone unrecognizable."
"Uh...a drunk guy staggering around?" I said.
"Well, to a wolf, it looks a hell of a lot like a calf that's been wounded. And that triggers the prey drive. Didn't matter that the wolves know Lark, or work with him every day. The way he was moving was enough to make him lose his identity to the pack. They would have killed him, if they could have."
He jabbed his shovel into the ground so that it stood upright like a soldier. "It's a good life lesson, whether or not you ever work with wolves, Edward," my father said. "No matter what you do for someone - no matter if you feed him a bottle as a baby or curl up with him at night to keep him warm or give him food so he's not hungry - make one wrong move at the wrong moment, and you become someone unrecognizable."
