Free Rose Eagle by Joseph Bruchac Page A

halfway.
    WHAM!
    A much bigger, darker shape came diving in toward the turkey buzzard at an incredible rate. It happened so fast that I could hardly believe what I saw. Leathery wings wrapped around the big bird, which now looked tiny in comparison. We got a glimpse of wide jaws lined with sharp teeth that gaped wide and then thudded shut with a bone-crushing
whomp!
And then the bat-winged horror had swept past, leaving the sky empty of everything except a few dark feathers floating down.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
    O h my god. Oh my god! Did you see that?” Phil said.
    It was maybe the most unnecessary question I had ever been asked. But I was not about to criticize Phil for asking it. I knew exactly what he meant. And more than my legs were shaking now.
    Somehow, though, I managed to get words out of my mouth, words that sounded a lot calmer than I felt.
    â€œWait,” I said, lifting the shotgun and making sure I’d pressed off the safety. “Wait.”
    As we stood there, waiting, three of the crows that had been in the next tree glided down and landed on our shoulders, two on me and one on Phil.
    The one on my right cawked softly and tugged at my earlobe with its beak.
    â€œYeah,” I said, “Right. Like I am going to be able to protect you.”
    All three crows cawked, joined by their four crow companions on the branch, as if saying that we were all in this together. Hopeful little things with feathers. Their optimism actually brought the ghost of a smile to my lips.
    Briefly.
    I had hoped that by taking shelter as we had against the tree we would not be seen from above or at least that the branches were so thick above us that if we were seen, the monster would have to land away from the tree and make its way to us across the ground.
    Hope, though, is one thing, and reality is something else.
    And that hope was dashed when we heard an earsplitting shriek from right above us.
    â€œKKKAAAA-AWWWRRRRR!”
    We’d been seen.
    The other thing I had hoped for when we sheltered under the big cottonwood went out the window — along with all those birds that took off in panicked flight — when the huge bat-winged monster did not land away from our tree, but dived straight into it, breaking branches as it came in like a guided missile.
    CRACK!-CRACK!-CRACK!-CRACK!
    There was barely enough time for Phil to hurl himself to one side and me to throw my body to the other.
    As I rolled, I heard a heavy thud and the thrashing of wings behind me, splinters and leaves flying past my face as if caught in a windstorm. But Batwing had missed me. Had Phil avoided being crushed by it too?
    BLAM-BLAM! BLAM-BLAM! BLAM-BLAM!
    The sound of six shots in aimed double bursts reassured me that my partner was both alive and striking back.
    I pushed myself up. My hair had come free from its braid and hung over my face. I pushed it back with my left hand, lifting the sawed-off in the other — just as a claw-tipped wing as big as a tipi swung toward me. I fell backward, lifting the shotgun and firing. I didn’t aim, but my target was big enough for me not to miss.
    BOOM!
    â€œKKKAAAA-AWWWRRRRR!”
    Batwing’s shriek that answered my first shot was so deafening and terrifyingly close that I answered it with another shot and a third one.
    BOOM! BOOM!
    But before I could get off a fourth shot or even focus on where those shots of mine were going, the front edge of one of the creature’s wings struck my arm and sent my gun flying.
    I looked up at what I was sure was going to be my death, as the monster’s black sharp-fanged head loomed over me. Its huge leathery ears stuck out to either side of its head. Small cold black eyes focused on me with an angry intensity — eyes in the middle of a face that was part human, part horror. Its long-snouted mouth opened so wide that I could not only see rows of teeth that looked as sharp as spear heads, I could see down its throat and