Free Rose Eagle by Joseph Bruchac Page B

smell the rank, rotten odor of its breath as it leaned closer, drooling.
    Strangely, all the fear I’d been feeling till then left me, and a kind of calm clarity settled over me. Everything around me came into focus. Leaves fluttering down from the old cottonwood, the brown texture of the earth around us, the creature itself.
    Its body was as large as that of a big bear, but not like a bear. No bear ever had green scales outlined with patches of black hair. I could see that at least some of the shots fired by Phil and me had struck its body right in the center of its chest — where its heart had to be. But it had been protected by dinner-plate-shaped scales. All our bullets and shotgun pellets had done was draw a little blood from the surface before bouncing off. Its wings, which spread so far to either side that I could not see the ends of them, were starting to close around me, about to draw me in to that hungry mouth.
    That was when the unexpected happened.
    â€œCa-awk! Ca-awk! Ca-awk! Ca-awk!”
    â€œCa-awk! Ca-awk! Ca-awk!”
    A little whirlwind of black-feathered birds came diving in at Batwing’s face. The seven crows aimed right at its eyes with their sharp beaks. And though they may not have been doing any physical damage, their assault made the creature straighten up and step back, swinging one wing at its little attackers. They dived and dodged, keeping up their attack.
    Another step, and now Batwing had its back against the giant cottonwood. It raised its wing, and suddenly a black-ringed arrow pierced its leathery surface, lodging in the trunk of the tree. Another arrow, then a third, a fourth, and a fifth came whistling in. Arrow after arrow came so quickly that I realized Phil was more than just a good archer. He was one of those archers who could put half a dozen arrows into flight before the first one struck.
    And those arrows were well aimed. Each struck a different point along the wing, pinning it to the trunk of the tree. The creature turned, thrashing its other wing against the one that was caught, trying to tear it free, its side turned toward me.
    Another arrow whistled in. The creature struck it aside in midair with one sweep of its wing and turned back again to try to pull free.
    I could see that it would manage to get loose. Deep as those arrows had gone into the cottonwood, it would break them off in time. While Phil shot, though, I’d rolled over and picked up the shotgun, which seemed to be unhurt. Racking another shell into the chamber, I looked for a place to aim.
    The first three shells had been buckshot. The last three were heavy slugs. And when I saw what I thought might be a vulnerable place, I prayed that a slug would do the trick.
    Phil was just off to my right, also trying to take aim at a weak point. An arrow flew, but it missed the monster’s eye, glancing off its bony forehead. Batwing turned its head in Phil’s direction and screamed in anger.
    â€œKKKAAAA-AWWWRRRRR!”
    Taking a deep breath, I seized that brief moment of distraction to leap in so close that if I was wrong, I was dead. I jammed the short barrel of my shotgun into Batwing’s ear and pulled the trigger.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
    W e made good time for the rest of that day. The seven crows temporarily adopted us, scouting ahead and flying back from time to time to reassure us that our way was clear. That didn’t surprise me. The creature that had just passed away from a bullet-induced brain aneurism had probably controlled so much of this territory that other dangerous critters had been discouraged from making it their home.
    Neither Phil nor I seemed to have been hurt — aside from a few bruises and some scrapes that I dabbed with the salve from Aunt Mary’s emergency kit. Phil had even been able to recover all of the arrows he’d shot, though it took some doing to lever and cut them out of the leathery wing and the tree trunk.
    But he’d only done so