First place I went was the berry patch, but it was pretty much picked clean. Moose and the bearded ladies had had the same idea.

I shrugged my wings at the gals. “Want to see my mating dance?”

Moose kept sifting his hands through the brambles when I asked that. He wasn’t as territorial as Thrasher, probably because he wasn’t fast enough to fight anybody off. He also wasn’t smart enough to know he had territory to defend with the bearded ladies.

He blinked when a thorn caught in his fingertip. “Ouch.”

One of the ladies snatched his hand and plucked the thorn out.

“No, Punk,” she snapped at me in that fast-talking the bearded ladies always use. “We want food.”

“We’ll spread out across the range,” another one said, talking in the same big hurry. She bobbed her head, silver beard wagging. “Holler if you find something good.”

Moose and I stayed on the edges of the spread. We mostly watched for monsters. The ladies would find something to eat as long as we kept them alive.

“Oh, it’s snakes!” a bearded lady screamed. “Come on! Come on! It’s a whole nest of delicious snakes!”

Wings flapped and feet pounded as everybody closed in on her spot. A fallen tree had been turned over, and the soft wet dirt underneath crawled with snakes trying to hide themselves. The girls dove in. They snatched up snakes and sucked them down.

“Think it was a God or a monster?” I asked Moose. That tree hadn’t turned itself over.

He stared at the slithering mud between gray feathers. “Don’t know.”

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“I’ll keep watch out this way. You go over there and look out.”

Moose meandered to where I’d pointed and stretched up tall like that would show him more through the trees. I climbed up onto a branch and spread my wings in a patch of sunlight while I looked.

The ladies were still sucking down snakes. Dirt got on their lips. Their black eyes glittered, and they made excited noises.

Something moved in the brush.

I put my spurs out and crouched to spring.

“Moose.” My warning voice made the bearded ladies go still. “It’s over there.”

The brush shuddered. A hairy back stuck up behind the leaves.

Moose might not be fast, but he isn’t stupid either.

“Go!” He flapped his wings hard and stretched up on his toes, making himself look bigger.

The bearded ladies took off in all directions, screeching.

The monster jumped out when they took off. Moose hit it from the side, and I landed on the back of its hairy head. Our wings beat on the monster. I couldn’t see what Moose was doing, but I spurred it a good ten or twenty times, aiming for its eyes. I crowed over and over again, so everybody would know there was a monster and we were fighting it. After a minute, Moose did it, too.

The monster twisted and yowled. Swiped at me with its claws. Its teeth cracked together.

Something crunched. I didn’t see what, and I couldn’t stop fighting to find out. It wasn’t me, though.

Finally, my spurs tore through its thick hide. The gash poured blood. The smell of wet, red life got bigger than the smell of mud and scared snakes and berries.

The monster started backing away. It tried to scrape me off on a tree trunk. I kept spurring and beating my wings. It growled, then dropped and rolled.

I jumped out of the way. Caught sight of Moose back there on the ground.

Before I was back on my feet, the monster took off running. I went after it, crowing in the direction it had gone so everybody would know.

It lost me past some vines and a cedar tree, so I headed back.

Thrasher ran into the berry clearing at the same time as I limped in.

“Where is it?”

“Gone.” I put my hands on my knees while I breathed. Shook some sweat off my face. “I chased it that way, but it outran me.”

Thrasher stopped beside Moose. “He’s pretty bad off.”

Moose was still breathing, but one of his wings was all bent wrong. Blood was coming out of his mouth and nose, and a bone stuck out of his leg like a white stick. He tried to say something.

I reached scratched behind my ear. Sighed. Put out my spur and cut his throat.

After some shaking around and throwing blood on me and Thrasher, Moose relaxed.