Blood Moon

Chapter 3 - The Journey to the UCF

"Hey wake up, we should get moving"

I open my eyes and see a coyote right in front of me. I jump up quickly and bark at it to scare it away.

"Whoa, it's just me", Bill says frantically.

I calm down when I remember where I was. I looked around and didn't see Riley and Jerrad. I asked Bill where they were, and he said they were going down to a creek to drink some water and possibly find some food. I decided to go down and look for them. I eventually got down to a creek that was near the cave. I didn't see anyone there, but I saw some footprints that looked like wolf footprints. I sniffed them and they smelled like they belonged to the Mu and the Chi. I followed them to a wide-open field. The footprints stopped here, and I couldn't pick up their scent. I was about to head back until I heard some yelling.

"You idiot!"

I then see Riley sprint across the field to the tree line. I wonder what Jerrad had done this time until I see him. The Chi was running across the field while getting chased by a herd of angry buffalo! I try to quickly think of what to do. I run out there and bite at some of them to get them all to chase me. It actually worked, so I ran up onto a ledge overlooking the field. They couldn't figure out how to get up here, so the bull bison rammed their heads into the side of the ledge to try to knock me down. The ground shook beneath me, but I didn't fall off. I try talking to them.

"Hey, um, buffalo can you leave, because we're not bothering you anymore."

One of the buffalo, the leader I think, walked in front of all the others to talk to me. He had a very deep and menacing voice, but his speaking sounded off.

"Your friend try to eat calves, we angry!" said the leader.

"Well he's sorry for being stupid, so leave us alone now", I say trying to get them to leave.

"We do not trust big coyotes," the leader said to me.

"Well, we're not coyotes, we're wolves"

"Wolves!"

The herd then panics and they all run off in a hurry. I sit there with a confused look on my face. I wondered why they seemed to be so scared of wolves. I carefully trotted down from the ledge and went over to Riley and Jerrad. They were both fine with only a few scratches. The Chi's excuse for angering the buffalo was that he thought one of the calves was a deer. I forgave him this time because we normally don't have bison around our territory, so he could be telling the truth. I'm going to start keeping a better eye on him though. We went back to the cave to get our things. Then we got back to traveling. We traveled with Bill for a while towards the UCF until we eventually went our separate ways.

"I'll meet you guys there", said Bill as he started to go a different way.

The Chi asked Riley why we couldn't go the short way with Bill. I had also wondered this, but I had kept my mouth shut out of respect. Riley said that the shortcut was mostly coyote territory, so wolves weren't allowed there. We continued on our journey while Jerrad annoyed us the entire time. We stopped every once in awhile to drink from a stream, hunt a rabbit or other small animal, and relieve ourselves. Eventually, the sky started to get dark, but it was the middle of the day. I looked up and thought it was a cloud, but it was dark and moving like a river in the sky. I looked closer and saw that it was a giant flock of birds.

"Why are there so many birds!?" I asked in confusion.

"Those aren't just any birds, they're passenger pigeons," Riley said back to me.

The flock moved like it was one. I wished our pack was like that, everyone agreeing with each other and working together as one. I was busy thinking about the pack and I didn't notice the birds all trying to land right where we were.

"Look out!"

I barely had enough time to realize who had said that as the birds pelted themselves into me. They hadn't noticed the three of us walking in the field as hundreds of them tried to land, I quickly tried to run away, but all I could see was a mass of pigeons with a few quick glimpses of the Mu and the Chi. Their hard beaks pelted into me. One of them hit me in the head and knocked me out. I slowly woke up later and noticed a couple of pigeons looking at me. I growled and scared them off. I looked around and saw Riley running towards me.

"Thank goodness I found you after the flock landed here, I couldn't find you", Riley said happily.

"Where's the Chi?" I asked.

Riley shrugged, "I have no clue, I lost both of you."

"Well, now that you found me, let's get to searching for Jerrad," I say as I shake my coat to get the feeling of beak off me.

As we walked around looking for Jerrad, we were surprised that the pigeons don't fly away as we walked by them. They just waddled away to let us pass. It was kind of weird having something so small not be afraid of you. We couldn't find him anywhere in the tall grass so we then started looking for hiding spots, like holes in the ground or empty tree trunks. After looking for him for five minutes we decided that we would continue on our journey after checking this last tree. When I peeked inside, I found him curled up in a ball watching the hole I was peeking in.

"There you are, why didn't you jump back out", I say as I backed away from the hole, "we've been looking for you for five minutes!"

"I didn't want to risk the chance of getting hit in the head like you did, I want to remember all my jokes."

I whisper to Riley, "I wish it was him rather than me that got hit in the head."

"That would be a dream come true."

As our Chi got out of his tree, Riley started watching the sky to make sure we don't get bombarded by birds again. After Jerrad got out of his tree, we started on our journey again. We all stayed quiet half the time; while the other half of the time, Jerrad was trying to come up with some new jokes to share with the other Chi at the UCF. We tried to stay in the trees as to not be in a wide open field where the pigeons could bombard us again. We eventually got to a small, open, area with a cave next to it. Riley stopped and looked around concerningly.

"Where is everyone? They should be here by now.

Just as he said that a giant bear slowly stumbled out of the cave. Jerrad tried to run away, but he was blocked off by mountain lions. Jerrad was screaming in terror and I prepared myself for one heck of a fight.