I hadn’t even thought about our accommodations for the evening. I noticed an inn on the way through town, but I had not realized the trip would take us so far into the valley.
“I’m sure that will not be necessary,” Charlie interjected. “Mr. Jackaby and Miss Rook are dear friends, and they are welcome to stay with me. My cabin is a short ride from here.” He looked to us. “If that’s all right with you?”
“Splendid,” said Jackaby. “Rook, you don’t mind staying the night in a cozy little cabin with Mr. Barker, do you?”
I could feel a faint warmth rushing to my cheeks, but I answered quickly, before it had time to build to a proper flush. “No, sir. Not at all.”
“Well then,” said Jackaby, “that’s settled. Thank you kindly, Mr. Barker.”
Hudson pulled our luggage out of the carriage. “I can’t thank you enough,” I told him as he passed me my bag.
He waved me off casually. “Weren’t nothin’, little lady. I was mighty glad for the company. You take care of yerself, and that boss of yers, ya hear?” He plopped himself back into the coach box and gave the horses a nudge with the reins, throwing a final, friendly wave. As he locked eyes with Charlie, the expression beneath the trapper’s bushy beard didn’t really change, but something about his gaze hardened for a fraction of a second. A glance at Charlie’s pleasant, reserved countenance would have had me believe it had all been in my head again, and by then Hudson had turned back to his horses.
“Well,” said Owen Horner, clapping and rubbing his hands together as the carriage rattled away, “who wants to see a dinosaur?”
Chapter Sixteen
We left our luggage at Brisbee’s and followed the farmer around the back of the farmhouse. The old man walked with a slow, steady gait, his eyes on the ground. He was a fine and pleasant host, but there was an incompleteness to him that made my heart ache.
“How did you come upon the fossils, Mr. Brisbee?” I asked him. “The article didn’t say.”
Brisbee blinked and looked up as if awoken from a distant dream. “Right, let me see now . . .” He smiled congenially and put one hand across Jackaby’s shoulders and the other over mine, ushering us up into the bumpy foothills. “I found the first one, but it really wasn’t anything. It was a week or so ago. I was just clearing ground for a new crop, hitting rocks every few feet. My plow ran into something big, so I hooked up a couple of horses, gave it a pull, and—BAM! There it was. I didn’t know what I was looking at. Except that it was a single bone as long as one of my cows.”
“A femur,” Owen Horner said from just behind us. “And you’ve got a sharp eye, sir. It doesn’t take a scientist to make history, just a keen and clever mind like yours.” The shadows clouding Brisbee’s eyes lifted just a little. Horner continued. “Don’t think for a moment you haven’t played the most important part in this excavation. The renowned Gideon Mantell started this whole dinosaur-discovery business, but it was his wife who found the first bones of the mighty Iguanadon.”
“That is a lovely story,” I said, “but it’s not really true.”
“I think you’ll find that it is, miss. Over on your side of the pond, in fact. Essex, I think.”
“Sussex,” I corrected automatically. “Sorry. Mantell admitted the fib about thirty years later. As it happens, my father worked with his son, Walter—it was one of his first jobs, helping with the Moa remains in New Zealand.”
I hazarded a glance backward, expecting the usual grimace of annoyance. My mother had often reminded me that men hated to be outdone by a lady.
But Owen Horner was grinning broadly, visibly impressed. “Your father, Miss Rook? Wait—Rook? You’re not related to Daniel Rook, are you?”
“Who’s that, now?” Brisbee asked.