Respect to the late Mrs. Brisbee notwithstanding, I still found it difficult to ignore the fact that there was a dinosaur waiting not twenty feet up the hill, and we were about to walk away. “That’s very thoughtful, sir,” I said. “But are you sure it wouldn’t be better to begin our work on the site?” I prompted. “We are right here, after all, and we have the light. Perhaps we could visit the church in the morning?”
“I think this takes precedence, don’t you? I’m sure we’ll all be able to approach the case with clearer heads once we’ve taken a moment to honor the deceased.”
I opened my mouth as Jackaby clambered back down the sloping hill, but words failed me.
“Mr. Jackaby,” came Charlie’s soft voice, “it might be more efficient to divide your efforts. As Miss Rook is most qualified to examine the fossils, perhaps it would be best to leave her behind to perform a preliminary sweep of the crime scene while you pay your respects with Mr. Brisbee. I would be happy to remain behind as Miss Rook’s escort, if you like.”
I nodded emphatically, still unable to vocalize my thoughts, and pointed at Charlie to indicate my firm agreement.
“The notion is not entirely without merit,” Jackaby said. “All right. Make thorough records, Miss Rook. We shall compare notes upon our return.”
I withdrew my notepad and held it up meaningfully. The farmer looked out of sorts, but he nodded and stepped back toward the path. “Do you mind giving this young lady the tour without me?” he called up the hill.
Owen Horner gave me a charming smile. “I should like nothing more.”
“Well, okay, then,” Brisbee said. “I guess we’ll see you folks this afternoon.” With that, the farmer led Jackaby back down toward the farmhouse. “Say, weren’t you in the papers yourself, a few weeks back?” he was saying as they departed. “Something about an honest-to-goodness werewolf?”
“That article was painfully inaccurate,” Jackaby said, his voice fading as they wound down the hill.
“Shall we?” Owen Horner gestured grandly when they had gone, inviting us toward the rough, dusty plateau. I had seen successful excavations in the past, but only in the pages of my father’s field journals or as lithographs in a textbook. The scene that spread before me could not possibly have been confined within a printed page.
The entire Brisbee farmhouse could have fit easily into the wide grid the paleontologist had established atop the hill. The ground was uneven. To one side it had been broken roughly in thick, haphazard rows. I could see where the farmer’s efforts to till the earth had ended and the methodical scientist’s work had begun. Wooden marker spikes had been pounded into the soil along a perimeter of a few hundred feet, and a simple brown twine had been tied along them to define the site. Outside the string border sat piles of rocks and dirt. Within the boundary, the loose debris had been cleared away, and the first layers of soil had been removed. Peeking out from the red-brown earth were the bones of an impossible colossus.
Most of the prehistoric creature remained beneath the dirt, but a faint, incomplete outline had been revealed, and the figure it described nearly filled the site. Half a rib cage had been dusted clean, and several feet of vertebrae as thick as my waist curved above the surface before the earth swallowed them up again. Twenty feet away, a wide lower jaw with nasty-looking sharp teeth had been unburied. If the visible bones were an accurate indication, the entire specimen was taller than a house and just waiting to be exhumed.
My eyes could not grow wide enough to take it all in. My whole body tingled. This was completely unlike my only previous personal experience, a miserable expedition I had attended in the mountains of the Ukraine. All of those frozen months had yielded a handful of scattered bones—all of which had later been confirmed to come from common mammals. This was . . .
“Impossible,” I breathed.