“Isn’t it?” Horner’s voice was hushed and close to my ear. I felt the gentle pressure of a hand on my lower back, and he held his other in front of me. “Let me show you.”
I accepted the hand out of courtesy, and he escorted me down the uneven terrain toward the beastly bones. I peeked back to be sure that Charlie was coming, too. He was keeping just a few paces behind, although his attention seemed to be more focused on the scientist than the astounding discovery. The ground leveled out, and Horner stepped away to fetch a pair of gloves from a pile of tools.
We were at the creature’s stomach, so close I could reach out and touch the pale ribs. The sheer size of the thing was dizzying. “There is no way that you did all of this alone in just a few days,” I said. “This is at least a week’s worth of labor for even a very large team.”
Horner shrugged with a cocky grin.
“No, seriously—how did you manage it?”
“Well, I can’t take all the credit. First of all, Mr. Brisbee has the fortitude of a workhorse. He was with me every morning for the first few days, hauling rocks and dirt. Second, the bones are scarcely beneath the surface.” Horner spun to marvel at his find. “I thought, at first, that geological shifting might have pushed them to a higher strata. The same forces that made these foothills could have done that much—but the more we uncovered, the less that seemed to fit. If the ground had been churned up enough to expel the specimen from its grave, the bones would not have remained so neatly arranged. Aside from what we’ve done to uncover them, the whole skeleton looks entirely undisturbed. The soil is rocky, but it’s relatively soft and easy to work with. I can hardly blow away a layer of dust without uncovering a new fossil. They’re not encased in stone, yet they’re preserved pristinely. It’s astounding.”
“It is, absolutely.” I moved closer, inspecting the nearest bones. They were only partially exposed, but once freed, the ribs looked as if they would form a more spacious cavity than the trapper’s carriage.
“So far as I’ve been able to tell, the basic anatomy is not unlike a Dryptosaurus—only easily twice as large.” Horner pointed toward the head. “The jaw tells us that it was a carnivore, of course.” Centuries of fossilization had dulled them, but from several yards away I could see that the long canines were still vicious. I could also see that one of them was missing. A row of distinct points was interrupted by a smooth, concave hole where a tooth should have been.
“I take it that’s . . .”
“The reason you’re here? Yes. We uncovered the lower jaw on the very first day I arrived. Tremendous initial find. You can bet those teeth held a keen edge when this brute was alive. Beautiful artifacts. Such a shame.”
“When did it go missing?”
“They were all there when I wrapped up for the night, about three days ago. In the morning, we found Mrs. Brisbee’s body. Then the doctor was called, that reporter kept asking questions, some neighbors came around, and the police. I didn’t even make it up to the site again until Brisbee had ridden off with the body and I was alone. Any one of them could have walked off with it.”
Horner pulled on a pair of gloves. “Take a look in that midsection I just cleared. See anything interesting?”
I did not know where to begin.
“Are those flint rocks in its stomach?” asked Charlie. I hadn’t even realized that he had come to stand beside me.
Horner jabbed a finger at the policeman, looking very pleased. “Gastroliths. Good eye. They’re stones of any sort—flint, in this case—that animals swallow to help with digestion. It’s common in birds.”