“Behave? Have you met Mr. Horner? Should he trespass again, see that he is incarcerated immediately. From this point on, the site of this excavation is to be considered private property and kept free of any outside interference.”
“Even if he’s coming up there as my personal guest?” Brisbee asked.
“I don’t think you understand, Mr. Brisbee.” Lamb turned to face the farmer directly. “We appreciate your efforts thus far, but now that I have arrived, there is no need for you to be directly involved in the excavation. The site is to be restricted exclusively to my employees and to me.”
“What? I don’t understand.”
“He’s kicking you out, too,” Horner informed the farmer with a grunt.
“You can’t do that—this is still my land!”
“Actually I can, Mr. Brisbee, according to the very explicit parameters of the contract you signed. Amateurs will not jeopardize the integrity of this discovery. Speaking of which, who are all these people?” Lamb finally seemed to notice us, surveying Jackaby and me with suspicion.
“Oh, um, good morning, folks.” Brisbee raised his battered old hat in a polite greeting. “This is Lewis Lamb. He’s here to . . . um . . . He’s here about the fossils. He arrived first thing this morning. Lamb, this is Mr. Jackaby and Miss Abigail Rook. They’re the ones I mentioned earlier. You’ll be interested to know Miss Rook is the daughter of another dinosaur fellow. Daniel Rook, was it?” I nodded. “She was a big help yesterday with the bones, and Mr. Jackaby is a first-rate private detective, too. He’s been in the papers. I’m sure if you’d just rethink this nonsense, you’d find there are a great many people here ready to help.”
I gave Lamb a smile and extended my hand. “Delighted to meet you, sir.”
Lamb looked as though he had tasted something foul and was deciding whether to swallow and be done with it or spit it out. “This is precisely the sort of unprofessional mismanagement I am here to prevent,” he said, and carried on walking past me.
I let my hand drop and exchanged a glance with Owen Horner. He rolled his eyes.
“The site is no longer open to every semiliterate rube with a shovel and every doe-eyed pair of pigtails that wanders up. Mr. Brisbee, in the interest of maintaining a professional working relationship, I will overlook the amount of time Mr. Horner and these amateur hobbyists have already been permitted to traipse about my excavation site—but I trust that, from this point onward, you will honor the agreement laid out between us to the letter. I have a team of exceptional lawyers. I should hate to see you lose this farm outright should they find you in breach of contract.”
Brisbee’s face fell, and his hands flopped to his sides. Lamb stalked toward a carriage parked in the shade of the barn and rapped sharply on the door. “Wake up, you laggards,” he called. “It’s time to start earning your keep!” The carriage rocked, and out climbed a pair of bleary-eyed men. The first was a tall, thin man with mahogany-brown skin and black hair, who yawned and stretched as he moved to the back of the cab. The second man was pink faced and pudgy, like an overripe peach, topped with a splash of beet-red freckles and a mess of orange hair. He rubbed his eyes and strapped a bulky burlap satchel to his back. Clambering to hold on to a bundle of long aluminum poles, he dropped several of them before finding his grip, and they clanged loudly against the cart.
Lamb groaned in annoyance and started off again up the hill without issuing any further instruction. The redheaded man collected his things and wordlessly shuffled past us, following Lamb back toward the foothills behind the farmhouse. The other man hefted a collection of pickaxes and hammers over his shoulder and moved to join his colleagues. He paused on his way and shrugged apologetically. “The professor doesn’t make a great first impression, but you get used to him.”
“Does he make a great second impression?” Horner asked skeptically.
“Mr. Bradley! Now!” Lamb yelled from halfway up the hill.