Doc Savage: Skull Island (The Wild Adventures of Doc Savage) (22 page)

“Unlikely,” said Doc. “The natives have the numerical advantage.”

While this was true, the Dyak warriors were not without prowess. Spears having been expended, the battle turned to one of hand-to-hand combat.

Here, it was a boiling mass of human flesh and bone. Knives were brought out and used. Sharp iron grated on bone. Blood flowed.

Unarmed, the Dyaks were getting the worst of it. A retreat was called.

Surviving Dyaks took to the surf, battled to get their boats into the water. They managed to get only one
bangkong
afloat. It began leaking badly, but they bailed with gourd drinking cups and somehow managed to keep it afloat.

The other Dyaks fought for a time, then melted into the jungle, pursued by native warriors bent on finishing them off. One of them had the presence of mind to snatch up the blackened ape’s head trophy. He tucked it under an arm and vanished.

THEY reached the
Orion
and boarded it. From the rail, Doc and the others watched the last spasms of the battle on the beach. Few Dyaks were now visible.

The shore area was soon cleared of fighting forms. The dead and wounded lay on the sand and rocks, chests heaving. Moans of the dying could be heard distinctly.

Doc’s flake-gold eyes went to the foundering
bangkong.

“The Dyak leader seems to have survived,” he remarked.

Captain Savage had found his spyglass and was studying the crew of the vanishing vessel as it found its way around a headland.

“Yes, he lives. And he will be in a foul mood until he avenges this insult done to him.”

Captain Savage turned to Chicahua.

“You disobeyed me, bosun,” he said starkly. Then, realizing that he was speaking English in his anger, the captain switched to K’iche.

Chicahua hung his expressionless head and said nothing.

“He has avenged his brother in his own eyes,” said Doc sympathetically.

“He has done nothing of the sort! The killer still lives.”

“We have shown them that we are more powerful than they. They will be afraid to cross us in the future.”

“Is that why you showed off as you did?” returned the elder Savage.

“I wished to make a point.”

“There is a difference between winning a contest of strength and rubbing salt into the wounds of the vanquished, Mister Savage,” the captain said bitterly.

“I had the psychological, as well as physical, advantage, and I pressed it home,” explained Doc quietly.

“The days to come alone will speak to the wisdom of your actions. Now how are we to search for Stormalong, with conditions such as they are?”

“By searching for him,” returned Doc. “Nothing has changed. The Dyak prince is temporarily incapacitated. His warriors have been scattered. The war party is demoralized.”

“The ones we encountered, yes. But what if twice that number are holed up on Skull Mountain? What if they descend upon us, howling for blood?”

“In that sense, nothing has changed since yesterday.”

Captain Savage made motions as if to contradict his son, but realized that Doc Savage spoke the truth. Nothing had changed, in that wise. The Dyak enemy would or would not attack, by their own lights.

Squaring his shoulders, the elder Savage swallowed whatever he was about to say.

“Come,” he barked finally. “We must lay plans for the rescue of Stormalong Savage.”

THEY assembled their weapons in grim silence. Doc looked for a fresh shirt, then realized that his Army uniform might serve him best, since it generally resembled the coloration of parts of the jungle of Skull Island.

Captain Savage came up from below, lugging a locked trunk.

Doc eyed this. “What is that?”

“We may have use of its contents. Time enough for explanations, if we do,” he said shortly.

Doc did not press the matter.

They raised all sails, took up the anchor, and cast off.

The black schooner ghosted around the island, keeping clear of the reefs, in the opposite direction from where the Dyak
bangkong
had disappeared. It seemed to be the most prudent thing to do.

They sailed past the spot where the north edge of the wall stopped, and their eyes drank in its vast height, its gargantuan size.

“Nature did not build that,” mused Captain Savage. “The pharaohs would have been challenged to construct such a thing.”

“I suspect that this island has a deep history,” remarked Doc.

The Captain steered carefully, while Doc and Chicahua employed boat hooks to fend off the rocks. The going was slow. Fortunately, the
Orion
was a shoal craft, built for operating along the stony eastern U.S. coast and in shallow, reef-bedeviled Caribbean waters. The schooner possessed no fixed keel, only a removable centerboard ideal for lagoons such as this one.

As they progressed, Captain Savage studied the sheer cliff-side walls. They looked as if beasts had scored them with gigantic talons.

For an hour, they moved through the morning light, threading the fangs of stone jutting up from the chuckling waters.

“Heave to,” commanded Captain Savage suddenly. “This looks like a likely spot.”

Doc glanced up. Here the cliff side was broken in several places, possibly from some past earthquake or volcanic eruption.

They lay under the cliff side, which was virtually unscalable.

Captain Savage unlatched the trunk and removed some unusual objects. An old muzzle-loading rifle was produced. The captain proceeded to charge this with black gunpowder. From the trunk he took a small three-pronged grappling hook and some light fishing line.

Affixing the line to the grapnel, he inserted its iron shaft into the muzzle-loader. Only then did Doc notice that the barrel was specially constructed to receive it.

“Remarkable device,” Doc commented.

“I devised it myself for just such eventualities.”

Aiming high, the captain set the walnut stock to his shoulder and squeezed the trigger.

A prodigious quantity of fire and black-powder smoke erupted from the muzzle.

The iron grappling hook disappeared into the sky, trailing rope.

Doc watched it climb. The unwinding coil at his father’s feet rapidly diminished.

The grapnel faltered, fell back. On the way down, it snagged a cleft with a dull clang, seemed to hold. Doc doubted that he could do as well in one sure shot.

“You may do the honors, Mister Savage.”

Reaching over, Doc gave the dangling line a firm yank. It held. He tugged again.

“Anchored solidly, sir.”

“Since you are the heaviest of us, it stands to reason that you should be the first to test it.”

“Begging your pardon, Captain, but if the line won’t stand my weight, we may have difficulty retrieving the grapnel and line. May I suggest that you go first, followed by Chicahua? That way at least two of us will succeed if the line should prove insufficient to bear the load.”

“Well reasoned, sir. Stand aside.”

Captain Savage took hold of the cord and began his ascent.

Doc watched his father climb. He did so in a natural manner that showed that he valued stealth, not speed.

Captain Savage got half way up and discovered that there were handholds. He switched to them, releasing the line.

Doc motioned for Chicahua to go next.

The Mayan was also methodical in his climbing, probably in emulation of his captain.

They made it to the lip of the cliff before Doc followed. He went up with great speed and agility, and after the first few yards, ceased to be concerned about the line’s ability to support his weight. His Annihilator submachine gun hung from a lanyard attached to a leather strap crossing his chest, along with an extra magazine of ammunition. The rounds in the loaded drum rattled and shook noisily as he went up.

REACHING the top, Doc began coiling up the line. He hid the grapnel and coil in a thicket of thorns where no one, human or otherwise, would be likely to root around and accidentally discover it.

Captain Savage began drinking in his surroundings.

Before them stood a stretch of clearing, tumbled with boulders and lesser rocks, beyond which a veritable wall of dense tropical jungle loomed. The explosion of green growth was overwhelming.

Over this profusion, pterosaurs wheeled, resembling fantastically constructed vultures, their downy bodies displaying striking hues, their membranous wings catching the morning rays like living sky sails.

“Astounding!” the captain said, with a trace of awe in his rough-hewn voice.

“We have stepped back into time,” agreed Doc.

“That we have, Mister Savage. That we have.”

Unholstering his revolver, Captain Savage struck out inland.

Doc and Chicahua followed, heads swiveling back and forth, eyes alert for any movement. Doc had his weapon cradled in his great arms, making it look small, like an overgrown pistol.

They progressed inward for some time, marveling at the profuse vegetation that grew wild and unchecked. There were giant conifers, towering hardwoods, woody cycads resembling monster pineapples. Bamboo grew in isolated stands, in great profusion. Ferns abounded, waving sultry green hands. All over, thorny rattan vines infiltrated the lush emerald phantasmagoria. Filtering sunlight infused everything with a luminous chlorophyll blaze.

“I feel as if I am in the Cretaceous Era,” remarked Clark Savage, Senior.

“I see evidence of the Jurassic,” suggested Doc.

“It is clear that this island stands alone and unique in its natural evolution. What do you make of it, Mister Savage?”

“From what I have seen thus far,” said Doc thoughtfully, “we had best be prepared for anything.”

Insofar as fauna was concerned, they saw only insects of remarkable sizes and properties. Once a serpent slithered by, and it seemed unremarkable until it corkscrewed spirally up a tree at their approach, and suddenly sprouted gossamer green wings.

Launching itself into space, it swiftly glided to a nearby tree and, once striking a branch, wrapped itself around that limb like a whip snapping around its target.

The wings folded up in some ingenious manner and the reptile slipped into the crown of the tree, undulating out of sight.

Seeing this, Chicahua sank to his knees and breathed, “Kukulcan!”

Doc observed, “I seem to recall that Kukulcan was the name of a Mayan deity.”

“Yes. The so-called Plumed Serpent. Identical to Quetzalcoatl of the Aztecs. It would appear that the myth has some reality—although far from the land where it still flourishes.”

“Very far,” agreed Doc.

Captain Savage motioned for Chicahua to rise and continue along.

The awed Mayan did so, but his obsidian-black eyes remained on the tree until it fell behind them.

There were no paths as such, just spaces between clumps of vegetation. But as they moved inland, the ground sloped down, and a great plain opened up before them. It was dotted with weird trees whose tortured limbs were sinuously outflung in the manner of snakes engaged in combat, but they were not so close packed as before.

The smell of smoke hung in the air, biting at their eyes and nostrils. Their eyes went to the craggy crown of Skull Mountain, enwrapped in a gray haze that made it seem to be smoking, like a volcano rousing to sulphurous life.

There had been a rain during the night, and Doc wondered if it had quenched the fires burning in the hollow orbs of the monster mountain. From this direction, it was impossible to ascertain. Skull Mountain stood in profile, but it seemed as if the smoky haze was issuing from its eye sockets and cliff-like jaw, like a threatening exhalation from subterranean regions beyond human ken.

“I do not like the look of that mountain,” Captain Savage commented.

“It does not look real,” agreed Doc.

“We will avoid it, if at all practicable.”

A sky-reflecting pool of blue drew them and they made their way to it.

Chicahua pointed and said one word,
“Cenote.”
Doc recognized it as a Spanish term for a sacrificial well of the kind scattered throughout pre-Columbian Yucatan.

“Remarkable,” said Captain Savage, kneeling before the placid body of water.

“It appears to be an ordinary pool,” said Doc.

“Have you forgotten your childhood? Do you not recall when you first learned to swim?”

A flicker of something strange crossed the bronze man’s sun-kilned visage.

“On Andros Island. I was not yet two. You tried to teach me to swim.”

“And you were reluctant to enter the water.”

“I hesitated,” amended Doc. “So you threw me in bodily.”

“Yes, into a ‘blue hole’ very much like this one. Andros was dotted with them. It is amazing to see a similar body here. No doubt this connects to an underwater cave, if not a network of them. That is the arrangement on Andros.”

“As I recall,” continued Doc, “I became disoriented and almost drowned.”

“A boy who lives on a boat, if he is to survive, must learn to swim,” countered Captain Savage gruffly. “I would have rescued you, but you found your way back to the surface without assistance. And you appear no worse for it.”

“No worse, but looking at this particular blue hole, I feel a vague disquiet.”

“Nerves, nothing more. We shall press on.”

They moved forward, making little noise except for the rattle of Doc’s ammunition drum. He decided to exchange the heavy drum for the smaller magazine clip, but this precaution produced no appreciable lessening of noise. So Doc switched back.

Another quarter mile of walking and they came upon something that caused the two Savages to draw to a halt and become very quiet.

It was a coconut palm. It lay across the way, toppled and twisted in a most extraordinary fashion.

Doc Savage was the first to speak.

“If I am not mistaken,” he ventured, “this palm has been subject to the identical destructive forces that toppled the masts of the
Courser.
”

Chapter XXVIII

CAPTAIN CLARK SAVAGE, SENIOR, walked around the fallen palm, frowning darkly. It was a very thick specimen, fully three feet around.

He gave his full attention to the splintered mass that was the stump. It remained attached to the fallen bole by long twisted strands of tough wood. It was evident that something powerful had brought it down.