Doc Savage: Skull Island (The Wild Adventures of Doc Savage) (19 page)

This was no known dinosaur. It might have been related to some now-extinct prehistoric bird, such as the wingless moa. Some of those creatures were so large and powerful, they could kill a man with a single kick of their clawed feet.

A bizarre Latin construction suddenly popped into Doc’s mind: Dinoavisaur—terrible bird-lizard!

CLIMBING back to the ledge, Doc rejoined the old woman, Penjaga the Keeper.

She was reluctant to come out from the spindly shelter of the tree, but finally did agree to do so.

“Tell me of Stormalong,” requested Doc.

Instead, she pulled at him, saying, “We must go. Where there is one slasher, there are many slashers. And a scarlet-streaked deathrunner to lead them.”

“I do not understand.”

“Do you understand sudden death? Come!”

She picked up a gnarled length of hardwood, which she used for a walking stick, but which Doc suspected was really for self-defense.

The woman led Doc up, across the face of the mountain and to the summit, where they stood facing westward. There, Doc looked in the direction of Skull Mountain—its true name, he now knew. The empty eye sockets boiled with grayish-black smoke, as if the rock formation was some bizarre type of volcano. Through the wormy columns, fitful fires blazed.

“Whose camp fires?”

“Not camps. The headhunters have profaned the lair of Kong. They hope to deny him his rightful refuge, the better to set their snare.”

“Why?” asked Doc, putting aside for the moment the identity of Kong.

“They seek in their foolishness what they believe to be a great treasure.”

“Which is?”

“The head of the last kong.”

Doc nodded. “Kong is a man, then?”

“Do you know nothing?” Penjaga flared.

Doc flinched. “I have just arrived on Skull Mountain Island. I know nothing of Kong.”

“The headhunters know of him. They have been here before. Long ago. They took the head of a young kong.”

Suddenly, Doc thought he understood.

“Kong is an ape?”

Penjaga shook her white head impatiently. “Kong is the god of Skull Mountain Island.”

“I do not understand,” said Doc, showing more patience than he felt.

“You keep saying that! Did you never hear of the legends?”

Penjaga was guiding him down the face of the mountain. Rough steps were cut into it. From a distance, they would not be discernible. But here, one could pick the way down if one were careful. Penjaga was exceedingly careful.

They reached the base of the mountain and she led him back in the direction of the great wall of Skull Mountain Island.

On the way, they came to the flat plain where the elevated altar was erected. Two stone pillars stood upon it with their iron rings, which made the bronze man think of the days when slaves were shackled.

“What is the purpose of that?” asked Doc.

“The Atu chain their maidens there. They sacrifice them to Kong.”

“You mean the people who dwell on the other side of the wall?”

“Who else could I mean?” Penjaga retorted.

Passing the grim relic, they came to the towering wall. The light was dwindling.

“Where do I need to go to find Stormalong Savage?”

“Who can say? Not even Kong. Never mind that old fool. We must get to safety. It is more dangerous after moonset.”

She led Doc to the base of the massive carven wall, halted in its shadow.

“The gate cannot be opened from this side,” Doc pointed out. “The bar is on the other side.”

Penjaga glared at him. “I do not live on the other side of the wall, short Savage.”

Doc looked his question.

She raised her gnarled walking stick. “I live atop the wall.”

“There are no stairs on this side,” Doc pointed out.

“I can climb the vines,” Penjaga said, turning and taking fistfuls of creepers into her strong, claw-like hands.

And she did. Like a spider monkey up the gnarled creepers. Doc was astounded, although it did not register on his metallic face.

Following, Doc soon overhauled her and paced his climb so he could catch her if she faltered. There was no danger of that. Penjaga had the agility of a girl many years younger.

Reaching the top of the wall, Doc Savage stood up and said, “How old are you, Penjaga?”

“By your reckoning, more than one hundred years.”

Doc smiled politely at the obvious exaggeration. That was improbable, of course.

Still, the old woman sounded serious.

Doc looked the old crone over in the dying light of day.

She appeared to be of a higher type than the jungle natives who lived below the wall on their isolated spit of jungle. It was very puzzling.

“Where are your people, Keeper?”

“Gone. All dead. You ask too many questions that are not of your business.”

“My apologies,” Doc said politely. “I have only come to this island because my grandfather’s ship is thought to have been shipwrecked here.”

“Yes, yes. Moons and moons and moons ago. It is gone now. Swept out to sea, never to be seen again. It is gone.”

“I must find Stormalong Savage,” said Doc earnestly.

“Then you must wait for sunrise, Gold Eyes. There is no point in throwing your young life away in the night seeking one who may already be dead.”

“You suggested that my grandfather was searching for the headhunters. Why?”

“He knows that they seek the head of Kong. He may think he can save Kong from the headhunters. He is a fool. The headhunters will need saving from Kong.”

“Describe this Kong for me, please,” requested Doc.

“Ferocious as the most fearsome lizard. Terrible in his wrath. Thunder and lightning are themselves afraid of him. That is Kong.”

“And you say he lives on Skull Mountain?”

“Yes. They have torched his lair now. But Kong will punish them.”

Suddenly, Doc recalled the statues that resembled gorillas carved into the fabulous wall of antiquity.

“Do you know what a gorilla is?” he asked.

“No.”

“But you know the word ape?”

“Yes.”

“Is Kong an ape?”

“No. Kong is mightier than any ape. Mightier than any mountain. He is the ape that walks like a mountain.”

Doc Savage could see that he was getting nowhere with the old woman.

At length, he said, “I must return to my ship.”

“Am I stopping you from doing so?” she flung back.

“No, of course not. I only—Would you like to come with me? You might be safer there.”

“I have lived here for many, many moons, growing wiser every passing year. I am safer here than you are on your ship, Gold Eyes. Especially once Kong learns of you. Kong does not like ships, or the men they bring to his domain.”

“I see.”

“Kong was the one who broke the ship of Stormalong Savage and pushed it out to sea so that it could bring no more outlander men to Skull Mountain Island.”

Doc considered the querulous crone’s words. His thoughts flashed back to the mirror message written in soap back on the
Courser.
Not King—
Kong!
Evidently, it had been a warning.

“You saw this happen?” asked Doc.

The old woman shook her white head slowly. “No, I heard it happen. I know the sound of Kong when he snaps great trees in his hairy hands. This was the same sound. Thunder is no louder.
Less!”

“Tell me more,” invited Doc.

“When I looked out over the lagoon, the masts and sails of the ship were floating in the water and Kong was pushing it out to sea,” Penjaga said firmly.

Doc studied the old woman for signs of mental instability.

“It would take a creature taller than four men to accomplish that feat of strength,” he pointed out. “Perhaps taller than five men.”

“Kong,” the old woman said seriously, “is taller than
ten
men!”

That, of course, was ridiculous. Kong would have to stand fifty feet high.

Night was falling now. “I must be going,” Doc Savage said at last.

“Take the staircase,” said the old woman. “You will not be seen from the village.”

“Thank you,” said Doc, who moved in the direction of the stairs.

The old woman blinked. She had attempted to follow the big bronze man with her sharp yet wise turtle eyes, but long before the metallic giant should have melted into the gloom of night, his path could not be traced.

Shaking her head slowly, Penjaga retreated to her wall-top hut.

Chapter XXIV

DOC SAVAGE FILTERED through the jungle until he reached the shoreline. This he traced down to the spot where he had beached his dory.

It was still there. He uncovered it and placed it in the surf, gave it a running shove and, holding onto the stern, levered himself into the cockpit.

Doc let momentum carry him out into the still lagoon before unshipping the oars and sculling around the fanged rocks.

In his heart was a high strangeness. Stormalong was alive! At least, he had been not very many days before. But the Dyaks were also at large. That complicated matters.

Doc glanced back at the spit of jungled land that lay in the shadow of the massive gated wall. The light of campfires could be discerned through the dark clumps of foliage and towering palms. The natives obviously preferred to remain in the relative safety of their huts after nightfall.

And above it all, thrown into smoldering shadow by the sun setting behind it, stared Skull Mountain, its countenance as dark and menacing as the gorilla skull discovered on the
Courser.
Leaping fires deep in the hollows of its empty eyes made the featureless face appear demonic.

Doc turned his back on it and concentrated on working through the breakers.

Clark Savage, Senior, was pacing the deck of the
Orion
when Doc spotted him. He made no sound to draw his attention. But soon, the captain noticed him coming in the deepening twilight.

A line was dropped into the dory cockpit, and then another. Doc made them fast and climbed up the pilot ladder that hung over the port rail and lay against the hull planking. Doc climbed this rapidly.

Once on deck, Captain Savage barked, “You are past due, Mister Savage.”

Doc got straight to the point. “Stormalong is on this island. Alive, as of two days ago.”

Captain Savage stood as a man thunderstruck. His snapping eyes began to moisten. He checked them, stifled all outer emotion.

Squaring his shoulders, he said in a low, thick voice, “Let us hoist the dory, and then we will talk.”

This was done.

BELOW deck, they ate a cold meal. Cooking was too risky. Food smells would carry inland if the wind blew that way.

Doc told the story of his adventure, leaving out only superfluous details.

“I do not believe the account of this fifty-foot Kong,” snapped Savage Senior when Doc was finished.

“Nor do I,” said Doc. “Yet the story the old woman related to me explains the condition of the
Courser
as we discovered her. And that was the name scrawled in soap on Old Stormy’s mirror.”

“I rule nothing out.”

“Nor will I,” concurred Doc.

“The immediate problem before us is this: Dare we await the dawn to embark upon a rescue?”

“The dangers of the island are great by day, much greater by night,” countered Doc. “And if the Dyaks are here—and I do not doubt that part of the story—we are taking a terrible risk leaving the ship undermanned.”

Savage Senior flared, “I know that!”

“I am prepared to go back,” asserted Doc. “Now. To conduct a search.”

Captain Savage leapt out of his chair. He began pacing, his face twisting, weathered seams coming and going.

“Hang it all, man! We are undermanned. Outnumbered! By the stars, the Dyaks have more boats than we do. We could be surrounded by their
balla,
and what then?”

Doc counseled, “The situation may appear hopeless. But it is not.”

Captain Savage eyed him coolly. “Have you a strategy in mind, Mister Savage?”

“I have my Annihilator submachine gun. With it, I would rule the jungle even by night.”

“Have you unlimited ammunition?” Savage flung back. “Have you the ability to carry it all through miles of trackless jungle?”

Doc admitted that he did not—on either count.

“Then your plan would work only if all other factors fell in your favor. Would you chance that they would? Would you risk your life on such a reckless gamble?”

“I am not afraid of that island, or what dwells upon it,” Doc said firmly. It was not bravado. Ordinary fear had been schooled out of the bronze giant. The war had not changed that part of him—only tempered it in the fires of experience.

“We have no choice but to await the coming of dawn,” said Captain Savage finally. “No choice under the North Star…”

Doc nodded. “I will not disagree with you, then.”

“I want to find Old Stormy as much as you. More so, sir! But we must apply common sense to the situation, not youthful impetuosity. Courage is a strong motivator, but we must win out in the end. We cannot have any Savages perish in this foreboding spot. So many of our forebears have died in the far corners of the Earth that our numbers have dwindled to a select few.”

Doc reflected that, out of the relatives of whom he was aware, he knew only of his father’s brother, Alex Savage, whom he had never met. There were no other known blood relatives.

“I see the wisdom of your thinking,” said Doc quietly.

“Oil your machine gun. We will have need of it. Now leave me and let me think. Thank you, sir!”

Doc Savage took his departure.

Everything in him ached to leap into the water to return to Skull Mountain Island. But he wouldn’t disobey his captain, or his father.

In his cabin, Doc began breaking down the submachine gun, readying it for the coming battle.

After he was done, he reached down under his bunk and extracted the dried ape head from his sea bag, and fell to studying it anew.

There was no question that it was a juvenile specimen. Age was impossible to judge, except approximately.

Full grown and whole, it might stand nearly fifteen feet tall. That struck Doc as preposterous, even with the evidence sitting on his bunk, even after witnessing a prehistoric sauropod topple a rampaging Tyrannosaur with one mighty sweep of its tail….