Doc Savage: Skull Island (The Wild Adventures of Doc Savage) (3 page)

Doc said, “The old woman who is named Penjaga, but called Keeper. Where is she?”

“In her cabin. I don’t think she feels like talking, though. I had to break the bad news to her. She took it hard. Not that she’s shed any tears that I saw. But you could see the grief on her face.”

“Tell her Clark Savage, Junior, wants to speak with her.”

“Eh? She know you?”

Doc nodded. “We have met.”

Captain Englehorn eyed Doc Savage skeptically.

“I never laid eyes on you before. And that woman ain’t ever been off Skull Island, but that I took her away. That can only mean—”

“You are correct. I have visited Skull Island. Long ago.”

“And here we thought we were the first white men to enjoy that debatable privilege,” sighed Englehorn.

“Convey my request, if you will,” pressed Doc.

The captain left the cabin, returning a few minutes later with a woman who seemed to shrink into herself. She had wise eyes that reminded one of an elderly tortoise. She might have been a hundred years old, or older.

“You have changed little,” said Doc with sympathy.

“I have lost all. Kong….”

Doc nodded, “I know. I was far away when it happened. I had no idea.”

“Your father. He is well?”

Doc shook his head sadly. “Died only months before. Murdered. The perpetrators have been dealt justice.”

The old woman winced. For a time, no words seemed to encompass the moment.

Doc broke the silence.

“The body of Kong has been removed to a safe place, not far from here.”

“No wild animal will devour it?”

“There are none here capable of that,” assured Doc.

“Lord Kong must be returned to Skull Island,” she said firmly.

“And he will be,” promised Doc.

With that, the old woman lowered her seamed face and wept....

DOC SAVAGE conferred with Captain Englehorn and money changed hands.

“I started this little adventure,” Englehorn muttered. “Only fair that I bring it to a fit conclusion.”

“I will let you know when to move the
Wanderer
into position,” Doc related.

Doc joined Monk Mayfair topside. The rusting and flame-scorched deck was all but deserted. Lines rattled skeletally in the river breeze.

“I don’t savvy any of this,” the hairy chemist admitted. “What’s this all about, Doc?”

“It is a very long story,” Doc offered. “One that should be told in full. But first we must prepare the body for transport.”

“I figured out that part already,” muttered Monk.

THEY drove to the long covered pier jutting out over the Hudson River. Parking at the side, they entered through a small door.

Renny met them there.

“I scrounged up everything in the way of tarpaulins I could,” he informed them. “Decided that sailcloth would work best. Took some doing, but I think I have enough for the job.”

Doc saw the stacks of sailcloth piled on wooden pallets and nodded. He turned his attention to the large form in the center of the cracked concrete flooring.

As if in state, the cold corpse of Kong lay on a massive rubber-tired platform that was a reinforced parade float.

“Ham will be ridin’ me about this for years to come,” mused Monk.

Doc looked at him curiously.

Apish shoulders shrugged. “He’s tryin’ to say that me and Kong here fell out of the same banana tree.”

“Kong may have been closer to human than anyone imagined,” said Doc, turning on additional lights until the gloom was dispelled from the warehouse interior.

“You could fit a fleet of planes in this joint,” grunted Monk. Staring up at the high rafters, he added, “Maybe a dirigible, too.”

But Doc Savage had already carried his equipment over to the head of the dead creature. Unpacking several cases, he began selecting tools.

“Monk, in a few hours the undertaking establishments will open for the day. Embalming fluid will be needed. And dry ice for packing. Several tons of it. Renny, you see to the latter.”

“Got it,” said Renny.

Monk grunted, “There ain’t enough of either stuff in town to take care of this big palooka.”

“We must do the best we can,” advised the bronze man.

“Gotcha. On my way, Doc.”

Monk and Renny left Doc Savage to his thankless task of preparing the body of King Kong for a final return to the land of his birth.…

Chapter III

IT WAS NOW the late afternoon of the Monday after the spectacular fall of King Kong. A drizzle had descended over lower Manhattan. It made the cold sidewalks sizzle faintly, and automobile tires on the streets hissed as they raced about. Pedestrians hustled from corner to corner, huddled under umbrellas or holding sodden hats to their heads.

Sunset was not far off. Already the low-hanging unbroken cloudbank was flushing in the dying light. Normalcy had returned to New York City.

Trying to keep front pages dry, newsboys hawked their papers on every corner.

“Wuxtra!
King Kong corpse missing! Monster gorilla vanishes from view! Mayor’s office mum! Governor won’t talk! Read all about it!
Wuxtra!”

Papers were snapped up. But for all the ballyhoo that was promised by news butchers, there were precious few additional facts to be gleaned, other than what the cries of the street urchins carried.

As night fell, a rusty old tramp steamer warped up to the end of an unnamed warehouse on a wharf jutting out into the Hudson. The name on her stern was picked out by dismal dock lights:

WANDERER

Riverward doors rolled open. In the years to come, those doors would open countless times to release and later receive all manner of aircraft and seagoing vessels operating under the fictitious name of the Hidalgo Trading Company. But on this sullen afternoon, the freighter was there to receive cargo.

Within, a great form lay sheeted beneath yards and yards of sailcloth, hastily sewn together. Workmen from the garment district had been recruited for this task. They were sworn to secrecy, paid off, and released back to their ordinary lives, never to speak of the strangest work ever to come their way.

As a shroud, their handiwork had a makeshift quilted look to it. But not a hair of the body beneath showed anywhere. The suffocating stench of formaldehyde hung in the cavernous confines.

On the deck of the
Wanderer,
the main cargo hatch had been pried open, revealing a huge hold lined in stainless steel. The boom of a great deck crane swung out. A rusty hook dangled from a woven-steel cable. It came to a rocking stop just before the open doors.

In the yawning interior, lights had been doused, so that only a few illuminated the gloomy vastness. This precaution, as well as the blocking freighter, would obscure the transfer operation from prying eyes.

Doc Savage stepped forward to signal the hook to drop lower. Deck hands complied with this silent order.

Renny Renwick was perched atop the great sailcloth tent that protected the immense body of the largest land creature ever to walk the Earth. He was checking a tangled arrangement leading to a steel turnbuckle ring that gathered together strands of heavy wire crisscrossing the form, holding the body and its dry-ice packing together.

Renny lifted a thumb so large it might have been a tent peg. “O.K.,” he rumbled.

At the landward side of the interior, Doc Savage, Monk Mayfair and Ham Brooks put their backs into pushing the wheeled platform forward, toward the open door and the anchored freighter.

Amazingly, the platform began inching ahead. The combined strength of Doc and Monk accomplished that. Ham did his level best, but unlike the others, he was no Hercules.

As the platform moved, Renny used a boat hook to capture the dangling turnbuckle, drew it in toward him. Catching it in his monster hands, the big engineer muscled the iron contraption into the ring of steel holding the wiring together, and made it fast.

Turning, he bellowed, “Let ’er rip!”

Doc and Monk put every straining muscle into the task.

The platform began rolling faster. Ponderously, it picked up speed. Rubber tires ground grit and dust into the concrete floor.

The leading tires came to the edge of the warehouse floor, went off the lip and the platform banged to a stop, hanging precariously.

This was sufficient clearance to allow the crane to begin lifting.

“Careful!” boomed Renny. “Take ’er slow.”

The crane reeled in cable, the hook jerked erect. Suddenly the platform was suspended a few feet in space. Below, the constant drizzle made the dirty Hudson River water speckle and dance.

Renny made haste to jump off the patchwork sailcloth covering.

Landing on the floor, he joined Doc and the others, who were keeping a respectful distance.

The platform heeled, rebalanced itself, and was deliberately swung out of the warehouse confines. With great care and caution, the hook brought it over the scorched deck, then began depositing it into the waiting cargo hold.

As the body was lowered from their sight, they watched in respectful silence.

Came a muffled
thump,
and a rocking of the freighter at her anchor chain told that the platform had been landed safety.

After a few minutes, the cable withdrew, showing the empty hook, dripping rain.

The main hatch was hastily closed. Doors landed with the thudding finality of a coffin lid slamming shut.

“That’s that,” announced Renny.

Ham Brooks looked to Doc Savage.

“Are you going back with it?”

The bronze man shook his head sadly.

“No. Once was enough.”

On the bridge, three figures appeared. Captain Englehorn was recognizable. As was Carl Denham, looking clear-eyed and determined now. His old self. Restored and rejuvenated.

Penjaga the Keeper stood at his side. She waved a sad hand in silence.

Doc Savage lifted an answering hand, and bid farewell without a word. There was something in his golden eyes that was not like any emotion his aides had ever before seen there. Not even on the day Doc had learned that his father had died.

With a noisy rattle, the
Wanderer
weighed anchor and the throbbing engines began to make themselves heard and felt.

The freighter warped away, showing its rusty old stern.

No one stood on the broad fantail deck to wave a final farewell. Pelting rain had driven most of the passengers and crew below.

Dusk had turned to night during the transferal. Now the myriad lights of Manhattan were coming on.

The lights of the
Wanderer
were few. Soon enough, they were lost in the monotonous gray rain.

Peering out into the mists, Ham Brooks observed, “It took a lot of pulling of strings to let Denham go along, but the city fathers finally agreed.”

Monk grunted, “After cutting corners and all that red tape to let him bring that monster into the city, they could hardly clap him in the Tombs without a stink bein’ raised.”

Renny boomed, “Well, the city has calmed down, anyway. People will start forgetting it ever happened.”

“Not me,” said Monk. “I saw that big monkey climb our skyscraper. I ain’t ever gonna forget that! I was observin’ from an autogyro when he took that header to the pavement.”

Doc Savage did not contribute to this exchange. He was moving about the warehouse interior, closing the electrically controlled doors and shutting off the lights, one by one.

Ham walked over to join him.

“You have so far declined to explain your history in this horrid matter,” he ventured.

“It is a very long story. But one worth telling. Let us repair to our headquarters for the evening.”

LESS than twenty minutes later, Doc Savage took his customary chair behind the exotic reception room table that served as a receiving desk. His golden eyes held a faraway light. The brisk animation that normally imbued the irises, like the snowflakes in one of those glass globes that contain miniature snowstorms, were eerily quiescent.

Once more, Doc had on the desk the parchment map which was obliterated—all but the rude drawing of the mountain peak that resembled a human skull.

“This story begins with a man all of you have heard about, but none of you had the pleasure of meeting. My grandfather, Stormalong Savage.”

Ham said, “Jove! They called him ‘Old Stormy.’ He captained a clipper ship during the days of the tea trade. Considered to be one of the best blue water men who ever lived.”

“Yes,” said Doc. “As you are aware, the Savage family is perhaps the first of the prominent New World families. There was a Savage in Jamestown. It is among the earliest recorded surnames in North America. Savages made their mark from Maine to California since that time. But Stormalong Savage was the first of our line to be classed as a legend in his own lifetime.”

Doc Savage’s men took comfortable chairs. The bronze giant was normally a man of few words, but they sensed that the story to be told might take most of the evening, and they didn’t want to miss a syllable of it.

Doc resumed speaking. “That model in the corner is a replica of Stormalong Savage’s ship, the
Courser.
On it, he made the run from Baltimore to Siam and back, breaking records on a regular basis. That was back in the 1860s, at the height of the tea trade as it was in sailing days.”

“Whatever happened to him?” grunted Renny.

“Lost at sea,” said Ham. “Correct?”

“Partially correct,” qualified Doc. “There is much more to it than what history records. When the era of the clipper ship had passed, Stormalong took his ship to the South Seas seeking a different kind of treasure.”

Doc Savage’s eyes were upon the model of the
Courser.
He seemed to be far back in time, no longer present in the room.

For a good minute the only sound was the ticking of their wristwatches.

“This story that needs telling began not long after the six of us went our separate ways following the Armistice, over a decade ago.”

Monk said, “That’s how we first met. In the trenches.”

“I cut my eyeteeth on barbed-wire entanglement,” allowed Renny.