DOC SAVAGE: THE INFERNAL BUDDHA (The Wild Adventures of Doc Savage) (13 page)

The bronze man’s flake-gold eyes were roving among the cattail reeds, alert and penetrating.

For the reeds were moving!

Mark and Mary saw it too. Not all the reeds were moving; only some of them.

Reaching down, Doc Savage grasped one of the nearest, which was not moving. He wrenched it from of its natural anchorage, brought it up to his face.

Examining it for the barest moments, he undertoned, “Back!”

There was such a quiet urgency in his metallic voice that Mark and Mary turned around without questioning the wisdom of retreat.

But it was too late.

Behind them, reeds were quivering unnaturally.

Moving with a speed that was unhampered by the fact that he stood thigh-deep in water, Doc Savage overhauled the retreating twins and got in front of them.

With an abruptness that brought a startled shriek from Mary Chan, the water around them exploded upward!

Blue turbans shot out of the water, under which were faces both dark and ferocious.

Brown hands came into view, thorned with short wavy swords.

“Membunuh mereka semua!”
a man shouted. “Kill them!”

Another shrieked,
“Kamu mati!”—“
Die!”

As one, the Malays fell on Doc Savage and his freed captives.

The bronze man’s fists cracked out, found jaws, broke same. Teeth flew from shattered mouths, some white, others black from chewing the betel nut.

The attackers outnumbered Doc four to one. In less than a minute, the bronze man had whittled their number in half.

He was hampered somehow by the need to yank some of the fallen attackers out of the water, lest they drown in their insensate state.

Soon, Doc’s metallic hands were filled with unconscious corsairs, with no place to deposit them safely.

A pirate made a move for Mary Chan. Mark Chan got in between and, using his steel bracelets, intercepted the wicked edge of the knife that was actually a short sword.

On the third try, the pirate drew blood. Mary screamed, then launched herself on the Malay.

Perhaps it was her wild shriek. More probably it was the force of her lunge, but the pirate suddenly backpedaled, lost his footing and fell backward into lagoon water.

Mark jumped after him and held him down with hands and knees, while the man struggled and emitted bubbles that told of his life ebbing from him violently.

Seeing this, Doc Savage warned, “No killing.”

Mark Chan ignored that. He seemed intent upon drowning the worthy who had attacked his sister.

Doc Savage came in and, with the toe of his boot, upset Mark Chan. He rolled off the villain, who then scrambled to a half-standing position and fought madly for air. It was as if he could not get enough of it.

More cut-throats came. They had obviously been lying on their backs in the water, breathing through the straw-like reeds until Doc had almost stepped into the ambush.

Hands clutching corsairs, herding his charges before him, Doc Savage reached the relative safety of shore.

From the lagoon, additional rovers splashing noisily toward them. They raised polyglot Cain. This brought reinforcements from land.

A remarkable figure resembling a cowboy under a pith helmet emerged from the jungle. He wore a pair of six-guns strapped to his middle.

“Dang me if you ain’t Doc Savage himself,” he boomed out.

His pistols leaped into his hands and he trained both barrels on the giant man of bronze, then shifted to the Chans.

“I could split both of their skulls before you could release my hearties and do anything about it,” he said conversationally.

It was the truth.

“So if you don’t mind,” he continued, “keep holdin’ my bully boys until we get this fracas all straightened out.”

Dang Mi paused as if waiting for Doc Savage to make speech. But the bronze man remained silent.

Dang muttered, “I guess that means you and me see eye-to-eye on one thing: You are my dang prisoner.”

Again, Doc Savage offered no comment. But as more pirates emerged dripping and grinning from the lagoon to surround him, his lack of resistance told the entire story.

Mary Chan looked to the bronze man and, seeing that he was declining to fight, choked back a sob of sorrowful defeat.

Dang Mi grinned in the moonlight and cocked his six-shooters carefully one at a time, as if preparing to take careful aim.

“Let’s you and me go for a little stroll,” he gritted. “Since you went to all the trouble o’ comin’ here, we might as well palaver.”

THEY WERE MARCHED inland at the point of Dang Mi’s matched revolvers.

By this time, Doc Savage had released his burden of helpless Malays. They stumbled along, clutching bruised ribs, and moaning.

The bronze man appeared stoic during this procession. His eerie orbs continually scanned their surroundings as if in search of a means of escape. Nothing appeared to elude his attention.

Once, while taking a turn along a narrow jungle trail, Doc gave a sharp warning.

“Ular!”

Hearing the Malay word for snake, Dang Mi almost jumped out of his hand-tooled boots. He lost his tropical pith helmet.

A particularly venomous viper had been crawling along the path ahead. Its color was a vague gray in the dark, thus the serpent was not discernible until the bronze man pointed to it.

Dang Mi stepped up and with cool precision shot the head off the viper. Then he made a show of blowing gunpowder smoke off the barrel.

“You got eyes like a cat,” he said with just a trace of admiration. “But I’m a pretty fair shot, wouldn’t you say?”

“Fair,” Doc admitted. He did not sound impressed.

This stirred Dang Mi’s ire.

“You know who I am, don’t you? Dang Mi, Scourge of the South China Sea.”

The bronze man said nothing.

Dang cocked a meaty thumb at his own chest. “I’m a bloomin’ pirate. Blackbeard ain’t got nothin’ on me.”

“You are Hen Gooch, of Wyoming,” Doc quietly countered.

Dang Mi blinked. One revolver slipped from suddenly limp fingers. The other looked about ready to follow it to the ground.

Shaking off his surprise, the erstwhile Hen Gooch scrambled to get his precious pistol out of the dirt. He took a firm grip on both revolvers.

“It ain’t healthy to spill a man’s secrets in front of company,” Dang barked. Under his breath, he asked, “How’d you cotton to that?”

“Your speech, no matter how you disguise it with British slang, betrays your Wyoming upbringing,” Doc informed him. “Also, you walk bowlegged, like a man who had spent much of his youth in the saddle.”

“That’s fair figurin’,” Dang allowed. “But how’d you know I was Gooch?”

“Your face once appeared on a wanted poster,” Doc related. “Your attempt to disguise your eyes with collodion is an old trick. But you have not the almond-shaped orbs of a true Oriental. Nor is your dyed skin the correct color of someone from this part of the world. Then there is the matter of the slice taken from the top of your right ear—a traditional Western method of branding horse thieves still practiced in some localities. Hen Gooch stole his first horse at the age of fourteen.”

Dang Mi made squirming faces of guilt.

“Just the same,” he husked, “let’s forget all about ol’ Hen Gooch, get me? I got a proposition for you.”

“And that is?”

Dang indicated the twin Chans with a shiny gun barrel. “These two have presented me with a trick box. I need you to figure out how to work it.”

“Box?”

Mary Chan spoke up. “We were flying to seek out British scientific authorities, Mr. Savage. But I heard that Mr. Renwick was in Singapore, so we sought him out instead. Or rather I did after this beast captured my brother. We hoped to carry the box to one who could unlock its secrets. Only you, of all men in the whole wide world, would understand what it portended.”

A faint trace on concern touched the bronze man’s normally impassive lineaments.

To Dang Mi, he said, “You have this box?”

“Dangdest thing you ever did see. I don’t know what it is, but it’s somethin’ powerful. Terrible, anyway. Just like the filly said.”

“What is in the box?” asked Doc Savage.

Mark and Mary Chan exchanged glances. Their similar faces told that they did not know how much to divulge.

“Have you ever heard of the Buddha of Ice, Mr. Savage?” asked Mark Chan.

“Never,” Doc admitted.

“It is an amazing thing,” said Mark.

“Simply awful,” Mary chimed in, nodding.

“The Buddha is in the box?” queried Doc.

Mark shook his head quietly. “No. Only its toe.”

Doc regarded them. “That does not make much sense.”

“You’re tellin’ me,” spat Dang Mi. “But keep talkin’. Sounds like we’re gettin’ somewheres.”

“That is all we wish to say,” Mary Chan said thinly.

Mark Chan nodded in agreement.

“In that case,” said Dang Mi, prodding both twins with his hard pistol barrels. “March!”

The unenthusiastic procession picked up where it left off.

The rest of the journey was uneventful. They came at last to a cluster of ratty huts that were erected on stilts.

A fire was burning. Over it hung an iron pot, bubbling merrily.

“Let’s all eat,” Dang Mi said suddenly. “Maybe some grub will loosen our brains for some serious thinkin’.”

Lapsing into a Malay dialect, Dang ordered his pirates to assemble a meal.

Out of pits covered in cool rocks, they excavated boxed foodstuffs. Hunks of some pale blocky meat were unwrapped from wax paper and oilskins.

The smell that came forth was pungent and unappetizing.

“Ugh,” said Mark.

“Python steaks,” Mary said distastefully.

“They have been feeding us snake meat since our first day of captivity,” Mark explained.

“When
they fed us,” Mary said unhappily. She pinched her nose to keep out the unwelcome odor, mouthing, “Phaw!”

The steaks were roasted on makeshift spits while Doc Savage and the Chans were forced to wait nearby. Stores of potent Chinese wine were excavated. They had been buried in earthenware jugs, and sealed with ordinary corks. These were popped, the jugs upended and passed around in a ritual that would have been familiar to Kentucky moonshiners.

Chains were brought out of brass-bound wooden chests. They were affixed to the wrists and ankles of the big bronze man. He submitted without outward resistance.

The Chans were rebound as well. Their Oriental features, normally placid, descended into gloom.

The steaks were braised in big palm leaves that were set over open coals. The moisture in the leaves kept them from burning up, but they did shrivel somewhat under the scorching heat.

The python meat cooked up with remarkable speed, translucent meat becoming a tan hue.

The pirates ate first. They fell upon the steaks with great relish, as if partaking of a succulent delicacy. No doubt the wine helped.

When the repast was offered to the prisoners, the Chans declined.

Doc Savage, surprisingly, ate a portion. He did so as if in need of nourishment. It could be noticed that he chewed his food slowly and methodically, and if he found the meat distasteful, it did not show on his thoughtful bronze features.

Dang Mi stamped over to look down upon him.

“You’re a funny bird. Most folks don’t take to python the first time. It’s kinda what you call an acquired taste.”

The bronze man continued chewing in silence.

Dang Mi studied him at length.

“Bring that dang box,” he said at last.

The blue strongbox was brought out and laid before the bronze man. Mark and Mary Chan seemed to shrink from it.

Doc Savage studied it as he chewed his food. It had the look of a strongbox of solid workmanship. Other than the azure-hued crackle surface, it appeared to be unremarkable as to construction and dimensions.

“If I open this,” Dang Mi explained, “the same horrible thing that happened to your lad, Renwick, will overtake you.”

Dang Mi watched the bronze man’s face for signs of fear. He saw none.

“Don’t you want to know what happened to him?” he asked at length.

Doc said nothing.

“We shipped you his corpse. Did you get it?”

“That mummy was not Renny Renwick,” Doc said simply.

“What do you mean, it weren’t! You saw his clothes. The wristwatch was his. And them oversize fists.”

Doc shook his head in the negative. “The hands were big, but not as large as Renny’s.”

“How could you know that!” Dang exploded. “They was shriveled into mummy hands.”

“The finger bones were too small to be Renny’s,” said Doc Savage matter-of-factly. “Furthermore, the mummified man wore his wristwatch on his left wrist. Renny habitually wore his timepiece on the right. Lastly, examination of the contents of the stomach revealed chili peppers. Renny was violently allergic to them and would only eat them under extreme duress, if at all.”

“Regular Sherlock Holmes, ain’t you?” snorted Dang.

He made worrisome faces and began to pace to and fro. Dang was thinking. The process of thought contorted his wide features.

His voice became sly. “If I open that box, the thing what lives inside will suck out all your juices the way a spider drinks of a trapped fly’s moisture.”

Doc Savage continued chewing. But his eyes were on the closed box as if attempting to penetrate its tough surface.

From time to time, he touched his chest as if to crush a gnat or other jungle pest. But it was night. There were few gnats.

Abruptly, Doc Savage stood. From a pocket somewhere about his body, a flat metal object dropped. He appeared not to notice this.

Dang Mi leaped to seize it.

Raising this prize to his face, he examined it curiously.

“What is it?”

“What does it look like?” Doc returned.

“A dang camera.”

“That is a very good guess,” said Doc.

Dang Mi turned the camera device over and over in his hands, and commented, “The lens is a funny color. It’s purplish, almost black.”

“It is a special lens.”

A slow grin overspread Dang’s wide features.

“I get it,” he said. “For taking pictures at night.”