The Red Skull

XII — Killer Chasm

Doc had not been unwarned. The first jerk of the ladder had indicated severing of the rope strands on one side.

He reached swiftly for the nearest ledge. This was little more than a roughness, barely offering purchase for Doc’s grasping fingers.

But it sufficed and he was dangling from it at the moment the ladder failed. Overhead, a man swore delightedly!

The voice was a new one to Doc. Evidently this man had come from within the cliff dwelling somewhere. Perhaps he had been suspicious from the first and kept in the background where the gas had not reached him.

Clinging by the grip of one hand, Doc produced a hank of stout silken line from within his clothing. To one end of this was secured a collapsible metal grapple hook.

Doc anchored the grapple… tested it… then slid down the cord, maintaining control over his progress by keeping a turn of the line about his leg. Once he had reached the bottom, a flip of the cord freed the grapple.

A gun crashed overhead! The bullet jarred dust out of the ground near Doc’s feet.

The cliff had a slight bulge. He flattened close to the base, making it necessary for the man above to lean far over to shoot.

The plane was coming in for a landing. Its motor echoes made a bawling like a multitude of lions.

Doc flung a glance at the craft… and got a profound surprise!

This was no green monoplane such as Buttons Zortell had purchased in New York!

It was a yellow ship — a cabin biplane.

A six-gun slug smacked unpleasantly close to Doc and he hastily shifted position. The man above was yelling angrily. Forced to lean far out to see his target, he could not shoot accurately. Moreover, the flare did not cast a lot of light at the cliff base.

Doc selected 2 round rocks slightly smaller than baseballs. Creeping back-and-forth to baffle the gunner above, he waited and watched the plane.

The craft flattened and settled slowly. Dust arose as its wheels touched. It braked to a halt. The propeller came to a jerky standstill.

The instant the prop stopped, Doc sprang out a few yards from the cliff… calculated accurately… and flung both his round rocks upward.

Both dornicks hit his target — the flare! With a shower of white-hot sparks, the inflammable portion was knocked out of the tub of a reflector. This fell the hundred feet to the foot of the cliff and was extinguished by the impact.

Now enwrapped in darkness, Doc Savage sprinted for the plane! He wanted to reach it before the motor could be started and the craft turned for a take-off.

He had no idea who the men in the plane were. But that question was answered in short order.

“Boss!” screeched the man in the cliff dwelling. “Watch out!”

A moment after crying the warning, the man succeeded in igniting another flare and fixing it in the reflector.

With the squirt of light across the shelf, Doc cast his gaze at the plane, hoping to glimpse the features of the mastermind. That the Brains of the gang had arrived in the ship the yell of the man on the cliff had clearly disclosed.

4 men occupied the plane cabin. But to Doc’s disappointment, they had yanked down wide-brimmed hats and were holding handkerchiefs before their faces, hiding their identity.

They drew revolvers and began firing at Doc Savage!

Gone were all Doc’s chances of reaching the plane. He twisted aside and sped for the small gully where he had left his parachute and pack belt. This offered the nearest shelter.

Bullets stormed his course! The men in the plane were fair marksmen. The flare blazing in their eyes handicapped them, however. Before they accustomed themselves to the glare, Doc had dived into the gulch.

Leaping from the plane — still keeping their faces concealed — the men prepared to charge recklessly after Doc. But a shrieked warning came from the fellow in the cliff dwelling.

“Be careful!” he cried. “That hombre must be Doc Savage!”

The gang at the plane glanced to one of their number for orders.

This man — obviously the Master Villain of the organization — was muffled from neck-to-toes in a light gabardine coat. He had tied a colored bandanna in front of his features. His gray cowboy hat was hauled low. There was nothing distinctive about his size.

“Get that guy!” gritted the Mastermind, waving an arm at the spot where Doc had disappeared. “I don’t give a whoop who he is! Get ‘im!”

They charged the gully rim with six-guns at cock and eyes straining until they ached.

The men did not expect Doc to present himself at the exact point where he had vanished.

But that was what happened! Doc bobbed up in a way that seemed magic. His arm flashed forward in a throwing motion. He was out-of-sight again so swiftly that a volley of lead fired at him did nothing but spade up showers of dust and sand.

The object he had thrown broke with a small tinkling noise only a few yards in front of the charging group.

“Watch out for gas!” screeched the man in the cliff ruin.

The runners heeded the warning instantly. They did not even delay to ascertain exactly what Doc had flung. They veered off, sprinting madly.

Their course took them away from the plane and toward the cliff. Momentarily, they expected to be gassed.

The fellow in the ruin added to their fear by bellowing news of what had happened to his companions. At the same time, he threw down another rope ladder — one evidently kept for emergencies. The men from the plane clambered up this in a frenzy of anxiety.

Doc Savage watched them with mingled feelings. By the light of the flare, he could distinguish the object, the throwing of which had produced such terror. It lay near a flat rock it had struck in landing. But it hardly looked dangerous.

It was Doc’s watch!

Things were now in a state of mutual checkmate.

Doc could not quit the gully. He found it ended in a sheer drop to the boiling, muddy river.

Not knowing they had been deceived by nothing more frightful than a watch, his enemies dared not leave their lofty perch. But they nevertheless sent bullets ripping across the gulch!

Doc kept a close watch on the cliff dwelling. He saw the gabardine-coated man he knew to be the mastermind. But he could pick out nothing which might later identify the fellow.

The flare burned away. Another was lighted.

Something like 20 minutes dragged past. Far off in the night, the roaring moan of a plane engine materialized.

Doc immediately went into action! From his pack belt, he produced a tiny radio transmitter-receiver. An insulated metal tape flung along the gully bottom furnished all the aerial necessary.

Once the set was in operation, he sent briskly for 2-or-3 minutes.

In the meantime, the approaching plane had dropped down into the canyon in a series of tight turns. It came finally within the zone whitened by the powerful flare.

An 8-place, single-motored green metal monoplane! It answered the description of the craft purchased by Buttons Zortell in New York.

The pilot was evidently suspicious since he circled the field steadily instead of making a move to land.

In one of the window-like apertures in the cliff dwelling wall, the man in the gabardine coat appeared. He flailed both arms, gesticulating for Buttons Zortell to attack the gully which harbored Doc.

For once, Doc could have made good use of a gun. But no firearm was at hand, however. He never carried one although he could handle them with unbelievable accuracy.

There was a good psychological reason behind Doc’s decision not to carry a gun. He did not want to form the habit of relying on one for well did he know that no person is quite as much at loss as a gunman without his gun.

Those in the plane comprehended the orders of their Boss. The ship promptly dived upon Doc’s gully. Rifles and pistols lipped flame from the cabin windows!

Doc haunted shadows in the bottom of the wash and escaped damage. But he was not to triumph so easily.

The attacking plane climbed upward a few hundred feet and those aboard tossed out a parachute flare. This light whitened the gulch bottom, disclosing Doc.

Eagerly, the men swept back to the attack. For a moment, the sheer walls of the gulch concealed their quarry.

In the few seconds that he was hidden from them, Doc flung to the floor of the wash and swiftly covered himself with sand.

The monoplane thundered over the gully. The men aboard had their guns ready. But they let fly nothing but profanity!

They were unable to distinguish the sandy mound that concealed Doc. They knew what he must have done. But the light was not sufficiently brilliant to disclose him.

The green craft circled aimlessly while those aboard debated ways and means.

Doc watched the heavens expectantly. He was not surprised when 2 planes plunged suddenly into the flare-whitened canyon.

One was his giant speed ship and the other his gyroplane.

They had not lost much time in answering his radio summons.

Buttons Zortell and his pilot Whitey abandoned the attack the instant they discovered the new arrivals. The green monoplane climbed madly in an effort to escape.

It was overhauled quickly by Doc’s monster speed ship. That big bus was capable of a top speed at least twice that of its quarry!

Along the leading edge of the wings, there suddenly appeared a series of gory red tongues! These were flaming machine-gun muzzles — the weapons themselves being built within the wing.

Tracer bullets streaked gray and red about the green monoplane. The craft seemed stitched around with ghastly threads. Yet no bullets touched the metal ship because blonde Lea Aster was aboard.

The green bus whipped into a mad dive. Her crew had realized that they could never escape by air. They headed for the flare-lit bench of ground below them.

Whitey made a hasty and very bad landing. His craft bounced and careened but kept upright. It halted near the cliff. The scared passengers piled out. 6 sweating men and one defiant-but-helpless blonde girl.

Catching sight of Monk’s secretary, Doc popped from the gulch.

But a rain of bullets fired from the cliff ruin drove him back.

Buttons Zortell ran up the rope ladder to safety. Whitey followed, then the others.

Lea Aster refused to climb. So they tied her to the lower end of the ladder and pulled her up after the last man had ascended.

Flying the gyro, Renny now dropped down to take Doc aboard. This maneuver was covered by machine-gun fire from the speed plane.

“I believe we have the entire gang cornered,” Doc told Renny as the gyro lifted out of gunshot of the ruin.

“Their big chief, too?” Renny demanded.

“I believe so. He arrived shortly before the plane got in from New York. And every man back of them is now in that cliff dwelling.”

“What did their leader look like?”

“Search me!” Doc retorted, then explained that he had been able to distinguish nothing because of the gabardine coat.

“Well, their goose is cooked anyhow!” Renny boomed. “They’ve trapped themselves. They can’t escape down the face of that cliff. And not even a fly could climb upward!”