The Red Skull

XIII — Hot Rock

Doc now issued low orders.

Complying with them, Renny maneuvered the windmilling gyro in close to the cliff face. Pushing the control wheel forward gently, he lowered the strange craft.

From within the ruin, a man sought to shoot upward. But after releasing a single bullet, he was driven to cover by a blast of lead from the monster speed plane.

The latter craft was cruising back-and-forth along the cliff face. It was no mean feat of piloting! Monk was at the controls. All of Doc’s 5 aides were expert flyers.

The flare burning in the tin tub was extinguished. The darkness which ensued was only momentary. The speed plane dropped a ‘chute flare to take its place.

There was no more shooting from within the ruins. Nor did the villains show themselves although they must have known the gyro was nearing the rectangular openings which gave access to their stronghold. This seemed a bit strange.

When within a few yards of the first aperture, Doc flung a glass ball which was nearly as large as a grapefruit. This passed into the ancient cliff dwelling structure and burst.

It held the instantaneously effective, quick-dissipating anesthetic gas — the exact composition of which was known to no one but Doc.

The silk cord and grapple which had served him earlier in the night were now brought into use. From the fairly steady cockpit of the gyro, Doc tossed the grapple repeatedly until it hung on the edge of an opening in the ruin. Then he dropped the cord down the cliff face.

Renny promptly landed the gyro, permitting Doc to alight and climb the cord.

To a man of ordinary strength, mounting the slender line of silk might have presented an impossible task. The small size made gripping difficult.

But Doc’s hands possessed amazing strength thanks to an intensive system of exercises which he took each day of his life.

He climbed swiftly. Not once did the cord slip through his powerful grasp!

“Hear anything?” Renny called anxiously from below.

“No,” Doc replied after listening.

Renny’s sigh of relief came up distinctly. “I guess the gas got ‘em!”

Some 40 feet below his objective, Doc suddenly halted. His sensitive nostrils moved slightly as he sampled the air.

“What is it?” Renny asked.

“An odor… as though something were burning!” Doc explained.

“That’s probably from the flares.”

Doc said nothing more. But this scent that he had detected did not come from the flares. Of that, he was convinced. The question of just what it was had him baffled. It had a tang new to his experience.

He slid back down and joined Renny.

“It might be some type of poison gas,” he answered Renny’s look of surprise. “The odor is very strange!”

Monk brought the speed plane down in a graceful landing. The big craft taxied close and its 4 passengers alighted.

The cabin still held several cases and boxes. From one of these, Doc dug his chemical-reaction device for ascertaining the presence of poison gas. He also got another object — a large glass bottle which could be sealed absolutely tight.

With these slung on his back, he mounted the silk cord. No stir, no sound of life came from the ruin.

There was nothing poisonous about the strange odor, his apparatus told him.

He promptly entered the cliff dwelling.

To his surprise, there was no sign of tubby Jud or the other men who had fallen victim to the gas-in-the-coatsleeve trick.

Doc tossed the rope ladder down to his men. They joined him with the exception of Long Tom and Ham who remained on watch. There was always a chance more of the villains would arrive by plane.

The strange odor became stronger as they stepped into an inner room of the ancient structure. Doc played his flash beam about. It revealed a circular hole in the floor. The end of a pole projected from this. Notches had been cut into the pole, making it a ladder of sorts.

Leaning over the hole, Doc found the weird smell much stronger. And there now seemed to be heat!

Renny, Monk, and Johnny had scattered to other rooms. They came back, puzzled.

“There’s no sign of the gang!” they reported.

“They must’ve gone down that hole,” Monk grunted.

Doc dropped anesthetic down the gaping aperture. He and his men gave it the necessary minute to become ineffective… then descended.

They found themselves in one of several chambers chipped out of solid stone. These were floored with the rubble of ages.

Spying another floor opening and making sure the odor — and intense heat — was coming from it, Doc descended. The others followed.

“Holy cow!” Renny ejaculated. “Somethin’ must be awful hot in there ahead of us!”

“Monk!” Doc called. He had lost sight of the hairy chemist.

“I’m just lookin’ in here,” Monk informed him from another room. “These chambers seem to have been a granary. I see a lot of corn cobs around.”

“Did you ever smell anything like this odor?” Doc questioned.

Monk sniffed noisily. “Bless me, no!”

“You sure? I thought perhaps you had caught such a scent while mixing chemicals.”

“Never did. And say! where’d everybody go to? And where’s that heat comin’ from?”

His flash beam playing ahead, Doc ducked through a low door. The heat was more intense. It increased as he advanced.

A strange reddish panel became visible ahead. This proved to be another door with a great mass beyond it glowing at a red heat!

Doc stopped and stared in wonder. Monk and Renny came up behind him.

“That looks like red-hot lava!” Monk muttered in awe.

They sidled forward gingerly.

The heat was terrific! It dried the moisture in their eyes and set perspiration trickling on their skin.

Yet the source of the terrific temperature was fully 40 feet distant at the end of a long chamber which was half room and half passage.

The whole end of the subterranean room glowed a cherry color.

In one corner, the solid stone seemed to have melted! Not unlike red cotton, the molten rock had oozed outward over an area of several square feet, pouring out into a shape that resembled a human skull!

With a quick gesture, Doc uncorked the glass flask he had brought. He fanned it about briskly until it contained a quantity of the air within the stone cubicle. Then he corked it.

“What’s the idea?” Renny wanted to know.

“Some of the air to analyze later,” Doc explained. “This odor has me mystified.”

“To me, that melted rock is a bigger mystery,” Monk muttered. “And where’s my secretary? Where is everybody?”

Doc pointed at the patch of molten rock.

“Doesn’t the shape of that tell you something?”

Monk squinted.

“For cryin’ out loud!” he yelled. “That’s a door! And molten rock has oozed through from the other side, fillin’ it!”

“Exactly.”

“But what could have made heat enough to melt the rock like that?”

Doc did not answer. Instead, he rapped, “You birds look this place over! See what you can find!”

Then he was gone, vanishing with the speed and silence of a bronze apparition. A moment later, he was descending the cliff face.

Long Tom and Ham — guarding the planes — were not aware of his presence until he appeared phantom-like beside them.

“Heard anything?” he asked them.

“A minute ago,” Ham admitted. “I thought I heard a motor. But it might have been the sound of the river.”

“I don’t think it was,” Doc told him grimly.

He ran to the gyro, swung into the cockpit, and started the motor. He clutched in the rotary wing vanes as rapidly as possible, then bore heavily on the throttle. The strange ship lifted.

Although he had been within the cliff dwelling but a few minutes, the canyon depths were now a good deal less gloomy than before. The explanation was simple.

Dawn impended.

Doc guided the ship over the river and hovered there while he tossed out a flare. The light sank quickly into the stream.

But not before he made an interesting discovery.

Near the water’s edge, a slab of rock had been toppled back. It had uncovered the entrance of a tunnel, obviously man-made.

Doc wasted no time investigating except to note a large stake set near the water. To this, a boat had evidently been moored.

What had happened was clear. The builders of the ancient cliff dwelling had constructed the tunnel to give access to water when their stronghold was besieged. Down this, Doc’s enemies had fled to depart in the boat.

How they had closed the tunnel with molten rock was still a mystery — a puzzle Doc hoped to solve by analysis of the air he had trapped in the flask.

He flung the gyro downstream. Caution was necessary to avoid crashing into the canyon walls. It was doubtful if he made a great deal more speed than had the boat.

The darkness dispersed quickly. Dawn comes with suddenness in the clear, dry atmosphere of the West. He was able to increase his pace.

The river — rushing and angry — abruptly grew more peaceful. The canyon became less sheer, wider.

Then there was suddenly no canyon at all but a gently sloping valley. He was out of the range of mountains through which Red Skull slashed.

A bridge appeared. A graveled highway crossed it. Under the bridge, a large powerful launch was tied. The cowl and cushions of the boat were still wet with spray.

2 men stood on the bridge. They stared at the strange aircraft approaching them.

Doc landed on the road. He studied the 2 men as they approached.

One was stout and bulging of shoulder, big of hand. He would have been the better for a shave. His laced boots, khaki breeches, and leather windbreaker had seen much wear. He looked angry.

The second man’s attire was that of the city although his features were leathery from exposure to wind and sun. He had a reddish beard.

“If it isn’t one thing, it’s another!” the latter greeted Doc. “First, we’re robbed of our car. And then you come along in that contraption! What kind of a flyin’ machine is that, anyhow?”

Doc passed the question. “Did you get a look at the men who took your car?”

“Just at the one who held the gun. He was Buttons Zortell — a fellow we fired off the job some time ago. He made us lie in the ditch at the side of the road and we didn’t see the others. It sounded like there was quite a crowd, though. And I heard a woman’s voice. She seemed to be putting up a fight.”

This was welcome news for it meant Lea Aster was still alive.

“Who are you gentlemen?” Doc asked.

“I am Ossip Keller,” said the man in city garments. “My companion is my partner Richard O’Melia.”

“You men together with Nate Raff own the Mountain Desert Construction Company, don’t you?” Doc demanded.

“That’s right!”

Doc Savage gestured at the seat beside him.

“Get in. We’re going after your car. And the men who took it!”

The pair seemed a bit doubtful of the gyroplane.

“Will that thing carry us?”

“Of course. And it’s much safer than an ordinary plane if that’s worrying you.”

The two wedged into the seats. Doc promptly took off.

“The car went North toward our dam!” said Richard O’Melia in a gruff, roaring voice in keeping with his rough attire.

Doc drove the gyro forward at its maximum speed. Lifting their shouts over the noisy whine of the rotating wings and the shrill of the muffled motor, O’Melia and Keller explained their presence further.

“Our other partner Nate Raff was killed in a plane crash yesterday,” said O’Melia. “We got an early start this morning for we’ve got to go to the crash scene in New Mexico and see if we can identify Nate’s body. Everyone in the plane was badly burned.”

“And Buttons Zortell held us up on the bridge!” O’Melia thundered. “I’m bettin’ that’s got somethin’ to do with Nate’s death!”

“What do you mean?” Doc probed.

The men seemed reluctant to commit themselves.

“We suspect foul play in Nate’s death!” O’Melia boomed finally.

Ossip Keller now bent a keen-eyed stare on Doc. It was plain to be seen that he was a far more intelligent man than the blustering O’Melia.

“May I ask who you are?” he addressed Doc.

“My name is Savage.”

The effect of this was ludicrous. The jaws of both men sagged. They became round-eyed.

“Not Doc Savage?” O’Melia thundered.

“That’s right.”

“Glory be!” yelled O’Melia. “You’re the gent we’re wantin’ to see more’n anybody! When Nate Raff was killed, he was goin’ to New York to see you. We sent Bandy, too!”

“Who was Bandy Stevens?” Doc inquired.

“Didn’t Bandy manage to get to you?”

“He did… only to be killed before he could tell me anything.”

Ossip Keller now showed a trace of doubt, of suspicion.

“If Bandy did not talk to you, why are you here?”

“I’m here because a gang — apparently your enemies — are holding a young woman, the secretary of one of my men,” Doc explained grimly. “You haven’t told me who Bandy Stevens was.”

“One of our employees. A man we trusted,” Keller answered. “We sent Bandy to enlist your aid. Bandy wired us that some one had shot at him in Phoenix. That worried Nate Raff. So Nate lit out to see you himself. And the plane he was ridin’ in crashed.”

Doc had been keeping his eyes on the road below. There was plenty of light now although hills in the East still hid the Sun.

But no sign of the car could he discern.

“Suppose you gentlemen explain why you were trying to get in touch with me,” Doc suggested.

“We’ve been havin’ trouble with our dam buildin’,” thumped O’Melia. “And what trouble! You never saw the like! Rock slides, fatal accidents, equipment failures. Just about everything that could go wrong did!

“The thing about it that burns me up is that we didn’t suspect no dirty work. But we had to fire too many men for makin’ costly mistakes. Buttons Zortell was one of those men. And all of a sudden, we woke up to the fact that somebody was tryin’ to break us!”

“For what reason?”

“Blast me if I know! That’s the thing that has us up in the air! We got enemies. Every businessman has. But our enemies are the kind who would walk up an’ take a shot at us instead of sneakin’ around like coyotes!”

“Is there any danger of the dam ruining you financially?”

“Danger?” O’Melia wailed. “It’s almost done it! We’re buildin’ this dam out of our own pocket and it has already cost us twice as much as we figured on. Our treasury is about empty!”

“In case of financial failure, what would happen?”

“We’d have to sell out to the highest bidder. Sell the partially-built dam an’ the ground we’ve bought for the lake, that is. By doin’ that, we could salvage our equipment an’ start over again.”

“Have you received any offers for the uncompleted dam and the lake area?”

O’Melia swore!

“One! It wasn’t half what it cost us. An’ we got it dirt-cheap.”

“I thought the dam had cost you plenty?”

“It has! This Nick Clipton just wanted the land. He said he was a rancher.”

“Nick Clipton?”

“Sure. He’s the jasper who made us the offer.”

“‘Nick Clipton’ is a fake name used by the mastermind who is behind all your trouble!” Doc rapped sharply. “Did you get a look at him when he propositioned you?”

“Naw. The offer came through the mail.”

Doc Savage now gave his attention to the terrain below. There was a crossroads immediately ahead. On only one of the 4 intersection roads was there dust to indicate the recent passage of a vehicle. Doc followed the dust.

“There were some papers or documents involved in the trouble in New York,” he announced. “Can you tell me their nature?”

“Probably the dope Bandy carried,” O’Melia offered. “He had a letter signed by all three of us askin’ for your aid. We also give him maps of the country, plans of the dam, itemized accounts of materials, descriptions of each case of trouble, and so forth. We figured that stuff would be nice for you to study before you got here.”

Ossip Keller — taking little part in the conversation — had been staring at Doc steadily. There was an intensity almost irrational in his scrutiny.

“You see, Mister Savage, we took it for granted you would aid us,” he now offered. “We had heard great things of you and the strange life you lead. Or at least it seems a somewhat strange existence to me — your business of traveling to the far corners of the Earth to help those who need help…”

“… and punishing those who have it coming to them!” Doc was moved to add, thinking of Monk’s attractive secretary in the hands of Buttons Zortell.

Suddenly, he made a sound of disgust and whipped the plane around, heading back the way they had come. It was rarely Doc gave any sign of emotion. But this once he was blasted out of his usual calm.

The vehicle making the dust was not the car they sought but only an empty truck!

The futility of the dust trail might have been an omen for although Doc searched fully 2 hours, he found no trace of Lea Aster or her captors. He came to the conclusion that they had driven into the wooded mountain region and there abandoned their machine in some pine thicket.

He gave up the search. Fuel was running low in the gyro, anyway.

Back over Red Skull canyon, he flew. The great gash looked even more forbidding in the full light of day. O’Melia and Keller were men of strength. Yet they clung to the cockpit seats in stiff-armed anxiety lest their conveyance smash into the sheer walls of stone.

The shelf of the landing field — the frowning precipice which held the cliff dwelling — hove into sight.

Men were clustered about Doc’s speed plane and the 2 smaller ships.

Doc made a mental count, expecting to enumerate only his 5 aides. Then he .

The shelf held 6 men!

The newcomer was perhaps 40 years-of-age Doc saw as the gyro dropped in for a landing. The man’s hair stuck up like cactus thorns. He had an enormous jaw, a lipless mouth, glittering eyes — the effect of the whole being hardboiled determination. He was powerfully muscled.

A choking sound from his passengers drew Doc’s attention. O’Melia and Keller were goggle-eyed with incredulity.

“He didn’t die in the plane crash after all!” O’Melia rasped.

“Who?”

The roughly-clad construction man leveled an arm at the big-jawed stranger among Doc’s men.

“That’s Nate Raff!” he boomed.