The Red Skull

XIX — Truck Death

Jud remained beside O’Melia’s senseless form for some time. He was thinking.

At length, he reached satisfactory conclusions. Straining with lips clenched between his snaggleteeth, he got O’Melia on his shoulders.

The explosion scene had drawn almost every one. Jud avoided notice without much trouble and walking swiftly with his burden.

A truck loomed in front of him. It was the machine under which he had hidden his rifle.

Jud lowered his burden. Then he made sure it was a company truck and that nothing but warehouses were near. This told him that he could steal the vehicle without much trouble.

The machine had a steel dump body and an apron of steel to protect the driver in lieu of a cab. It was a regulation muck truck used in hauling excavated rock to the spoil dumps. Jud was familiar with its operation.

He tossed the senseless form of O’Melia into the seat, then cranked the motor into thundering life. With his rifle in the seat beside him, he drove hurriedly away.

The machine slithered greasily on the treacherous winding road that led down to the dam site. Jud kept the gears in second for the braking effect they offered.

He did not continue the whole way to the dam. Some distance from it, he turned left on a little-used spur road. This was hardly passable. He kept his eyes ahead and fought the wheel.

An inspiring panorama opened before him. He quickly stopped the truck, got out, and advanced a few yards afoot. He now stood on the lip of a great cliff. Directly below was the surface of the new lake.

The rippling vista stretched away until lost in the hazy moonlight. The cloudburst had brought enough water to almost completely cover the wide, long valley which was the ancient lake bed.

When completed, the lake was expected to be much deeper. But it would not be much greater in area.

Jud leaned over the cliff brink and gave the rough muddy water below an inspection. The look he bent upon it was almost “loving”. The depth must be many feet. It was in the nature of a sink hole.

He hurried back to the truck. The toolbox yielded a length of stout chain. This was intended for use in aiding stalled machines.

Jud tied one end of the chain around the neck of senseless Richard O’Melia. The other end he secured to an axle of the truck.

No foolishness like tying the man in the cab for Jud! This was simpler, more efficient. The truck would take O’Melia over the brink to his death. The splash as it hit the water probably would not be heard. The storm still roared in the North.

Jud got in the seat… latched the shift in low gear… dragged open the hand throttle… and aimed the speeding truck for the cliff. Then he jumped out.

He landed with springy ease, highly pleased with himself. This might be an elaborate method of murder. But it accomplished 2 things much to be desired.

It got rid of the body and it disposed of an expensive truck which belonged to the hard-pressed Mountain Desert Construction Company. The cliff top was a flint-hard rock. It would not retain the truck tracks.

Jud leaped to the cliff edge to watch the truck disappear.

But a convulsion of staring unbelief drove the evil delight off his face. For a moment, it seemed he would topple over the dizzy rim so shocked was he!

There was no body tied to the rear of the truck!

Excitement made Jud’s breath rattle loud in his throat. He ran back to see if O’Melia could have dropped off the chain.

But there was no sign of the stocky construction man.

Jud snarled at his own perturbation.

“The body must’ve been hangin’ under the truck so I couldn’t see it!” he grunted.

He glanced about for his rifle and realized he had forgotten to take it from the truck.

“A fine goof I’m gettin’ to be!” he complained. “It’s lucky that rifle can’t be traced to me even if somebody does find it!”

The splash of the truck into the lake had not been loud. In his own excitement, he had hardly been aware of it. Nevertheless, he decided it would be a good idea to quit the vicinity.

The large boulders along the trail assumed to Jud’s uneasy eyes the shape of crouching men. He hissed at his uneasiness. Drawing both six-guns, he carried them in his hands. They made him feel more at ease.

He had covered perhaps 60 yards when a sharp clatter arose ahead. It might have been a pebble scooting from under the boot of a creeping man. It might have been flung from somewhere.

Shelter lay on but one side of the road in an array of boulders. Jud sailed into these with a leap only a scared man could manage.

One of the boulders seemed to take on life…

…to acquire great arms and hands and a complexion of bronze!

The metallic hands trapped Jud. They tightened with a terrible force!

Jud was a strong man, a powerful fighter. He had once boxed professionally as witness his broken nose and cauliflower ears. He had never encountered a man he did not secretly think he could whip — either by fair means or foul.

Jud had a great store of underhanded fighting tricks. But he was helpless now.

Through his teeth split such a gurgling scream of agony as the arid Arizona hills had not before heard! His six-guns were milked from his hands and tossed away.

Jud had once thrashed a very small-and-weak boy for accidentally bumping into him. He had always remembered what a puny little bundle of flesh the kid had been in his hands.

Jud felt like that boy now. Every move he made was thwarted by arms of steel! He swung awful blows…

…only to have his fists actually seized in midair and shoved back to his side. And wherever the bronze grip of his Nemesis settled, numb and ghastly pain was left!

That such Herculean strength could belong to any man Jud was loath to believe. He twisted, fighting weakly. For the first time, he got a look at the features of his captor…

Ghostly fright was now added to his troubles! His pain-blurred brain somehow seized on the idea that his attacker was not mortal.

His captor had the features of Doc Savage — a man supposed to be dead!

“Golly!” Jud moaned. “You was… blowed up…”

Pain made the words stick in his throat.

Doc Savage maintained a grim, spectral silence. He knew that this would tend to undermine Jud’s nerve.

“We heard you an’ your gang talkin’ in the shack a minute before we blowed it up!” Jud wailed. “You couldn’t have gotten away! We’d have seen you in the moonlight! Still… Hell! You’re real enough…”

Doc still said nothing although Jud’s puzzlement would not have been hard to dispel.

What had happened was simple. Doc and his men had left the shack in the van which had ostensibly brought baggage.

A phonograph record bearing their voices and a time switch to extinguish the lights explained their apparent presence afterward.

Doc had planned! And the netting of Jud was one of the fruits of his deep-laid scheme!

Instead of falling a victim to complete terror, Jud began to get hold of himself. His hard, blue lips firmed. His little eyes narrowed.

“How’d you get away?” he demanded.

Doc kept a blank face and propelled the man farther into the boulders. Jud caught sight of a form draped against a rock. He started, swore, and began to sweat.

The form was Richard O’Melia. The man was still unconscious.

Jud knew now that Doc Savage must have unfastened O’Melia from the chain on the truck axle. But he did not see how the job could have been done so silently. It seemed impossible.

Then he remembered the strength of the Bronze Man — a strength so great it was frightful! Muscles such as those could accomplish the impossible!

Doc’s hands now glided over Jud’s stocky form seeking certain portions of the nerve system.

Jud emitted a shrill bleat. After that, he found a terrible thing had happened to his muscles.

Try as he might, Jud could only squirm feebly. He could not understand what had occurred. His knowledge of human anatomy was limited. He failed to realize that Doc had simply paralyzed certain nerve centers with pressure. It was a feat made easy by Doc’s intensive surgical training.

Doc now revived O’Melia.

Able to sit up, O’Melia took his head in both hands and groaned. “How’d I get here?”

Doc Savage told him.

O’Melia listened while breathing heavily from the pain in his bruised head. He glowered at Jud as he heard how the man had plotted to murder him.

Suddenly O’Melia sprang to the spot where Jud’s six-guns had dropped! He clutched a weapon and aimed it at Jud.

“I’ll fix you for tryin’ to kill me!” he bellowed and pulled the trigger.

The gun spoke a clap of a roar! But the bullet only made a shiny smear on a nearby rock.

A small stone — flung with unerring accuracy by Doc’s hand — not only caused the slug to go wide but also knocked the revolver spinning.

O’Melia clutched his stinging fingers and roared in a wild Rage!

“Nobody is gonna try to croak me an’ get away with it!” he yelled.

Jud now came to life. He was still unable to move his arms and legs. But there was nothing wrong with his voice.

“Keep ‘im off me!” he screamed at Doc Savage. “He’s tryin’ to kill me to shut my mouth! He’s afraid I’ll tell!”

“Tell what?” Doc demanded.

Jud bent a snarling glare on O’Melia who returned it with utter hate. The vicious exchange of looks seemed to decide Jud.

“O’Melia is my Boss!” he barked. “O’Melia is the brains back of all this killin’ an’ construction trouble!”

O’Melia had all the signs of being stunned by this declaration. Jud went on, his coarse voice lifting to a yell.

“I been gettin’ worried!” he bawled. “O’Melia has got stuff on me that’d send me to the Pen for life! I was afraid the buzzard would use it. That’s why I was gettin’ rid of ‘im!”

O’Melia now hurtled for the six-gun which had been knocked from his hand. His face was turgid with RAGE!

But again, Doc flung a rock. This one took O’Melia on the head instead of the hand. The man slumped down amid a rattle of gravel.

“He’s my boss!” Jud whined.

Doc said nothing. His fingers sped over Jud’s bulky form…

…and Jud suddenly discovered use of his limbs had returned.

Carrying O’Melia and herding Jud before him, Doc returned to the construction settlement.

O’Melia’s private quarters proved to be his destination. A rather substantial bungalow-style shack housed these.

There was a bedroom, roughly furnished. The other chamber — a living room — was more elaborately fitted. Indian tomahawks, javelins, knives, Navajo blankets, and wampum belts decorated the walls. Skin rugs of bear, bobcat, and mountain lion were on the floor.

Doc seized Jud… rendered him helpless with nerve pressure… then made a circuit of the bungalow. He was outside several minutes.

Immediately he was back indoors and returned Jud the use of his limbs. This was an act of kindness since under the nerve pressure, the limbs were filled with that unpleasant sensation of being “asleep”.

A dipperful of water revived O’Melia. A denial of Jud’s charge promptly leaped from O’Melia’s lips!

“A pack of lies!” he rasped. “The skunk is tryin’ to cover his boss while at the same time curryin’ your favor by makin’ you think he’s talkin’ freely!”

“Ain’t neither!” Jud yelled. “I’m tellin the truth an’ you know it!”

“You,” Doc told Jud dryly, “wouldn’t know the truth if you met it in the road.”

“Meanin’ you don’t believe me?” Jud wailed.

“Exactly. O’Melia stated your motives. You’re trying to cover the identity of your Leader.”

O’Melia gaped incredulously as if he couldn’t believe the good news. An expression of great sheepishness came upon his features. He sat down weakly in a chair and swabbed his tongue over dry lips.

“Reckon I’ve made a loco-ed goat outa myself,” he mumbled. “I’ve got a plumb cultus temper and sometimes she gets away from me. Givin’ this coyote a killin’ was all I could think of after he sprang his pack of lies!”

Doc Savage replied nothing. He seemed to be concentrating on the use of one of his faculties. Perhaps his hearing!

Jud whipped to his feet. He had decided to try a break!

Head-first, he pitched at a window. Glass jangled and wooden cross-pieces of the sash splintered! Jud vanished into the outer night.

There was a floundering and crashing outside the window. Then feet ran rapidly away.

Doc Savage appeared like a bronze-hued gush of smoke in the doorway. He saw the running figure — a man, doubled low, features obscured by snapped-down hat and the darkness.

The runner whirled and lifted a gun. The weapon spat flame and a stutter of powder noise. Snapping bullets drove Doc to shelter.

“Hey!” O’Melia wailed. “Where’d Jud get a gun so quick?”

Doc clipped: “Look out of the window Jud jumped through,”

Puzzled, O’Melia complied.

Jud lay on the hard earth under the opening. A long knife had been inserted expertly into his heart!