Читать книгу The Golden Peril: A Doc Savage Adventure - Harold A. Davis - Страница 4

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The vultures knew a feast awaited them. They hung almost motionless in the gray, ominous sky. Their beady eyes stared greedily down into the deep canyon that lay beneath them.

The canyon was gloomy as a grave. Its walls rose sheer and straight for an interminable distance. Bowlders and runty trees lined its sides. A small stream droned a mournful dirge in the center. Except for the dirge of that stream there was no sound.

But death waited there!

Only the vultures from above could have seen the men-vultures below. They were huddled behind bowlders. The half darkness of the canyon combined with the khaki they wore to make them almost invisible. Fully two-score men were there.

They were of almost every race and nationality. But they were alike in the greed that shone in their eyes—and in the modern instruments of murder they carried.

A faint sound came from the far end of this canyon. The dim figure of a man appeared in the distance, stood motionless for a moment, then vanished.

There was a sudden tenseness among the hidden men. Weapons were moved cautiously.

“Be quiet. Do not move until I give the command.”

The order was given softly, but there was a chill note in the voice that brought instant obedience. The man who had spoken was not large, but there was a look of utter ruthlessness on his copper-tinted features and in his glacier-cold eyes. His shoulders were broad, his frame powerful. He wore the insignia of a general.

The aid at his side spoke in a whisper: “The trap has been set well, my general.”

“Si. Soon the jaws of that trap will close.” The general’s Spanish was guttural, as if he were speaking a language still partly unfamiliar to him. “But care must be taken. Those we await have keen eyes.”

Even as he spoke, more figures came into view at the far end of the canyon. Their eyes searched the scene before them, then one raised an arm in signal. A donkey train moved around a bend.

Scouts were out ahead. Other tall men moved beside the heavily loaded beasts of burden. Still others brought up the rear.

A faint fire kindled in the general’s eyes, and his lips made sucking sounds.

“Soon that will be ours!” he breathed fiercely.

The men escorting the donkey train were unusual in appearance. They were tall, with thick shoulders and powerful muscles. Almost copper-colored, they wore a short mantle over their shoulders, a network of leather which had projecting ends. They wore broad girdles, of a dark blue and leggings fashioned like football shin guards.

Those in the lead carried modern rifles. The others were armed only with spears and short clubs bearing vicious, razor-edged flakes of stone.

Slowly, they advanced. A few were chanting a weird song, utterly unaware of the terror and death that soon was to strike.

“Another sun and we shall reach Blanco Grande,” said one.

“Then we will have fulfilled another task for Doc Savage,” his companion replied. “It has been long since we last saw the bronze man. I wish he would come again.”

“He is busy, but he will visit us again some day. We shall see him if we are patient,” rejoined the first speaker.

But he was wrong in at least part of his statement. None of those with the donkey train ever were to see Doc Savage again. At that moment, they were passing squarely between the khaki-clad men concealed on either side of the trail.

The general would bark only one word, but that word was to start a chain of circumstances that was to bring many deaths; that was to reach out to New York, where Doc Savage had his headquarters; that was to bring the bronze man’s aids into the fray; that was to test to the utmost the skill of Doc Savage and his five friends, experienced as they were in battling evil and injustice.

“Fire!” roared the general.

Instantly, the quiet of the canyon was shattered by the murder-roar of guns. Khaki-clad men reared up from behind bowlders with automatic rifles. A rain of lead poured from those rifles into the ranks of the guards with the donkey train.

The guards were brave. The leaders brought up their guns, tried to reply to the merciless hail of death. Then they went down, almost cut in two by lead.

The others hurled their spears and dived for the temporary safety of the rocks. The heavily laden donkeys snorted, burst into a panicky run. Khaki-clad figures leaped toward the trail and barred their path.

Shrill, pain-stricken cries came from the doomed guards. One grunted with satisfaction as his spear drove through the body of an attacker, only to die a moment later with a bullet through his brain.

Crimson stained the cold waters of the creek. It became literally a river of blood. The crashing roar of high-powered guns filled the canyon with thunderous echoes.

“Let none escape! Kill them all!” roared the general. The glacier-cold of his eyes had melted. The orbs were now red with a killing lust.

His men needed no urging. Relentlessly, their bullets were hunting down fleeing figures. The guards were dropping on all sides.

“We are lost!” moaned one of these. It was he who had first spoken on the trail.

“Doc Savage should know,” his companion said throatily. There was a terrible wound in his chest. Red-flecked foam was on his lips. Already, his eyes were glazing. “Y-you should try to get word to him, Zum. I—I——” He became limp.

His companion eased behind the rocks on his stomach. His skin was almost the color of those bowlders. Bullets whined over him suddenly. Zum rolled over and lay still. The death blast moved behind him, caught a guard who had risen to his knees to hurl a knife.

Cautiously, Zum wiggled on a short distance. Again he lay still. Then he moved ahead once more.

Exultant cries of victory were coming from the sides of the canyon. Khaki-clad men were rising to their feet. The steady roar of guns had ceased. Now there was only an occasional shot from a revolver held close to some wounded guard’s head.

Zum neared a turn in the canyon. He leaped to his feet. With the speed of a racing hare, he rounded that turn. An automatic rifle burst into life. Hot lead played a tattoo on rocks. Slugs ricochetted and howled. One nicked the running man’s right shoulder just before he vanished from view.

“Get him! Don’t let him escape!” the general shouted viciously.

Khaki-clad figures raced in pursuit. When they reached the bend in the canyon, Zum had disappeared. He was running with all his speed. His mighty lungs were drawing in great gulps of breath, his feet were pounding tirelessly.

“He escaped,” reported the man who had fired the automatic rifle.

“Fool!” The general’s face was livid. He swung a fist, knocked the man to the ground. “You know what happens to men who fail! You know what The Leader does!”

The man on the ground groveled. His face became a pasty color. His eyes rolled wildly. “The—the hand of death!” he half screamed. “Don’t let it get me!”

The general’s eyes were scornful. “You deserve to die. Too much is at stake to permit errors. But this time I shall let you live. I can stop that pig of a runner before he gets word to Doc Savage.”

Bodies of the slain guards were lying on all sides. Some were horribly mutilated by lead. Of all who had been alive only five minutes before, only Zum still lived. The vultures were swooping low.

The general paid no attention to the bodies. Callously, he stepped on them, as he walked toward the still-trembling, frightened donkeys. His men, also, had leaped toward those donkeys. With anxious, feverish hands they were tearing loose the covering on the packs the donkeys carried.

“Gold!” one breathed softly.

“Much gold!” said a second.

“Retie those packs!” snapped the general. His lips were working with quick anger. “This is only a drop in the bucket compared with what we will have later.”

Unwillingly, the covers were restored. The khaki-clad men looked at the packs with greedy, cunning eyes.

“This must be taken to Blanco Grande. You shall be its escort. Do not try to escape with it!” the general went on harshly.

One of the men shivered slightly. Escape! That would be impossible! Well he remembered the scarred, evil shape of the mountainous country over which they had been flown to reach this point of ambush. And they had dropped from those planes by parachute. There was no way of returning except to walk. They could have walked to this destination, but that would have meant loss of time. Other troops of gold-hungry men would meet them when they left the mountains.

The men had to do as they were ordered.

“This will be a blow to Doc Savage,” the general’s aide said craftily. “Are you not afraid?”

The general sneered. “Why be afraid of him?”

“But I have heard of many marvelous exploits of his,” said the aide. “He is dangerous to evil-doers. He has done almost uncanny things.”

For a moment, a faint flicker of worry passed over the general’s hard face. Then it was gone. “Do not worry,” he jeered. “The Leader knows how to handle him. Besides, Doc Savage will know nothing of this—until it is too late.”

“And when will that be?” There was a cunning, shrewd look in the aide’s eyes.

“When we have launched our plans. When the entire world is rocked. When power such as men seldom dreamed of——” The general broke off. One hand strayed to the heavy gun at one hip.

“It could not be that you desire too much information, that you are a spy, could it, mi amigo?” he queried softly.

The aide took a step back. “No—no!” he cried. “I am just naturally curious. That is all.”

“Curious!” A peculiar expression flared in the general’s glacier-cold eyes. The gun came to his hand, lifted. “We do not encourage curiosity in our ranks, mi amigo.”

The other jumped back, turned to run.

Blam!

The general’s gun spoke once. A section of the other’s skull vanished. He was dead.

“I think you were not a spy, and that you were just curious,” the general said. “However”—he whirled on the other khaki-clad men—“let that be a warning. You will take my orders. You will be paid in gold—as long as you obey those orders. You will be paid in bullets if you become curious. In bullets by me, or paid by The Leader in another way.”

The khaki-clad men were silent. They had heard how “The Leader” paid. Hard-bitten, vicious as they were, they showed fear.

“Now take the gold in. I have a plane waiting for me near here. I fly back to Blanco Grande. The man who escaped must be stopped at all costs. No word goes to Doc Savage.”

Zum didn’t know about the plane. He did know that no one could catch him on foot. Through winding canyons and deep gorges he ran at a steady, tireless pace. His feet ate up the miles.

Zum’s heart was sad. Many of his friends had died in that murderous ambush. Hope of seeing those murderers brought to justice was one of the things that spurred him on. For he knew Doc Savage would act.

The gold that had been stolen had been on its way to Doc Savage. The men who had been guarding it were Mayans. All the world knew of Doc Savage and his men, and of their unceasing fight on evil. Until now, few had known where the money came from that financed that fight.

It really was a legacy left Doc by his father. It came from the Valley of the Vanished, where the bronze man had found pure-blooded Mayans, long lost from the outside world.

When Doc had left the Valley of the Vanished, he had arranged with King Chaac, chief of the Mayans, to listen in on a radio on every seventh day. When his funds ran low, Doc would send a call for gold. Mayans would take it to Blanco Grande, the capital of Hidalgo, where the president, Carlos Avispa, would see that it was sent on to Doc.

Dusk was falling as Zum came in sight of Blanco Grande. The mountains long since had been left behind. Zum’s pace had slowed. He was weary. His face bore long lines of strain.

But steadily he went on, entered the narrow streets of the capital of Hidalgo. Zum had been there before with gold trains for Doc. He knew where the radio towers were. He knew that in some way it was possible to send messages from there that would reach Doc Savage. He turned that way.

Had he not been so weary, Zum might have noticed the unusual activity in the ordinarily sleepy Central American city. Many soldiers were about. They were fully armed and in small detachments, moving with evident purpose.

Zum did not notice. He had only one thought, only one driving motive: He alone was alive to let Doc Savage know what had occurred. He intended to fulfill that trust.

A lone operator was on duty in the shack beneath the radio towers. He had difficulty in understanding what Zum was saying. The Mayan was breathing hard, his words came in gasps. His Spanish was not good.

“Señor Clark Savage!” Zum blurted at last.

The operator understood that. His eyes became wide. He had heard of Doc Savage.

“Gold stolen! Mayans killed!” Zum panted. “Send message!”

The operator stood as if paralyzed for a moment, his brain trying to digest what he had heard.

Blam!

A pistol shot came loudly. Zum fell to the floor, twitching. A short, heavy-set man with glacier-cold eyes and wearing a general’s uniform stepped into the radio shack, gun in hand.

“Don’t send that message!” he ordered crisply.

“But—but——” The operator’s mouth dropped. “It—it’s to Doc Savage, general. I—I’ve got to send it.”

His voice ended almost in a scream at what he saw in the general’s face. He made a dive for the radio key.

The gun came up. Once again it spoke. The operator died, the radio key untouched.

A faint grin cut the general’s face. He patted the gun in his hand.

“Unless Doc Savage is a clairvoyant, I do not think he will ever receive that message,” he said dryly. “And he couldn’t hear those shots in New York.”

Two men came in then at the general’s barked command and gathered up the dead bodies and wiped up the blood. Some might wonder what had happened to the radio operator that he should disappear. But none would ever know just what had taken place. It would remain a mystery.