DOC SAVAGE: THE INFERNAL BUDDHA (The Wild Adventures of Doc Savage) (17 page)

Dang stared. “Poison! Who said anything about any poison?”

“Easily recognizable by its coloration. Never mind that. The concoction has the property of a crude anesthetic. The snake is simply sleeping off a dose.”

“So it wasn’t afraid to fight you after all?”

“You will have to ask the snake about that,” Doc replied dryly.

Dang Mi looked angry enough to chew nails and spit out corkscrews. “Around these parts,” he gritted, “my dang word is law. You are makin’ of yourself an outlaw by defying me.”

“Your men are not as loyal as they once were,” Doc pointed out.

“I think I will shoot me somebody,” Dang decided, giving his trousers a violent hitch. “That’s it. I’ll shoot me somebody and maybe that will cure what ails me.”

Turning to a pair of cut-throats, he barked, “Bring me that bucket-fisted palooka of a landlubber.”

Renny Renwick was produced forthwith. His sunburned hands hung at his sides like a pair of well-cured hams.

“If I had a plank,” Dang announced, “I would make you walk it. So we’ll have to make do. Blindfold?”

The towering engineer shook his lugubrious head.

Dang asked, “Last cigarette?”

“Save it for your own hanging,” Renny returned dourly.

Dang continued, “The reason I’m executin’ you is this: You got away from me. I don’t like that. Not one bit. So I gotta make an example of you to keep my men in line.”

Renny made an elaborate business of expectorating onto the ground in front of Dang Mi’s boots.

Then the long-faced engineer was violently turned around so that his broad back faced the pit.

Dang angrily kicked dirt onto the wet patch. Holstering his pistols, he set himself like an old-fashioned Western badman.

“When you say, ‘draw,’ ” growled Dang, “I will slap leather and ventilate you.”

“Holy cow! What makes you think I’ll say draw?”

“You just did!” Dang chortled, and out came his revolvers. He fired each in unison.

The gun blasts were loud, jarring, coming as unexpectedly as they did. Gunsmoke gushed forth in surprising quantity.

Two bullets struck Renny Renwick in the chest and back he toppled.

The unprepared engineer landed awkwardly on the nape of his neck and began coughing. Crimson spurted out with each expelling of breath.

Above, Monk and the others came off the ground and had to be beaten into submission. The hairy chemist flung long arms about, bowling down assorted buccaneers, before giving up at the points of sharp
krises
. He erected his hairy hands over his head.

As Renny seemingly coughed out his life, Doc Savage glided over to him.

There wasn’t much the bronze man could do, hampered as he was by the tightly-tied boxing gloves. He touched Renny on the head, the shoulder, and seemed to offer words of comfort. These were not heard outside of the pit.

Sooner than it seemed possible, the big engineer gave what sounded like a final convulsive shudder and his heaving chest subsided. All respiration seemed to cease.

Doc Savage stood up. He fixed Dang Mi with his golden gaze.

“That was murder,” he accused in a deep tone like a struck gong.

“Naw. It was an execution. And what would you expect? I’m dang piratical, I am.”

The bronze man’s metallic eyes were strangely stark, as if the irises had congealed the way ice freezes up in winter.

Seeing that look, Dang Mi took an involuntary step back from the pit rim. There was something terrible in those orbs—so terrible that Dang abruptly changed his mind about calling for Monk Mayfair to be shot next.

“Bring those two iron-headed half–breeds,” he ordered. “Since we don’t have the box and they don’t know where it is, we don’t need ’em anymore. Might as well scrag them, too.”

WITH BRUTAL EFFICIENCY, Mark and Mary Chan were hauled to their feet and frog-marched over to the edge of the ravine that served as an execution pit.

Mary walked with measured steps, testifying to the fact that her feet had not been bound as an infant, as was the usual Chinese custom with female babies.

Mark did his best to look brave, but his eyes kept switching to the face of his sister, who now appeared to be doomed.

“Very sorry, Mary,” he murmured.

“Not your fault, Mark,” she whispered back.

They were stood at a spot not far from the place where Renny Renwick had been cruelly gunned down.

“Any last words?” Dang asked, holstering in his pistols.

“Just two,” said Mark.

“Only two,” added Mary.

“Wah Chan,” said Mark and Mary in unison.

“Say again?”

“You heard us,” said Mark firmly.

“Wah Chan will hear of this,” Mary warned.

“Don’t think he won’t,” asserted Mark.

Dang Mi put out a belligerent jaw. “What do you two know of Wah Chan?”

“What do children know of their father?” returned Mary.

“You funnin’ me? Wah Chan is the biggest generalissimo who ever took on the Japanese. You say he is your daddy?”

“Not just saying,” Mary sniffed.

“It is fact,” insisted Mark.

This gave Dang Mi something of a pause. He licked his lips. He shifted his feet back and forth. He winced as he put too much weight down on the foot that Monk Mayfair had crushed.

“Wah Chan has a mighty fierce reputation,” he ruminated. “But he’s up in Manchuria. Manchukuo, the Japs call it now. If the Emperor’s boys didn’t hang him for a bandit by this time. Wah Chan don’t worry me none. We ain’t never likely to go over into his neck of the Asian woods.”

Having decided that, Dang set himself.

“Guess I can’t repeat my quick-draw trick on you, too,” he said in a disappointed tone. “So I reckon I’ll just slap leather whenever I feel like it.”

Mary closed her eyes and seemed to go away within her thoughts.

Mark bravely stepped in front of his sister, and stuck out his chest, as if it were bulletproof.

At that propitious moment, the pirate detachment assigned to fetch a live tiger put in a boisterous return appearance.

There were five of them and they carried a snarling bundle of striped fury in a big wad of Manila netting. The moist scarlet scars covering their arms and bare legs told part of the tale.

“Pak Belang!”
they cried proudly, using a popular nickname for the local species of tiger. Translated, it meant “Uncle Stripes.”

Dang’s broad face lit up like a child’s at Christmas. “Well, well, looks like we have our tiger.”

One of the arrivals boasted, “We dig two pits. Hide in one, place raw meat in other. Wait until
harimau
climb in. Drop net into other pit. Break down dirt wall in between and capture him. Very upset
harimau.”

Harimau
was the Malay word for tiger.

Dang Mi began grinning from ear to ear. His hands came away from the butts of his holstered pistols.

“Just carry that angry critter over and pitch him in, net and all.”

The tiger was duly dumped overboard. It landed in a tangle of netting. The striped feline fury began fighting his way out. It was not easy. Like myriad fishhooks, its unsheathed claws kept getting caught in the Manila seine.

Ignoring the Chans, Dang wandered up to the edge of the pit and peered down.

“Did you hear that, you bronze devil? Let’s see you fight your way out of this predicament.” Lifting his voice, he cried out, “I wager five hundred Hongkong dollars against the life of Doc Savage!”

The betting began in earnest. When it was settled, the pirates gathered around the pit to watch the festivities—that being what they considered the bloodthirsty event to come.

“Just to make it more interestin’,” Dang decided, “here come some reinforcements.”

Dang gave the Chans an ungentle shove and in they toppled.

Doc Savage moved to their side. He wore only his whipcord pants.

“Stay here in this pocket,” he directed.

“We have no chance against that beast,” Mary said. She looked scared,
was
scared. Brave in the face of a bullet, she seemed to lose all courage when confronted with the imminent prospect of being mauled by a man-eater.

All eyes were on the tiger in question. It used its gleaming fangs and its razor claws to worry the netting. Gradually, it succeeded, shredding the weave.

Crawling out, the feral feline began to pace angrily, tail twitching. Its savage mouth opened in a snarl, whiskers bristling. A guttural growl escaped its white-furred throat.

As tigers go, it was no Hercules. Either it was a runt specimen, or the animal was not yet fully grown. That did not mean that it was not dangerous. The contrary. This particular tiger was only a measure larger that an American cougar. Cougars are notorious man-killers, and this sinuously-lean specimen looked as ferocious as any full-grown Bengal tiger out of India.

The tiger surveyed his surroundings, ears twitching angrily. It could be seen that one of its upper fangs had lost its dagger-like point—no doubt in combat with another animal. Amid its profuse stripes, healed scars showed as fleshy furrows where no fur grew.

No one doubted but that this particular tiger was a bantam brawler. He had earned his stripes, natural and otherwise.

DOC SAVAGE set himself before Mark and Mary Chan. Renny Renwick’s prostrate form lay behind them, unmoving.

The big engineer had shown no sign of life since his last, and seemingly final, convulsion.

The tiger made a slow reconnoiter of his end of the pit, discovered no way out, and turned his sullen attention their way. Eyes as yellow as citrine surveyed them coldly.

Leaning down, Dang Mi laughed. “After he’s done with you, the others go in. That tiger will feast for a week or longer on your miserable flesh.”

Doc ignored him.

“Still time to talk turkey, Savage,” the pirate chief reminded.

Doc looked up, and said something that could not be clearly heard.

Dang blinked stupidly. “What?”

Doc repeated himself, but a hoarse snarling coming from the tiger blurred his words.

Dang drew closer to the rim. He cupped a hand behind his disfigured ear. “Say again?”

Abruptly, Doc Savage leapt. There was no preliminary coiling or tensing of leg muscles. He simply jumped up from a standing position, and gained the rim of the pit.

His goal was not escape, however. It was Dang Mi’s legs. Hands hampered by boxing gloves, Doc gathered both calves in his metallic arms. Gravity took care of the rest.

Doc and Dang fell in a pile. Dang landed atop the bronze man and despite his complete surprise at the sudden turn in his fortunes, the pirate leader was no slouch when it came to preserving his skin. Kicking dirt at Doc’s eyes, he made for the ladder.

Renny Renwick lashed out with a stony-knuckled block of a fist and Dang fell on his face, and after that looked dazed.

“I was waiting for something just like that,” rumbled big-fisted Renny, coming to his feet. His face grew so mournful that only close friends would know he was beaming internally.

“You are not dead?” gasped Mary Chan needlessly.

“Bulletproof vest,” said Renny, tapping his chest. “I bit my tongue when I was shot, drawing blood. Doc whispered for me to put on a show, like I was dying. Dang bought it all, hook, line and sinker—the stinker.”

Ringing the pit edge, the assembled pirates let out a roar. Some appeared to be cheering on the tiger. Dang had not made many friends among his wicked crew.

Hastily, the ladder was withdrawn, stranding Dang Mi. Why, was a matter of conjecture. But the inspiration had come from one of the pirate band. Perhaps one who possessed aspirations to become the next Scourge of the South China Sea.

Pacing, the impatient tiger began to stalk them.

Doc Savage padded forward to meet it. When confronting danger, the bronze man believed in the direct approach.

The tiger had the same idea. He slinked forward, baring discolored ivory teeth. White whiskers erected on either side of his black, white and orange dappled face.

Doc Savage took up a boxing stance. His leather gloves made both fists look as absurdly large as Renny’s. The man-eater appeared unimpressed. It released a throaty growl, low and prolonged.

Without any further ado, the feline pounced! There was no advance warning. It simply shot off its stringy hind legs.

Spectators roared their excitement, thrust wavy blades high over their heads.

Braced on muscular legs, Doc appeared set to meet the tiger’s charge. At the last possible moment, the bronze giant ducked, permitting the surprised animal’s own momentum to carry it over Doc’s head, and away. Its passing stirred bronze hair.

The tiger rolled as it landed, snarled, gathered its cinnamon-colored anatomy together. It came on again, running hard.

Leaving the ground, the feline stretched itself out for its full length, bared fangs lunging for Doc’s throat. Its fierce eyes were fixed on the bronze man’s throbbing jugular vein.

Doc dodged, blocking with his gloved fists, and so avoided the snapping fangs. The tiger went sailing on past, assisted by a helpful kick to its hindmost portion. It landed in a black-streaked ball, rolled wildly, and found his footing, claws extending from splayed paws.

The crowd howled its utmost. Some whistled lustily. Money changed hands.

Tiger expressions are not easily read. But the look on this specimen’s face began to express feline frustration. Its fierce head swept around, ears twitching, amber eyes searching for fresh prey.

During the commotion, Monk and Ham had leapt into the pit and took up positions around the Chans. Monk’s furry fists were bunched and ready. He looked ready to jump into the fray. Noticing this, Doc gestured for him to keep his distance.

Unexpectedly, the tiger made for the dazed figure of Dang Mi, the pirate. Dang gave a bleat of fear, and began clawing the clay pit walls in a frenzy.

Stepping up boldly, Doc intercepted the tiger before he could seize upon other, more vulnerable prisoners. He caught the tiger’s active gaze, met it with his own golden regard.

This time, the agitated animal employed feline cunning. It began circling his prey, eying the bronze giant all the while. Doc shifted about, stepping in similar circles to match its movements, always keeping his foe before him, careful to stay between the tiger and the other prisoners.