Doc Savage: The Miracle Menace (22 page)

“He’s not much of a conversationalist,” Spook Davis said. “I can’t get a peep out of him.”

Gulliver thoughtfully strained his white hair with his fingers—the hair seemed to contrast more weirdly than usual with his young, freckled and moderately handsome face and striking green eyes. His soaked clothing clung to his long body, making him seem thin instead of just wirily muscled.

“It’s crazy to think this is Christopher Columbus, discoverer of America,” he said.

“Pal, I’ve seen plenty of pictures of Columbus in history books,” Spook grunted, “and this staring zombie here sure looks like the genuine article.”

“What is wrong with him?”

Spook shrugged. “Search me.”

“You didn’t hit him with anything?”

“Not me. I just found him in that locker and pulled him out.”

The locker, across the forward end of the trailer, was there as a combination seat, bunk and storage space. The lid stood open, and in the locker a cotton comforter and a pillow made a pallet. Gull looked inside it, moved the pillow and comforter, but found nothing and came back to get down on his knees beside Christopher Columbus. He held Columbus’ thin wrist, then put it down.

“There’s a pulse,” he said.

He suddenly grabbed the stringy flesh of Columbus’ forearm and pinched it. The pinch must have been painful, but Columbus did not move, did not show in any way that he felt the pain.

“Could be he’s fallen into some kind of a spell,” Spook offered.

“Spells are for witches,” snapped Gull.

“Say!” gasped Spook. “Maybe he’s some kind of a living dead man. That would account for him being here about four hundred years after he is supposed to have died.”

“Don’t make up any ideas like that,” Gull advised Spook. “This thing is dizzy enough as it is.”

He stared at Christopher Columbus until he began to have an eerie feeling, an absurd impression that something must be amiss with a mentality—his own—which would for an instant entertain the idea that Christopher Columbus, discoverer of America, might be this fellow—alive four hundred years after his time.

“Hey!” Gull shook Columbus. “Can you hear me? Bat your eyes if you can.”

Columbus did not respond.

Gull went through the pockets of the dark burlap suit Columbus wore. They were empty. Gull rolled back the man’s eyelids to study the pupils of the silent, motionless figure. He tried the pulse again, then picked up one of the legs and let it fall; it fell as slackly as so much meat on a butcher shop scales.

“Drugged,” Gull decided. “That’s my guess.”

SPOOK DAVIS pulled in a great, shaky breath, wiped his forehead and began to grin ruefully. “Drugged, eh? Boy, this had me going. I was beginning to think he was maybe some kind of a half-alive mummy.”

“Where’s a rope?” Gull asked.

They had to hunt for the rope, and in the process came across a locker containing several suits of clothing, dark and plain, fashioned of coarse burlap. When they found the rope, a long thin line, Gull tossed turns of it about Christopher Columbus and began tying him securely. Columbus remained as quiet as death, with his deer-hued eyes wide open.

“Why do that?” Spook wanted to know.

“I’m no doctor. He may be faking, instead of drugged. We don’t want him running off on us.”

Gull returned to the clothing locker. He got out the garments, held them up to the light, exhibiting their plainness, the coarseness of the dark burlap clothing. He glanced at Spook Davis meaningly.

“I get it,” grunted Spook. “The Silent Saints wore plain stuff like that.”

That was what Gull was thinking. He and Spook Davis had seen three of the Silent Saints in a truck earlier in the night, and the Silent Saints had worn clothing such as this. Christopher Columbus, in the back of the truck at the time, had looked as helpless and trance-like as he seemed now, Gull thought grimly. But now he was here in this trailer, which probably meant that Cass had seized him, as he had seized Saint Pete. And there was a connection between Saint Pete and Christopher Columbus, for Saint Pete had refused to answer Gull’s questions, saying that to do so would mean Christopher Columbus would be killed.

“Columbus, here, is wearing another suit made of this gunnysack material,” Spook reminded. “Figure that means anything?”

Gull frowned. “The whole crowd of them may belong to the Silent Saints.”

They stripped off their wet clothing. Gull Greene’s body without clothes was more striking; the distinct presence of each muscle, the symmetrical blending of the whole, would have interested an artist. The legs were not too thin; the stomach was flat, with visible muscles. The body was that of a man under thirty, despite the snow white hair.

They put on the burlap clothing they had found. It was dry. They became, then, exactly alike but for one detail—Spook Davis’ hair was not prematurely white, but brick red.

They were looking at each other when Gull Greene seized the shotgun, knocked the door open and pitched outside. He landed on his knees and remained down, listening.

THE RAIN that remained made some sound on the roof and sides of the trailer; the water running off the vehicle and pouring down the gutters of the nearby street was even more noisy. The thunder seemed very far away now, and no lightning of any consequence had happened for some minutes.

Feet made slogging sounds in the soft vacant lot earth as someone tried to ease away in the night—the sound Gulliver had heard inside.

Gull cocked the shotgun. “Hold it!”

There was silence. Gull had transferred the flashlight to this suit, and he got it out, but did not turn it on. It might draw a bullet. He was tense, thinking what fools they had been to remain around the trailer. Cass and his men might come back for Columbus. And the State Highway Patrol still wanted Gull and Spook on suspicion of murdering old Box Daniels and the La Plata telegrapher. The officers might visit the trailer.

An unexcited, rather deep voice spoke.

“Let us trust this situation can be terminated without unpleasant consequences to myself, and explanations satisfactory to all concerned arrived at,” the voice said bombastically.

Gull whitened the speaker with the flashlight beam. The fellow was a big cone of flesh topped by unruly black hair, small twinkling eyes and a mouth which contained a bedraggled cigar. His chins flopped down over his collar, and he was using one hand to hold his belt in place over his enormous stomach. He lifted the other hand slowly to shade his eyes from the light.

Gull said, “Anyone else around, Braggs?”

“I sincerely hope not, and I do not think—”

“Come in out of the rain,” Gull invited tensely.

Harvell Braggs got into the trailer—the trailer grunted on its springs and swayed. Gull followed, then glanced about quickly, for Christopher Columbus was not in sight.

Spook Davis caught Gulliver’s eye, winked, and jerked his thumb slightly at the locker to indicate he had hidden Christopher Columbus in the place where they had found him.

“Young man,” said Harvell Braggs. “I am convinced that—” He stopped, blinked his small eyes at each of them in turn. Then he took the cigar out of his mouth.

“Gracious!” he exclaimed. “Which—what—you look just alike, and I must say I never saw such a resemblance, and if you will kindly tell me—”

“Greene.” Gulliver pointed at his own chest. “Now shoot your story.”

“I am convinced that—”

“How come you are not at your hotel, Braggs?”

“I shall explain that very simply by stating that I became suspicious of my casual acquaintance, Ivan Cass, and watched him. Cass left the hotel, and I followed him, with the result that I witnessed a terrific fight in the night, and became quite frightened, hiding out until a few moments ago before I dared venture close in an effort to find out—”

“Whoa—period.” Gulliver frowned at him. “What did you think you would learn?”

“Young man, I have told you my valuable Columbus relics were stolen. I am trying to find them. That, briefly, is the fact.”

GULLIVER, deciding to search the enormously fat man, tried to hand the shotgun to Spook Davis, who recoiled wildly and refused to take it, his lips apart and his eyes staring with his fear of firearms. Gull promised profanely, and at some length, to some day tie Spook Davis to a tree and fire off cannons until he was broken of gun-shyness. Then he put the shotgun down, got a butcher knife out of the galley as protection, and smacked his hands over Harvell Braggs’ ponderous person. He found no weapons.

Gull opened the seat-locker and pulled Christopher Columbus out.

“Know anything about this fellow?” he asked Braggs.

Harvell Braggs made clopping sounds with his round, full-lipped mouth before he made words come. His eyes seemed to try to leap out of their fleshy sockets.

“That’s the man who stole my Columbus antiques!” he yelled. “He’s the one! Remember what I told you? He claimed he was Christopher Columbus, discoverer of America!”

Harvell Braggs moved closer to the locker, hitched at his belt, and stood staring down at Columbus. He shut his eyes tightly for a moment. He grimaced. He used one hand to mash down his thick, skunk-black hair.

“I am a Columbus authority,” he said slowly. “And if it were not so utterly incredible, and undoubtedly would make you think I was quite unbalanced mentally, I should say this man here is the genuine Christopher Columbus.”

Chapter XXII

PANIC!

DURING THE WAIT for the unlovely Victorian home whose thick walls concealed the mechanical works of a time-traveling machine, Ham Brooks, Renny Renwick and Long Tom Roberts were forced to while away the hours.

Renny and Long Tom took it upon themselves to look into the condition of their damaged dirigible. The airship hung close to the ground, one side peppered with buckshot perforations. It was still buoyant, although barely so.

“Not so bad, after all,” Long Tom observed.

Renny nodded. “She’ll float once we patch her up.”

They climbed into the control gondola, which tilted like a ship’s deck in a rough sea. They found the patching kit, and Renny got to work. The gasbag interior was constructed in cells, like a honeycomb. Climbing into an inspection tunnel, Long Tom saw that the damaged cells could be reinflated, once patching was complete.

Ham Brooks stood watch. There being not much to do in the forest, boredom soon set in.

Fidgety due to the loss of his cane, Ham began searching for a length of hickory with which to cut a rough walking stick replacement. It would prove no substitute for the real article with its concealed blade, but the dapper lawyer did not know what to do with his manicured hands without it.

During his perambulations, Ham came upon a rock face with writing on it.

“Jove!” he breathed.

The writing was chiseled deep into granite, and appeared half-familiar. Dirt and erosion of wind and rain had softened the original incisions, so the excited lawyer used his new stick to dig at it until the lines stood out more clearly in the wan light.

Ham scanned the writing once, then again with eyes growing in wonder, and suddenly turned tail, running as fast as he could sprint.

When he arrived back at the slowly inflating airship, Ham was shouting.

“You won’t believe it! I can’t believe it! But it must be true. I read it with my own—”

Before Ham could get it all out, a sharp gust of air hit him in the face and the atmosphere was suddenly full of heat and smoke and confusion. Startled crows shot out of the trees.

For the blood-colored Victorian monstrosity had returned to its base, back end blazing like a bonfire.

Ham’s eyes were aghast.

Then to his immense relief, figures began tumbling off the smoldering wraparound porch.

Ham began counting them. Johnny came first, dragging what appeared to be Monk Mayfair. Then a third man stumbled off. Hope flared in the elegant barrister’s heart, but almost immediately died.

The new arrival was no one he recognized.

“Doc! Where is Doc!” called Ham.

Johnny turned, yelled sharply, “Help put out this infernal blaze.”

The others had come running up by this time. Seeing the conflagration, they started for the fleeing figures.

Quick-thinking as ever, Ham snapped, “Wait!”

“For what?” demanded Renny, hesitating. “The place to burn down?”

“If we trip the electric eye,” Ham warned, “the house will return to the past! That is why.”

“So?” flared Long Tom.

Ham shook his hickory stick angrily. “We have to put out that fire before that can happen. Doc is trapped in the past!”

“It’s true!” Johnny put in.

Renny grunted. His long face grew stricken. The wisdom of Ham’s warning had struck him hard.

While they foundered, physically and mentally, Johnny tried to get everyone organized.

“Find water. We have to save that building!”

Renny groaned like a stricken mastodon. “The nearest water is over a mile away, and we have no buckets!”

The house continued burning, but miraculously, it did not vanish.

“Electric eye mechanism must have malfunctioned, or something,” Renny said dully.

Ham was the one to come up with a solution to the blazing calamity.

“Our dirigible! It carries auxiliary water ballast.”

The dapper lawyer rushed for the airship, which was floating tethered to a tree, and got the engines going. Renny and Long Tom undid the grappling hook anchor, and the dirigible lifted free, motors moaning.

Ham guided the gasbag until it stood hovering over the roof, which was of slate and therefore not burning. He grasped a lever, releasing a cascade of sheeting water.

It struck the corner that was most fully engulfed and, miracle of miracles, quenched the worst of the greedy flames in one watery swoop.

Rushing up, the others began beating the smoldering siding with their coats.

It took a great deal of furious action, but they got the remaining flames whipped.

STANDING around, eyes dull with shock, faces blackened by soot, they regarded the travesty of a house that had emerged from the past in flames.