Spider (34 page)

Wentworth lifted his head and grimly leveled his automatic. He realized that the Indians were moving rapidly to surround him. They would close in slowly until sure that the
Spider
was dead. He had eleven cartridges and there were easily thirty Indians . . . !

Chapter Fourteen
In The Bat's Trap

THE FEELING OF DESPAIR that had never been far from Wentworth's heart since the first battle against the Bat Man surged over him again, but it received a sudden check. Unbidden, without preliminary, the thought rose in Wentworth's mind:
Nita is not dead!
And there was a reason for the thought. The Bat Man had not had time to go to more than one bat depot—and the bats of that group must be kept hungry for the night's attack! No, Nita had not yet been fed to the vampires.

With the thought, Wentworth felt a flood of new vigor come into him. If Nita lived, he would save her, despite this ambush of poison darts. There was one way . . . They would not begin to close in until they had completed the circle about him and there was yet an opening of twenty feet in the rear. Wentworth made no move toward it. Instead, he rapidly began to wriggle out of the parachute harness from which he had sliced the shrouds, rather than discard it in his need for speed. He gouged out a deep hollow in the ground, set the butt of his gun in it and packed the earth down tightly about it. He fastened an end of the parachute harness, whose straps he had cut to stretch it to the greatest possible length, to the trigger of the automatic and the other end he held in his hand as he crawled straight toward where the Bat Man had fallen!

When he had gone a few feet, he pulled gently on the harness until the automatic fired. He smiled grimly. He was giving the poison darts a target, but it was a false one.

The rain of darts increased behind him as he crawled to the attack. There were four shots in the automatic. They lasted him twelve feet, half the distance to the Bat Man. He tried then to drag the empty pistol to him but the strap slipped loose and he was compelled to abandon it. To return there through the fire of the Indians would be fatal. Besides, the circle was complete and the blowgun men were beginning to close in. Unarmed, he pushed rapidly on.

The innocuous seeming pop of the deadly guns sounded strange against the background of panic screams out there where the bats were thick. Through the middle of sound, he caught, too, a distant rumble as of a train. Were police coming by rail? But that was foolish . . . He realized abruptly that the sound came from the switchback where cars were running wild, empty, about the tracks, abandoned by the operators who had fled, or been killed by the bats. The scent of bat musk was heavy all about him.

Already, Wentworth could make out the black hump that marked where the Bat Man lay. The sight tightened his mouth, narrowed his eyes to a steely hardness. He was only six feet away— now only three! He hunched himself up on tense thighs, hurled himself bodily upon the middle of the wings! He fell on fabric. A metal brace prodded him in the side, but that was all.
The Bat Man was gone!

The sound of Wentworth's leap had not passed unnoticed. While he lay, half-dazed by his fall, an Indian called in a nasal shout that was a challenge. Wentworth could not answer. He did not know the language. A bat-like squeak in the wrong tone might be equally betraying. But there was a way out. He thrust himself to one side of the brace which evidently supported the wings, got to the edge of the queer contraption and crawled underneath it. His lips were smiling. Even the light fabric of the wings would be enough to protect him from the darts—if the Indians dared to fire at the spot where their master had been!

Wentworth began to wriggle along flat on his stomach, carrying the wings with him. His acute ears heard the advance of the blowguns as their popping grew louder. When they were almost upon him, he halted. When they passed, he began again the slow crawling. Fifteen feet outside of their circle, he slid out from under the wings and, bent double, raced away on silent feet.

Where had the Bat Man gone? Wentworth found himself sprinting toward the high, spidery structure of the switchback. There, he could escape the Indians.

Under its shadows he crept, and crouching there, he became aware again of that strange, over-powering scent of bat musk which he had detected earlier in the night. He twisted his head about, sniffing like a dog. Unless he was fooled by the wind, the scent was stronger toward his left. Without hesitation, Wentworth crept in that direction. The Bat Man was armed and the
Spider
was empty-handed, but it would have taken more than that to turn him back tonight!

The scent was stronger now. Wentworth crouched low, seeking to outline his enemy against the sky but there were only the slits of the switchback. He pushed on. The scent grew fainter. He pivoted back again, frowning in perplexity, angry in frustration. Then there was an infinitesimal squeak, as of leather on wood, almost directly above him. He tilted back his head and saw, outlined like a spider in a squared web of wood against the sky, a man climbing among the braces of the switchback.

Strangling down the cry of triumph that rose in his throat, Wentworth sprang to a horizontal brace just above his head, and swung up, clambered to his feet. The structure was built with high verticals and horizontals like the floors of a house. Then in each oblong made by the crossing of uprights and crosspieces, there were X-braces, stretched diagonally from corner to corner. It was a simple matter to walk up one of these diagonals, using the crosspieces as a handrail. Wentworth clambered swiftly in the wake of the little man who was making panicky speed for the top.

Wentworth recognized the Bat Man's plan. At the top of the first incline toward which the man climbed, the cars moved at a snail's pace. It would be an easy matter for him to climb in and sail over the runways to safety before Wentworth could overtake him. There was one defect in his plan. He could get out only at the spot where he had entered, on the long initial incline up which the cars were drawn by a chain—unless one of his henchmen could operate the brakes which ordinarily stopped the cars, but which were independent of the cars themselves.

The Bat Man was half-way to the top now, climbing like a monkey among the cross-braces. Wentworth was fully thirty feet below him. He abandoned walking the X-braces and started scrambling up them like a ladder, X-brace to crosspiece, to X-brace again. It was dizzying work and every second increased the distance above the ground and the peril. Out there in the darkness, the flying cars squealed on curves or rumbled down inclines that were almost perpendicular. At the bottom of the incline, a car was beginning its clanking rise to the peak which the fugitive sought.

Wentworth realized with a despairing cry that the Bat Man would reach the top in time to board the car, and that he himself could not. He threw a sharp, estimating glance about as he fought upward at top speed. The rails of the first dip were only about half the distance of the top from him, and to walk the crosspieces to it would take only seconds. The string of cars, four hitched together, would be gaining the momentum for its entire run there, but the point opposite Wentworth was less than half way down the swoop. It would be accelerating—not yet at its peak speed. . . .

Grimly, swiftly as always, the
Spider
made his choice. Already, he was footing it along the cross-piece. He reached the track before the car arrived at the top of the incline where the Bat Man was even now scrambling. While there was yet time, Wentworth scrambled ten feet higher along the track. Then he crouched and waited for the car. There was a railing here and he poised on its top, which would be barely on a level with the side of the car seats. It would be a perilous undertaking!

Wentworth's jaw locked rigidly, the muscles in his thighs tautened. . . . The cars had reached the crest. The Bat Man scrambled in and, with a rising roar, the train plunged down the rise toward where Wentworth waited.

The Bat Man saw him, raised up in the front seat with his revolver in his hand and a despairing cry in his throat. There would be a split-second when he was directly opposite Wentworth—when he could shoot at him at point-blank range. He would, at that time, be moving at about thirty miles an hour. Wentworth estimated his chances, crouching there on the rail, and his lips drew back from his teeth. The cars roared toward him . . . !

Wentworth was not standing broadside to the cars, but was facing the same direction in which they were traveling. He had no way of estimating the velocity of his leap, but it could not reasonably be more than fifteen miles an hour. That difference was enough to make it damnably dangerous. Added to that was the fact that his footing, both in jumping and landing, was extremely uncertain. He did not need that threatening revolver to make it a life-and-death attempt. He must spring into the air at exactly the right heart-beat of time. There must be no hesitation, no slip-up.

And yet, as the car hurtled toward him, Wentworth flung his laughter into the air—reckless, taunting laughter. The Bat Man leaned forward, stretching the revolver out before him. He was almost upon Wentworth.

"Look out, fool!" Wentworth shouted.

His cry was at just the right moment. It caught the Bat Man squeezing the trigger—the front of the car almost level with Wentworth. At the same instant, Wentworth jumped. If he could, he meant to hammer the Bat Man to the floor with the bludgeon of his body. But he miscalculated—either his own speed or that of the train—for his feet caught on the back of the cushion of the third car. The blow smacked his feet out from under him and hurled him, headfirst, into the seat of the fourth car.

The car whirled sickeningly around a curve, jamming Wentworth over against one side of the seat; then it straightened out for another dive. The rush of wind helped to clear Wentworth's brain and he thrust stiff arms into the cushions, shoved himself erect. He was almost thrown out as the car plunged again. He peered ahead, saw the glint of a revolver and pulled his head down as the bullet whined.

The
Spider
still did not have complete control over his body, but there was no time to be lost. The moments when he could crawl forward to the attack were terribly limited, for the track led under the cross-braces of other tracks and to stand up would mean a broken neck. Likewise, the sidesway of the U-turns would hurl him off by centrifugal force.

Nevertheless, Wentworth set himself grimly to climb forward. He jerked the cushion from the seat and, when next there was an instant of clear overhead, he hurled it forward against the blast of the wind and threw himself head first into the third car of the train.

The cushion did not reach the first car, but it had made the Bat Man duck and before he could shoot, Wentworth was under cover— one car nearer the front! He thought that the next cushion he hurled would reach its goal.

Already, the train was starting the last and lowest circuit of the structure. Wentworth realized that he would have no further chance to advance on his enemy until a new circuit was started. Meantime, the Bat Man would have the long, slow climb up the incline in which to escape. His hands clenched with determination as he crouched behind the protection of the car's front. If the Bat Man attempted to get off this car, he would have the
Spider
on his back!

"If you jump out," Wentworth called to him, "I'm going to push you off. I won't have to touch you. A cushion. . . ."

Wentworth did not again lift his head above the seats, but he leaned far over to the side and peered toward the front car. He saw a foot thrust out cautiously. He started to shout a warning to the man to get back, but shut his mouth grimly and held his cushion ready. The Bat Man's foot reached out farther. They were almost to the top and he must hurry if he was to get away before that. Wentworth saw the foot lift a little and hurled the cushion.

The heavy combination of wood and leather struck the walkway beside the track just as the Bat Man stepped down, hit the same place. The Bat Man screamed, lost his footing and fell flat. He rolled against the side of the car, bounced toward the low guard railing. Wentworth sprang to his feet to hurl himself upon the man, but at that moment the car gave a lurch and surged over the top of the incline!

Wentworth cursed, peered back and saw the Bat Man roll onto the tracks which the car had just quitted, then the train carrying Wentworth whipped down into that first, terrific dip. The
Spider
sat and cursed under his breath the entire way around the switchback. The circuit that last time had been so swift—stretched out interminably—but at last the train swept toward the chained incline. Wentworth sprang out, peered eagerly upward and—
The Bat Man was gone!

Both the Bat Man and the Indians had vanished. Heavily, he turned toward the plane, and while he went, by back-ways where the bats were not, he heard the piercing, gigantic squeaking which he knew was the recall signal for the vampires. There was no tracing the sound. It seemed to come from everywhere. . . .

Wentworth broke into a run. The battle was not yet lost. If all roads were blocked and all small men detained for examination. . . . At the plane, he found a group of uniformed police and, inside their circle, Commissioner MacHugh, of Chicago, was shooting questions at June Calvert.

June was taking it languidly, leaning against the side of the Boeing with a glint of humor in her dark eyes. She had taken advantage of the interim to fluff her black hair about the piquant oval of her face. But her beauty was only a mask for grim determination. That much, Wentworth knew.

He thrust through the circle after MacHugh had identified him. MacHugh was small, but he had a big, hearty manner. His energy was tiring to watch. He sprang forward to grasp Wentworth's hand. "By all that's holy, Wentworth!" he shouted. "I was about to string the girl up by her thumbs because she wouldn't talk. How do you pick 'em, my boy? How do you pick 'em?"