Doc Savage: Skull Island (The Wild Adventures of Doc Savage) (33 page)

Fascinated by its creeping progress—for the Dyak had never seen anything like it, from Borneo to Sumatra—Monyet stared at the wedge-shaped head inching its roundabout way up the smooth trunk.

When it poked its lean snout above the platform, it stared at Monyet. The Dyak prince glared back, equally unafraid.

But when a pair of spindly hands reached up to steady the snake, Monyet saw how it had managed its peculiar ascent. The serpent possessed hands! Strangely human-like hands!

These it used to lever himself up over the edge. Now the Dyak leader could see that it possessed four limbs, like a salamander. But it was no salamander. It hissed, revealing a forked tongue. Bright fangs shone in the thin moonlight.

Biting his lip, Monyet reached out for his
duku
chopping blade and patiently waited until the serpent writhed within range, being propelled by its strange limbs.

A swift chopping blow, and the long body began twisting and wrapping its coiled length around itself.

Monyet kicked the coiling and uncoiling body off the platform to the dirt below.

He reached out and picked up the head, setting it beside the kong head. Now, he had two head trophies. Soon, he would make a pile of them, beginning with the golden-eyed enemies and concluding with the greatest of them all:
Buhan
Kong.

Far away in the night, a rumble came. It sounded like distant rolling thunder. Monyet ignored the sound, never suspecting that he was hearing the voice of his mortal enemy, the beast-god of Skull Island.

Chapter XLI

DOC SAVAGE DEBATED whether to trill, as a signal to his father and Chicahua, who remained among the missing.

They were making no measurable progress toward their goal. Night was far along now. The jungle seemed to sleep. Even the drowsy drone of insects was heard no more.

Stormalong Savage was talking.

“This portion of Skull Island reminds me very much of the Khorat Plateau in Siam,” he offered. “That was back in the days when the tea trade was at its height. King Mongkut ruled Siam in that era. The tea leaves produced during his illustrious reign were unsurpassed in all the world. They fetched a pretty penny.”

“Tell me about your life,” invited Doc.

“The sea is my life,” Stormalong said brightly. Then more sadly, “Or it was….”

“Men still sail ships,” Doc pointed out.

“The Age of Steam has come. I am a sailing man. The ships of my day are all gone now, broken up for salvage or lying at the bottom. Even the
Courser.
” His voice cracked, and nothing Doc said could entice him to resume his account.

They moved along in silence, giving their full attention to the way ahead.

Here and there, Doc paused to examine stands of bamboo. Each time, he moved on, as if unsatisfied.

“What is it about the bamboo that interests you, Doc?” asked Stormalong, seemingly back to his old self.

“I have an idea. I entertained it earlier, but had not time to act upon it.”

“Yes? Go on. I am quite interested.”

“I spent some time among the Cherokee,” related Doc.

“A proud people. I fancy the Apache myself. Superb warriors. In my youth, before I went to sea, I harried them all over the Southwest as an Indian scout.”

“The Cherokee taught me their skills,” continued Doc, “one of which was to fashion blowguns and darts from nature.”

“I see. You think to meet the Dyak enemy on their own terms?”

“Exactly. Their blowpipes are very long and accurate, but inefficient in other ways. They are difficult to carry and awkward to bring to bear in close combat.”

A twinkle came into Old Stormy’s eye. “I begin to comprehend your drift.”

Doc came upon another stand, picked through it rapidly and swiftly began hacking at a long thin stalk with his Bowie knife. He whacked off one section at each joint.

After he had the section cut to size, Doc examined its interior. With his knife point, he dug out the membranes sealing the joint, exposing its hollow interior.

“This specimen is much shorter than the Dyak tubes,” he explained. “But it has the advantage of greater portability and range, if the lungs impelling it are up to the job.”

“I take it you think that yours are.”

“I have been trained as no other man has ever been trained,” said Doc quietly. It was not a boast. It might have been a statement of half-regret mixed with a trace of restrained pride.

Doc repeated the operation with other sections of the bamboo rod, then split a leftover length until he had created a brace. To this, he attached six short bamboo tubes, lashing them together with fiber cords he harvested by stripping rattan vines.

“I recognize the famed Pan-pipes known to the Greeks and Incas alike,” said Old Stormy, “but I fail to imagine of what use that musical instrument will be to you here.”

“Think of this as a repeating blowgun,” said Doc.

A slow amazement crawled over Stormalong’s coppery features. Fingering his beard, he watched the bronze man with growing interest.

From a small leather pouch in his pocket, Doc cautiously extracted a few of the Dyak darts he had earlier acquired. Sitting down, he removed the feather fletching, breaking off two inches of the long splinters, and discarding them. He handled the poisonous ends with great care and respect.

From another pocket, Doc pulled a handful of the milk-thistle spikelets he had picked along the banks of the turbulent river that flowed down from Skull Mountain.

Removing the feathers, Doc attached the fuzzy thistle tuft with what he took from another pocket. It was a long loop of ordinary thread.

Captain Savage watched with interest. “Thistledown?”

Doc nodded. “The Cherokee used it for fletching spines plucked from the black locust tree. Thistle has the advantage of filling the tube of a correctly-sized blowgun, forming a seal, thereby offering greater resistance to the breath of the blower.”

A twinkle came into one narrowed yellow eye. “Which would translate into a higher velocity, with considerably greater penetrating power.”

“That is my expectation,” said Doc, finishing his work.

“Rather like employing a six-gun instead of a Winchester rifle.”

“Exactly my thinking. At short range, they should be very accurate.”

Pocketing his newly-made missiles, Doc stood up.

“What are the Dyak darts dosed with?” the bronze man asked.

“When at war, a paste made from the sap of the
upas
tree. Invariably fatal. But I have never noticed any
upas
trees on Skull Island.”

“If I run out, as I am certain to do,” said Doc, “I will need fresh poison. Perhaps if a venomous serpent can be milked safely. Have you any suggestions?”

“I do not. For I have managed to avoid all such encounters. But Penjaga knows the names of every plant and herb growing upon Skull Island, and their specific properties. She could advise you.”

“If it comes to that,” Doc said, “we will seek her out.”

DOC started off, the multi-blowgun firmly in one hand, his pouch of darts handy in his pocket.

“You look more like a natural man, without that ugly weapon,” observed Stormalong.

“I feel very much like Tarzan of the Apes,” Doc admitted.

Frowning, Stormalong murmured, “I fail to follow your reference.”

“Tarzan was a fictional man who was raised by apes until he achieved mastery of his jungle in Africa. It is a novel published just a few years ago.”

Old Stormy scratched his bristly beard. “Sounds like the story of Romulus and Remus, but with apes substituted for the wolves.”

“Tarzan carried a bow and employed arrows,” mused Doc. “If I can locate the correct materials, I might do the same.”

“You will need catgut,” Stormalong pointed out. “There are no suitable animals on Skull Island from which to extract the appropriate stomach lining that I have ever encountered.”

“Pterodactyls might provide a fair substitute.”

“You will have to bring one down. A daunting feat.”

“Remain here,” Doc said suddenly.

Leaping into a tree, Doc found his way up to the top. He poked his bronze-haired head around. Pterodactyls did not seem to be nocturnal. Therefore, they had to roost somewhere.

Peering about, Doc saw something gleaming redly in the moonlight and realized that he was staring out at the slaughtered Triceratops. That gave him an idea.

Dropping back to the ground, making so little noise that Stormalong was momentarily startled even though he was expecting the big bronze man, Doc Savage said, “I have a better idea. Come.”

Doc led his grandfather through ferns and foliage to the clearing where the Triceratops lay, emitting a foul stench of death.

“Dyaks did this?” Stormalong asked.

“Evidently. They only took the horns.”

Stormalong grinned. “Even Dyaks would be hard pressed to haul a Triceratops head around with them.”

Removing his Bowie knife, Doc climbed the leaden beast and began carving out a felt swatch. He cut two, brought them down, and proceeded to cut out holes for their heads.

Doc donned his first, saying, “This will make us all but dart-proof against Dyak blowpipes.”

“Capital idea!” Stormalong climbed into his, looked down at himself and noted, “I fear my arms and legs are exposed.”

“It cannot be helped. Let’s go.”

“One thing more,” said Old Stormy.

“Yes?”

“Should I take a Dyak dart in any limb, I must ask you to employ your knife to remove said limb before the poison reaches my heart.”

“Dyak darts work too fast for that remedy to be effective,” reminded Doc. “And there is no means at hand to staunch the stump, in any event. You would bleed to death.”

Stormalong Savage drew himself up to his full, considerable height. “I would rather bleed to death at the hands of my own kin than suffer the indignity of dying via the sting of a Dyak dart,” he pronounced firmly.

Doc said nothing. His grandfather’s fatalistic talk was beginning to bother him.

They pushed on.

“Doc?”

“Yes, Grandfather?”

“No matter what happens,” Stormalong said thinly, “do not let them take my head.”

“I will not,” promised Doc.

“And in return I solemnly promise to safeguard yours.”

After that, they spoke not at all, as they threaded through the jungle while the rumbling of Kong’s intermittent roars punished their ears.

Chapter XLII

THE ROARING OF Kong reached the ears of Monyet in the safety of his bamboo perch. He stifled his coughing and listened attentively.

He had been eating a grub he had discovered in a hole in the tree that supported him. He finished chewing the living thing, enjoying the squirming taste of it in his mouth, then swallowed. It reminded him of a sago worm.

“Kong…” he breathed.

A disturbance in the undergrowth caused the Dyak prince to shift his attention earthward.

“Who?” he hissed.

“It is I—Ukung,” returned a soft voice.

Monyet peered downward, discerned a hairless face blackened by charcoal war paint looking up with dark eyes rimmed with ivory.

“Where are the others?” he hissed.

“Scattered. Some dead. They know to come here.”

The Dyak scout wrapped his legs around the tree trunk and ascended by pulling his curled body upward by rapid movements of his strong hands. He joined Monyet there.

“Kong has returned to his lair,” Ukung reported.

“Yes, I hear him. So?”

“We can lay siege to Kong there.”

“Two of us?” spat Monyet.

“No! We will find the others.”

“I will not leave the head I carried all this way. We will wait for the others to return.”

Ukung sat down and unsheathed his curved
mandau
sword from its hardwood scabbard. He ran its iron edge against a length of bamboo, testing its sharpness.

“Where are the white devils with eyes of gold?” asked Monyet.

Ukung was slow in replying. Monyet grabbed him by the hair.

“Answer!”

“We assembled a dugout, dropped it into the water and attempted to board the big sailing ship of the golden-eyed ones.”

“Attempted?”

Ukung looked shamefaced. “We no sooner slipped aboard than thorns bit into the bottoms of our feet. Everywhere we stepped, they stung like wasps. We were forced to leap into the water in retreat.”

As proof, Ukung showed the naked soles of his feet. Red puncture marks peppered them. Some still bled.

“What did that?” asked Monyet.

Ukung drew from his thick hair a sharp tack, its point encrimsoned.

Examining it, Monyet hissed, “Clever.”

“Painful,” returned Ukung.

They sat in sullen silence while they considered their situation.

When they crossed the Indian Ocean to Skull Island, the
balla
had broken up. One group made landfall, while the others arrived later. The two groups had not yet reunited. The second group was about in the jungle, fending for themselves.

Before long, a party of their fellow warriors put in an appearance, their lean bodies darkened by charcoal.

“Selamat siang, Penghulu
Monyet!” they hailed, calling him their chief.

“Where are the rest of you?”

“Dead, or lost.”

Monyet frowned. “Our numbers are still formidable.”

“The heads of the enemy will lie in a pile at our feet before the sun rises in the morning,” said a warrior called Maban.

“We will carry them back to be buried with our bones so that they will be our slaves in the next life,” added another, hoisting his
mandau.

“Let us be about our business then,” decided Monyet. “Two of you help take the ape head down.”

Two Dyaks scrambled up in the traditional crouching climb. They began tying the head to a fat pole of bamboo with cord. This grisly object they carefully passed down to waiting men on the ground.

When that was accomplished, Monyet climbed down. He struggled with it, his lungs not yet recovered from their ordeal. Hate burned in his breast. Hate for the brazen men with eyes of gold.

Soon, every man had reached the jungle floor. The head of the dead kong was hoisted onto the bare shoulders of Ukung and Maban and, with Monyet in the lead, the long march to Skull Mountain began.