Part 14 (2/2)
Doc plunged in pursuit.
The fleeing gunner turned off the road. There came a squeak of automobile springs, the metallic clank of a slamming door. An engine moaned and headlights came on' The car dived into the road and scooted away.
Doc Savage sprinted. Given a break, he might have overhauled the machine before it gathered too much speed. But the driver suddenly sprayed machine-gun bullets over his back trail, on the random chance that he might score a hit In addition, Monk started shooting from down the road.
To avoid being caught in the cross fire, Doc Savage was forced to retreat. The car's headlights were lost in the windings of the road.
Monk came lumbering up.
”Blast it!” he growled. ”If there had been some kind of a target to shoot at, I'd have bagged him.”
Falling silent, the homely chemist listened to the uproar from Trapper Lake. Women were screaming now. Pistols whacked; shotguns made cannonlike bangings. Men howled and cursed. Wood splintered, and large things upset with jangling noises.
Doc and Monk headed toward town.
After a time, they were conscious that, from the sky, beginning in the infinite distance and growing louder, had come a drone.
”A plane!” Monk e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed. ”That'll be Rennyk!” Doc Savage drew his flashlight and pointed it at the plane sound. His thumb tapped the b.u.t.ton, and the lens spouted long and short bursts of light -- the telegraphic code.
A flashlight eye blinked answer from the plane.
”It's Renny!” Monk grunted. ”He seems to be flying the gyro..
With his light, Doc directed Renny to land on the road. ”We'll tackle this mess in Trapper Lake from the air,” he advised Monk.
The windmill s.h.i.+p spun down and hovered overhead. Hood lamps under the wings spread a glare which illuminated the road. Then it landed.
Renny thrust his somber features into view. He cut the exhaust into the m.u.f.fler cans, and the motor became silent enough to permit conversation.
”Got any flares?” Doc cabled to him. ”Nope,” Renny rumbled. ”I unloaded all extra equipment;; to lighten this crate so it'd fly faster.”
Doc and Monk piled into the gyro cabin. The s.h.i.+p, while not large, would lift Doc and his five men. Doc took the controls. ”You just got in?” he demanded, as he guided the gyro into the air. ”Just got here,” Renny agreed.
”Was a supermachine gun stolen from you in New York?” Doc asked.
”Yeah -- how'd you guess it?” Renny boomed, surprise in his great voice. ”I left the thing in the car while I was supervising the excavating. Some one lifted it.”
”They were watching you!” Monk e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed. ”Whoever stole the gun probably came on by plane.”
”What did the digging in New York yield?” Doc asked. ”The dangedest thing!” Renny rumbled. ”I'll show it to you now.”
THE BIG-FISTED engineer twisted and dropped an enormous hand to a canvas-swathed package reposing on the floorboards in the rear of the cabin of the plane. He began Unwrapping it.
”Huh!” Monk muttered. ”The darn thing, whatever it is, is almost as big as a suitcase.!”
”Get ready to have your hair stand on end,” Renny boomed.
He flung back the last thickness of canvas.
Monk stared. His small eyes all but jumped from their gristle-walled pits. His oversize mouth opened as much as was possible.
”Whe-ew!” he exclaimed.
Up until that moment, Renny had possessed the biggest hand Monk had ever seen. Renny's paws were tremendous.
Yet, compared to this monster hand which had been swathed in canvas, Renny's was as the hand of a baby alongside that of a man. It was natural in shape, but unearthly in its hugeness.
Renny himself whistled in awe as he once more looked at it.
”Holy cow!” he boomed. ”The guy who owned that must have weighed a ton.”
The bronze countenance of Doc Savage exhibited no marked change as he inspected the t.i.tanic relic. It was as if he had expected something of the sort.
”Is this the only part of the monster you uncovered?” he asked.
”No,” Renny said. ”The rest of the body was there -- the fragments of it, that is. The thing was instantly killed in the explosion.”
”For the love of mud!” Monk's tiny voice was wisplike. ”So this hand belonged to the baby who reared up through the floor of Griswold Rock's house.”
Doc Savage dropped the gyro down toward Trapper Lake. Their discussion, and Renny's exhibition of the colossal hand, had taken only a moment At two or three points in Trapper Lake houses were bun}ing. These scattered flickering red light over the rest of the town. The crimson-swathed scene was starkly fantastic.
The giants -- they were monster men -- had already raided the Guide's Hotel.
They were now retreating, skulking among the houses. They were like hideous men in a toy town. ”Holy cowl” Renny boomed. ”Any one of 'em would make two ordinary men!”
''The big babies are wearin' armor!” Monk breathed.
Monk had hardly spoken when they were witness to a potent demonstration of the effectiveness of the s.h.i.+ny steel plates which banded the giants' chests, heads, and legs -- even their feet.
A Trapper Lake citizen leaped out of his cabin. He held a rifle. Taking deliberate aim, he fired.
The bullet merely tilted a helmet over on the ear of a giant. This particular giant was a big black fellow.
His head, judging from the shape of his helmet, came to a conelike point, instead of being rounded.
”Remember the three pinhead savages from the circus?” Monk yelled. ”That must be one of them!”
After adjusting his helmet, the pinhead giant charged the woodsman who had fired.
The rifleman ducked into his cabin, ran through it, popped out of the front door and scuttled into the concealment of high weed.
The pinhead thought the rifle wielder was still in the cabin. The black monster lowered his head and lumbered inside. A few moments later, he apparently became tired of moving about the interior.
A wall burst open and his tremendous shoulders and head appeared. He wrenched his arms free. He tore thin clapboard siding boards out bodily and threw them away. Finally he extricated himself from the ruined house.
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