Kenneth Robeson - Doc Savage 062 - The Pirates Ghost

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THE PIRATE’S GHOST
A Doc Savage Adventure By Kenneth Robeson
This page copyright © 2001 Blackmask Online.
http://www.blackmask.com
? Chapter I. OLD ONE OF THE DESERT
? Chapter II. THE MANCAPTIVE
? Chapter III. HOKE McGEE
? Chapter IV. BIG APE AND PIG MAN
? Chapter V. SYMBOLS FOR TROUBLE
? Chapter VI. BLOODHOUNDS FOR HIRE
? Chapter VII. DETOUR
? Chapter VIII. THE BLOND SALLY SURETT
? Chapter IX. DIFFERENCE OF OPINION
? Chapter X. BRONZE SHADOW
? Chapter XI. THE PUBLICITY BOX
? Chapter XII. CAPTAIN SCUTTLE
? Chapter XIII. MILLION-DOLLAR TREASURE
? Chapter XIV. SCORN ISLAND
? Chapter XV. TREASURE SHIP
? Chapter XVI. NARROW MARGINS
Scanned and Proofed
by Tom Stephens
Chapter I. OLD ONE OF THE DESERT
"SAGEBRUSH" SMITH was undoubtedly not the first Smith who got into trouble without expecting it.
However, Sagebrush Smith managed to confine his troubles to the ordinary ones of a cow-puncher until
the advent of a certain fifteenth day of March. This fifteenth of March followed the fourteenth, which was
the day Sagebrush Smith got fired. He got canned off the Lazy Y spread for giving the round-up boss,
"Hoke" McGee, what he called "a bust in the snoot" over a trifling matter of who had put a deceased
rattlesnake in Sagebrush Smith’s bedroll.
Sagebrush was scared of rattlesnakes, also of red-eye whisky and women. However, these three items,
of all the things Sagebrush had encountered in his twenty-four years of life, were the only things he had
ever been scared of. He certainly wasn’t afraid of Hoke McGee.
Sagebrush Smith was a long, gangling young man with a freckled hide, and he had no cares. He was not,
fortunately or unfortunately—depending on the outlook—very ambitious. There was, in fact, only one
thing he really wanted to do, if he ever got around to it: he wanted to see a fellow he had read about, a
man named Doc Savage. He just wanted to have a look at this Doc Savage. He had never told any one
about the yen. He figured they would think it kind of silly.
Having been fired, and having offered, in a warm moment, to unravel cartridges with Hoke McGee or
anybody on the Lazy Y who wanted to unravel them, Sagebrush Smith slapped his Texas saddle on his
Roman-nosed pinto, thonged his warbag and slicker on the back, and rode. He rode
"slick-heeled"—-without spurs—for his paint bronc didn’t need spurs. The cayuse was next thing to a
broomtail, and plenty spirited.
Some one had said there was a job repping to be had over beyond Tule Canyon, at an outfit near Sugar
Loaf Butte. Sagebrush thought he might as well see. To get there, he would have to ride down into the
north arm of Death Valley, over the floor, and out again. He filled his water bag at a spring about
sundown, and set out across Death Valley by dark.
In the first four hours of night riding, he shot the heads off twenty-six rattlesnakes, but only half the head
off the twenty-seventh.
"Boy, howdy!" Sagebrush Smith remarked. "I’m slippin’!"
That, of course, was a modest understatement. He wasn’t slipping. Except for a slight technicality, he had
shot the heads off twenty-seven rattlesnakes, shooting in brilliant moonlight at targets, none larger than a
silver dollar, which were moving.
Then a person or persons unknown reciprocated by shooting Sagebrush Smith’s bronc through the tail.
THE tail shot was a freak. Sagebrush Smith felt at once that it was an impossible shot, reflected as much
when he picked himself out of the Death Valley sand. Sagebrush was about to flop down in the sand
again for caution’s sake, but thought of the sidewinders and remained on his feet. He’d take his chances
with bullets.
The paint pony left there as if it had a destination somewhere beyond Wyoming. The reins, Sagebrush
remembered with disgust, were knotted over the jughead’s neck, so he wasn’t likely to stop going.
"The water bag!" exploded the cowboy.
The water bag was on the saddle! Sagebrush watched eagerly, hoping the bronc would buck the water
bag off. The pinto was an enthusiastic bucker, with a style noted for getting rid of things, including,
occasionally, the saddle. But the piebald didn’t buck. The horse loped over a sand dune and vanished.
When Sagebrush Smith looked around, he saw more sand dunes, plenty of them, a few heat-discouraged
whiskers of mesquite, and some tall black mountains which appeared about two miles away. The
mountains, he knew, were thirty miles distant. About two days of the kind of walking he would have. No
one ever walked two days in Death Valley without water. He was already thirsty.
A fresh bullet arrived about that time. It cruised past somewhere overhead.
"The first one was too good," Sagebrush remarked. "And this one is too poor. There’s somethin’ locoed
here."
He drew his six-gun and fanned two lumps of lead in the general direction of the moon. Then he listened.
Two shots answered, and the lead of the second one missed him so far that he could barely hear it sing,
and the former was not much better.
"Nobody," opined Sagebrush, "could be that bum at lead-slingin’."
He had the cowboy habit of talking to himself, a failing born of the fact that for too much of his life he had
been his own audience.
He banged off his gun again.
A bullet replied, and it missed him as far to the left as the others had been to the right.
"Somethin’ is sure rotten in Denmark," the cowboy concluded. "Whoever is turnin’ loose them blue
whistlers ain’t shootin’ straight because it, him or her, can’t shoot straight."
Having thus decided, he concluded it was safe to advance, and likewise very advisable. He had to get
water, or the big black birds with the raw, red necks would have a man to eat.
Sagebrush advanced. He got his boots full of sand, his exposed hide covered with ‘skeet scratches, and
had his hair lifted assorted times by sidewinders. Twice, scorpions did their best to sock stingers through
his boots into his legs, but failed because he was wearing good twenty-dollar Justins built for service.
"Damn all deserts!" he said feelingly.
Then he came upon the old man.
THE old man was wanting to shoot somebody. He had his rifle in his hand, a frantic fear and a grim
desperation in his bloodshot old eyes, and awful agony working in the wrinkles of his old baboon face.
He wore scuffed old leather boots, laced khaki pants, a rag over one shoulder that had been a shirt, and
he had an old body that looked as though it was made out of rake handles. He kept shooting little gouts
of blood out of his mouth.
Sagebrush Smith slipped around a mesquite clump and jumped in the middle of the old man’s back.
When he saw the kind of thing he had jumped onto, he got off again.
He got down beside the old duffer and straightened him out on the sand and put the rifle to one side. He
wet his handkerchief with water from a canteen the old man had tied to his belt and wiped off the old
fellow’s wasted face.
"Golly, pop, I’m sorry," he said.
The old man looked steadily at Sagebrush Smith and bubbled a little as he breathed.
"I was afraid you wouldn’t make it, Doc’s man," he said. "I kept hearing them shooting at you. Just one
shot at a time. The shots kept getting closer. I knew they were trying to pick you off before you made it."
Sagebrush Smith, who was as shaggy as a young jackass on the outside, and about as handsome, had a
likeable, kindly nature; and he wanted to humor an old man who was half mad and dying in the desert.
"I fixed ‘em," he said.
The old man of the desert looked Sagebrush Smith’s long, gangling young frame up and down.
"Doc’s man," he said, "I’m glad to see you."
Being called "Doc’s man" had Sagebrush Smith puzzled. He finally figured it out and decided that the old
fellow thought he had come from the doctor.
"Buck up, old-timer," he said. "Stick out your horns and show some sand. You gotta last until I can take
you to the doctor."
"You came to take me to Doc?"
"Yeah. Betcher boots."
"Won’t do no good," the old man said. "I’ve got cancer. I’ve had it two years, and I haven’t got any
insides left to speak of."
SAGEBRUSH SMITH got up on his feet rather quickly, because he couldn’t have stayed there on his
knees without feeling sick. He stamped his boots in the powder-fine sand and jammed his hands in his
pockets, then took them out again and peered around for something to get his mind off the dying old
man. Mentally, he added a fourth item to the list of things he was scared of: a man dying slowly.
So, in trying to get away from a sight that turned his stomach, Sagebrush Smith walked around—came
upon the amazing laboratory. First, he only saw an old adobe hut, and thought: "This is a funny place for
one of them things." Then he looked inside and saw that it was really something unusual.
The mud walls had been plastered inside, and the plaster painted white. Around three walls of the room
ran a bench, with shelves above and bins below; and the shelves and bins were crowded with nest arrays
of copper wire, silver wire, copper rods and silver rods, coils, bakelite insulating panels, bottles, boxes,
jars, and innumerable things that resembled radio vacuum tubes, and yet weren’t quite like vacuum tubes.
It was very cool in the hut, leading Sagebrush Smith to realize the interior was air-conditioned, exactly
like the movie house in Goldfield. He was a little surprised.
He was more surprised as he went along. The box in the center of the room intrigued him. A skylight let
moonglow in through the roof and he could see the box. It was about as tall as himself—around six
feet—and about a dozen feet long by eight feet wide.
"Creepin’ Moses!" said Sagebrush Smith. "It’s solid silver!"
It wasn’t. His imagination had run away with him. It was lead, he decided, after he gave it a good
scratching with the point of his pocketknife.
One whisker of shiny copper tubing stuck up out of the top of the lead box.
After he had moseyed around the thing a while, Sagebrush found a door, and being of an inquiring
disposition, he opened the door and went in, after first striking a match.
He looked around the inside of the lead box. He saw a lot of stuff that he didn’t understand. In fact, he
saw practically nothing that he did understand, and he began to wish he wasn’t so ignorant about
electricity.
Sagebrush rubbed his jaw and scratched his head and began touching things, but an electric spark
jumped out and bit him, and he stopped that.
There was a small box on the floor which aroused Sagebrush’s curiosity. He polished the lock on the box
thoughtfully with the ball of a thumb. He could see it was the kind of lock you couldn’t pick. The box
itself was of high-quality steel. Sagebrush tried his jackknife on it, and the metal of the box turned the
razor edge of the knife blade, and didn’t even scratch. He lifted the box to test its weight, and grunted
with the effort.
"Almost as heavy as Hoke McGee’s opinion of himself," he remarked.
He went back outside.
"Your layout’s got me guessin’, pop," he said.
THE old man was propped up on his hands, straining, hurting himself listening to the whispering night
sounds of the desert sands. He turned his head, and there was a wild look on his face.
"I think I heard some of them creeping!" he croaked. "Creeping over the sand!"
Sagebrush Smith put the palm of a hand on the nape of his neck, just to reassure himself that the short
hairs were not standing on end.
"That’s just sidewinders, old-timer," he said.
There was a silence filled with the kind of stillness that only comes in Death Valley—stillness of utter
death and time abysmal. Then a breeze, a small lost breeze, came feeling over the dunes, seeking in the
mesquite, sifting in the sands, and sighing.
Sagebrush Smith took off his hat, mopped his forehead and grinned foolishly. He felt the need of doing
something to break the spell, so he kicked out, like a boy, with one foot. His toe hit a rock.
He peered at the rock, then got down on his knees, brushed sand away and kept on brushing until he had
a space cleared the size of a bunk house table. The rock bore grotesque carvings and silly-looking
hen-track marks.
Sagebrush Smith got to his feet, kicked around in the sand and uncovered other such rocks. Then it
dawned on him that the stones lay all around; some of the huge ones were even the reason for the sand
dunes being here.
"We’re in one of them mysterious ruined cities or my name ain’t Sagebrush," he muttered.
The old man said, "That was in my letter to Doc," very weakly.
"Some fellers that called themselves archaeologists were in Death Valley one time," Sagebrush continued.
"They figured there had been cities in here thousands of years ago, but they couldn’t figure out much else
about them." (These prehistoric ruins, some actually stretching for miles on the heat-seared floor of Death
Valley in California, are something of a puzzle to archaeologists. KENNETH ROBESON)
"That is why I came here," the old man said.
"Oh," Sagebrush Smith said.
The dying man closed his eyes for a while and rested. After a moment or two he started talking again.
"Did Doc remember me?" he asked suddenly. "Did Doc remember old Meander Surett?"
"Yeah," said Sagebrush. "‘Course he remembered you."
Old Meander Surett closed his eyes. He appeared about as pleased as he could be.
"I’m not suprised that he remembered," he said. "I was one of the world’s greatest authorities on
electrical research—before I disappeared."
Chapter II. THE MANCAPTIVE
THE desert night was either very still, or it was made weird by the tiny whirls of wind that went scurrying
through the sand dunes, although some of the winds weren’t so tiny and traveled like Kansas whirlwinds,
picking up fine sand, lifting it two and three hundred feet, looking in the moonlight like cinnamon-robed
giants hobble-skirting along.
Sagebrush Smith hunkered on his high-heeled boots and felt funny. Not humorous. Just funny. The old
man, Meander Surett, was dying, and Sagebrush had started out by agreeing with everything, hoping that
would soothe the old fellow. Now he began to see that he was walking into something. Meander Surett
apparently had expected some one named Doc to arrive. He thought Sagebrush Smith was one of this
Doc’s representatives.
Curiosity assailed Sagebrush. He wanted to know who Doc was. He wanted to know the purpose of all
that stuff in the adobe hut. He wondered what was in the alloy-steel locked box. He would like to know
why the place was located in one of the prehistoric ruins on the floor of Death Valley.
He could not ask any of these questions without exciting Meander Surett and speeding his death.
"Sagebrush," said Meander Surett unexpectedly.
"Yeah?"
"How did they find out you were coming?"
"They? Who do you mean?"
"The men who followed you."
"Oh." Sagebrush Smith hunted in his mind for a lie. "I don’t know. I thought maybe you could tell me."
"They’ve been spying on me for years," the dying man said weakly. "I have been working here for ten
years. It was about three years ago that I first noticed them spying. I guess they knew I sent Doc a
message."
"Message?"
"Yes. The letter. Doc got it, of course, or he wouldn’t have sent you."
Sagebrush Smith swallowed. "Oh, sure," he said.
"I don’t know the men who watched me," croaked Meander Surett.
"You’d better be quiet," the cowboy urged.
Meander Surett coughed and bubbled. "Get me the metal box in the lead-insulated experimental
chamber."
SAGEBRUSH SMITH got the box. It was heavy enough that he was sweating and out of breath by the
time he had it at the side of Meander Surett.
"Now," Meander Surett gurgled, "unbuckle my money belt."
The money belt was made of chamois. It was fat and heavy, and Sagebrush Smith, when he was ordered
to do so, looked inside.
"Geewhilikers!" he said.
"There is about seven thousand dollars’ worth of gold dust left," Meander Surett said. "I had half a million
dollars when I started experimenting ten years ago. I had the money changed into gold dust because
nobody is suspicious of an old man who comes out of the desert with a little gold dust. They think he is a
prospector."
Sagebrush Smith was stunned. "You mean," he muttered, "that you spent half a million here in the
desert?"
"It was worth it." The dying man reached out a wasted hand to the shiny metal box. "This"—he patted
the box—"is going to change the course of all mankind!"
Sagebrush Smith wiped his forehead. "Uh-huh," he muttered. He didn’t know what to think.
"Use as much of the seven thousand as you need for expenses," said Meander Surett.
"Expenses?"
"Plane fare, hotels, taxicabs and so on." The old man had a coughing spell. "You can give the rest to
Sally."
"Sally?"
"My daughter. Sally Surett." Old Meander Surett smiled in spite of pain and weakness. "She may call
herself Nola. She never did like the name Sally. Her full name is Sally Nola Surett. She lives at 110
North Boulevard, in New York City. You better write that down." Sagebrush Smith swallowed.
"I’ll remember it," he said. "Sally Nola Surett at 110 North Boulevard, New York."
"Take her to Doc," ordered Meander Surett, "and give the box to her and to Doc, to be owned and
shared jointly." He shut his eyes and shuddered. "The contents must be used to benefit mankind,
not—the other."
"To Doc—who?" Sagebrush Smith asked involuntarily.
"Why, to Doc Savage," Meander Surett said.
"Doc Savage!" Sagebrush Smith took off his hat. "Blazes!"
THERE is probably no institution of mankind better equipped with reading matter than the cowboy bunk
house. The height of the stack of magazines in the corner will vary with the seasons, shrinking in the
winter when they are handy for starting fires, but usually it ranges around shoulder high. So Sagebrush
Smith had read about Doc Savage.
He had read of Doc Savage several times. Once in a medical journal, twice in a physical culture
magazine, and a number of times in magazines devoted to science and mechanics. Sagebrush Smith did
not believe all he read. He did not think there was any such fellow as remarkable as the Doc Savage
mentioned in these magazines.
What got his dander up was a magazine stating that this Doc Savage could take a six-shooter and hit fifty
silver dimes, thrown into the air, with fifty shots.
Sagebrush Smith was willing to stand on a stack of Bibles and say it couldn’t be done. He knew. He’d
just like to pay a visit to Doc Savage and show the fellow up.
"You want me to take this box to Doc Savage?" said Sagebrush. "And you’re furnishing the expense
money?"
"Yes," said old Meander Surett. "You must promise to go to Doc and my daughter, Sally."
Sagebrush Smith suddenly became enthusiastic about the job.
"You’re on, old-timer," he said earnestly. "But what’s in the box?"
The old man was apparently too far gone to hear.
"What’s in the box?" the cowboy asked more loudly.
The dying old man rolled his head. His eyes were strange.
"There is a sheaf of data in the box," he mumbled. "That will explain everything."
"But where’s the key to the box?"
"It has already been mailed to Doc Savage," old Meander Surett mumbled.
"Oh," said Sagebrush Smith.
Old Meander Surett’s throat began to rattle. Sagebrush Smith had heard that throats rattle when people
die.
"Take it easy, pop!" Sagebrush mumbled.
The old man’s hands fastened to the cowboy’s arm like claws.
"Son, they’ll try to take it from you!" he croaked.
"They won’t have much luck," Sagebrush said soothingly. "Don’t rile yourself, old-timer."
The old man made noises. The bite of his fingers tightened.
"Son," he gulped, "I haven’t told you everything!"
"No?" Sagebrush said curiously.
"I caught two of them—one of the men watching me." Meander Surett was shaking. "I killed one of them.
I took the other captive. I’ve got him now—a prisoner. Tried—to make him—talk—for months."
His words were beginning to be separated by the rattling.
"Sure, you killed one and you’ve got the other prisoner," Sagebrush said. "Take it easy, pop."
"The—prisoner—over there!" Old Meander Surett croaked.
"Eh?"
The dying man pointed. "Over—there! Chained!"
"You mean you’ve got a man chained over there?" the cowboy demanded incredulously.
"Fastened—with—a—a chain. He wouldn’t—talk—"
The old man’s eyes rolled and he could only make noises.
SAGEBRUSH SMITH got to his feet, took a step or two in the direction in which Meander Surett had
pointed. He stared. He bent over to see better.
The mesquite was tall and thick and cast black shadows. It was too dark to make out anything much.
The cowboy licked his lips, then advanced.
Suddenly, Sagebrush jerked to a stop and snatched at his six-gun. He had heard a noise, a small,
whimpering sound. He listened. His pulse was a-booming. Then there was a small movement. Something
was really there!
Holding his gun in one hand, he advanced. It was very dark. His foot struck something, and feeling with
his free hand, he found a chain. He tugged the chain. It jerked in his hand, and the low whimpering came
again.
"Hey, feller!" Sagebrush Smith called softly. "How long has the old man had you a prisoner here?"
The whimper was his only answer.
Sagebrush Smith struck a match.
There was only a mangy and half-starved coyote pup on the end of the chain. And around about was
bedding and odds and ends of clothing and enough of the kind of food that a man eats to show that old
Meander Surett had been treating the coyote as a man.
Meander Surett was dead when Sagebrush Smith went back to him.
Chapter III. HOKE McGEE
WHEN Sagebrush Smith guided two donkeys up to the Lazy Y ranch house, he was not doing it
because he wanted to, but because he had to have water. There had not been enough in Meander
Surett’s canteen. The Lazy Y had the only water on the route to the nearest railroad town.
The two donkeys had obviously belonged to old Meander Surett, for Sagebrush had found them hobbled
in the Death Valley sand dunes after he buried the scientist and freed the half-starved coyote. He’d
appropriated one donkey to carry the box, and one to carry himself, although the last hadn’t worked out;
after trying to ride for twenty miles, a habit of both mountain canaries of trying unexpectedly to take a bite
out of his leg had led him to favor walking.
Hoke McGee, the Lazy Y foreman, looked on the advent of Sagebrush Smith with no favor at all.
"I thought we run you away from here once," he growled.
"Nobody ever run me away from anywhere," said Sagebrush.
He grabbed a donkey by an ear with one hand and held the animal while he unlashed the metal box with
the other hand.
"Take your brothers"—Hoke McGee pointed at the donkeys—"and get the hell out of here!"
"Maybe you’d like to make me?" suggested Sagebrush.
Hoke McGee scowled.
"Maybe," Sagebrush said, "you and your whole danged Lazy Y outfit would like to try to make me go?"
Hoke McGee was a perfectly safe fellow to quarrel with—as long as you were looking at him. It was
after dark, or when he was behind you, that he was dangerous. This was a fact that Sagebrush well
knew.
Hoke McGee was not of the true west, not of cactus and purple sage. He was a product of crooked
carnivals and low gypping. An old carney man of the never-give-the-sucker-a-break school. When the
carney shell games went out, he took up cow-punching on the Lazy Y, the owner of which was a distant
relative, as well as a bird of similar feather. They called him "Hoke" because he liked to brag about the
hokum the yaps used to fall for.
Hoke McGee wasn’t yellow, but he was cautious enough not to hit out when there was a chance of
getting hit back. He thought himself quite a smoothie. Physically, he was short and broad and ran more to
body and arms than to legs or head.
Sagebrush Smith always said that if you could find a he-toad five feet five inches tall and take the warts
off him, you would have Hoke McGee.
"I’m stayin’ for supper," announced Sagebrush Smith.
"The hell you are!" snarled Hoke McGee.
"The hell I ain’t!" said Sagebrush.
Having unlashed the metal box, Sagebrush Smith got under it with both arms, and kneed the donkey in
the ribs to make the animal jump out from under the case. Sagebrush staggered over to the shade of the
bunk house and put the box down.
"What’s that?" Hoke McGee demanded.
"That," said Sagebrush Smith, "is a gookus-wookus."
"A what?"
"Somethin’ to make fools ask questions."
Ten minutes later, the owner of the Lazy Y appeared, in tow of Hoke McGee.
"You’ll have to pay for your supper," the owner said shortly.
摘要：

THEPIRATE’SGHOSTADocSavageAdventureByKennethRobesonThispagecopyright©2001BlackmaskOnline.http://www.blackmask.com?ChapterI.OLDONEOFTHEDESERT?ChapterII.THEMANCAPTIVE?ChapterIII.HOKEMcGEE?ChapterIV.BIGAPEANDPIGMAN?ChapterV.SYMBOLSFORTROUBLE?ChapterVI.BLOODHOUNDSFORHIRE?ChapterVII.DETOUR?ChapterVIII.TH...

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