Kenneth Robeson - Doc Savage 156 - Seh-Pa-Poo

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SE-PAH-POO
A Doc Savage Adventure by Kenneth Robeson
This page formatted 2004 Blackmask Online.
http://www.blackmask.com
? Chapter I
? Chapter II
? Chapter III
? Chapter IV
? Chapter V
? Chapter VI
? Chapter VII
? Chapter VIII
? Chapter IX
? Chapter X
? Chapter XI
? Chapter XII
? Chapter XIII
Originally published in Doc Savage Magazine February 1946
Chapter I
HE swung off the passenger train unobtrusively. He moved at a very fast walk across the shallow ditch
and a few yards of right-of-way, squeezed among some shoulder-high mesquite bushes, placed his
suitcase on the sun-hardened earth and seated himself on it. He waited.
The train had almost stopped rolling. Now the locomotive whistle bleated briefly in answer to a signal
from the conductor, then lunged ahead sending a clanking through the train, with a visible surge of energy.
With a series of business-like puffings, the locomotive reached for the speed it had lost, and presently the
whole string of some eighteen baggage and passenger coaches was in full motion again.
The man did not stand up to look after the departing train, but he listened to it. This being let off furtively
in the middle of the desert, had cost him twenty dollars in tips. That was what he was thinking.
He looked around. Twenty dollars had bought him a lot of heat, sand, cactus, mesquite, cholla, yucca,
more sand, more heat.
He remained seated on his suitcase. It was a very good suitcase, but it had seen service. His clothing was
also very good, but conservative, as though he wished not to attract attention to himself. It was a
ridiculous precaution, because he was such a big man, so obviously a muscular marvel, and his bronze
coloring was so striking, his strange-flake-gold eyes so impressive, that wearing plain, good clothes was
about as effective as putting the English crown jewels on a plain oak tray.
The sand a few yards from his feet stirred, parted, and a small blunt reptilian head appeared and eyed
him unwinkingly. The sidewinder rattlesnake evidently did not think he was a congenial companion,
because it emerged the rest of itself and side-crawled away.
A hundred and ten, he thought. At least a hundred and ten. This was real heat. The temperature in the
air-conditioned railway coach had been around sixty-five. Better still, in the club car, there had been soft
music, cool drinks and someone with whom to carry on an intelligent conversation. What was best of all,
no one but the porter'd had the good judgment to keep it to himself.
He turned his head slightly. A few inches away, on a mesquite twig, a spindle-legged lizard was
examining him intently. The lizard looked stupid. It wouldn't make an intelligent conversationalist.
He sincerely hoped no one here in the desert would recognize him.
The man over the telephone had sounded so frightened.
THE sun in the sky was too hot for comfort, and the sky itself was absolutely blue and clear, except that
around the horizon the air was full of dancing heat waves and the peculiar little things in the way of
refraction that desert air does to the view. There was a distant mountain sitting in the sky, with only air
under it; you could see right under the mountain to the horizon beyond.
He stood up now and inspected this mountain, and decided it wasn't the one. Too far away. He turned
slowly. The desert, the real Painted Desert, lay in the other direction, and he imagined that was where he
would be going. The frightened man hadn't been very explicit about the destination. But he had said
desert.
He heard a dull moaning. He sat down quickly. The dull moaning became more emphatic and violent as it
drew near, a loud, blatant sound which seemed to contain other sounds within itself, a shrill mechanical
wail, a sucking and popping, the high hysterical laugh of a woman, the gay but slightly tired whoop of a
man's mirth. Then the automobile was past and gone down the highway.
He consulted his watch. Three-five. The frightened man should be along presently.
He moved nearer the road.
It had been a little startling to have the roaring action of the car bawl past him in the solitude of the desert.
The loneliness of the desert was a thing that quickly made itself felt.
The scared man had said wait.
He found the shade of a giant cactus and seated himself again. He waited. He was not exactly hidden, but
the protective coloring of his tan suit made it unlikely anyone passing on the highway would see him.
“I'll have a station wagon,” the man had said.
Carl Peterson was the frightened man's name. Colonel Sir Carl Peterson, K.B.E., C.B., C.M.G., F.R.S.,
M.A., D. Litt, M.R.A.S., F.R.A.I. Maybe there were some more letters after Sir Carl's name. There
could be. He was quite a guy.
Not, he thought wryly, a man who should scare easily.
His curiosity had been eating large holes in his composure. Which, of course, did no good.
Actually he knew very little, but what he did know was startling. He had gathered, from Sir Carl's
incoherence over the long-distance telephone, that a man was dead and there was something hair-raising
about it. The telephone connection from Arizona to New York had not been too good, but he didn't
think this had given Carl's voice the ghostly haunted quality that had been in it. Frankly, he had been
increasingly disturbed, because Carl was certainly not a fellow who would be easily put into a state of
mind. Sir Carl, a round, fat gentleman of the old English sort, was what the psychologists would call a
visceratonic, meaning a fat man who loved comfort, overstuffed furniture and good food.
Actually Carl wasn't the type to be an explorer, either, but he was, and so physiological psychology
didn't bracket him exactly as a type. Carl Peterson, he knew, belonged to a group which had organized
years ago and called themselves Wanderers, Inc., for the purpose of conducting exploration work in
different parts of the world. Wanderers, Inc., had never done anything tremendous in a scientific way, but
they plugged along, now and then turning up something worth while in an archaeological or geological
way, and having fun. That was an important thing with most explorers anyway, having fun.
A station wagon came down the highway and stopped fifty yards away.
There was one man in the station wagon, the driver. A very lean, very dark-skinned man who sat quite
still not looking right or left, hardly moving, until suddenly he made a cigarette from papers and tobacco
and lighted it. He made the smoke with astonishing speed. Then he looked up.
An Indian. An American Indian, as dark as an old walnut plank and with a great hook of a nose.
“How,” he said. “You want lift?”
The Indian said this without looking around.
“No, thanks,” he told the Indian, and remained seated on the suitcase.
The Indian considered this.
“Heap hot,” the Indian said.
“Heap,” he agreed.
“Hard road.”
“Hard.”
“Long road.”
“Maybe.”
The Indian considered some more, then asked, “You crazy white man?”
“Could be.”
“Sure,” the Indian agreed. “Only crazy man walk long, hard hot road.”
He remained on the suitcase. He said, “Only Indian live in this country from choice. What does that make
Indian?”
The Indian considered this, then looked down at the end of his limp cigarette as if examining it intently.
“You got something there,” the Indian said. Then he reached over and knocked open the station wagon
door. “Pete couldn't come,” he added.
“Who?”
“Carl Peterson.”
“Who's he?”
The Indian looked injured. “Okay, I started it,” he said. “Throw your warbag in the back end. We got
eighty miles to go. Road no good.”
He picked up his bag, carried it over and put it down on the road beside the station wagon. He looked in
at the Indian. The Indian was all of sixty years old, but probably as tough and active as a billygoat. His
leathery old hide had a worn, shiny sheen as if it had been used for stropping razors. There were pouches
under his eyes large enough to hold eggs, but the eyes themselves were as glittering and alert as those of
a mouse.
Having examined the Indian closely, he asked, “What was wrong with Carl?”
“Ugh.”
“Eh?”
“Loose gut,” the Indian said. “Catchum shakes. Scared.”
“I doubt that.”
Undisturbed, the Indian said, “Go ahead and doubt it, but Indian know when white man scared, even if
white man never know when Indian scared.”
He studied the Indian some more. He decided that the old Indian was frightened. The way the old Indian
was talking, this funny stuff, meant the Indian was badly scared himself. He commented on this.
He asked, “Are you scared?”
“Huh?”
“Are you frightened?”
“Ugh,” the Indian said. “No tell.”
“What's your name?”
“Kul-ne-se-pah-pooh,” the Indian said.
“What do they call you?”
“Grunts,” the Indian admitted.
He said, “Okay, Grunts. You say put my bag in the back.” He picked up his bag and tried the handle of
the rear door. The door was locked. “It's locked,” he said. Grunts reached back and knocked down the
lock. After the bag was in the back, Grunts closed the door and again locked it by flipping up the handle.
He asked the Indian, “What's the matter? Afraid it will come to life and jump out?”
“Ugh,” Grunts said.
He got in the station wagon with the Indian, in the front seat, and the Indian at once leaned across,
yanked on the door to make sure it was shut, then threw up the handle, locking the door.
“What's the idea?”
“Ugh!”
“It's hot in here. It must be a hundred and forty with no ventilation.”
“Ugh!”
He started to roll down the window, but the Indian said another, “Ugh!” loudly and knocked his hand
away from the window crank. “Ixnay,” the Indian added. “Window up, door locked.”
“Why?”
“Feel better,” the Indian said.
“What do you mean?”
“Never mind.”
It was already unbelievably hot in the station wagon, hot enough so he knew the Indian had been riding
with the windows closed tightly. Sweat was already beginning to pop from every pore. Scared Indian or
no scared Indian, he decided this was not his day to be cremated in an airtight station wagon in a desert.
Furthermore he was sure the Indian was wearing at least one concealed gun.
He tried once more, asking, “Why keep this thing closed up like an oven?”
“Feel better.”
He took hold of both the Indian's wrists with his left hand, reaching across and pinning the Indian to the
seat with his left elbow. He put enough pressure in his fingers, held the Indian, used his right hand to
search for guns. Presently he found that he was mining firearms. He brought out of the Indian's clothing an
army automatic, a Luger, two Colt single action six-shooters, a ladylike .25-calibre automatic, a fat
derringer with double barrels, a tiny .22-calibre revolver, a single-shot .22 pistol.
“For God's sake!” he said. He was amazed. “Is that all?”
The Indian was indignant. “One in boot,” he explained.
The one in his boot was a nubbin gun of .22 calibre, single-shot.
“Any more?”
“Nope.”
“What are you, a traveling armament salesman or something?”
The Indian shrugged. “Nope.”
“Then why all the guns?” He counted the guns. “Nine guns! Why nine pistols?”
“Medicine.”
“For what?”
“For what ails me.” The Indian reached over and turned on the ignition, stamped the starter, tramped the
accelerator, threw the gears in mesh, and the station wagon jumped ahead.
The Indian was unhappy. When the station wagon was doing fifty, he carelessly took his hands off the
wheel to rub his wrists where they had been held while he was searched. He straightened his coat. He
pushed out his considerable jaw in indignation.
“Me old, frightened man,” he complained. “You hadn't oughta pick on me.”
“No?”
“You're Doc Savage,” the Indian grumbled. “Got reputation for heap big and tough. Pick on somebody
your own size.”
Chapter II
HE had brought water. There were three quart thermos bottles of it in his suitcase, and a pair of tough
walking shoes suitable for the desert. He had brought the thermos containers of water along because he
had known what the desert would be this time of year. Now he felt thirsty, but he did not touch the
water. Thirst was something that, if you gave in to it, would plague you unmercifully in the desert, and,
anyway, he didn't know what was ahead. Three quarts of water, he had estimated, would be enough to
carry him if he had to walk from the spot where he left the train to the nearest spot where drinking water
was available. But now he was in the station wagon, and it was possible he might have much farther to
walk. He didn't understand what was happening, didn't understand it at all. He preferred caution.
“Waterbag in back,” Grunts said.
He said nothing. He wasn't going to touch the Indian's water, not by a long shot. The Indian had him
puzzled. The Indian was several parts phony. That is, he was an Indian who was a phony Indian.
What had happened was ridiculous. He was not, however, the least amused. Terror, when it wore a
clown's costume, was double terror. He was certain the Indian was terrified.
Unexpectedly, the station wagon whipped off the blacktopped highway, lunged into the shallow grader
ditch, vaulted out, and the tools and the handbag in the back jumped off the floor and fell back heavily.
Wildly, madly, the machine plunged across the desert. There was no road now, no track. But the
sun-baked earth was as hard, almost, as pavement, and the Indian seemed to know where he was going,
and, it had become evident, was a skillful, if reckless, driver.
“So you knew I was Doc Savage?”
“Why not?” the Indian said.
“What are you afraid of?”
“Who? Me?”
“Yes.”
“Ugh!”
“Why didn't Carl Peterson come to meet me?”
“I told you. Him scared.”
“What of?”
“Huh?”
“Is he afraid of the same thing that's got you scared out of your wigwam?”
The Indian arched his neck indignantly. “Listen, city slicker, I'm an Apache. Apaches don't live in
wigwams and never did. They live in hodags. Damn warm in winter. A hodag is a fine place to live.”
“For a mole, maybe. What is Peterson afraid of?”
The Indian said, “Ugh!”
“You won't talk, eh?”
“Listen, brother, you've insulted me,” the Indian said. “A hodag is a good home, and not for a mole
either. A mole would think a hodag was a palace!”
“An underprivileged mole might,” he agreed.
THE station wagon averaged about forty miles an hour across desert of a sort which an uninitiated
person would have sworn would be safe only for a donkey. The trick was knowing the terrain, and the
Indian knew it. He made long and seemingly aimless corkscrew detours without slackening speed,
sometimes riding the station wagon high on the sharp slope of bare eroded hills, and invariably a way
continued to open ahead.
Except for the heat, it would have been a nice trip. It did not lack for excitement and scenery. Frequently
they whipped near the edge of gullies, young canyons, as much as a hundred feet deep and with
absolutely perpendicular walls. The magical coloring, the symphony of chromatism that had given the
Painted Desert its name, was everywhere about them.
“How far?”
“Sixty miles.”
“As the crow flies?”
“No, the way we go.”
“A little more than an hour, then?”
Grunts snorted loudly. “Take hell of a lot longer than that. We ain't in tough going yet. Wait and see.”
“Is it a camp?”
“Diggings.”
He surmised this meant that Wanderers, Inc., was engaged in some sort of exploratory activity entailing
excavation.
He asked, “Cliff dwelling?”
Cliff dwelling was the logical guess, because this shockingly arid country was fertile territory for cliff
dwelling ruins. Mesa Verde, the Manhattan of all cliff dweller ruins, was far to the north across the
Colorado border, but in between, and scattered over many thousands of square miles, other ruins had
been found yielding up archaeological information the equal of, and often times excelling, that of Mesa
Verde.
“That's right,” Grunts said.
The Indian settled himself to driving, and for the next hour said nothing, guiding the station wagon with
skill and concentration.
The country changed. The way became rougher, more difficult. The engine labored, heated repeatedly,
and Grunts had to stop to allow cooling. Twice he poured water from his waterbag into the radiator, and
once he drank from the waterbag, a couple of swallows.
Suddenly they stopped.
The Indian switched off the motor, turned and dug around in the back seat, coming up with an ordinary
mirror in a gilt frame, a mirror about a foot in diameter. He offered no explanation. He got out and began
climbing a sharp ridge.
Doc Savage changed his dress shoes for the serviceable brogans he had brought for desert use. He
followed the Indian, overtaking him without difficulty. The climbing was quite difficult and the Indian
seemed disappointed at being overtaken so readily.
At the top, the Indian said, “Keep head down.”
The Indian then shoved his own head, arms, and mirror over the crest. He caught the sun with the mirror,
began experimenting with aiming the reflected spot of light. He maneuvered it carefully over a hill slope
about half a mile distant, getting range.
The ridge where they lay was the highest for miles. To the north, though, some seven or eight miles, there
was a sugar loaf butte, and it was evident the Indian was trying to range this with his makeshift heliograph
signaling device. He aimed carefully, flashed, aimed again, flashed. . . . He kept this up fully five minutes.
He got no response.
The Indian lay completely motionless for a while. “Bad,” he said. “Have to take long way now. Be
careful.”
“You were supposed to get an answering signal?”
“Sure. If okay, get signal. If not okay, no signal.”
“Trouble, eh?”
“Maybe.”
“What kind of trouble?”
The Indian didn't grunt. He just didn't say anything. He went back to the station wagon.
THEY drove two hours in silence, and he concluded the Indian had him puzzled. The Indian was
frightened, but that was not what puzzled him. The redskin was also talking and acting like an
almost-aboriginal native of the forest-deserts in this case—but that did not puzzle him either. It was
probably the old fellow's way of covering up his feelings. Actually, he finally concluded, it was difficult to
put his finger on what he didn't understand about the Indian. It was inward thing, whatever it was. An
inner light, a force. Japs rushing to die for their emperor, the few of them he had seen doing this, had a
similar thing about them. Not that this old Indian was giving any indication of wanting to die for anyone.
Not much. But he did have some inward, secret thing about him.
The going had been incredible. Slow, laborious, the station wagon hardly ever getting out of second gear,
up hill or down. The Indian's waterbags had been emptied into its radiator.
“Made it,” the Indian said unexpectedly. He stopped the machine.
He got out.
“Okay. Hunky-dory. You get out,” he added.
“Why?”
“Carl Peterson meet you here.”
“Where?”
“Up there.” The Indian pointed. “There's a cliff dwelling ruin up there.”
DOC SAVAGE alighted. He stretched, flexed his legs, for he was tired from the hours in the station
wagon. It was almost dark. In fact, it was dark, and rather unusually dark for the desert, too, because a
cloud bank had piled up in the west, shutting off the twilight. But there was enough light to see a few feet,
to make out the beginning of what was obviously going to be a tough footpath.
“I got flashlight,” the Indian said.
The road where the station wagon had stopped seemed to be a narrow shelf, the trail surmounted a steep
mountain on the left; on the right, lost in the darkness somewhere was evidently a deep canyon in which a
stream ran, because he could hear the far-off mutter of water moving.
“Is it far?”
“No.”
He followed the Indian, not very trustfully. His ears kept careful tab on the desert sounds. There were
too many of these. A harsh thermal wind, typical of the desert at nightfall, had sprung up and was rushing
at him, seizing his shirt and slapping it against his body, stirring his hair, making all sorts of inexplicable
sounds in the desert night.
The path was not as hard as he had expected. It had been used a great deal. The Indian did not use his
flashlight during the climb.
“Narrow hole,” the Indian said suddenly.
They had reached the cliff dwelling. He used both hands in the darkness, felt the hard shapes of rocks
fitted together, either without mortar, or with a little mortar which the weather had removed during the
摘要：

SE-PAH-POOADocSavageAdventurebyKennethRobesonThispageformatted2004BlackmaskOnline.http://www.blackmask.com?ChapterI?ChapterII?ChapterIII?ChapterIV?ChapterV?ChapterVI?ChapterVII?ChapterVIII?ChapterIX?ChapterX?ChapterXI?ChapterXII?ChapterXIIIOriginallypublishedinDocSavageMagazineFebruary1946         C...

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