Kenneth Robeson - Doc Savage 129 - The Secret of the Su

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THE SECRET OF THE SU
A Doc Savage Adventure by Kenneth Robeson
This page copyright © 2003 Blackmask Online.
http://www.blackmask.com
? Chapter I. THE SECRET OF SLOW JOHN
? Chapter II. FLOCK TOGETHER
? Chapter III. ESCAPE
? Chapter IV. PATRICIA
? Chapter V. PIER END
? Chapter VI. EVERGLADES
? Chapter VII. STRANGE SWAMP
? Chapter VIII. SU
? Chapter IX. MOCCASINS DON'T RATTLE
? Chapter X. THE SECRET WORLD
? Chapter XI. BAD ENDS
? Chapter XII. STAGE FOR DEATH
? Chapter XIII. SWAMP MAGIC
Scanned and Proofed by Tom Stephens
Chapter I. THE SECRET OF SLOW JOHN
HE had a round, pleasant face, but he was a scared man. The round, pleasant faces of some men do not
have much character; they just look as if the owners had eaten too much. This round, pleasant face was
different. It was the face of a man who had done good things in life, worked hard, enjoyed his neighbors,
been enjoyed by them, in addition to eating well. But now the fright was the uppermost thing.
He stood on his front porch, beside the sign that said, Dr. R. W. Wilson. The sign was his shingle. He
was a doctor of medicine.
He had practiced thirty years here in Logantown.
His lips moved stiffly, for he was speaking to himself.
“It's fantastic,” he said. “Fantastic, such a thing happening to a man to whom nothing exciting has
happened in thirty years.”
He looked up and down the street. It was a pleasant street. There was nothing alarming about it. There
was nothing out of the way about the pleasant afternoon in a small town—Logantown, population
6,780— in the State of Georgia. But cold, uneasy sweat stood out on his forehead.
He walked around the yard, acting as if he were inspecting the shrubbery, the grass, and the flowers.
When he felt reassured, he went back into the house.
He picked up the telephone.
“Hello, Laura,” he said to the operator.
“I want you to get me a Dr. Clark Savage, Jr., in New York City.”
“Do you have a cold, Dr. Wilson?”
Laura asked. “You sound a little hoarse.”
“No, no cold. And, Laura, ask the New York telephone operator just for Doc Savage.
I imagine he is better known under that name. “
“Doc Savage?”
“Yes.”
Laura said, “That name sounds familiar. What is he, a specialist?”
“Yes—a specialist,” Dr. Wilson said.
His voice, when he said that, was a little strange.
“I'll call you back,” Laura said.
Dr. Wilson did not move from the telephone.
He stood there, stiff and waiting, like a man who had thrown a firecracker and was waiting for it to
explode.
An ancient and wrinkled Indian came to the door and looked at him for a moment.
The Indian—he was an American redskin— was very ancient indeed, judging from the lines on his face,
but his walk was that of a younger man. He looked at least eighty, handled himself as if he were no more
than forty.
The Indian did not smile or speak. He just stared. He wore dark trousers and the white coat of a serving
man.
“I will talk to you again in a minute, Slow John,” Dr. Wilson said.
Slow John nodded. He went away.
THE telephone rang and Dr. Wilson said into the instrument, “Yes . . . Hello, New York. Doc Savage? .
. . I see. When will he be back? . . . I find that rather awkward because this is an important matter.
Where could I get in touch with him? . . . It can't. . . . You are Monk Mayfair? . . . Oh, I see. One of
Doc Savage's assistants. . . . Just a moment, please.”
He stood there, holding the telephone, discouraged, not knowing what to do. In his abstraction he beat
one fist absently against the wall.
Slow John, the Indian, appeared again in the door. He came swiftly, and looked at the doctor's fist
thumping the wall in defeat, and he was relieved. Slow John had a fireplace poker in his hand. He put the
poker behind him and disappeared again.
Dr. Wilson spoke into the telephone.
“Thank you very much,” he said. “But I would rather place this matter in the hands of Doc Savage
personally, instead of an assistant. . . . I'm sorry, and thank you. Will you have Doc Savage telephone me
collect when he can be located? . . . Yes, Dr. R. W. Wilson, Logantown, Georgia. Good-by.”
He started to hang up, then said rapidly, “Hello, hello, are you still there? . . . I want to impress on you
that this is a frantically vital matter, possibly one of the most important things that has happened to this
generation. I am sure Doc Savage would be vitally concerned, and that as soon as he knows its nature,
he will certainly act. . . . Yes, thank you. I know you will try to get hold of him. Good-by.”
That time he replaced the receiver, and pulled his shoulders up straight. But the defeat and the fear was
still on his face.
He didn't seem exactly sure what he should do.
Finally he spoke to himself again, muttering, “I hope they can locate him. He is the one man capable of
dealing with such a fantastic thing.”
The telephone rang then, and he snatched it up eagerly. But it was only Laura, the operator. “The charges
will be four dollars and eighty cents with tax, Dr. Wilson. I'll put it on your bill.” Then Laura added, “I
just remembered who this Doc Savage is, Dr. Wilson.”
“Thank you, Laura,” Dr. Wilson said.
Laura asked, “Isn't he the one they call the Man of Bronze? The man who is supposed to be such a
fabulous combination of scientific skill, mental wizardry and physical prowess? And he makes a business
of helping people out of trouble, when the trouble is fantastic or weird and beyond the facilities of the
police? Isn't that Doc Savage?”
“Yes, that is the man,” Dr. Wilson said.
“I was thinking I had read an article somewhere about him,” Laura said.
“Thank you, Laura, and good-by,” Dr. Wilson said. He hung up.
And again he just stood there, a man who did not know what he wanted to do.
FINALLY Dr. Wilson went into another room, a neat old-fashioned front parlor.
Slow John was there.
“Slow John, “ Dr. Wilson said. “Why didn't you tell me about this incredible thing years ago?”
The Indian's face was inscrutable, composed with the expressionlessness of his race.
He did not answer.
Dr. Wilson knew the Indian was uncomfortable.
“Don't feel badly, Slow John,” he said. “I am not reproaching you, or accusing you of doing something
you shouldn't have done. But you have been my servant for how long?”
“Thirty years,” Slow John said.
“Thirty years, a long time,” said Dr. Wilson, nodding. “I am only surprised that, in those thirty years, you
did not tell me this thing.”
The Indian said, “It was not mine to tell.”
“Why?”
The Indian said, “I am a Su.”
“Su.” Dr. Wilson frowned, seemed to be digging around in his memory. “You have only said that once
before. Thirty years ago.”
Slow John nodded, but did not elaborate.
“You're an unusual fellow, Slow John,” Dr. Wilson said. “Unusual even for an American Indian, who are
a remarkable people as a class.”
Slow John was silent.
Dr. Wilson went over and put a hand on his shoulder. There was a great deal of affection in the gesture.
“Not many human beings would have insisted on paying a debt of gratitude as you have paid this one,” he
said.
Slow John said, “I do right as I see right.”
“Yes, but it's still unusual. It was thirty years ago, almost thirty years ago to this month, that I found your
family in the Everglades and was able to do them a service.
But you didn't owe me anything, and I know that you are sure I mean that. And yet you insisted on being
my servant for thirty years.”
Slow John grunted.
“Life,” he corrected. “I am your servant until one of us shall die.”
Dr. Wilson nodded, as a man who understood all that. “But why?” he asked.
“It was ordered.”
Dr. Wilson looked startled. “You were ordered to do that?”
“Yes?”
“By whom?”
“The Su. “
“That,” Dr. Wilson said, “is a strange thing.”
Slow John grinned briefly. A grin was a rare thing for him. “I know it sounds strange, and maybe silly,” he
said. “But it was my family you saved, and they would have died had you not done so, and that would
have been bad, because they were members of the higher clan of the Su. To serve you for my life is small
payment. I am happy to do it.”
DR. WILSON sank into a chair. He was amazed, suddenly amazed. Thirty years he had known Slow
John, and he was just now realizing what an amazing person the Indian was.
Truthfully, Dr. Wilson had always suspected that Slow John was a fakir of a mild sort. He'd figured that
the Indian was an old fellow who had told a good story, and was sticking to it.
The incident, thirty years ago in the Everglades swamp of Florida, when he'd saved the lives of Slow
John and his family, had been spectacular, probably. The Everglades in those days were unexplored and
rather terrible. Today they were still somewhat unexplored, but not as terrible. Planes had flown over the
vast swamp and photographed it, and one highway, the Tamiami Trail, had been put across from Miami
to Tampa, Florida.
Thirty years ago, during a hurricane, he had saved the lives of this Seminole family.
He was convinced they were Seminoles. He didn't understand this talk about Su.
The hurricane had been the typical piece of hell that Caribbean hurricanes can become. There wasn't
much doubt but that if Dr. Wilson hadn't happened along, in an unsinkable power launch that had a motor
much too large for the size of the craft, Slow John and his relatives would have drowned.
Dr. Wilson himself had nearly drowned. He'd saved their lives, all right. And his own, too.
He had thought he'd just saved the lives of a family of Seminoles—father, mother, two daughters, and
two sons. He'd thought that, in his heart, for thirty years.
Now suddenly, he knew better.
He was silent for a while, remembering how Slow John had come out of the swamp and overtaken
him—the Seminoles he'd rescued had disappeared immediately after the blow—and said that he was
going to be his, Dr. Wilson's, servant from this time on. Dr. Wilson had laughed at that.
I was younger in those days, Dr. Wilson thought now. I passed up a lot of things that were important. I
didn't notice things, or if I noticed them, I too often didn't follow them through to their logical conclusion.
In other words, I saw many a thing and didn't realize I was seeing it.
He remembered Slow John's family.
He'd thought at the time that they were remarkably intelligent-looking Indians. They were Indians, all
right. But there were things that were different about them. Their manner, for instance, had not, been
aboriginal and their clothing—they had worn long garments, or what was left of long garments, for the
hurricane by that time had dusted them up a bit.
The girls had worn long garments of a cloth that was unusual and exquisitely woven. Dr. Wilson thought
about that cloth now. He wished he'd asked for a sample of it. He knew now that he'd never seen a
piece of cloth like that since.
Now, in view of what he had discovered earlier in the day, he was intensely interested.
He looked at Slow John thoughtfully.
“What are the Su?” he asked.
“My people,” said Slow John immediately.
“Where are the Su?”
SLOW JOHN did not answer that immediately, but Dr. Wilson could tell that he was not going to ignore
the question. The Indian was thinking it over, choosing words, weighing them, and probably weighing Dr.
Wilson's own belief or disbelief in the story.
With his first words, Slow John showed a remarkable understanding of Dr. Wilson's ideas.
“You have always believed I was just a Seminole, haven't you?” Slow John asked.
He had been in Georgia so long that he had lost his native accent, the accent of his mother tongue, and he
had a little of the drawling Southerner in his voice.
“Yes, that is what I half suspected,” Dr. Wilson said.
Slow John thought for a while longer.
“You are not a imaginative man,” he said.
Dr. Wilson was not offended. “No, I am not,” he agreed. “I am hardheaded.”
Slow John said, “You are not a man who, if he heard the cry a passenger pigeon in a bush, would readily
assume there was a passenger pigeon in the bush.”
“Not me,” said Dr. Wilson. “And do you know why? Passenger pigeons have been extinct for many
years. The last one died in a zoo in 1913.”
“That,” said Slow John, “is what I mean. “
“Eh?”
“You would not believe me if I told you the story of the Su.”
“Why not?”
“Let me illustrate,” Slow John said.
“Many years ago, many thousands of years ago, there was a land called Atlantis. It was between Africa
and South America, and it was a very civilized land, more civilized than any part of the world. Probably
more civilized in many things than is our world today. Now it lies beneath the sea. “
“I've heard that legend of the lost continent of Atlantis,” Dr. Wilson admitted.
“Do you believe it?”
“I can't say I do. “
“Why?”
“Too improbable.”
Slow John spread his hands. “The story of the Su is the story of Atlantis, probably, and the story of
things beyond Atlantis, the story of things for many a thousand year down to this day.”
It took a moment for that to sink in. And while he was understanding, Dr. Wilson sat there and blinked
his eyes.
Slow John stood up.
“It is time I went after the milk,” he said.
Dr. Wilson kept a cow, which a friend fed and milked for him, and each evening it was Slow John's duty
to go after a quart of milk.
Slow John left to get the milk.
A MAN came out of hiding while Dr. Wilson was still sitting in the parlor and blinking thoughtfully, in
amazement, in disbelief, in astonished incredulity.
The man who appeared had been concealed in the attic. The house was a onestory dwelling, with a
sharply peaked roof, and there was a considerable attic, with plenty of standing room. After the frugal
oldfashioned method of construction, the attic was not floored, and there was a hatchway in the front hall
which gave into the attic.
The man dropped through this hatchway.
His gun had pearl handles, but it was a weapon made for grim business.
He walked into the parlor.
“Why, Dr. Light!” said Dr. Wilson. “I didn't hear you knock.”
“I didn't knock.” Dr. Light showed him the gun. “Put up your hands!”
“Good Lord! Are you crazy!”
“Put them up!” said Dr. Light.
Dr. Wilson slowly lifted his arms. His face began getting pale.
“Good,” Dr. Light said. “Now keep doing as you are told.”
Dr. Light was a round fat man with a pale, pink baby skin and a very light, almost white mustache. His
hair was not white, but extremely blond, and in his eyes there was a lack of coloration, such an absence
of it that he came near having the pink eyes of an albino, a person whose body is lacking in coloring
pigment. He was not a true albino, though. He was just a very pale and very blond man. His spectacles
with magnifying lenses gave him a goblin aspect.
“Walk with me,” he said.
Chapter II. FLOCK TOGETHER
DR. LIGHT and Dr. Wilson walked along the streets of Logantown in the gathering dusk. Dr. Light kept
his hand and the gun in his coat pocket.
“You're doing fine,” he told Dr. Wilson.
“But just do not get it in your head that I would not shoot you, because I would. “
“You would be hanged!” said Dr. Wilson.
“I might be. But they would have to catch me first. And if they didn't catch me, it would be worth it.”
They went into a shack section on the outskirts of town. It was the section called Honesty Flats, and it
was not called Honesty Flats because the name fitted.
Dr. Light turned their course into a weed-grown yard which was occupied by a three-room shack which,
apparently, had never been painted.
A woman in a cheap red dress opened the door, smirked and said, “Why, hello, Doc Light.” Then she
saw Dr. Wilson, looked startled, and said, “Hell, Doc, I didn't know you had highborn company.”
“Kate, where's Snuffy?” Dr. Light asked.
The woman eyed Dr. Wilson suspiciously.
“What you want with him?”
Dr. Light took the hand and the gun out of his pocket and showed the woman that it was pointed at Dr.
Wilson.
“Oh, jeeps!” the woman said. “I'll get Snuffy!”
She went away in a hurry.
Snuffy Gonner was a small furtive man with the large eyes and large ears of a fox.
He carried himself as if he were always looking around for a hole into which he could dodge in an
emergency. And there had been quite a few such emergencies in his life.
Snuffy was supposed to be a petty crook and rascal around Logantown. He was barely tolerated by the
decent inhabitants, and was always visited by the marshal when anybody reported a raid on a chicken
roost.
Actually, he was not such a petty crook as people thought.
Snuffy came in wiping his hands on the flanks of his trousers.
“H'yah, Doc,” he said.
He looked at the gun with which Dr. Light was menacing Dr. Wilson, but seemed not to notice the
weapon.
“What's cookin'?” he asked.
Dr. Light indicated Dr. Wilson. “Tie him up, Snuffy. And gag him good.”
Snuffy gave his pants a hitch.
“Hope there's something in it for me,” he said.
“There is. Fifty dollars.”
Snuffy grinned. He got a length of clothesline and some adhesive tape of the black sort called bicycle
tape locally. He walked behind Dr. Wilson, grasped him around the neck and neatly tripped him to the
floor.
“Snuffy!” gasped Dr. Wilson. “You don't know what you are getting into!”
“Nope, I don't,” Snuffy agreed.
Dr. Wilson said desperately, “Snuffy, don't do this. Don't help this man. Here is a chance to redeem
yourself in the community, to do an honorable thing for humanity and for yourself.”
“Ho, ho, ho!” said Snuffy. “My momma done told me the same thing lots of times.”
He tied and gagged Dr. Wilson.
“Now put him in the cellar,” said Dr. Light.
“Been an old rattlesnake hanging around in that cave, “ said Snuffy.
“We'll keep our eyes open for him, you and I,” said Dr. Light.
THEY put Dr. Wilson in the cave, and Snuffy said, “My cave rents for a hundred dollars.”
“All right,” said Dr. Light. “I'll pay it.”
Snuffy whistled. He was impressed.
“That's a hundred and fifty you owe me,” he said. “I'll buy a quarter interest in the company for that.”
Dr. Light said, “You're being childish, Snuffy.”
“Yeah? You've got something, eh?”
Dr. Light nodded slowly.
“It was the strangest thing,” he said.
“This afternoon, I just mentioned casually something about a newspaper clipping. It was at the Lions club
luncheon down at the Loganhouse Hotel. I mentioned to Dr. Wilson about reading this clipping, and I
saw an expression come over Dr. Wilson's face. You know how Doc Wilson is, always kind of a
composed guy. Doesn't have many strong feelings, apparently. Well, the feeling I saw on his face was
plenty strong. And then, I remembered that Dr. Wilson once did some research down in the Everglades.”
Snuffy nodded, for the fact that Dr. Wilson had once done research in the Everglades was common
knowledge in Logantown.
The town was small enough so that most of the inhabitants knew quite a bit about everyone else.
“Dr. Wilson was in the Everglades trying to find a cure for malaria fever, before he set up practice in
Logantown,” Snuffy said.
“That's what I remembered,” Dr. Light agreed. “So when Dr. Wilson left the luncheon in a hurry, I trailed
along, but didn't let him see me. I got into his house, into the attic, and I listened to him talk to that
Indian.”
“Slow John?” Snuffy asked.
“That's right.”
“I heard Slow John came from Egypt,” said Snuffy. “I heard he wasn't an Indian at all.”
“He's an Indian, all right,” said Dr. Light.
“Or at any rate, he's a Su.”
“What's a Su?”
Dr. Light eyed Snuffy dubiously. “You wouldn't believe it, Snuffy. And if you did, it would be a little
beyond your mental ability to assimilate.”
“Go ahead and insult me, doc,” Snuffy said. “I'll just raise my price ten dollars.”
“Ten dollars!” Dr. Light said, somewhat contemptuously. “That's all right. What's ten dollars?”
Snuffy whistled. “Quite a change come over you, Light. Ten dollars used to be just your right eye, that's
all.”
Dr. Light leaned back and eyed the fellow.
Then he jerked his head, indicating they should leave the vicinity of the cave, where Dr. Wilson might
overhear them.
When they were out of earshot, Dr. Light said, “Snuffy, I've got a job for you.”
“I'd like to see some cash on the barrel head,” Snuffy said.
Dr. Light tossed a bundle of bills on the table at which they had seated themselves.
Snuffy picked up the bills. His eyes popped a little when he saw the top one was a fifty. He counted
rapidly.
“Wow, wow!” he said.
DR. LIGHT leaned forward and gave instructions. “I want you to get hold of Bill Cox,” he said.
“Hell, the cops are looking for Bill for draft evasion, “ Snuffy said.
“You can find him, can't you?”
Snuffy just grinned.
“Bill Cox,” said Dr. Light, “is a sample of the kind of men I want. I want about twenty of them. I don't
want dumb ones, you understand.
I want smart boys.”
“A man has to pay smart boys,” Snuffy reminded him.
“Do you ever get your mind off a dollar?”
“Not very far off,” Snuffy admitted. He touched the roll of bills. “This expense money?”
“Use it however you need to use it to get the men I want together. “
“You want smart ones, eh?”
“Well, we won't get any Einsteins or Edisons. But fellows like Corny Cornman, who got turned out of
States after serving his sentence for kidnaping last month. Jake Davis, who killed that girl over at
Sikeston City. Frenchy, the knife thrower who used to be with a carnival. And Bancroft, one of the
brothers who deserted from the army. You see what kind.”
Snuffy nodded. “When you get them guys together, you got yourself an awful bunch of stinkers,” he said.
摘要：

THESECRETOFTHESUADocSavageAdventurebyKennethRobesonThispagecopyright©2003BlackmaskOnline.http://www.blackmask.com?ChapterI.THESECRETOFSLOWJOHN?ChapterII.FLOCKTOGETHER?ChapterIII.ESCAPE?ChapterIV.PATRICIA?ChapterV.PIEREND?ChapterVI.EVERGLADES?ChapterVII.STRANGESWAMP?ChapterVIII.SU?ChapterIX.MOCCASINS...

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