Thunder Jim Wade

by Henry Kuttner

  Wade looked around at the ragged, unshaved, filthy scarecrows from the mine. One of them had discovered a cupboard of food and the group was soon devouring everything they could find. He recognized sailors from tramp steamers, beachcombers—human beings! Again a brief film of ice froze Wade’s eyes.

  Astrid was bandaging Carnevan’s wounds. The Government agent gestured feebly to Wade.

  “My message went through, eh? The tattooed head—”

  “Yes. I followed up the clue you gave, Carnevan.”

  Astrid straightened, her gaze inquiring.

  “Why did Dellera run the mine so secretly? I never did find out.”

  Carnevan’s lips silently formed the word: “Germany.” Wade understood. The explorer could scarcely explain without revealing his own identity as a United States Government agent, a secret that only Wade and his two colleagues, among all those present, knew.

  “Let’s see if I can dope it out,” Thunder Jim said swiftly, “Tell me if I’m wrong. Dellera was working for the Nazis. Now that I think of it, there was a German spy and saboteur who used that name in Spain, during the Civil War. He was caught and sentenced to be shot, but apparently got away.”

  Wade saw Carnevan nod. He went on.

  “So Dellera, knowing Spanish, came to South America to do Fifth Column work for Hitler. He posed as a mining engineer and by sheer luck had this gold mine fall right in his lap. He intended to use the gold to finance Nazi subversive activity in South America—set up German credits here and so on. Probably he also planned to buy food on the coast and have it smuggled through the British blockade.”

  “You’re a good guesser,” Carnevan put in. “There’s a lot of gold in that mine and it could have caused plenty of trouble in South America.”

  Astrid’s eyes were flashing.

  “Well, I’m going to see that it doesn’t help Germany, if I have to blow up the mine so nobody can get at it.”

  “That won’t be necessary,” Wade said. “The Peruvian government will give you all the protection you need once they know of the mine’s value.”

  Marat turned from the wireless, removing the phones.

  “Okay,” he said. “I’ve got an answer from Lima. Ten planes are taking off immediately. They’ll be here before sundown.”

  Wade didn’t answer. He was staring out of one of the thick-windowed ports. His lips thinned to a tight, hard line. The Poison People were returning.

  DOWN the gorge they poured, hideous in their war-paint. They were carrying stone images of Inca gods that Wade had seen in the underground temple. They passed by the pill-box with only a casual glance at it, swept down the slope toward the forest.

  Some of them carried poles. Atop their sharpened ends were human heads—the heads of white men. An aquiline, beak-nosed face, with a pencil-thin mustache Wade recognized as Patek. The grossly fat, loose-lipped face with bared black teeth had once belonged to Dellera. There were many others.

  The Poison People had found new heads to shrink.

  One of them faced back toward the gorge, shouting something. Wade opened the port slightly to hear. Then he turned and followed the others.

  “What did he say?” Marat asked.

  Thunder Jim let a grim smile touch his lips.

  “He said the Poison People were leaving the gorge forever. They got their idols back—the ones Dellera didn’t melt down for the gold—and they have their revenge. But their temple has been desecrated. It’s no longer a sacred place. They’re moving many journeys away. That’s one problem removed, Astrid. You won’t need this pill-box. The Poison People are finding new hunting grounds.”

  The savages raced down toward the jungle and vanished into the green wilderness. They were gone, slipping back to the secret fastnesses of their ancient home. In the end, they had conquered. Theirs was the triumph and the vengeance.

  Dellera’s head, atop a pole, seemed to grin back in agony as it was carried from view.

  “Whew!” breathed Thunder Jim. “Any brandy in the closet? I need a drink!”

  END

  Book IV: The Devil’s Glacier

  Out of the Frozen Arctic Wastes Comes the Call of a Wild Legend to Summon Thunder Jim Wade and His Intrepid Aides On a Mission of Perilous Battle!

  Chapter I

  An Incredible Discovery

  SOUTH of Point Barrow the Alaskan Mountains rise to the greenish sky, capped with the flaming borealis. The icy rivers race to Beaufort Sea, and thence to the Arctic Ocean. There are Inuits along the coast, and a few traders, one or two government stations here and there, perhaps some trappers who are willing to brave the hardships of this lost land. There is no gold or coal or petroleum. The trails that criss-cross most of Alaska do not exist far beyond the Arctic Circle. There is fur, but the difficulties of securing it are prohibitive.

  Under those circumstances, it was plain that Sourdough Svendson was acting in a decidedly eccentric fashion.

  But then, everyone said Sourdough was slightly cracked. Not that it mattered, for the hard, gaunt old trapper was one of the best men in his business. Despite his age, he could follow sign mile after mile, plowing along stolidly on his snowshoes, following his lines when younger trappers preferred to stay indoors and drink hootchenoo. But now he spent his spare time at the telegraph station, down the river, anxiously awaiting the latest bulletins about the European War.

  “They’ll be coming over here next,” he insisted, his wrinkled, brown face twisting worriedly. “I’m gonna get ready.”

  And he did, to the disgust of Ben Trefz, his partner. He blasted a bomb shelter out of the frozen ground, stocked up on food supplies, and somehow managed to buy a couple of ancient gas masks. The most amazing part of it was that Trefz found a use for those masks.

  TREFZ was a big man, with bison-huge shoulders and no neck, squinting little pale eyes and a nose that had been broken often in the past. There were stories that he had come North to avoid the Mounties. No one knew definitely about that, but Trefz was certainly an ugly customer. He had no ears—frost-bite had eaten them off, he said—and always wore earmuffs to conceal the ragged stubs. Svendson didn’t ask questions. It was enough that Trefz was a diabolically clever trapper, setting ingenious snares that caught a surprising number of pelts.

  He looked larger than ever now, looming against the snowy side of the mountain ramp that rose sharply not far away.

  “You’re right, Ben,” Svendson said. “There’s a cave. But the thing’s crazy.”

  Trefz chuckled. “Smell anything?”

  “I don’t—yes I do. Like sulphur.”

  “Okay. It almost did for me when I went into that cave yesterday. The place is full of gas. Volcanic vents inside, somewhere.”

  Svendson rubbed a brown, hard jaw. “You sure it was a silver fox? A big one?”

  “It was a silver fox,” Trefz grinned. “I wounded the beggar a mile back, and he headed for this cave. When I started after him, I saw him lying there—and then I almost keeled over. Got out just in time. Tried holding my breath, but I couldn’t hold it long enough. So I remembered the gas masks you bought, Sourdough.”

  Svendson clucked thoughtfully. “Big cave. Funny nobody found it before.”

  “The Inuits stay away from this neck of the woods. It’s haunted, they say. Besides, I’ve a hunch that cave was a lot smaller till just lately. There’s been a landslide, probably last thaw.”

  “It’s big enough now. Big enough to drive a truck in.”

  “So what are we waiting for?” Trefz asked. “I didn’t mush back to the camp just to talk about it. That silver fox pelt’s worth dough. Let’s have one of those masks.”

  He donned it—an old-fashioned device, but tested and workable. His voice came, muffled.

  “Let’s go. It’ll be safer if we keep together.”

  That, of course, was true. Should one of the masks fail, the man wearing the other would still be there to help. But Svendson wasn’t worried; he had tested the masks carefully, in spite of Trefz�
��s jibes. “Might come in handy if we run into a skunk,” Trefz had said. “That’s about all.”

  Svendson bared his few teeth. He was used to having people laugh at him. After a lifetime spent in the northern wilderness, he cared little what men thought. Had Svendson not lived such a solitary existence, he might have hesitated before forming a partnership with Trefz. More than one trapper had been killed for the sake of pelts painfully collected.

  SVENDSON knew that the natives didn’t like Trefz. Perhaps they sensed the ruthless, cold brutality of the man. Svendson himself sometimes felt a little warning chill when he looked at Trefz’s monstrous bulk and his tiny, pallid eyes. But the big man was a marvelously clever trapper, and so far had more than earned his grub-stake.

  Only once had he mentioned his past, and that was vague and inconclusive. He spoke of one of the U.S.S.R. polar colonies, and mentioned that he had left hurriedly. But that was years ago, he said.

  For the rest, Trefz was a Russian, and he hinted that he had been a member of the OGPU before he had come to Alaska. Svendson, with good reason, guessed that his partner wouldn’t care to return to Russia if he could avoid it.

  Well, that didn’t matter, of course. All that mattered at present was that gigantic cavern in the side of the mountain, and the silver fox pelt within it. And the poison gas—which in itself was odd. There are volcanoes in Alaska, some of which belch poisonous fumes, but to find such an ingenious death-trap as this was unusual.

  But not impossible. Both Svendson and Trefz had removed their snowshoes, which would only handicap them inside the cave, and now they moved forward, each holding a flashlight. Rubble grated under their feet. A warm gust of air poured out of the tunnel.

  They entered cautiously, ready to retreat if the masks should fail. The cavern broadened inside into a thirty-foot tunnel, eroded from the rock. Svendson’s muffled voice said: “Looks like there was a river here once.” He coughed and concentrated on using the mask. Talking was dangerous, in this gas-filled place.

  Wan daylight filtered in, revealing a fairly smooth floor sloping down to the middle. Farther in lay the body of the fox, a good pelt, worth many dollars in the market. The two men moved forward, and Svendson knelt to examine the fox. It was in excellent condition. Apparently the fumes had not harmed it.

  He stood up, shouldering the pelt, and touched Trefz’s arm. The Russian, a grotesque faceless figure in the mask, shrugged impatiently. He pointed.

  Svendson followed the gesture. Trefz was sending a finger of light from his flash into the depths of the cavern. It gleamed on something yellow.

  “Gold?” he hazarded. Trefz hurried toward the thing he had found. It was gold—but not what either man had expected.

  Svendson’s eyes widened in sheer amazement. He was looking down at the skeleton of a man, a man who must have been a giant in his lifetime. But that wasn’t the incredible part.

  The skeleton wore armor. Ancient and corroded, it had crushed in the crumbling ribs. Chain-mail lay like a shroud over the relic of a past century. There was a helmet, with bulls’ horns set into it. And on the brown fleshless arm was a bracelet of gold.

  IT LOOKED like a snake, coiled and ready to strike. Svendson shivered. A chill breath out of the forgotten past seemed to breathe on him. Such a thing as this had not existed on Earth since—since the days when red-sailed dragon ships swept the northern seas!

  Trefz was already removing the bracelet.

  “It’s gold, all right,” he said shortly.

  Svendson nodded. “It’s a snake bracelet. That’s a Viking outfit!”

  Both men were silent, struck with wonder. How had this armored Norseman come here—and how long ago? Svendson was remembering Leif Ericson, who had sailed to Vinland. The Vikings were always sea rovers. A Norse ship, sailing past Vinland, could somehow have made it way through the Northwest Passage and into the Beaufort Sea. But it was a journey that made the achievements of Columbus and Magellan seem insignificant.

  The same thoughts were passing through Trefz’s mind. He looked around.

  It was impossible to talk much, because of the gas, but he clipped out a few terse words.

  “May be more stuff. Let’s look around.”

  Svendson nodded. The gold of the bracelet was pure, soft, and pliable. The armor itself—well, it was of historical value, of course. But gold was worth more. He put down the fox pelt and followed Trefz deeper into the cave.

  It did not end. It ran into the heart of the mountain, a tunnel through which three cars might have driven abreast. Occasionally there were cracks and vents in the floor, from which steam and poisonous vapors gushed.

  “These mountains have never been explored,” Trefz said.

  Svendson knew what he meant. What lay beyond? Where would this incredible tunnel end? And what would they find there? A mound of skeleton Viking warriors, wearing in death their golden ornaments?

  “Come on!” Trefz grunted, and hurried forward, flashing his light all around. Svendson followed. It was safe enough; the gas-masks protected them. They went on….

  The cave was about a mile long, and it ended with a blaze of daylight from above. The two trappers found themselves emerging in a gorge, with walls that swept up steeply to the snowy peaks far above. Mists curled here and there on the broken ground. Cracks and fissures spouted dim wraiths of fog. The volcanic gas was still present.

  They went on, searching for some clue to this mystery. The fissure widened. It twisted sharply; the walls fell away, and they looked out of the rift’s mouth into the incredible.

  Straight ahead the ground fell away steeply, barren and brown. Two canyons yawned before them, one leading to left, one to right. They were, Svendson thought, at the foot of an immense Y-shaped double valley. The right-hand canyon twisted; they could not see its end.

  To the left, a mile distant, loomed the immense, shining bulk of a glacier’s face. And beneath it—a city!

  Lost city—in this desolate wilderness!

  “Holy suffering catamounts!” Svendson gasped. “Trefz—look at that!”

  The Russian nodded. “I see it. It’s impossible. But—”

  But there it was. A city of stone and wood, crude, made of large structures that sent a twinge of half-forgotten memory through Svendson’s mind. They were like… like what? He remembered. Like the great halls the Viking Norse had reared on their ice-bound northern fjords!

  He said something of this to Trefz. “A dead city, maybe? Some lost colony that settled here long ago?”

  The Russian shook his head. “There is smoke? See? Come on, Sourdough. We can’t pass this up.”

  Loosening the pistol in his belt, he hurried down the slope. Svendson followed, discovering that the poison-gas volcanic area extended only a little way beyond the rift’s mouth. Both men removed their masks, which were no longer necessary. Taking advantage of the cover afforded by the rough ground, they advanced up the left-hand valley. Despite the snow atop the mountains high above, it was not uncomfortably cold. Volcanic activity, Svendson thought. However, Alaska’s temperature is much milder than most people believe.

  Once Trefz took the golden snake-bracelet out of his pocket to examine it more closely. His pale eyes glittered. Reflectively he rubbed the muffs that hid the stumps of his ears.

  His gaze slid sidewise toward Svendson. Maybe this valley held treasure—maybe not. If it contained enough for two, well and good. On the other land, if there wasn’t enough to go around…

  Casually Trefz touched the butt of his pistol. His fingers slid over its cold surface in a lingering caress. Just at present, he needed Svendson’s help—for a little while.

  Chapter II

  The Thunderbug Takes Off

  TWO days later Sourdough Svendson paddled downstream with a bullet lodged in his left arm. Death paced him. His eyes held a peculiar insane glare. His cracked, feverish lips kept muttering words which seemed to have little meaning.

  “Destroy the city… have to get help… the devil in the
glacier… but Trefz will have to get more guns….”

  One-armed, he sent the canoe racing perilously downstream. He had discarded all his supplies. The return journey through the cavern had been made in a hurry, and he had cached his gasmask under a boulder after emerging. It might be necessary to go back. Svendson hoped not. If he could only get help—

  “Tryggvard is a fool,” Svendson muttered. “He is stark—strong as a bull. But against Trefz’s guns—no chance. And the Devil’s Glacier….”

  His tongue circled dry lips. The white-drifted banks shot past as the canoe raced on. The telegraph station—it would take a day to reach it, even without halting. A day…

  The day passed, and eventually a gaunt, shaking figure, racked by fever, stumbled up from the boat landing and made his way to the trading post. Friendly hands helped him, forced brandy down his throat, asked questions. Svendson was frantically anxious to tell his story. As they probed for the bullet in his arm, he explained what had happened up river. The telegraph operator exchanged significant glances with the trader.

  Svendson struggled upright.

  “I tell you, it’s all true! I’m not crazy! There’s a lost city behind those mountains, and Trefz—Trefz—you’ve got to stop him! He’ll get guns, and it’ll be butchery.”

  “Sure.” The trader pressed Svendson back on the bunk. “But you’re in a bad way. You need rest, first.”

  “You’ve got to check up! Send men in—the Devil’s Glacier—that’s what Trefz wants.”

  “Yeah. But there’s no rush.”

  The natives listened avidly. Those who knew English translated for the others. They did not believe Svendson mad for they had their legends. All the stories said that a race of devils dwelt beyond the Great Mountains. Horned devils of gigantic stature, who had come there ages ago.

  It took several hours before Svendson realized the truth—that no one would believe him. His reputation was fatal. Always eccentric, he was now considered mad as a hatter. Worst of all, they were growing suspicious about Trefz.

  “What happened?” the trader asked. “Did you get in a fight with him? Kill him?”