by Lin Carter
“And then you heard screams, coming from up on the mountain?” repeated Zarkon.
Valdez nodded vigorously. “But yes! Immediately upon the heels of the gun shots —”
“How many shots were there — did you count them?”
“Alas, such were the echoes that bounced down the slopes of the volcano, and so rapidly did the peestol fire, that it is hard to say. Perhaps five, perhaps six, perhaps even more.”
“In other words, the gal emptied her revolver at something an’ when it didn’t stop comin’ and she ran outta ammunition, she cut loose with some good, old-fashioned hollerin’,” Scorchy Muldoon commented sotto voce to Nick Naldini, who sat beside him on the rattan veranda chairs.
“And what happened after this?” inquired Zarkon.
“The screaming, it stopped. All at once, as if cut off by some force,” murmured Señor Valdez. “Me, I jumped out of my hammock and rushed to the room of the young señorita, so as to ascertain if she was safe. You will understand, gentlemen, that I did not know at once that it was the young señorita who had fired the gunshots and who had screamed. It could have been a woman of the village.”
“But it was Miss Mulligan who had fired the pistol and done the screaming, wasn’t it?” Zarkon pressed. “At least, you think so, because she was not in her room and was nowhere to be found”
“That is precisely the case,” agreed Valdez. “The door to the señorita’s room was still locked, but the window was open. I assume, señors, that the young lady was carried off by that exit.”
Zarkon got to his feet.
“Show us the room.”
Señor Valdez led them to the small guest-room which had formerly been occupied by Miss Fooey Mulligan. Zarkon swiftly searched the room, his keen black eyes missing no slightest detail. He found nothing of interest, or seemed not to, at any rate, from his impassive demeanor. Then he turned to the window, examining the sill through a powerful lens he generally carried with him. Opening the window, he peered out, searching the ground with quick eyes. Then he lithely climbed out, jumped down to the ground, and looked about. The others followed, although Señor Valdez, who was too old, or too dignified, or both, to climb out of windows, and the girl’s uncle, who was much too fat, made their exit by means of the door, going down the veranda steps to join Zarkon and his aides underneath the girl’s window.
“What do you think, chief?” inquired Ace Harrigan quietly, when Zarkon had finished studying the ground beneath the window. The crack test-pilot knew his boss had eyes trained to observe the slightest clue, like a latter-day Sherlock Holmes, and could track his quarry through forest, meadow, or jungle with the eagle-like facility of the Last of the Mohicans.
“Miss Mulligan was not carried off, but left the trading post under her own steam,” said Zarkon firmly. “Before doing so, she changed her clothes, donning whipcord breeches and riding-boots —”
“How on earth can you know that?” demanded Braxton T. Crawley in astonishment.
“Because the lilac-colored frock she wore when she arrived is neatly laid out on the bed, and the rest of her clothes are still unpacked, except for the contents of the small zipper bag beside the nightstand,” said Zarkon. “The fact that she put on boots is evident from the bootjack she removed from the case, used, and put down on the floor beside the high heeled shoes she had been wearing. A young woman of fashion generally wears riding breeches with boots of that kind, and they are invariably of whipcord. A small scrap of whipcord material is caught in the corner of the windowsill, torn from her breeches when she skinned over the sill. And the heel prints in the soft earth under the window, where she landed after jumping down, are the sort of heels wherewith ladies’ riding boots are fitted.”
“Wow,” said the fat man, highly impressed. Zarkon pointed across the fields in the direction of the slope of the mountain.
“From the footprints I have thus far found, she went in that direction, and rather quickly. Also, from the absence of any other prints, it would seem that she was alone.”
“In other words, señor, she was not abducted by the monster?” asked Señor Valdez bewilderedly. “The señorita went of her own free accord?”
“So it would seem,” said Zarkon. “What lies in that direction?”
“Nothing, señor ... that is to say, well, the mountain itself, of course ... but nothing else.”
“And if you continue in that direction?”
“The other side of the mountain —”
“And on the other side?”
“Why, nothing ... the further slope, then the edge of the swamp — ah! of course, I see it now — what a fool I am not to have thought of it before! — on the other slope, down at the foot of the mountain, built at the very edge of the swamp, is the little hut in which the Yankee, her betrothed, lived — that is where she must have been going!”
Zarkon nodded: he gathered that the girl, anxious and concerned about John James Jones, had pluckily determined to investigate the matter for herself, and had taken the most obvious shortcut to his camp. That is, while climbing the mountain and going down the other side was somewhat more difficult than going the long way around, at least she didn’t have to wade through the jungle in order to get there, which would save her time and, if all she had with her was a small, pearl-handled revolver, it was easy to understand why Phoenicia Mulligan would prefer climbing a mountain, even a volcano, to struggling through a jungle at night.
Zarkon turned to his men and swiftly began giving instructions.
“Ace, Doc, take the rubber boats back to the Skyrocket and unload the equipment cases; I imagine Señor Valdez will let us use his store room to keep them in —”
“But, yes, it will be a pleasure!” cried the old gentleman.
“Menlo, you stay here to supervise the unpacking. Nick and Scorchy, you two circle around the base of the mountain and see if you can find this shack or hut where John James Jones was staying before he disappeared. When you get there, stay there, unless I call for help,” he said, tapping the small beltpack he wore, which contained a miniaturized radio set.
“Right you are, chief; a little action at last!” chortled the Pride of the Muldoons, rubbing his hands together briskly.
“Very well,” nodded Nick Naldini. “But what are you going to do, chief?”
Zarkon inclined his head in the direction of the mountain’s smoking crest.
“I will be tracking Miss Mulligan,” he said. And without another word the Ultimate Map went across the fields, approached the base of the volcano, and began to ascend it at a pace so swift and easy you would have sworn that the almost sheer, cliff-like face was as flat as a ballroom floor.
Señor Valdez and Braxton T. Crawley, who were standing side by side, stared after the Nemesis of Evil. Both the gentlemanly, silver-haired old hidalgo and the fat, red-faced industrialist with the enormous walrus mustache wore almost identical expressions which denoted slack-jawed, open-mouthed awe.
“Amazin’ young feller,” gasped Braxton T. Crawley in a feeble voice, after a time.
“Madre de Dios,” swore Señor Valdez feelingly, “he is certainly that.”
Nick Naldini grinned his wicked, satanic grin. He exchanged a wink with Scorchy.
“You gentlemen,” he announced in his suave, whiskey-rough voice, “don’t know the half of it!”
Nor did they, of course.
CHAPTER 7 — The Stone Monster
Jungles were not precisely the sort of terrain Scorchy Muldoon would have picked to stroll about in. His natural habitat was the streets of the city. There, one seldom if ever had to contend with tangled roots, drooping vines, thorny bushes, or sodden swampy ground. Hence the red-headed little boxer found the going tough.
Thorn-edged leaves slashed at his legs. The loop of a dangling vine settled like a noose around his neck. No sooner had he pulled loose from the offensively affectionate liana than he stepped ankle-deep in a puddle of squelching ooze. These difficulties triggered a stream of invecti
ve from the little prize-fighter to which Nick Naldini listened with rapt admiration. When Scorchy “got his Irish up” — as he would have put it — and lost his temper, his command of verbal vituperation would have put to shame the most sulfur-tongued of longshoremen.
“What’s the matter, boy?” quipped the lanky vaudevillian with a nasty grin, as Scorchy came cussing and dripping out of the swampy puddle. “I’d’ve thought all this greenery would remind you of the Auld Sod. Especially the boggy places.”
Scorchy fumed, wiping the mud off his shoes.
“Ireland has its bogs, I’m not denyin’,” he grumbled. “But nothin’ loike this! Why d’you suppose th’ chief wanted us t’ come the long way ‘round, anyway,”
“Probably in order to circumvent the problem of omniovaciousness,” replied Nick with another of those sarcastic grins of his.
Scorchy blinked. “How’s that?” he inquired.
The lanky magician had, on occasion, when prestidigitators were a drug on the market but classical actors were at a premium, trod the boards in a variety of Shakespearian roles. From this, quite possibly, the vaudevillian had developed a taste for jawbreakers such as “Omniovaciousness,” and an outsized vocabulary to match.
“One does not wish to put all one’s eggs in the same basket,” explained Nick succinctly.
“You mean the chief wants us around in case he has to call up the reserves, but doesn’t want us doggin’ his footsteps?” said Scorchy, finally getting it.
“That’s my guess, Small Change,” shrugged the stage magician.
“Then why didn’t ya say it loike that in of first place?” demanded Scorchy, struggling out of another boggy place.
“I keep forgetting I have to cut everything down to words of one syllable when conversing with the culturally deprived,” snickered the lanky escape artist.
“Oh yeah?” growled Scorchy belligerently, shoving out his jaw and balling his fists warningly. “Any more o’ yer lip, you road-company stand-in fer John Carradine, and I’ll be after deprivin’ you o’ somphin — yer front teeth, t’ start with!”
That crack about the distinguished stage and screen artist, John Carradine, stung Nick to the quick; his uncanny resemblance to the star actor was a matter of personal pride. Naldini’s long, sallow, lantern-jawed face flushed darkly. He scowled dangerously.
“Why, you pint-size Irish potato, how’d’ja like t’ get mashed?” he hissed venomously.
Before long the insults were flying back and forth so hot and heavy that neither Nick nor Scorchy bothered to watch where they were going. And both ended up hip-deep in the bogs.
The cabin which had been home to Phoenicia Mulligan’s fiancé, John James Jones, before he disappeared so mysteriously, was nearby. A small deck ran around three sides of it, and it was built partly out over the bog, on pilings. Nick reached up with his long arms, grabbed the deckrail, and hauled himself, dripping, out of the swampy muck. Scorchy scrambled out soon after, and the two, their quarrel set aside for the moment, rested side by side without conversation, catching their breath and trying to get rid of some of the gooey mud they had walked into.
Nick peered inside the cabin, spotting a folding army cot, a steamer trunk, a collapsible washstand, and a hotplate on a small wall-shelf which also held cans of soup, beef stew, and condensed milk.
The cabin itself was one of those prefabricated huts the US army had devised for swampy jungle country. Glancing around, Nick gave a disapproving sniff: such accommodations were a hit too Spartan in their simplicity and too primitive, as far as the creature comforts went, to satisfy him.
“Anything?” inquired Scorchy, peering around him at the almost-empty room. The lanky magician shrugged.
“You take a look around outside, you know, footprints or whatever, while I search in here,” he suggested. Scorchy rather surprisingly agreed without argument. The two men were so used to automatically disagreeing with each other, on every conceivable point that might arise, that such a giving-in on Scorchy’s part was just a bit unusual. The fact of the matter was that the little Irishman had glimpsed something up on the slope of the mountain that looked promising, and he wanted to be the first to discover it, whatever it was. If he could find an important clue to the disappearance of the young geologist all by himself, that would mean he would be one up on the vaudevillian. Making coups at Nick’s expense was food and drink to Scorchy Muldoon.
While the magician poked around inside the cabin, the little Irishman clambered up the side of the mountain a ways. What he had seen from the foot of the volcano had looked promising and might be important — a patch of scruffy grass, burnt black as soot. When he reached it, he found the soil disturbed nearby, the marks of a clawing hand, and —
Scorchy’s lips framed a silent whistle. A footprint, by golly! Or — was it? For the mark looked too huge and flat to be that ... more like the print of some enormous creature whose paw-pads were larger than those of a bear. He bent to examine the marks more closely.
So absorbed was Scorchy in his detective-work that he did not see the strange, lumbering monstrosity descending the mountain with slow and awkward steps. But the huge, massive creature saw him.
And crept up behind the unsuspecting little boxer, who did not realize anything was there until he smelled the odor of hot stone, and turned, to see horror
So swiftly had Prince Zarkon sent his men on their several errands, and departed from the scene himself, to climb the volcanic mountain in search of the missing heiress, that Señor Valdez had no opportunity to offer his services in any capacity.
It occurred to the courtly Spaniard, a bit later, while the village boys were helping the Omega men to fetch ashore their cases of equipment, which were to be stored in the back room of the trading-post, that neither Naldini nor Muldoon had much of an idea where the hut of the young Yankee geologist was located. Without some careful direction, the two Americans might easily go astray and end up in the swamp, he thought to himself, a trifle guiltily, wishing that he had volunteered to guide them around the base of the mountain.
Well, there was no time like the present for repairing such omissions, thought the old gentleman. Leaving his husky villagers to see the equipment cases safely stored away, Señor Valdez crossed the planted fields and entered the edge of the jungle. The marks of Scorchy’s blundering feet were plainly obvious, so the Spaniard knew exactly how the two Omega men had traveled.
He made it through the tangled jungle far more swiftly and easily than had Scorchy Muldoon and Nick Naldini. For one thing, this was very far from being the first time that Señor Valdez had traveled on foot through the jungles; and for another, of course, he knew exactly where he was going and where all the shortcuts were. Consequently, he circled the base of the mountain and emerged at the edge of the swamp where John James Jones had built his hut not long after Nick and Scorchy reached it. Or almost, at any rate.
For Señor Valdez had nearly gotten out of the jungle when he heard an unearthly screeching, followed by the hiss and chatter of some manner of gunfire with which he was unfamiliar. Señor Valdez did not know that Prince Zarkon’s lieutenants were armed with special firearms of the Prince’s own design, weapons which fired mercy-bullets of hard rubber by means of compressed air. That explained the peculiar gunshots he heard.
The screeching itself had come from Scorchy Muldoon.
“Madre de Dios!” gasped the old hidalgo, paling at the sounds of squalling and gunfire. He redoubled his efforts and emerged from the edge of the jungle just about the same time that Nick Naldini, white to the lips, came leaping out of the hut to see what had happened to his pal.
“Scorchy! Scorchy!” yelped Nick, waving his own pistol about frantically. His hoarse voice was raw with urgency, and there was so much alarm audible in his tones that Señor Valdez blinked in puzzlement. Since the first moment they had landed on the shores of Rangatoa, the pint-sized little Irishman and the lanky Italian had been virtually at each other’s throats. Señor Valdez could
have sworn that the two Omega men were the deadliest of enemies: now Nick Naldini seemed so upset at the thought of Scorchy being hurt or attacked, you would have thought them the dearest of friends. The old hidalgo shrugged in bafflement; very often the ways of Yankees were beyond his comprehension.
Muldoon came into view, looking a bit shaken but otherwise unhurt.
“What happened?” demanded Nick, scrambling up the mountain.
“Cheez, I dunno,” mumbled Muldoon a hit vaguely. “I wuz just examinin’ this-here ledge fer clues, when —”
He waved his pistol in the general direction of the spot he had glimpsed earlier from below.
Nick blinked thoughtfully at the burnt spot, the torn earth, and the huge Abominable Snow-man-size pad-print. Señor Valdez followed Scorchy’s gesture. Suddenly his furrowed brow cleared.
“Is it that you mistook these marks for a clue into the evanishment of Señor Jones?” he inquired eagerly.
“Why, sure,” mumbled Scorchy in surprise. “What else c’d they be?”
“But no,” declared the silver-haired old gentleman in a most positive tone of voice. “These marks were made by the unfortunate youth I dispatched hither yesterday, to apprise Señor Jones of the arrival of his fiancée, Señorita Mulligan.”
“Hey, you mean the kid that wuz th’ monster’s second victim?” cried Scorchy, his voice eloquent with disappointment. “Daggone it, here I thought I hadda clue!”
“Alas, it was here that the body of Jimmie Okawa was found,” admitted Señor Valdez. Scorchy looked crest-fallen.
“Never mind that now. What was all the yellin’ and shootin’ about?” snarled Nick Naldini. He was furious that Scorchy might have heard him calling out his name with such alarm and anguish in his voice as to suggest a fondness for the little runt. If Scorchy had noticed same, Nick knew gloomily he would be twitted unmercifully about it later.
Fortunately for Nick, Scorchy had other things on his mind.
