Doc Savage - The Derrick Devil Part 12

"That-d.a.m.n note-they left it-on purpose. I hope-that information-helps. Men in-front seat of car-knew about note."

"It helps," Doc Savage said, "a great deal."

The young man kept his eyes shut while he finished dying.

Chapter XIII. FLIGHT.

ONE ROAD CUT was a canyon, and It had gotten its name back in the days when Oklahoma pioneers made their own clothes and drove ox teams, and used the handiest level going, more often than not a gravel creek bed, for a road.

The bottom of One Road Cut had been used as a thoroughfare, and at this point was wide enough for only one team of oxen at a time, hence the name.

Thirty miles north, the note had said Outlaw Tant's men were taking Alonzo Cugg. The unfortunate filling station attendant had said the note had been purposefully lost-the men in the front seat had known about it.

That meant Tant's men had known the note was being left. Therefore, it was a fake.

A fake to lead Doc Savage and his companions into the trap on the cliff road perhaps?

It would seem a logical suspicion, then, that there was no outlaw Tant hang-out north thirty miles from One Road Cut.

But that was wrong. The hang-out was there. A ranch, old Western style, with corrals, hay barns, bunk house and ranch house of logs, and a very tall windmill and a water tank beside it.

There was no water in the tank; the staves were old and some had fallen; there had not been water in the tank for years; nor did it look as if the windmill pump had pumped for an equally long time.

Yet there was a well-worn footpath from the windmill tower to the bunk house. A crude awning of boards had been rigged on top of the windmill tower for a self-evident reason.

The windmill tower had been used as look-out point. No doubt the terrain could be seen for miles by a man with a good pair of field gla.s.ses.Doc Savage did not call out. They would not have answered, anyway. He merely watched the place, listened, discerned no sign of life, then moved forward.

There was no one around.

Those who had been there recently had lived well, for the empty liquor bottles bore expensive labels, and the few suits left hanging were costly and tailored. They had dressed their women with a free hand, too, judging from the frocks left behind, and there were rare perfumes on the dressing tables.

Everywhere was confusion. They had taken suitcases, and had rifled through trunks, probably for the more valuable stuff. Garments too bulky, or not so necessary, had been thrown aside. A safe was open in the ranch house.

There were no guns on the place, but rags scattered here and there smelled of oil and gunpowder, and there were quite a few wads that had obviously been pulled through gun barrels by ramrods. Empty cartridge boxes were scattered about.

Doc took finger prints. He found enough to be sure that the Tant outlaw mob had used the place for a hang-out.

The outlaws had fled quite recently, in a great hurry. They had taken automobiles to the east, toward Pawhuska, and by now, must be out of the Osage.

DOC SAVAGE left the way he had come, afoot, traveling at an easy run which covered ground at, all told, a speed which a car could not have exceeded any great amount through terrain as rough and nearly impa.s.sable as this.

The bronze man made a telephone call over the first instrument which he found, one situated in a pumping station some miles out of Pawhuska. He called a number. The noise of a mechanical, musical device was audible the instant the distant receiver came down, and a voice said, "Fujiyama Roadhouse."

"Snook Loggard," Doc requested. "Lemme talk to 'im."

The bronze man's usual cultured tones had vanished, and he had a.s.sumed the voice of a typical tough guy.

"Who wants to talk to Snook?" the distant voice asked.

"What's it to you?" Doc growled. "A pal. Tell 'im it's a little cardinal."

"A what?"

"Ne'rmind! Snook'll get it!"

"Well, I'll see if anybody named Snook is here," said the voice, obviously belonging to the roadhouse proprietor. "I ain't never heard the name.

A few moments pa.s.sed.

A harsh voice over the telephone said, "Well? This ain't Snook, but I'll take a word to 'im."

"h.e.l.lo, Snook," Doc Savage said.

"Huh! It's you. 'Sall right, then. I figured it might be a badge with a guy fastened to it. Whatsa wrong? Why ain't you in St. Louis? Hah! This guy said you was a little cardinal wantin' to talk to me! I gitcha now. The St.

Louis ball club-the Cards-you from St. Louis-sure, sure!"

Doc Savage growled, "I'm just tippin' yuh, pallo. St. Louis ain't gonna be safe for mamma Snook's boy for a dog's age."

Snook chuckled, unconcerned. "Say, how long does a dog live, anyway?""It depends on how the dog lives," Doc rasped, dryly. "But you better cut St. Louis off your visitin' list for a while. Better make a connection here."

"Don't worry about me," said Snook. "I'm doin' right well by myself."

"O. K., then," Doc growled.

"Thanks for callin me," Snook said, coa.r.s.ely. "I'll remember you to the next lawman I see."

He hung up laughing.

SNOOK had something wrong with one side, it appeared from the way he walked. He swung along in particularly grotesque fas.h.i.+on, with his left side seemingly almost inoperative. Yet he managed to travel at a good speed.

He was bowed over to one side by his trouble, with his face twisted out of shape, and he was a particularly uninviting specimen as a whole.

He had a skin the color of a pine plank that had lain for years in the weather, and his mouth seemed full of gold teeth. His eyes rarely met any one's but when they did, there was something about them that made the other Individual turn his own gaze aside.

Snook lurched in to the bar, where stood half a dozen men who looked as if they were waiting for something and didn't know what-or such best described their perpetual alertness and nervousness. Out of Snook's pocket came a big bill off a bigger roll.

"It's all on me again!" he shouted, boastfully. "Best the house has got!"

The proprietor picked up the bill, eyed it, and blinked. It was a century.

"This hot?" he asked, sharply.

"Not by a d.a.m.n sight!" growled Snook. "Say-you too good to take my money? Maybe you'd like to do somethin' about it, huh?"

The proprietor leaned casually against the bar. This put his hand on a sawed-off shotgun lying there.

On the other side of the bar, a man known as "Cackle," a lean fellow with a face remarkably like that of a chicken, slapped the bar and said loudly: "What the h.e.l.l! This is too early in the morning to get all het up! Bartender, I think I heard the hen cackle. Will you see if she didn't lay me an eggnog?"

That eased the friction, and every one drank, and the talk turned to horse racing. It seemed there was a track wire upstairs, which accounted for the presence of the men this early in the morning.

A bit later, the man called Cackle drew the proprietor aside.

"What was that telephone call to him?" he asked, furtively. "You listened in on the extension, didn't you?"

"Yeah," said the proprietor. "The hombre who called him was some bird tipping him off that the law wanted him bad in St. Louis, and he'd better stay clear of that burg."

"You think he's O. K.?" demanded Cackle.

"Maybe. But I don't like his snotty manner, and if he gets tough with me again, I'll fix him up. The first sh.e.l.l in that shotgun is tear gas, and the second is rock salt, and when I give 'em both, they remember-"

"Did you notice his left hand when you put your hand on that shotgun?" Cackle asked casually."h.e.l.l, no! I was watching his snaky eyes. You can tell from a man's eyes when-"

"You better watch his hand," Cackle chuckled. "He had it full of as mean a looking derringer as I've seen in years. Keeps it up his sleeve, on that bad side, and gets it out by drawing his arm up inside in a way you don't hardly notice."

Cackle left a deeply thoughtful roadhouse proprietor, and went over to the side of Snook.

"I think you and me has got some business," Cackle said.

THE two men retired to a corner of the room where no one was near, and they could be sure no one came near, and put their heads together. They made a perfect-looking pair of villains.

No one, least of all the erudite college professors with whom he had once worked, would have recognized the mean-mannered, boastful, vicious-looking Snook as the eminent archaeologist and geologist and Doc Savage aid, William Harper Littlejohn.

Cackle certainly had no suspicion.

"You're Snook Loggard from St. Louis, ain't you?" asked Cackle.

Johnny, playing the tough Snook to perfection, leaned back. He happened to know the real Snook Loggard was in an Ohio penitentiary, under an a.s.sumed name. Snook didn't know the authorities knew his ident.i.ty, but he would find it out when they got ready to release him, for a policeman would be waiting to arrest him and take him back to St. Louis, where he probably would be hanged.

"I ain't sayin' who I am and who I ain't," Johnny said. "Why?"

"I got a connection you might be interested in."

"Yeah?"

"Tant."

Johnny registered a badman greatly impressed by the name of a worse badman. He leaned forward.

"Look, pal," he said. "I blow down here and hang around for just such a chance as this, see, I didn't expect it to come so soon."

"Tant is recruiting men," the other said simply.

"Somethin' up?"

"Yeah. Pretty big stuff. Tant needs all the men he can get. And there's a catch to this."

"Yeah? What?"

"This ain't a job. This is a fight!" Cackle stopped and moistened his lips. "It's a fight to the death between Tant and another outfit!"

Johnny said, "O. K. I come in. But I'll expect to get my cut on what comes in after this is settled."

They shook hands and had a drink, and set them up to the crowd. Cackle and Johnny got in a car and drove off. They stopped in a restaurant in Tulsa for luncheon.

Johnny, under pretense of going to the washroom, reached a telephone. He called a number which he was to call whenever he wanted to get in touch with Doc Savage. By luck, Doc answered the telephone himself.

"Doc," said Johnny. "I've succeeded in getting into the Tant outlaw mob, just about. I'm on my way to their hide-out. I'll tip you off later about where it is.""You have no idea yet?" Doc asked.

"I couldn't even make a guess where Tant is," Johnny replied. "I'll get in touch with you, as soon as I do. How are things going?"

Doc told him about the disaster on the cliff road, ending, "All of our crowd but yourself and myself are now prisoners."

"I'll be superamalgamated!" Johnny said, hoa.r.s.ely.

When Johnny hung up, he was so stunned by the news that Monk, Ham, Renny and Long Tom had been seized, that his usual alert eye was dulled. He failed to make an observation which would have avoided a great deal of future trouble.

Cackle, the outlaw, was standing adjacent to the telephone booth, and had overheard every word that Johnny had said.

JOHNNY returned to the dining mom. Cackle stepped from the place where he had been secreted, slid out of the side door of the restaurant kitchen without Johnny seeing him, and ran to their car, which they had parked in an alley in violation of fire regulations which were not enforced anyway.

The built-in trunk at the rear of the car proved to be the container for a compact short-wave radio transmitter and receiver. It operated on telephone, or voice.

The voice which finally came over the air to the headset on Cackle's ears was crisp. "What is it?"

"Chief, I've been kidding this hombre called Snook," said Cackle. "I told him I was enlisting him in Tant's outlaw mob. The poor goop swallowed it. He thinks I'm one of Tant's men."

"I don't like the chances you're taking!" retorted the other.

"Wait and listen to this! This Snook is one of Doc Savage's men! He just reported to Doc Savage that he was on his way to Tant's hang-out, and would report its location to Doc Savage!"

The explosion of profanity which came out of the telephone receiver caused Cackle to wrinkle his eyes.

"Do you think Doc Savage suspects the truth?" asked the voice at the other radio transmitter.