Kenneth Robeson - The Man of Bronze

"Now, Renny!" Doc breathed — and stood his ship on one wing tip.

Renny's Browning hammered and forked one long tongue of red from the barrel.

The burst punctured the pilot of the blue plane! The ship careened over, motor full on. It bored in a howling, unguided dive for the craggy mountaintop.

Its antics were even wilder as the air currents gripped it. Far to one side it skittered, then back. A gigantic suction drew it down into the Valley of the Vanished.

Striking in the deeper part of the lake, it raised a great geyser of foam.

By the time Doc had battled the rigorous air down to the lake surface, not a trace of the blue monoplane was to be seen.

Doc taxied over to the beach below the pyramid. He sprang ashore and ran up the sloping floor of the valley. Directly for Morning Breeze Doc raced. Now was the time for slam-bang stuff!

Long Tom, Johnny, Ham, and Monk had not been harmed as yet. But they were ringed around with agitated Mayans. The Mayans seemed to want to attack the white men as Morning Breeze advised, but at the same time were afraid of Doc's wrath. For the resurrection had given them the idea Doc was a superior being. He had killed the blue bird, too.

Morning Breeze saw Doc bearing down on him. Terror seized the squat, ugly-faced culprit. He shouted for his fellow warriors to protect him. Four of these advanced. Two had short spears. Two had the terrible clubs with razor-sharp flakes of obsidian embedded in the heads. Emboldened by Morning Breeze's shrieked orders, they rushed Doc. And fully fifteen more warriors, all armed, joined the attack.

What followed went into Mayan history.

Doc's bronzed body seemed to make a single move — forward. His great, powerful arms did things with a blurred, unbelievable speed.

The two spearsmen reeled away without making a thrust. One had a face knocked almost flat by Doc's fist; the other's right arm was broken and nearly jerked from his body.

The two club wielders found themselves suddenly pushed forcibly together by two hands which apparently possessed the power of a hundred ordinary hands. Their heads banged; they saw stars — and nothing else.

Doc grasped each of these unconscious warriors by the woven leather mantles they wore secured about their necks. He slung them, blue girdles flopping, into the midst of the other attackers. A full half dozen of these went down, mightily bruised and bewildered. The others milled, all tangled up with each other.

Suddenly Doc was among them! Not satisfied with overpowering the four, he pitched into the whole crew. Terrific blows came from his flashing fists. Red-fingered men began to drop in the milling, fighting mob. Piercing yells of pain arose.

As one, the mob of warriors fled! They couldn't fight this bronze being who moved too quickly for them to land a single blow.

Morning Breeze, tremendously chagrined, spun to flee with his satellites. One leap, two, he took. Then Doc, with a great spring, had him by the neck.

Doc took Morning Breeze's sacred knife, his only weapon, away from him.

"Have you some place we can lock him up so he won't give more trouble?" Doc asked King Chaac. Doc was not even breathing heavily.

The Mayan sovereign was both amazed and highly elated. "I have!" he declared.

To one side, entrancing Princess Monja of the Mayans had been an admiring observer. Her dark eyes, as she watched Doc, radiated a great deal of feeling.

Morning Breeze was cast into a dark, windowless stone dungeon of a room, the only access to which was through a hole in the ceiling. Over this was fitted a stone lid of a door which required the combined strength of four squat Mayans to lift.

King Chaac was all for expelling the troublesome chief warrior from the Valley of the Vanished. He saw the undesirability of this, though, when Doc pointed out that Morning Breeze would only disclose to the world the existence of the golden pyramid.

"Give him a chance to cool off there in the cell," Doc suggested. "A chance to think over the error of his way has done wonders for many a criminal."

The Mayan sovereign concluded to follow that course.

Such was the simple temperament of these golden-skinned Mayans that Doc and his friends now found themselves generally accepted in defiance to the red-fingered men's solemn warnings. The influence of the latter was deflated to such a degree that the other Mayans refused to even listen to their sinister propaganda — for the warriors quickly tried to talk themselves into power again.

"We're sitting pretty!" Monk declared, rubbing his big, furry hands together.

"Knock on wood, you lunk!" Ham muttered somberly. Monk grinned and tried to knock on Ham's head. "I wonder why his nibs, the king, is making us wait a month before he concludes arrangements about this gold?"

"I have no idea," Ham admitted. "But you recall he mentioned it might not be thirty days."

Monk stretched and yawned tremendously.

"Well, this ain't a bad place to spend a month's vacation," he decided. "It'll probably he quiet around here now."

That night, in the Valley of the Vanished, darkness lay everywhere with the black intensity of drawing ink. Impenetrable clouds massed above the great chasm caused this. The air was a bit sultry. Even a novice forecaster could have told one of the tropical downpours common to Hidalgo was on its way.

Doc and his friends took the precaution of posting a guard and keeping a light burning. They alternated on guard, but nothing eventful came to their notice.

At the stone hut where Morning Breeze was incarcerated, two Mayan citizens kept alert vigil. From time to time the surly Morning Breeze called them uncomplimentary names and promised them the wrath of the gods if they didn't release him at once. But the watchmen had been promised the wrath of Doc Savage if they let Morning Breeze escape, and they feared that the greater. To them, also, the night gave nothing portentous.

In one spot in the Valley of the Vanished, however, a devil's cauldron of evil simmered and stewed.

This was near the lower end of the egg-shaped valley, where the stream cut through the great chasm. In a tiny pock of a hole among the boulders had congregated most of the red-fingered warriors. There they lighted a fire and offered a chant to the fire god, one of their principal deities. There were also prayers to Quetzalcoal, the Sky God; and to Kukulcan, the Feathered Serpent.

They seemed to be waiting for something, these villainous ones, and killing the ensuing time with chants calculated to redeem their sadly depreciated standing. They launched into a ritual devoted to the Earth Monster, another pagan deity.

This was interrupted by a low rustling of the leafage that edged the recess where the red-fingered men had gathered. An amazing figure clambered down and joined them.

A man it was, but he wore a remarkable masquerade. The body of the garment consisted of an enormous snakeskin, the hide of a giant boa constrictor. The head of the reptile had been carefully skinned out, and probably enlarged by some stretching process until it formed a fantastic hood and mask for the one who wore it.

The man's arms and legs, projecting from the masquerade garment, were painted a gaudy blue, the Mayan holy color. Starting on the forehead and down the middle of the back, and nearly to the dragging end of the snake tail, were feathers. They resembled the trains on the feather headdress of an American Indian.

The newcomer was obviously made up in some weird likeness of the Mayan god, Kukulcan, the Feathered Serpent.

The gathering of red-fingered warriors were greatly impressed. To a man they sank upon their knees and kowtowed to the hideous apparition in snakeskin and feathers. They undoubtedly knew there was a man inside the rigmarole, but they were overawed anyway, such superstitious souls did they possess.