Doc Savage: The Secret of Satan's Spine (The Wild Adventures of Doc Savage Book 15) (40 page)

“And I have always insisted that you are a walking wart,” snapped Ham. “So, perhaps you will grow on her, but not in the way you think.”

Monk’s grin grew broader. “Just so long as I get somethin’ out of this misadventure, I won’t worry about it none.”

One matter remained to be resolved. That was the ordeal Jury Goines had undergone at the hands of Doc Savage.

Before they left Satan’s Spine for the final time, the bronze giant took Seaman Goines aside and quietly explained how he had been waylaid and knocked out, with the result that the innocent oiler had been logged and consigned to the ship’s brig for actions perpetrated by Doc Savage.

“I will explain everything to your skipper so that your good record is cleared up,” finished Doc.

Jury Goines took it well. No flicker of anger touched his beefy features.

“Normally, I would slug any man who done that to me,” he said slowly.

“I would not blame you if you felt that way,” Doc Savage said sincerely.

“Only one thing stopping me.”

“And that is?”

“You spent two days in the brig,” Goines pointed out. His rather yellow teeth flashed. “I’d say you already got your comeuppance without me having to add my knuckles to the situation.”

Doc Savage was forced to admit that this was true. The two big men shook hands solemnly. That settled, they went to lay the matter before Captain McCullum, who did not listen to Doc’s account with quite the patience of Jury Goines. Nor did he display a similar equanimity.

“If this pigboat were my vessel,” he ground out, “I would have you consigned to the brig, Savage.”

“Submarines do not have brigs,” Doc Savage pointed out.

“Perhaps there is a utility closet that will serve as a substitute,” McCullum returned tightly as he turned on his heel to bring the serious infraction of naval law before Captain Zammer.

Jury Goines regarded Doc Savage with a mixture of sympathy and pity.

“Was I you,” he deadpanned, “I would consider swimming home.”

“Captain Zammer would not dare imprison me,” Doc said flatly.

“No, but once we dock, do you want to bet McCullum won’t have a Navy Shore Patrol gang waiting to put you in irons?”

At that, Seaman Goines could no longer contain himself. He burst out laughing.

“Care to trade places again?” asked Doc.

About the Author: Lester Dent

AS A BOY living on farms and ranches in Oklahoma, Wyoming and Missouri, Lester Dent dreamed of the sea. Like many youth of his era, his fantasies centered around living the life of a swashbuckling pirate.

Young Lester did not grow up to be a buccaneer, but he did become an adventurer in his own way, at different periods owning his own private plane and schooner.

In the latter, a vintage Chesapeake Bay “bugeye” schooner, the
Albatross,
he sailed up and down the east coast, wintering in Florida, and combing the Caribbean cays for pirate gold. If he couldn’t become a corsair, Dent thought, at least he could grab off some of their treasure.

Lester never found any treasure, but he did discover gold—and immortality—in writing the Doc Savage novels for Street & Smith. Several were written on the open deck of the
Albatross
during the mid-1930s.

Early in his sailing career, Lester learned that his boat had gone missing in the Chesapeake Bay. He drove to the last reported spot, only to learn that the captain he had hired to ferry the
Albatross
south to Florida had turned pirate.

After the craft was recovered and the culprit apprehended, Lester never allowed anyone else to pilot his “treasure-hunt” schooner.

Once, the
Albatross
got caught in a hurricane.

“The wind came straight off Florida,” Dent recalled. “It had palm trees, bungalows, divorcees, everything in it! For two days, it blew about 250 an hour. Then it settled back to a mere 125. Duck? Of course I wanted to duck. I was never so ready to swap a yacht for a submarine in my life.”

Arriving in Miami, Lester reported, “Old Whe-e-e-e himself paid a visit. The marks he left are all about. Of the weather cover we put on
Albatross
last spring, frizzled rags remained. Stanchions were torn loose. Topmast deadeye lacings—six strands of half-inch tarred hemp—were broken like old grocery string.

“Three score of yards from where we lie awaiting drydock, a crane is taking out of the water a thing that looks like it might have been a house. Palms are stripped to a frond or two. Cocoanuts are scarce. Near
Albatross
lies a big yacht which sank and has just been raised. On shore nearby, a smaller victim lies with holes gaping in her hull through which men can crawl.”

The
Albatross
was in drydock when the great Labor Day hurricane of 1935 swept across the Florida Keys. The schooner survived with minor damage. But many lost their lives. Visiting Florida in the aftermath, Lester saw railroad ties twisted into knots, and a boat shoved completely inland. This fury so impressed him that he wrote a memorable
Black Mask
story about the power of tropical hurricanes, and periodically dropped one such storm into a Doc Savage novel.

The Secret of Satan’s Spine
is in that grand Dentian tradition.

About the Author: Will Murray

WILL MURRAY has had the good fortune to live most of his life by the Atlantic Ocean, and although he has been out in numerous boats, he prefers to keep his two feet planted firmly on land—when he is not planted behind his computer turning out numerous novels, short stories and articles.

The Secret of Satan’s Spine
is Will Murray’s 18th Doc Savage novel, and his 16th posthumous collaboration with the late great Lester Dent. Overall, Murray has written more than 60 novels, as well as dozens of short stories and novelettes. The characters he has been privileged to bring to life include, but are not limited to, Doc Savage, The Shadow, The Avenger, The Spider, Sherlock Holmes, The Green Hornet, Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, Spider-Man, The Hulk, Ant-Man, Iron Man, The Punisher, The Phantom, Nick Fury, Mack Bolan, Remo Williams, Tarzan of the Apes, Cthulhu, Sky Captain, Honey West and Squirrel Girl, which he co-created with legendary Marvel Comics artist Steve Ditko.

That’s a virtual parade of some of the greatest popular culture characters created over the last century. Of them all, Murray still holds the Man of Bronze in the highest esteem. And he remains in awe of the fact that he is permitted to work with Lester Dent’s original concepts and manuscripts, which seem inexhaustible.

As of this writing, Will Murray is brainstorming future Wild Adventures of Doc Savage, with
Glare of the Gorgon, Mr. Calamity
and
Six Scarlet Scorpions
high on his list of planned projects.

About the Artist: Joe DeVito

JOE DeVITO was born on March 16, 1957, in New York City. He graduated with honors from Parsons School of Design in 1981 and continued his study of oil painting at the city’s famed Art Students League.

Over the years, DeVito has painted many of the most recognizable Pop Culture and Pulp icons, including King Kong, Tarzan, Doc Savage, Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, Spider-Man,
Mad
magazine’s Alfred E. Neuman and various characters from World of Warcraft. Throughout, his illustrations have had an accent toward dinosaurs, Action Adventure, SF and Fantasy. He has illustrated hundreds of book and magazine covers, painted several notable posters and numerous trading cards for the major comic book and gaming houses, and created concept and character design for the film and television industries.

In 3D, DeVito sculpted the official 100th Anniversary statue of
Tarzan of the Apes
for the Edgar Rice Burroughs Estate, The Cooper Kong for the Merian C. Cooper Estate, Superman, Wonder Woman and Batman for Chronicle Books’ Masterpiece Editions, and several other notable Pop and Pulp characters, including a Doc Savage statue executed for Graphitti Designs, based on DeVito’s own cover to Will Murray’s
Python Isle.
Additional sculpting work ranges from scientifically accurate dinosaurs, a multitude of collectibles for the Bradford Exchange in a variety of genres, to larger-than-life statues and the award trophy for the influential art annual
SPECTRUM.

An avid writer, Joe is the creator of
Skull Island
and
The Primordials.
He is also the co-author (with Brad Strickland) of two novels, which DeVito illustrated as well. The first,
KONG: King of Skull Island
(DH Press), was published in 2004. The second book,
Merian C. Cooper’s KING KONG,
was published by St. Martin’s Griffin, in 2005. He has also contributed many essays and articles to such collected works as
Kong Unbound: The Cultural Impact, Pop Mythos, and Scientific Plausibility of a Cinematic Legend
and “Do Androids-Artists Paint In Oils When They Dream?” in
Pixel or Paint: The Digital Divide-In Illustration Art.

Of his
Secret of Satan’s Spine
painting, Joe notes:

“One of the best aspects Will Murray and I have had in writing and creating art for
The Wild Adventures
series has been conversing with the people who have commissioned the covers. So unexpected at first, it has now become an enjoyable part of the ritual. What made our experience with Victor De Long, who commissioned this cover, all the more pleasurable (particularly from my end) was that Victor had a clear idea of the kind of image he wanted—it had to feel
hot!
Better still, he was very easy to work with and open to going with what I came up with. Every artist will tell you that when he starts out with an image in his head, he rarely comes close to creating something as good as what he had imagined. So it stands to reason that it is much harder to match for someone else the vision they have in their mind. Especially since a preconceived image can be tough to erase. Since I can’t read minds (yet), I was happy that Victor was very receptive to my concepts, color roughs, and the final cover painting.

“Consciously or unconsciously, every artist strives for the effect of making their illustrations look natural. That is to create an image that tells the story without showing all the work that is required. We try to make like a duck: On the surface appear to be gliding gracefully and effortlessly across the water, but underneath never let on that you are paddling like crazy. Sometimes, the simpler the image the harder it can be, because with less visual distraction otherwise minor defects can become glaring. Pulling off that illusion requires what I like to call ‘the skillful use of opposites.’ That is, hard against soft edges, light against dark, big against small, etc. At the end of the day, I hope I fulfilled Victor’s desire that the painting look
hot!”

www.jdevito.com

www.kongskullisland.com

FB: Joe DeVito-DeVito Artworks

About the Patron: Victor De Long

IT ALL started with that copy of
The Lost Oasis
I “borrowed” from my cousin forty years ago. (He still hasn’t asked for it back, so in my library it sits, along with just about every other version of
The Lost Oasis,
foreign and domestic, ever printed). The cover alone was enough to grab me—a striking bronze figure enshrouded by mist, kneeling to fire a machine gun at a horde of vampire bats. The story had everything a kid raised on comic book heroes and Saturday morning cartoons could want. A mystery ship. A ghost zeppelin. White slavery and blood diamonds. A lost oasis! Vampire bats and carnivorous plants. Exotic villains undone by their own nefarious plot. I was hooked immediately. My next Doc was
The Man of Bronze.
Exotic assassins with blood red fingertips. Treachery in the jungles of Central America. Mayan gold. More exotic villains undone by their own nefarious plot. By that point I was beyond saving.

The more Bantam Docs I read, the more I wanted to know, and for a kid in a small town in pre-Internet days, information was hard to come by. I devoured Philip José Farmer’s
Doc Savage: His Apocalyptic Life,
constantly renewing our library’s only copy. The good folks at Bantam Books eventually tired of my exhaustive letters (in pencil on notebook paper) peppering them with questions about Doc minutia and sicced me on Will Murray, who while very gently declining my request for photocopies of those pulps that hadn’t been reprinted yet by Bantam, patiently answered every question in every letter I ever sent him.

Fast-forwarding forty years, my Bantam set is long complete. I’ve got ⅔ of the pulps and most of the cool ephemera from the pulp era (that rubber stamp still eludes me!) and Joe DeVito’s stunning cover to this volume will join Bob Larkin’s cover to
The Shape of Terror
on my office wall. All the cool stuff and forty years of reading Doc hasn’t dampened my enthusiasm for the stories at all, and to be a part, albeit a small one, of the creative process of designing this cover was frustratingly awesome. Awesome because, well… duh—I got to be involved in picking Doc’s pose and some of the design elements, like the feeling of blistering heat coming off that amazing yellow background. And the bats, my throwback to the book that started it all for me. That part was
COOL!
But, frustrating because my civilian friends, the non-Doc readers, just didn’t get what I was so damn excited about, so bragging to them about this project was mostly met with politely feigned excitement for me. My lovely wife Bibi apparently figures it keeps me out of trouble, and that there are worse obsessions I could be spending my money on. But, there is hope. My 7 year old son, Lukas, is used to the piles of Doc books around the house and knows that Doc is “a good guy.” So with luck, he’ll end up hooked as well and I’ll have done my part in making the next generation of Doc Savage fans.

Victor De Long is an attorney in the Pacific Northwest, representing injured workers. He chairs his local downtown association and has served on a number of other local committees. In addition to Doc Savage and pulp-related items, he collects original comic book and strip art and vintage Disneyland memorabilia.