"Kenneth Robeson - Doc Savage 029 - The Quest of Qui" - читать интересную книгу автора (Robeson Kenneth)

almost, but not quite, coasted into a nest of boulders.

The minute the plane stopped, the crust on the snow collapsed, letting the ship sink down to its wings,
and Johnny got out muttering big-worded imprecations. He foresaw some trouble in leaving the place.

Had he known exactly how much trouble he was going to have, the knowledge might conceivably have
turned his hair white.

Johnny walked to the wounded man.

One peculiarity about the man's face struck Johnny distinctly. It was a full, crude face equipped with a
horse's mouth, small bird eyes, and a nose of no consequence, but that was not what stood out distinctly.
Many men have ugly faces. Not so many, however have their forehead, nose and eye area
weather-beaten until the skin resembles the top of an old shoe, while the rest of their cheeks, jowls and
neck remain the pale-blue color of skim milk.
Johnny absently decided this man had worn a very heavy beard for a long time, and had only recently
shaved it off. Then Johnny began his examination.

The man had collapsed, and with good reason, for he had been shot three times. No, four. Johnny found
the fourth through the man's foot, where he had not bled much. The other bullets were in his body, and
they had bled plenty of scarlet blood.

The bullet victim's parka of fur, bearskin pants and big, pliable hightop moccasins looked extremely new,
and Johnny, curious, twisted back the hood until he could see the collar band. Nothing there. He looked
at the parka skirt. No Eskimo squaw had made these garments. They bore the label of a high-class
sporting goods house on New York's Madison Avenue.

There was nothing else on the wounded man's person to give the slightest indication of who he was or
what had befallen him.

Johnny ran back to the plane, saw it had sunken even deeper in the snow, expressed his opinion of that
happening with several glossologic gems, and got a first-aid kit out of it.

The bullet victim was talking quite calmly when Johnny skittered across the snow crust to him.

"The secret of Qui is twelve hundred years old, Kettler," he said. "You got the breaks when you found
the place the first time, but you'll never find it again without that goldenhaired girl."

IN A rational sounding, measured voice, the man talked to the one named Kettler, and he looked straight
at bony Johnny as he talked, as if he had mistaken Johnny for the person, Kettler. But it was not that.
The man was delirious, out of his head. He would talk for a while, then he would collapse. Johnny knew
how it went.

"Kettler, I tell you I didn't let her go deliberately," the man said earnestly. "She banged me on the head
with a rock. Look, you can see where she hit me."

He did not point, but Johnny looked, then blinked, for there was a fearsome bruise on the man's
forehead. But the wounded man was still talking.

"She ran away," the man said. "I don't know where she went. I think she went north, back toward Qui.