"Kenneth Robeson - Doc Savage 163 - The Exploding Lake" - читать интересную книгу автора (Robeson Kenneth)

didn't like what he saw. He continued to watch the lake, or rather the stupefying absence of a lake.
Unquestionably, where water had been, there was a blackened depression, and the surrounding area was
bare of vegetation and trees which should have been there.

The item that contributed as much to crawling horror as anything was the absolute lack of human life in
the vicinity. A volcanic eruption? Not at all. There was no crater, no fuming, and after all it wasn't
volcanic territory. An explosion? Yes, an explosion, but of an eerie sort.

тАЬAtom bomb!тАЭ Juan thought. тАЬOh, hell! It can't be. There would be observers around. And it would have
come from an airplane.тАЭ He rolled on his back and scanned the sky for a plane, and found none, although
the binoculars were good.

He shivered. Presently he arose and started descending the slope, which was in places cliff-like. Both
Andy and Uncle Bim were unusually uncomplaining, as they moved toward the scene of whatever had
happened.

FOUR days later Juan Russel led his mules into Piensa de Blanca, a small village which was on the
outskirts of nowhere, even in Patagonia.

тАЬEl telefono?тАЭ said the first native he accosted. тАЬIt is miles to nearest, many miles. Say, stranger, you
are in a bad shape, no?тАЭ

тАЬA telephone,тАЭ Juan mumbled. тАЬI gotta get to a telephone.тАЭ He said this in English, then translated it into
Spanish when he saw the native's open mouth. тАЬYo querer telefono!тАЭ

тАЬFriend, it is trip tough to nearest telephone,тАЭ said the native. тАЬWhat you need . . . rest. Eh?тАЭ

Juan Russel, it was obvious, needed rest. But he needed something else much more, and that was peace
of mind. The old Juan, the guy who was a good romantic Spaniard and a hard-headed American
businessman, and a practical humorist, too, was gone. He was no more. He was terribly lost.

тАЬGot to reach telephone,тАЭ Juan mumbled, and set the gaunt mules in motion.

He collapsed, though, at the end of the street, and they brought him back to the local hotel. There was a
bar in connection, and they took him in there to put some soup inside him. But first they put in a shot of
hard liquor.

Juan did not intend to talk about what he had seen. But, as soon as the liquor was in him and working,
there was a battle between his inherited instinctive taciturnityтАФfrom his fatherтАФand his naturally
garrulous mother's Latin temperament. He was stewing with what he had seen anyway, and he could no
more have kept quiet than a fish could keep from swimming.

At first, it didn't make much difference. The peons thought he was crazy. A nutty prospector had
wandered into town; the same sort of thing that happens in little desert towns in Arizona and Nevada and
all the way up to the Klondike.

Furthermore, few of the peons in this isolated village had any idea what he was talking about. Juan was a
scientist, and regardless of his looksтАФparticularly, now, his conditionтАФan erudite and learned man. He
was too incoherent to use non-technical terminology, and so most of the peons merely decided he was
loco and let it go at that.