Under the Moons of Mars (26 page)

But, as she herself is the first to admit—as we have both discovered during our travels and adventures across the face of her ancient world—different people have different customs. When one is a visitor, it’s always best to show those people, and their ways, an appropriate measure of respect.

“There were times,” she notes quietly, and with a smile, as she reins in her animal and dismounts with practiced ease, “these past months, when I thought we’d never see these mountains again.”

“The Superstitions are well-named,” I concede, following suit and taking the reins from my Princess to secure our mounts to a convenient tree. “No one—among both my people and the Apaches—has properly explored them; there are just too many stories of travelers disappearing or falling prey to hideous monsters.”

“Like a monstrous tall, green-skinned, four-armed Thark,” she suggests. I respond with a nod, but truthfully my mind is suddenly wandering elsewhere.

“Make a wrong turn, and find yourself on Barsoom,” she suggests idly. She is teasing—a little—but I take her words seriously.

“I did,” is my reply. “Alternately,” I continue as she nods, conceding the point, “an apt or a banth might find themselves transported here.” The one is an arctic predator, the other Mars’s equivalent of a terrestrial lion. Both are formidable hunters but the banth is truly fearsome in battle. “The question is, how quickly and how well a beast, a predator, of Barsoom might adapt to the environment here?”

“I did,” says my beloved, simply and factually, tossing my words back at me.

“As did I,” echoes a new voice, from farther up the deeply shadowed slope and as well better than a dozen feet above our heads.

His physique is similar to ours, in a general sense; he walks on two extremely powerful legs that have adapted well to the heavier gravity of this larger world. But from his torso reach a double pair of arms. His skull encloses a brain as sharp and gifted as our own, his face holds a pair of eyes. His nose is flat; it does not protrude like its human counterpart, or those of my beloved’s people. And while his mouth bears a full stock of teeth, what dominates the lower jaw are a pair of upward-curving fangs, reaching to his forehead, bespeaking an ancestry so fierce that I don’t care to think about what his race must have looked like back when it began.

He stands downwind of us and stays mostly in the shadows, amongst the trees, his emerald skin blending quite nicely with the local foliage. Our mounts sense that
something
is there but they also sense no threat and so remain quite calm.

“From what I’ve been hearing in town,” I note, striding upslope to join him, “you’ve been creating a rather impressive legend for yourself up here, my friend. They’re calling you the Ghost that haunts the Superstition Mountains.”

“Not just among the settlers,” agrees my Princess. “There are tales being told among the Chiricahua, as well.”

“Perhaps, at night,” concedes the Thark, “when I look up at the sky and toward my home, I let my emotions get the better of me.”

Dejah Thoris senses this and asks me, “What?”

“A thought,” is my reply as I recall all that I’ve learned of her world and her people. At the same time, I stroll back and forth across the mouth of the cavern, wishing I had one of the artificial lights utilized by her people. Its beam would illuminate the cavern before us as brightly as the midday sun. Part of my mind reassures me that this is simply a cavern, nothing whatever to fear. And yet, another part, that I respect more because it’s served me well in battle and adventures both, cautions that not all here is as it seems.

I shake my head, very much aware of my gun-hand perching itself close beside the Colt pistol on my belt. My left hand has already released the lanyard slung over the hammer to keep the weapon from falling free of the holster. “We make fun of what’s happened here with Tars Tarkas,” I tell her, “but I heard similar stories when I first came to Tucson, before I got transported to Barsoom. And among the Chiricahua, these tales of ghosts and monsters go back as far as those people can remember.”

“So?”

“Your kind live a thousand years,” I say, trying not to think of that primal difference between us: If I lived longer than any man known, I would still pass from the world before my beloved had breathed even a decent fraction of her allotted span. “Suppose, in ages past, another of your people crossed from Barsoom to Earth—and perhaps become the source of all these legends?”

“That is a thought, John Carter—but if so, then where is he? Or she? In our time here, we’ve seen no evidence of another like us.”

I turn toward Tars Tarkas to ask, “Is the cave still clear?” It is a matter of no small concern, given the difference in our size.

“It is now as when we arrived, my friend,” he assures me but there’s a tenor to his voice that catches my attention.

“What’s wrong?” I ask.

“I’m thinking, much like you, that this all seems so easy, we just walk through this entrance to the cave and—somehow emerge back home on Barsoom.”

“It happened in reverse to bring us here,” notes Dejah Thoris.

“And our lives have been chaos ever since.” This is from me, as I recall our wild adventures, as Earth’s greater gravity and air pressure brought down both my companions, very nearly stripping them of their lives over those first terrible nights. I could do nothing really for Tars Tarkas, I had to leave him in a desperate attempt to save my wife, trusting that his significantly more formidable physique would sustain him. Dejah Thoris’s survival came about thanks to the intervention of Cochise, leader of the Chiricahua, and his blood brother Tom Jeffords, who manages the Pony Express riders coming in and out of Tucson.

Now, at long last, we have a chance to return home.

“If, as you surmise,” notes our green comrade, “another of Barsoom made the transition to Earth in time past, why did he never return?”

“I don’t know what will happen, my friend,” I tell Tars Tarkas, gesturing toward the mouth of the cave, “but our work here is done. With the arrival of General Howard, there’s a decent chance for a lasting peace between the Chiricahua and the settlers. And in truth there’s no guarantee that whatever power brought us here will act in reverse. It could be exactly as you say: We walk in here, we walk out back home. Or not. I’m afraid there’s but one way to find out for sure.” To my own surprise, I have no doubt of what will happen: Whatever mysterious force brought us here will be considerate enough to return us safely to Barsoom.

And yet—and
yet
—something about all this doesn’t feel quite right. Which is why my gun-hand refuses to stray too far from the hilt of my Colt.

I sigh at that feeling, mostly to myself. I should know by now, things are never as easy as they appear.

I hear a noise from Tars Tarkas, as my friend rises to his mostimpressive full height and turns partially toward the ridge, his stance one of intense concentration. I follow his lead but see nothing but the mountain. Good as my senses are, I know the Thark’s are much keener.

“What do you sense?” asks Dejah Thoris.

“Humans” is his reply. “I believe”—slight pause, a shallow sniff, as he gathers more information from the scents—“there are two groups, one mounted.” He doesn’t sound happy. “The riders are approaching along the gorge but I suspect the others have been here awhile. The wind has shifted, that’s why I’m catching their scents now.”

Hurrying back to my horse, I draw my Henry repeater; Dejah does the same. From there, it’s a quick scramble across the ridge-crest, taking care as we go to make no sound, until we achieve a respectable view of the scene below.

Even as we approach, the night silence is shattered by a volley of gunfire, followed by the shriek of terrified horses as startled riders jerk on the reins or, worse, the mounts themselves are struck. There are outcries as well, some expressions of alarm and rage, intermingled with sharp-spoken commands. The cries are those of Indians, which means the targets are likely a band of Apache. In the Superstitions, that means Chiricahua, which means people loyal to Cochise—which means those in peril below are quite likely known to us, if not outright friends.

Yet all those thoughts mean nothing because of what happens a moment later—as we behold a distinctive flash from among the attackers, followed an instant later by a vicious explosion in the midst of the targets.

“John Carter, did you see—?” cries my beloved.

“Impossible” is my reply.

Then, the sniper unleashes a second projectile, with as fearsome an impact as his first—and with that shot, the reality before us can no longer be ignored, or denied.

“A radium round,” says Tars Tarkas. “Someone down there is firing a radium rifle.”

“We have to draw their fire,” I tell my companions, knowing full well the risk of what I ask.

“First blood to me, then!” Tars Tarkas draws up a longbow of his own design and construction. We all came to Earth as I had come to Barsoom—stripped of clothes and possessions. In the time since, we have all adapted to the world around us, but the tools and weapons of the human race are simply too small for this Thark. During our time here, he’s coped by simply making his own—leaving me to wonder, assuming all goes well and we manage to return home, what people in times to come will make of these artifacts. Knives the size of a man’s arm, a curved sword as long as I stand tall, and arrows of similar length.

That said, the Thark gives Dejah Thoris and myself a few heartbeats to begin our descent before he lets fly his first arrow. His aim is flawless, the consequence lethal; amidst the gunfire and the outcries of the combatants, his target goes down without a sound. Within moments, the first is joined by a second. This one, regrettably, is noticed, which in turn prompts immediate outcries of alarm.

Even as these marauders start yelling, a third of their number is dispatched to join his two companions. An instant later, the slope erupts once more with noise as rifles and pistols unleash a barrage in what these marauders hope is the general direction of their new assailant.

These bushwhackers are so intent on Tars Tarkas they don’t notice Dejah Thoris and me. As we move closer, I spare a glance farther down the slope, to see how their initial targets are faring. It isn’t a comforting vision. The scene below is a mangled mixture of horror and slaughter; the radium rounds have taken a deadly toll of the Apaches.

And now, that weapon is turned on Tars Tarkas.