The Ghost That Haunts the Superstition Mountains

Chapter 11

The days are warmer here in Arizona than their counterparts on Barsoom but the nights on the fourth planet that we here on Earth call Mars are much colder. I have always found surprising how little the people of my adopted homeworld wear to protect themselves from the elements. I suspect that nature has cast the Red Martian race of somewhat firmer stuff than we.

            I must confess I feel strange to be clad once more in the attire of my native planet, to be astride a horse instead of an eight-legged thoat. In the great scheme of things, very little time has passed since I first made the journey out across the heavens – and yet, now that I have returned, it is this place where I was born that seems alien to me. Heart and soul, I have embraced my adopted world as my home, as I have the Princess whom I love.

            Fate, no doubt with a laugh of outright glee, has cast me along a different road.

            And not alone, either. Beside me on the trail rides my wife, though her mount carries but the riding blanket of the Apache, plus a sheath for her long gun, whereas mine is laden down with saddle and gear and a Henry rifle.

            On Barsoom, Dejah Thoris rides naked – as do all her people, male and female, young and old – her sole adornments being decorative jewelry of breath-taking beauty, and, of course, weapons. Here, such a presentation would guarantee to cause trouble, and so she has dressed herself in a leather riding skirt and knee-high soft-skinned boots of the Apache style. She wears a blouse common to Chiricahua women and over that a leather horse jacket more akin to what a frontiersman might favor. At first glance, aside from her own Henry repeater in its rifle scabbard, she seems to ride without weapons. She is of course a dead shot. Beyond that, scattered about her person, are an assortment of knives in sheathes that are mostly hidden to the easy eye. She prefers blades to pistols, she says they provide more variety of practical use – asking with a smile if anyone’s ever tried carving up a piece of wood, or the day’s meal, with a pistol barrel? Whoever looks on her as easy prey will find themselves with a very nasty surprise.

            Her clothes are as well worn as mine, though she finds the wearing of them almost barbaric. Among her people, the body – indeed, life itself – is a gift to be celebrated and to them that cannot be done by hiding it away. More importantly, the clothes my people wear here on Earth she sees as a significant detriment in a fight, an encumbrance that no proper warrior can afford – especially given the adversaries he, or she, is likely to face on Barsoom.

            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’ 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?”