Two squads of soldiers formed a line between the citizens and their captain, holding their rifles and shotguns to make a fence. Hughes strode into the middle of the melee.
“What’s the meaning of this?” he demanded. “Y’all’re trespassing on Army property. Don’t you have anything better to do? I suggest you return to your work, unless you’ve decided to pursue a life of leisure on this garden planet.”
“We hear you’re taking the Company’s side in what happened last night!” shouted Clinton Perry. “We hear you arrested the McCradys and now John Mulberry, too.” The muttering grew louder.
“You heard wrong,” said Hughes. “See for yourself.” He turned and gestured to John and Lucius, who took the opportunity to step forward and stand beside Hughes.
Just as the mob began to quiet, a large gang of Company men approached the camp’s gate, Gerry Ake in the lead. Boss Cooper accompanied them. Seeing this, the citizens grew angrier and louder than when they had first burst into camp.
John heard a noise behind him and turned to see Martina stumble out of the impromptu hospital. She limped as if favoring one leg. A double-barrel, breach-loading Winchester shotgun weighed down her arms.
“Here come the Company’s thieves and murderers!” shouted Lucius. “Prepare yourselves!”
Captain Hughes said a few words to his two sergeants, who each led their squads around the mob’s flanks toward the gate to bar the way of the approaching enforcers. Across the paved landing-field to the left, the cargo-ship laborers set down their loads and headed toward the camp’s fence. Two or three shifted their coats to reveal pistols tucked into their trousers. Out of the corner of his eye, John caught motion—Lucius drawing his old Remington from the pocket of his overalls. Much of the human population on Mars was concentrated into a few hundred square yards, armed to the teeth, and getting themselves riled up to murder one another. No one cast a shadow anywhere on the red soil. The sun shone directly down on them from a dusty turquoise sky but provided no warmth.
Every man’s got a time when he’s got to decide what’s the right thing to do, said John’s father, or events sweep him up regardless of his will. Now’s your time.
John stepped forward through the crowd of citizens until he stood between them and the approaching Company men, directly between the two squads of soldiers. He put up his hands and shouted.
“Stop it, you damn fools!” All eyes turned toward him. He turned his back to the Company men and faced the pioneers.
“You know what’s going to happen if we keep killing each other. The boys working for the Company will kill us for killing them, and then we’ll have to kill them for killing more of us, and on and on it’ll go, round and round like a revolver barrel, blasting every one of us into oblivion the way the Martians did themselves in.
“Why wasn’t a whole civilization of Martians waiting here to pounce on us with their War-Tripods and Heat-Ray guns? You’ve explored their ruins, full of skeletons. You’ve had to sweep their once-poisonous Black Dust out of your homes. You’ve seen those huge unexploded shells buried beside buildings where they once lived and worked and maybe even played. You’ve seen their big ships, shattered. That’s the only one left,” he pointed to the cargo-ship sitting across the field, “and we’re this close to destroying it, too.
“The Martians didn’t put up a fight because there weren’t any of them left to fight. It wasn’t Earthly disease bacteria that did them in here, it was each other.” The people were listening, quiet now.
“Mars is a hard place to stake a life. It’s about all we can do just to survive. The soil here won’t grow our crops, and the local plants taste like dirt. The only way we survived two Mars winters was together.”
John pointed at a few weapons, including Lucius’s pistol. “You fire a gun today at another man and you’re making yourself like those fool Martians. The only way we win this battle is not to fight!”
Lucius stepped forward, hatless, and faced the citizens. “What John says is fine, but consider this: y’all know that the Martians drank the blood of those man-things they kept corralled near their cities. That’s what the Company wants of us, and they won’t stop until they suck us dry!”
Now he faced the Company men, particularly Boss Cooper.
“You don’t care what’s our property; you keep us corralled here to feed fat shareholders back on Earth. We can’t survive if we keep shipping all the working Martian equipment back to Earth without getting fair trade. Hell, we need to keep it for ourselves, right here, for the people!”
The citizens were nodding and muttering, even the port-workers and some of the soldiers. John could see Lucius growing brave, working himself up to incite another shootout; he quickly spoke.
“That’s right,” said John. “We need to get smart. We need to keep our bounty. We need to figure out ways to grow vegetables indoors where they won’t freeze. Anything we need, we can trade Mars-stone for it. But none of that will matter if we keep killing each other.”
He faced Boss Cooper.
“Here’s how it’s going to be. We don’t need the Company anymore. We’re firing you, sir. Home-steading on Mars ain’t easy, but we don’t need you to survive.” A few shouts of approval. Out of the corner of his eye, John caught an odd expression on Lucius’s face, almost a smile.
“We’re a family here. We leave each to each’s business and help each other in need. We won’t stand for being taken advantage of anymore. We are our own company; we’re all shareholders of Mars with our stakes and claims and labor, and we will no longer abide outside forces interfering in our affairs.” Men and women began to cheer.
John noticed Gerry Ake tensing, left hand fidgeting.
He’s going to draw, said Billy.
John shook his head slowly at the gunfighter. Don’t. No one among the giddy crowd seemed to notice what was happening except for Captain Hughes off to the right, who watched the Company man and whispered to a sergeant.
Gerry Ake’s lips peeled back in an ugly smile. His hand lurched. John drew both his guns as the gun-fighter drew. The three pistols thundered together. John felt a blow to his ribs like being kicked by a horse, hot and numb. Gerry Ake tumbled backward, dark holes in his abdomen and the middle of his chest, and fell to the dusty ground.
Not again, his father said. Son, there should have been another way.
Sometimes there’s not, Billy said.
Another of the Company enforcers drew his pistol. John struggled to respond. The Colt in his left hand felt too heavy to move, and he had trouble arming the one in his right.
Shots boomed from both Cavalry squads, striking the enforcer from thigh to head. He crumpled like a wet sack. Guns were raised from all quarters.
“Stop, everyone!” shouted Captain Hughes. He stepped forward into the empty space between the two mobs, glancing briefly at John’s wound. “Did you hear what this man just said? We need to be done with killing!”
Boss Cooper stepped forward and glanced down at his two dead enforcers before fixing John with furious eyes. “In the next shipment I’ll have the Company send an army of peacekeepers to bring law and order to this place. We’ll—”
“No,” John said. He tossed both of his father’s pistols into the dust. He pointed at Captain Hughes. “This man’s the law here, and no one rides our cargo-ship unless we invite them.”
Lucius stepped forward, putting a hand on John’s shoulder, then looked fiercely at Cooper. “We don’t need you or the Cydonia Company. Everything on Mars belongs to the people you see around you, not the Company. From now on, we determine what we carry to Earth, what we trade for, and what or who we bring to Mars. Every man on this world is a free and equal member of Mars Company.”
“And women!” called Martina. She limped forward, her face set. “It’s a hard life, but more women will come if they know we’ll be free and equal with men.”
Lucius nodded. “All men and women of Mars will be free and equal,” he said.
Ma
rtina handed a man her shotgun. She gestured toward the fence where the port-workers stood, then across to the Cavalry. “We’ll all be free, Negroes and Sioux and Chinese and Irish—everyone who contributes to the betterment of Mars.”
The gathered citizens cheered. John’s chest was on fire and his head swirled. The scared and confused faces of the Company men told him that despite the mood of the citizens, they stood at a precipice. He spoke as loud as he could manage:
“Even you Company men who don’t have blood on your hands,” he said. “If you renounce the Company and stake an honest claim or homestead and put in honest work, you may join our family.”
The blue-eyed man who had arrested John that morning dropped his gun and stepped over Gerry Ake’s body to the side of the citizens. A few others followed suit, then more, until only a handful stood near Cooper. John nodded to the defectors, then pointed at the Company loyalists.
“The rest of you will go back to Earth where you can’t cause us any more suffering.” The world began to spin before his eyes. “We hereby declare ourselves independent. Free not only from the Company, but from Earth itself! It’s nations that cause war, companies that cause greed, and lack of mutual understanding and respect that causes killing. We hereby declare ourselves free of Earthly ways and name ourselves the Family of Mars!”
John lost consciousness to the sound of cheers. The ghosts of last night’s dead began to dissipate. The last thing John saw before the world went dark was the dead eyes of Gerry Ake.
~ * ~
Ten days later, after unloading most of the Martian artifacts that had been destined for Earth, Montgomery Cooper was escorted back to Earth along with sixteen other Company men, enforcers and looters all. Nine citizens returned with him, disheartened after trying to scratch a living from the hard Mars soil or uneasy with their new freedoms.
Upon hearing the news of the Mars Uprising, the United States declared war on the separatists. As no Earthly military could stand against the might of the Martian war-machines—nor did they possess ships capable of crossing the ocean of space—the Family of Mars politely ignored this declaration and continued trade with Earth as usual.
The engineer who steered the cargo-ship from Mars to Earth and back joined the “Family of Mars.” To avoid attack or piracy, he landed the ship only in remote regions of Earth, where the crew traded Mars-stone for needed supplies. He selected a different port of entry each visit.
The U.S. Army discharged Captain George Hughes and revoked his commission. Hughes went on to establish the Mars Defense Corps, eventually comprising infantry, cavalry, and—after Mars scientists deduced the methods of controlling Martian flying craft—air troops. Most served as reservists, working their mines and homesteads for all but twelve days per year, when they trained for emergency.
Over the next few decades, thousands of people emigrated from Earth to Mars, at which time it became clear that the planet could not sustain many more immigrants.
John Mulberry served one term as the first President of Mars but refused to accept a second nomination. As this was a part-time job, he continued surveying homesteads until failing health encouraged him to teach others how to survey their own land.
Martina McCrady, who had initiated the Mars Independence movement, served two terms as President after him. Many women did, indeed, emigrate to Mars.
John Mulberry died unmarried and without children at age twenty-seven in Mars-years, long enough to see the Family of Mars become self-sufficient and blossom into a nation rivaling any American state. By all accounts, he lived a contented life. His wound never fully healed.
<>
~ * ~
COYOTE, SPIDER, BAT
Steven Saus
T his happened a very long time ago, but not so long as it seems. This country stretches time in strange ways for all people, especially my kind. Europeans scoff at Americans for this. They laugh at my country’s history, thinking it only a blip and piddle in the bucket of history. They are often right. But some places, some times persist. They last far longer than they should, ignoring the dictates of the counting of men. Far more people say they were at a place than possible—but they all tell the truth.
And sometimes that stretched-out time echoes back into the measured tread of days and weeks. The relentless passing of seconds and days chops off parts that don’t fit, and details are lost. But still they echo outside of themselves, real people becoming myths and myths becoming flesh and blood.
This was one such time.
~ * ~
On this first day—not the first day though maybe she was there, too—the woman rode across frozen Montana earth toward her home. She rode a nondescript brown horse, but it was a fine animal and well bred for long days on the trail. Her black hair was cut to her shoulders, the fringe not quite touching the white fur lining of her coat. She sat back in the saddle, listening to the crunch of horse hooves on frost-covered grass. A slight smile flickered across her thin face as she thought of home. The early morning light slid across the land, and she knew Robert would be waiting with breakfast.
She came from the hunt, the carcass of an antelope strapped across the back of her horse. Perhaps the metal tang of blood-scent masked the smells of the high cold prairie. The extra weight of the meat, along with thanking the antelope for its sacrifice for her family, must have made riding more difficult. It must have distracted her attention, explains why she did not notice sooner.
When she did notice—when the burning smell reached her sensitive nose, when the crackling sound reached her tuned ears—she did not believe.
And when her cabin came into sight, thought fled.
She leaned forward, the horse already responding. The cold wind bit at her ruddy face, streamed her black hair back from the yellow and grey of her narrowed eyes. She pulled the horse to a stop, sliding from the saddle. She padded the short distance to the body lying in front of the still smoldering ruin of their life together.
His face was untouched, but only his face. The rest of his body was shredded, dressed, cut like she’d planned to do to the antelope that afternoon. Her hands ran across the bloodless cuts and tears in his flesh. Her mouth moved in soft words. Perhaps she spoke to the Great Spirit, though she had yet to meet such a thing. Perhaps she spoke to her dead husband, traveling to the Heaven she’d believed in. We have no way of knowing, and she never said.
We know only this: for the rest of that day, and into the night, Coyote howled in pain, and across the prairie her little brothers howled with her.
That was the end of that first day.
~ * ~
On the afternoon of that second day, as the sun dipped down to kiss the horizon, Lao-shu sat in the back of the saloon. She sat with the black man, the gaze of her dark eyes dancing across the faces of the men. She dealt the man five cards, her caramel voice sliding under the noise of the room. “The girls will be busy tonight, Anthony.”
He picked up the cards with delicate fingers and raised an eyebrow. She laughed, matching his eyebrow with her own. “Is that for the cards or the prediction? If you want someone to cheat you at cards, I hear that—”
Anthony shook his thin head, light glistening off his shaved scalp. “No, that’s not it, girl.” She snorted as he continued. “I’m just waiting for the next thing to happen. Damn near got eyes in the back of my head, and I still don’t know what got Coyote riled.”
She narrowed her eyes and leaned her head forward so it swept her hair into a tunnel framing her face. “You just stop right there with the naming. It’s not—”
“Everyone west of the Mississip knows something happened. That’s what got these men all ready to jump into the arms of your girls. They know something—something bad—happened, but don’t know what. Just natural for a man to find comfort in something warm, familiar, and female.”
He smiled, and after a second, Lao-shu did as well. “Next you’ll say it’s in their nature, won’t you?”
He nodded, and looked at the car
ds again. “Things act in their nature, but that don’t mean they ain’t got a choice.” He spread the cards in the eight fingers of his hand. “Besides, I know you’re cheating.”
She laid her cards down, face up. “Four kings, ace high. Why would you say I cheat?”
Anthony put his cards down on hers. Four more kings and an ace looked at them. “‘Cause I am, too.”
The door to the saloon opened. Coyote stood there, and the humans in the room grew quiet. The humans knew Coyote—though not by that name. They had drank with her, been with her as she married Robert. They’d delivered the letters from his parents in Boston, made peace with the Indians at her urging. They’d laughed as she made a buffoon of the traveling preacher, and hunted buffalo with her. They knew that easy-going person with the coat lined in white fur.
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