The Builders (5 page)

Angie Weasel was drinking from the trough. She righted herself and blinked twice. It was a hot day, sun beating off dust as far as you’d want to look, and a creature could get to seeing things that weren’t there. She squinted and fanned herself with her hat. She called to Bessie Weasel, her younger sister, slung out on the swinging bench that hung from the roof of the patio, just outside the main house. It was the only structure that remained standing, apart from a large barn rotting a few hundred paces to her rear. Bessie sighed. Bessie listened to the hinges squeal. By the time Bessie had managed to stand several minutes had passed, and the Captain and Cinnabar were clearly within view, and so her effort was altogether wasted.

A brief word on weasels—it is not a coincidence that their species has entered the popular nomenclature as synonym for duplicity and cheapness of character. No one has ever caressed a lover and said, “You weasel.” A mother does not call her babe a “weasel” as she brings it to breast. A weeping son does not eulogize his newly dead father as “my dearest weasel.” As a rule, they exemplify the sort of low cunning and brute force that is little in demand among the civilized creatures of the world.

The Weasel sisters were very much emblematic of the species, if perhaps slightly nastier than the norm. They had come down from the Gardens years ago, just ahead of a mob of animals looking to hang them by their long necks. With such qualifications, they’d had no trouble finding work in the Kingdom to the South. The Kingdom to the South was that sort of a place.

It was a long time before the two of them came within speaking distance. The Captain wasn’t the hurrying kind. Cinnabar, though he could move very fast, very fast indeed, was not the hurrying kind either. The Weasel sisters were also not much for haste, or at least they didn’t snap to attention at the arrival of their guests; they didn’t even bother with a greeting.

“You gonna tell your boss we’re here?” the Captain asked.

Angie Weasel walked over and banged on the door of the house.

“You must be the Dragon,” Bessie Weasel said.

Cinnabar didn’t respond.

“You don’t look like no dragon to me.”

“You ever seen a dragon?” the Captain asked.

“No.”

“Then your opinion don’t hold much weight.”

Angie Weasel snickered. Bessie Weasel scowled. Things might have gone bad right then if the door hadn’t opened, and the only creature alive who could control the Weasel sisters came out of it.

It had been years since the Captain had seen Zapata, but he looked exactly the same. Armadillos age slowly, after all. The plate of their armor grows thicker and denser, gray scales shielding the soft flesh beneath. But apart from that there is little enough to distinguish a pup from an elder. A pair of bandoliers crisscrossed his wide chest and two fat revolvers peeked up from his belt. A sombrero, turned off-white by long years in the sun, shaded the narrow point of his face. Zapata gave the simultaneous impression of a tyrant and clown, like he would make you laugh before having you shot.

He approached the Captain with an excitement one sees in lovers long separated, his claws outstretched as if for an embrace. When he saw the Captain wasn’t going to go for it he shortened his paws up to at least offer a handshake. When he saw the Captain wasn’t going to go for that either he set them into his pockets. He remained smiling, however. “The Captain himself! The Elder’s avenger, bringer of righteous death! How long has it been, my friend?”

“ A while.”

“And by his side the Dragon, just as in the old days!”

Cinnabar nodded but didn’t say anything.

“You are both welcome, and more than welcome, to my humble abode. But perhaps this conversation is best done away from any prying eyes?” Zapata waved toward the entrance.

The Captain looked at Cinnabar. What passed between them, none could justly say. Then the Captain followed Zapata indoors, Cinnabar holding his spot by the trough.

Only the front room of the house remained usable, the rest having long fallen into disrepair, overgrown by the scrub grass that was the only form of flora the desert allowed. There was a table, and two chairs, and one rat who closed the door after the Captain had come inside. Zapata took a seat and waited for the Captain to take the other. For a moment it looked like he intended to stand, but then he gave the guard a glance that would have curdled milk and dropped down across from Zapata.

“I must say,” the armadillo began, unplugging the cork from a jug resting beside him and taking a swig, “I was surprised when you contacted me.” He pushed the liquor across the wood.

The Captain eyed it for a moment, then pushed it back. “Because you thought I was dead?”

When Zapata laughed, his stomach rocked the table back and forth. “Please now, Captain, we both know you’re too ornery to die. Though to judge by your eye, Mephetic took a pretty good run at it. How did that happen, exactly? One moment you are cock of the walk, and the next your throat is all but cut.”

“I suppose I’m just too trusting.”

Zapata laughed again. Zapata laughed often. “It is your one failing, if you don’t mind me saying so! You’re too trusting.”

The Captain’s appetite for humor had been well and fully satisfied by this point, however, and he refused to continue the jest. Zapata took another pull from the jug, then plugged it and set it back on the table. “Well, Captain, as far as I am concerned, it was worth the trip out here simply to see you. But I imagine you had a purpose in contacting me.”

“I need to find the Elder.”

Zapata pulled at the roots of his long mustache. “Why would I know where your old patron resides?”

“I know he fled to the south after everything went sour. And it would be in your country’s interest to keep him alive. You’ve got the connections with the new government to know where he is. And besides—there aren’t so many folks left from the old days to call on.”

Zapata nodded, as if the Captain’s last words contained some great weight of profundity. “That is true, Captain, that is very true. There are few enough of us alive who can still remember the war. Why do you think that is?”

“It’s a dangerous world.”

“You misunderstand—I am not asking why you think so many have fallen. I’m asking you why you think I’ve survived.”

“I guess it’s because you’re so damned good looking,” the Captain said, though he seemed unamused with his joke.

Zapata, by contrast, slapped his hands against his knees and roared with laughter. “I had forgotten how funny you were, Captain. But no, that is not why. The reason I have survived is very simple—it is because I am a survivor.”

“And I’m not?”

“No, Captain, I do not think you are. Don’t misunderstand me—you survive, obviously, or we wouldn’t be talking right now. But I do not think you are a survivor, if you see the difference.”

“I imagine it’s about to be explained.”

“You see, my old friend—I do what needs to be done at the moment I need to do it, and I don’t concern myself overmuch with the day before or after. When the Kingdom to the South looked weak, I raised the flag of rebellion. When it grew stronger, I made peace, and reaped the rewards. The wind blows, and I let it carry me along. Not you—quite the opposite, really. You find the fiercest gale you can and spit into its face! Now one might admire your audacity, and even the strength it takes to stand your comeuppance. But still, the wind blows, does it not? And you . . . you are still wet.”

The Captain nodded vaguely. “Thanks for the advice.”

Zapata smiled, laughed, scratched himself, slapped the table, took up a lot of space and attention. Somewhere in the midst of his buffoonery he shot his rat a look that he didn’t intend the Captain to see.

The mouse is a curious animal. He is small and weak. If he is not slow, he is slower than the cat, the fox, and the owl, his natural predators—which is to say he is not nearly fast enough. His claws and teeth are fragile things, unsuited to violence. Generally speaking he cannot even blend in to his surroundings. In short, the mouse is perhaps the single most helpless animal on earth, blessed with nary a resource to defend himself against the cruel privations of a savage world.

Save one—the mouse knows it. The mouse is too feeble to cling to any illusions of safety. From the instant he leaves the flesh of the womb, he knows his life is there for the taking, and he grows cagey, and sharp. He sees the goshawk above him, sniffs out the polecat lurking in the shadows.

All of which is to say that when the rat leveled his sawed-off shotgun the Captain was already moving, kicking his chair backward and falling with it, the load of buckshot passing swiftly through the space he had occupied and nestling itself into Zapata’s ripe and unsuspecting chest. The Captain had meanwhile shaken a holdout pistol from the sleeve of his coat, and he used the first two of its chambers to make sure his would-be assassin would not have time to regret the mistake. The rat staggered into a corner, counting down its last breaths. The Captain turned his weapon on Zapata, though he realized swiftly that the armadillo no longer presented a threat.

The Captain came slowly to his feet. He picked up his hat from where it had fallen and set it onto his head, his ears flattening to hold it upright. He returned his pistol to his sleeve holster.

From outside there were a series of gunshots, coming so swiftly it was impossible to make out the number.

The spray of lead had ripped through Zapata’s underbelly. His intestines were leaking into a little puddle on the floor, blood and bile with them. He smiled all the same. “That’ll be my girls.”

The Captain pulled a stool in front of Zapata and sat down atop it. The air erupted with a cavalcade of gunfire, rendering conversation inaudible.

After thirty seconds or so the artillery ended. The Captain slipped a cigar from his pocket, lit it, and took a few shallow draws. “You sure?”

“I will be honest with you, my old friend—this whole thing is wounding my ego.”

Bonsoir was pacing back and forth on a dune a long ways off from the hacienda, the jet-black of his fur standing out against the pink sand.

“I hear ya,” Boudica grunted. She lay motionless just beneath the crest of the hill, gray fur stained to dull khaki by the dust. From twenty paces away she was absolutely indistinguishable from the sediment surrounding her—save for the long, glittering barrel of her rifle. It was an unnecessary obfuscation, in all likelihood. They were too far from the meeting place to be seen unaided, a fact that explained Bonsoir’s distinct lack of stealth. But Boudica was a professional, and professionalism means doing it right even when it doesn’t matter.

“Bonsoir is the greatest infiltration specialist in history. Bonsoir is as slippery as moonlight, as slick as shade and as swift as sin.”

“No question.”

“And what is Bonsoir doing, with all his talent? With his ability that no one, not Bonsoir’s worst enemies—not that Bonsoir leaves so many of those alive to have an opinion one way or the other on the matter, needless to say—but still, if one was up above the ground, and you were to ask him, ‘Bonsoir, is he everything they say he is,’ this theoretical enemy would be heard to answer, ‘Yes, without question.’ What was I saying?”

“Not sure.”

Bonsoir paused for a moment. “The point is, this is a misuse of my genius.”

“Captain’s got his plan.”

“Indeed he does! And the Captain, he says he does not need Bonsoir today! He says that today is not Bonsoir’s! That you and the lizard will take care of the ones outside, and that Barley and his cannon will take care of the ones in the barn, and so there is nothing left for Bonsoir.” Bonsoir scowled and kicked at the dirt.

“It’s tough.”

“The indignity!” Bonsoir said, sticking one finger straight up in the air. “It is an insult to my ability, that’s what it is! A disgrace to my line and lineage, to my people and nation and . . .”

Bonsoir would almost certainly have continued on in this fashion had not the retort of the rifle cut him off.

“Did you get her?” Bonsoir asked.

Boudica looked up from the weapon with a pained expression.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry. You can see how out of sorts this whole thing has made me.”

“You’ll get your turn soon enough.”

“I’ve heard about you,” Angie Weasel said. Slyly, as if betraying a secret.

This news did not seem to excite Cinnabar. His eyes hung dully on the closed door of the hacienda, as if hoping to follow his commander through the rough stone.

“I guess everyone’s heard about you.”

The shuttered window on the second floor of the hacienda peeked open, and Celia Weasel, the youngest of the clan, leaned the barrel of her Winchester out of it. It was an ominous sign, one Cinnabar gave no indication of noticing.

“Is it true you killed High-Hand Lawrence and Hotpants the squirrel during the same card game?”

Nothing from Cinnabar. No words, no change in his demeanor, no breathing, only the absolute stillness of which only a cold-blooded creature is capable.

“I wonder if you’re as fast as they say,” Bessie Weasel chirruped, her hand slowly straying toward her belt.

“Wondering is free,” Cinnabar said finally, his voice soft and low. “Certainty has its price.”

The blast from inside was the signal. Angie Weasel went for her iron with all the speed and vigor possessed by a member of her race. Bessie Weasel was only a hairsbreadth slower in swiveling her shotgun. Celia Weasel was caught off guard but responded with a reasonable degree of alacrity all the same.

It is a scientific fact that time is infinitely divisible, that each moment contains within it the fragments of a thousand others, and each of them can be splintered into a thousand more, and so on and so on. Somewhere then, hidden within these shards of time that occur in the endless instants between the second hand, Cinnabar moved, setting his webbed palm around the pistol at his waist and fanning off two shots. To the subjective observer, however—to Angie and her unfortunate sibling—the salamander’s movements were impossible to follow. Before their brains could process the information gathered by their senses, perhaps even before their senses had recognized the stimulus itself, bits of iron had exploded through their skulls and made either act impossible.

Celia might have had a chance. Maybe. She was good, and Cinnabar was only flesh. But as she tightened her finger a shot rang out in the distance, and then the youngest Weasel sister was tumbling out the window, dead before she struck the ground.

Cinnabar slipped his gun back into his holster. He waved at Boudica, or where he assumed Boudica to be. His eyes studied the horizon, open and friendly.