The Builders

by Polansky, Daniel

  So it was Mephetic and Puss and Brontë and two full companies of the rat guard, a hundred grim-faced rodents carrying heavy iron, hiding low in the hills around the bar. The Quaker was slithering about, where exactly Mephetic wasn’t sure. You didn’t really order the Quaker to do anything, you just pointed him in a direction and held your breath.

  Mephetic was down on his stomach, scanning the front road with his spyglass. Puss and Brontë were beside him, for once equally silent. In the final few moments before evening fell completely, Mephetic caught the first glimpse of the companions coming up over the hill. He held his breath in anticipation, hoping he hadn’t overplayed his hand.

  And indeed, there was a moment when he thought for sure he had mucked it. The six of them were tramping toward the bar when the Captain, standing in the middle of the pack, perked his nose up suddenly, sniffing at the air. Mephetic cursed beneath his breath and readied the order to rush them en masse, knowing it wouldn’t work, knowing he’d lose half his rats trying. Still, there were always more rats—fecundity was one of the few virtues of the species.

  But then the Captain swung his head back down, tipped his hat over it, and kept on moving. A few minutes afterward, all six of the companions were comfortably ensconced inside. They’d come straight back after hitting the train, and they looked dusty and tired. They’d lay their burdens on the ground and start hitting the liquor, and after they’d done that awhile, Mephetic would hit them back.

  “What are we waiting for?” Puss asked. Puss wore a satin vest and matching pants. They had begun the day white, though having spent the better part of an hour pressed against the sand they could no longer claim that distinction. He had a pair of pearl-handled pistols hanging at his waist. He looked like a rodeo clown, but that didn’t make him any less dangerous.

  “You’re waiting for me to give the signal,” Mephetic snapped. “Because I’m the boss, and no one does anything without me telling them to do it.”

  Puss looked at Mephetic awhile, and then he looked at the ground. Mephetic decided at that moment that if Puss survived this go-round with the Captain he would make sure the cat didn’t survive much longer. Puss was getting to be more trouble than he was worth. Probably that would also necessitate doing away with Brontë, who had some vague notion that she and the cat were friends—insofar as two violent, amoral sociopaths were capable of that sort of connection—but that was fine. The Gardens would hardly be a worse place with them propping up tulips.

  But first thing was first, and first was the Captain. Some twenty minutes after the companions had headed through the front door the traitor came hobbling out back, lit a cigarette, gave a little wave, and walked back inside.

  “Send the rats in first,” Mephetic said. “Unless you feel like martyring yourself in service of the Toad.”

  To judge by the space Brontë and Puss put between themselves and the company of soldiers, this honor held little interest. They moved carefully, slowly, a mass of crawling creatures working their way through the underbrush, a tightening noose of grim-faced rodents. When they reached the tavern a dozen of them clambered stealthily up to the roof, while their comrades fanned out around the building. Revolvers were cocked. Rifles were aimed. Death hung thick.

  The first rat kicked down the door and went barreling inside, came out again almost as quick, stumbling off the porch and into the dust. The rest proved slower to make their ingress, though with a few shouted words from Brontë they managed it, firing blindly inside, as if the companions were fool enough to sprint into the face of their guns.

  Mephetic knew otherwise, of course, and he shifted his glasses to the front, waiting for their inevitable attempt at a breakout. It wasn’t long coming. The Dragon went first, pistols firing; rats falling like flies, dropping from the rooftop, dying gut-shot in the dust. Mephetic realized his entire body was tense with excitement; he was almost ready to vomit from the sheer adrenaline coursing through his veins. And moreover, he realized he wasn’t sure which side he was rooting for, or at least his heart thrilled at each sudden new bit of brilliance on the part of the companions. When the badger (what was his name again? Oat? Millet? It didn’t matter, particularly; he wouldn’t be around much longer) took a rifle bullet in the shoulder and kept coming, grabbing the rat who had hit him by one hand and swinging him like a lash into another, the crack of bone audible even from his distant perch, Mephetic let out a cheer loud enough to draw the attention of his bodyguard, though of course they were wise enough to pretend they hadn’t noticed.

  Cinnabar and the opossum were in front, and though the latter generally did her business with a long rifle, she had no problem putting down rats up close, her revolver doing sedate but mortal work. Of course it was nothing like the Dragon, who seemed like his namesake to all but breathe death, the only check on his violence the need to reload. So constant was this torrent of lead that the pack of rats, the army of rats, the endless wave of rats, scurried backward for the safety of the bar, for any plank of wood or bit of stone or shallow indentation in the sand that might give them cover from the killing metal.

  It occurred to Mephetic belatedly that he had underestimated the Captain; he had forgotten in the long years since they’d last seen each other just how dangerous the mouse was. He should have brought another company of soldiers; he ought to have drained the Kingdom of killers; he ought to have hired mercenaries and impressed citizens, if he’d wanted to make certain the Captain and his companions wouldn’t walk away.

  Or he could have just done what he did, which was turn one of the Captain’s creatures against him. The Captain might have figured on Reconquista; it was his second turn at betrayal, after all. But there was no way the Captain could have known Gertrude was—well, a mole. They were taking up the rear, the Captain’s scattergun roaring back into the bar, the Captain roaring just as loud, his one eye as dead as the other, when Gertrude reached up behind him and did something—Mephetic couldn’t make it out distinctly, but whatever it was, it dropped the Captain to the ground.

  The rats swarmed then, so fast and so many that they seemed almost like a single creature, or some impersonal force, a rain cloud or a wave beating against the shore. There was a moment when it seemed as if the companions might try to save him, but it didn’t last long. There was nothing to do but beat an escape—at least that was what they ended up doing, laying down covering fire and disappearing down the road. The surviving rats made an attempt to continue after them, but really it wasn’t altogether serious, and with half their number lying dead on the ground, you couldn’t very well blame them.

  But that was fine—the companions were dangerous like a loaded gun: harmless without someone to pull the trigger. They’d go back to whatever they had been doing before the mouse forced them out of retirement, and they’d leave Mephetic free to continue running the Gardens as he had before. This thought gave Mephetic a quick splash of sadness—back to the endless bureaucratic drudgery, the routine the Captain’s return had broken him out of—but of course there was nothing to be done about it.

  Puss carried the Captain, still unconscious from whatever the mole had done to him, back up the hill and left him lying in the dust. The rats had stripped him of his weapons, and they hadn’t been kind in doing so. Mephetic waited patiently until the Captain awoke, and his good eye struggled its way open. Mephetic wanted to make sure he was the first thing the Captain saw, as indeed he was.

  “Hello again, Captain,” Mephetic said, smiling. “It’s been a long time.”

  Part the Fourth

  Chapter 36: An Awful End

  After he had finished betraying the Captain, and the skunk and his forces had dumped their numerous dead in an open trough and headed back to the Capital, Reconquista locked the door and hung a closed sign over it. The sign would never come down. Reconquista hadn’t liked operating a bar, had only done so after he’d blown through most of the coin he’d gotten from Mephetic the first time he’d betrayed the Captain. But he’d be more careful wit
h this round. He would migrate to the Kingdom to the South, where his money would spend further. Get a hacienda and some broken-down peasants to work it, bring in a few fat-bottomed dams to while away his last days. He didn’t have so many left, he knew.

  Click, click, click.

  Reconquista had started drinking just after he’d put up the sign, drinking and drinking with a purpose. It was, to be very clear, not out of any sense of guilt. Reconquista had never felt anything toward the Captain, nor toward any of the gang, nor toward anyone else, truth be told. And after all, it was the Captain’s fault that he only had half a body, the Captain’s fault for shooting Alfalfa the hare while Alfalfa the hare had been holding a stick of dynamite and standing next to Reconquista. Of course it had been Reconquista who had convinced Alfalfa to light that stick and to try to kill the Captain with it, Alfalfa and the Quaker and some of the others, now all dead—but then Reconquista did not count any particular sense of fairness among his virtues.

  Click, click, click.

  He was surprised that Gertrude had turned traitor; he could admit that. He hadn’t known that was coming, hadn’t bothered to try to turn the mole five years back, hadn’t tried with the mole or any of the other inner circle. He’d figured them for saps, thick with those strange notions of loyalty that led animals into the grave at some earlier date than was strictly necessary. And also, being higher up in the Captain’s ranks they were in for a larger cut of the spoils, had less incentive for betrayal.

  Click, click, click.

  Reconquista, by contrast, had known he wouldn’t be getting a very significant slice—oh, the rest of the boys were friendly enough to him, in their backhanded way, but he wasn’t tough, not tough like Barley or the Dragon, and the fact that he’d been with the Captain since the beginning, or nearly since, wouldn’t have guaranteed him any more than crumbs. And what was the point of the whole thing, if it hadn’t been to make out like bandits in the end? Certainly he had no loyalty to the Elder, none of them did. It was pure self-interest for everyone; he’d just been sharp enough to make good.

  Click, click, click.

  No, it wasn’t guilt. If Reconquista had to take a guess why he was drinking himself into a coma, it would have been because he knew he was getting old. This was his last scrap—he would never again get to feel adrenaline pumping through his veins, never again stand above the corpse of an enemy, or an ally for that matter. He would while away his few remaining years a farting, toothless, one-armed geezer.

  Click, click, click.

  It was enough to make Reconquista want to take another drink of whiskey. And why not? Who was left to stop him, after all?

  Click, click, click.

  Reconquista got up from his seat, wooden leg struggling to find purchase. He made his way behind the bar, got the sawed-off shotgun he kept for protection. It had a hell of a kick, especially with Reconquista only having the one hand, but the spread made accuracy less than critical. All you needed to do was aim in the general direction of whatever you wanted dead, pull the trigger, and dig a hole. It was this last part that Reconquista cared for least.

  Click, click, click.

  With his one good hand he held the butt, sliding his hook beneath the barrel. Then he stumbled out to the back porch. He was too drunk to be fearful, and anyway there wasn’t any reason to be. The Captain was captured, soon to be dead, the companions scattered or turned traitor themselves.

  Click, click, click.

  He had been sure it was coming from the back, but standing on the porch now he couldn’t see anything beyond the outhouse and the scrub brush that led into the desert.

  Click, click, click.

  The shadows were getting long, and Reconquista was getting frightened, frightened through the bottle of whiskey in his stomach, frightened down into his bones and into the bones of his absent arm and his absent leg. “Who’s out here?” he asked stupidly, knowing it was stupid as he was asking it.

  Click, click, click.

  “I’m warning you!” he yelled, which was an even stupider thing to say, because whatever was waiting for him didn’t need to be fearful, and knew it.

  The shadows descended, and though he had time to fire off two full barrels of double aught they didn’t do any good, flew harmlessly into the sky and then dropped harmlessly onto the ground. The shadow covered him and then the shadow was Elf, and then Elf’s beak and Elf’s claws began to do what beaks and claws do, and Reconquista screamed.

  The rat’s death was quick, but terrible all the same.

  Chapter 37: A New Cellmate

  There was only one creature in the dungeons when they brought the Captain in: a squirrel, though he was so thick with dirt and bent with age it took a moment to be sure. An empty prison is generally a sign of a well-run state, of a happy populace with no need to engage in crime. In this particular instance it was a sign of the opposite, of a nation that had declared anything worse than shoplifting a capital offense and was quick to execute that policy, and, for that matter, its citizens. Which is to say that a great many creatures went into Mephetic’s dungeons, but they didn’t stay long, a way station on the path to the dirt.

  That the squirrel had remained alive so long was a clerical error, though whether of a benign or malignant sort, it was hard to say. He had gone mad quite quickly, the rambunctious energy of his species forced inward by the constraints of his cell. He could no longer remember what his crime had been, or what he had done before his time there, or what his name was, or what the sun looked like.

  The guards dumped the Captain into his cell, made promises to see him again soon, and left. The Captain stood, brushed himself off, and scowled. He reached for his purse of tobacco, realized it had been taken, and scowled some more. It had been two days since his capture, the result of Gertrude’s treachery and Mephetic’s cleverness, and the forty-eight hours had been less than pleasant. If the situation were reversed, Mephetic wouldn’t have lasted that long. The Captain would have put him in the ground as soon as he had him; double-tap and then food for the ants. The Captain didn’t torture except when he had to, and he never, ever, left an enemy alive.

  Mephetic, it seemed, was crueler. Or more foolish.

  “Tell me a story,” the squirrel chittered all of a sudden, climbing up the bars of the cell, his tail flaring back and forth, caked with muck and grime and other, nastier things. “Tell me a story,” he repeated, louder this time. “Tell me a story or I’ll carve out your eyes, tell me a story or I’ll chew out your tongue, tell me a story or I’ll sneak into your cell and make your bones into jelly!”

  He was screaming at this point, though the Captain seemed not to notice, staring hard at the concrete walls.

  The squirrel dropped down to the floor. “Tell me a story,” he said, “or I’ll cry.”

  Pity was generally no more a motivator of the Captain than fear—but for whatever reason he started to speak then. “Once there were two brothers.”

  The squirrel crossed his legs and rested his head on his hand, eager as a prized student, his tail like a faded hairbrush held upright.

  “The two brothers were the heirs to a great kingdom. A kingdom prosperous and happy, a kingdom that, split between them, was still more than any animal would ever need or want.”

  From somewhere far off, there was a sound.

  “But for the two brothers half of everything wasn’t nearly enough, and so they began to plot and to scheme against each other, and finally, in time, turned to open battle.”

  The sound grew louder, though not yet distinct. It was an unfriendly sound, this much could be said with certainty.

  “Since the brothers were as cowardly as they were rapacious, and no sort of soldiers, they hired animals who would fight for them—cruel, strong, dangerous—and they let them loose upon their kingdom. And war raged between the two brothers, across the length and breadth of their lands—until finally, the leader of the forces of the elder brother, being crueler, and stronger, and more dangerous, proved vi
ctorious.”

  The sound was prolonged, vigorous. The squirrel didn’t seem to notice, however, so engrossed was he in the Captain’s story. The Captain probably noticed, but the Captain had heard enough screaming not to get excited about hearing more. He started to talk louder himself, louder and more rapidly, either to drown out the sound or simply from the furor of the narrative.

  “But the elder brother and his forces had traitors in their midst, and they betrayed their comrades in their moment of triumph, breaking their power and bringing the younger brother to the throne. And the armies of the elder brother were scattered across the kingdom and beyond, and most thought them dead and buried, and forgot them.”

  More screams, and gunfire, and something louder than gunfire—dynamite, maybe?

  “But they weren’t dead, only battered, and they nourished hatred in their hearts, fed off of it, let it warm them in the cold, began to love their hatred as the only thing left to them. And as the kingdom’s fortunes faded, and as the land descended into tyranny and poverty, the armies of the elder brother saw their moment.”

  The door to the jail flew open, burst right off its hinges, Barley coming in smooth behind it. His shoulder was bandaged but he carried his organ-gun without any trouble. Cinnabar slipped in an instant afterward, already reloading his pistols.

  “What the hell took you so long?” the Captain asked.

  Barley set his cannon on the ground for a moment. “Nice to see you too, Captain.” He put his hands around two of the bars, and tensed his shoulders, and then there was a gap wide enough for the Captain to walk through.

  Which the Captain did.

  “Wait!” the Squirrel screamed. “Wait!”