"The Postman" - читать интересную книгу автора (Brin David)

8

The barricades had been long abandoned. The baffle wall on Highway 58, at the east end of Oakridge, had weathered into a tumbled tell of concrete debris and curled, rusting steel. The town itself was silent. This end, at least, was clearly long abandoned.

Gordon looked down the main street, reading its story. Two, possibly three, pitched battles had been fought here. A storefront with a canted sign — emergency services clinic — sat at the center of a major circle of devastation.

Three intact panes reflected morning sunlight from the top floor of a hotel. Elsewhere though, even where store windows had been boarded, the prismatic sparkle of shattered glass glistened on the buckled pavement.

Not that he had really expected anything better, but some of the feelings he had carried with him out of Pine View had led to hopes for more islands of peace, especially now that he was in the fertile watershed of the Willamette Valley. If no living town, at least Oakridge might have shown other signs conducive to optimism. There might have been traces of methodical reclamation, for instance. If an industrial civilization existed here in Oregon, towns such as this one should have been harvested of anything usable.

But just twenty yards from his vantage point Gordon saw the wreckage ef a gas station — a big mechanic’s tool cabinet lay on its side, its store of wrenches, pliers, and replacement wiring scattered on the oil-stained floor. A row of never-used tires still hung on a rack high above the service lifts.

From this, Gordon knew Oakridge to be the worst of all possible Oakridges, at least from his point of view. The things needed by a machine culture were available at every hand, untouched and rotting… implying there was no such technological society anywhere near. At the same time, he would have to pick through the wreckage of fifty waves of previous looters in his search for anything useful to a single traveler like himself.

Well, he sighed. I’ve done it before,

Even sifting through the downtown ruins of Boise, the gleaners before him had missed a small treasure trove of canned food in a loft behind a shoe store… some hoarder’s stash, long untouched. There was a pattern to such things, worked out over the years. He had his own methods for conducting a search.

Gordon slipped down on the forest side of the barricade baffle and entered the overgrowth. He zigzagged, on the off chance he had been watched. At a place where he could verify landmarks in three different directions, Gordon dropped his leather shoulder bag and cap under an autumn-bright red cedar. He took off the dark brown letter carrier’s jacket and laid it on top, then cut brush to cover the cache.

He would go to any lengths to avoid conflict with suspicious locals, but only a fool would leave his weapons behind. There were two types of fighting that could come out of a situation like this. For one, the silence of the bow might be better. For the other, it could be worth expending precious, irreplaceable .38 cartridges. Gordon checked the pistol’s action and reholstered it. His bow he carried, along with arrows and a cloth sack for salvage.

In the first few houses, on the outskirts, the early looters had been more exuberant than thorough. Often the wreckage in such places discouraged those who came after, leaving useful items within. He had found it true often before.

Still, by the fourth house Gordon had a poor collection to show for this theory. His sack contained a pair of boots almost useless from mildew, a magnifying glass, and two spools of thread. He had poked into all the usual and some unconventional hoarder’s crannies, and found no food of any sort.

His Pine View jerky wasn’t gone, but he had dipped down farther than he liked. His archery was better, and he had bagged a small turkey two days ago. Still, if he didn’t have better luck gleaning, he might have to give up on the Willamette Valley for now and get to work on a winter hunting camp.

What he really wanted was another haven such as Pine View. But fate had been kind enough, lately. Too much good luck made Gordon suspicious.

He moved on to a fifth house.

The four-poster bed stood in what had once been a prosperous physician’s two-story home. Like the rest of the house, the bedroom had been stripped of nearly everything but the furniture. Nevertheless, as he crouched down over the heavy area rug, Gordon thought he might have found something the earlier looters had missed.

The rug seemed out of place. The bed rested upon it, but only with the right pair of legs. The left pair lay directly on the hardwood floor. Either the owner had been sloppy in placing the big, oval carpet, or …

Gordon put down his burdens and grabbed the edge of the rug.

Whew. It’s heavy.

He started rolling it toward the bed.

Yes! There was a thin, square crack in the floor, under the carpet. A bed leg pinned the rug over one of two brass door hinges. A trapdoor.

He pushed hard on the bedpost. The leg hopped and fell again with a boom. Twice more he shoved and loud echoes reverberated.

On his fourth heave the bedpost snapped in two. Gordon barely escaped impalement on the jagged stub as he toppled onto the mattress. The canopy followed and the aged bed collapsed in a crash. Gordon cursed, fighting with the smothering shroud. He sneezed violently in a cloud of floating dust.

Finally, regaining a bit of sense, he managed to slither out from under the ancient, moldy fabric. He stumbled out of the room, still sputtering and sneezing. The attack subsided slowly. He gripped the upstairs bannister, squinting in that torturous, semi-orgasmic state that comes before a whopping sternutation. His ears rang with an extra murmur that seemed almost like voices.

Next thing you’ll be hearing churchbells, he told himself.

The final sneeze came at last, in a loud “Ah — chblthooh!” Wiping his eyes, he reentered the bedroom. The trapdoor lay fully exposed, layered under a new coating of dust. Gordon had to pry the edge of the secret panel. Finally, it lifted with a high, rusty skreigh.

Again, it seemed as though some of the sound came from outside the house. But when he stopped and listened carefully, Gordon heard nothing. Impatiently, he bent down and brushed aside cobwebs to peer into the cache.

There was a large metal box inside. He poked around hoping for more. After all, the things a prewar doctor might have kept in a locked chest — money and documents — would be of less use to him than canned goods stashed here in a spree of wartime hoarding. But there was nothing other than the box. Gordon hauled it out, puffing.

Good. It’s heavy. Now lei’s hope it’s not gold or any similar crap. The hinges and lock were rusted. He lifted the haft of his knife to smash the small lock. Then he stopped abruptly.

Now they were unmistakable. The voices were close, too close.

“I think it came from this house!” someone called from the overgrown garden outside. Feet shuffled through the dry leaves. There were steps on the wooden porch,

Gordon sheathed the knife and snatched up his gear.

Leaving the box by the bed, he hurried out of the room to the stairwell.

This was not the best of circumstances to meet other men. In Boise and other mountain ruins there had been almost a code — gleaners from ranches all around could try their luck in the open city, and although the groups and individuals were wary, they seldom preyed on one another. Only one thing could bring them all together — a rumor that someone had sighted a Holnist, somewhere. Otherwise they pretty much left each other alone.

In other places, though, territoriality was the rule — and fiercely enforced. Gordon might be searching in some such clan’s turf. A quick departure would, in any case, be discreet.

Still … he looked back at the strongbox anxiously. It’s mine, damnit!

Boots clomped noisily downstairs. It was too late to close the trapdoor or hide the heavy treasure chest. Gordon cursed silently and hurried as quietly as he could across the upstairs landing to the narrow attic ladder.

The top floor was little more than a simple, A-frame garret. He had searched among the useless mementos here earlier. Now all he wanted was a hiding place. Gordon kept near the sloping walls to avoid creaks in the floorboards. He chose a trunk near a small, gabled window, and there laid his sack and quiver. Quickly, he strung his bow.

Would they search? In that case, the strongbox would certainly attract attention.

If so, would they take it as an offering and leave him a share of whatever it contained? He had known such things to happen, in places where a primitive sort of honor system worked.

He had the drop on anyone entering the attic, although it was dubious how much good that would do — cornered in a wooden building. The locals doubtless retained, even in the middle of a dark age, the craft of Fire making.

At least three pairs of booted feet could be heard now. In rapid, hollow steps, they took the stairs, skirmishing up one landing at a time. When everyone was on the second floor, Gordon heard a shout.

“Hey Karl, looka this!”

“What? You catch a couple of the kids playing doctor in an old bed ag… sheeit!”

There was a loud thump, followed by the hammering of metal on metal.

“Sheeit!” Gordon shook his head. Karl had a limited but expressive vocabulary.

There were shuffling and tearing sounds, accompanied by more scatalogical exclamations. At last, though, a third voice spoke up loudly.

“Sure was nice of that fellow, findin’ this for us. Wish we could thank him. Ought to get to know him so we don’t shoot first if we ever see him again.”

If that was bait, Gordon wasn’t taking. He waited.

“Well, at least he deserves a warning,” the first voice said even louder. “We got a shoot first rule, in Oakridge. He better scat before someone puts a hole in him bigger than the gap between a survivalist’s ears.”

Gordon nodded, taking the warning at face value.

The footsteps receded. They echoed” down the stairwell, then out onto the wooden porch.

From the gable overlooking the front entrance, Gordon saw three men leave the house and walk toward the surrounding hemlock grove. They carried rifles and bulging canvas day packs. He hurried to the other windows as they disappeared into the woods, but saw no other motion. No signs of anyone doubling back from another side.

There had been three pairs of feet. He was sure of it. Three voices. And it wasn’t likely only one man would stay in ambush, anyway. Still, Gordon was careful as he moved out. He lay down beside the open attic trapdoor, his bow, bag, and quiver next to him, and crawled until his head and shoulders extended out over the opening, slightly above the level of the floor. He drew his revolver, held it out in front of him, and then let gravity swing his head and torso suddenly downward in a fashion an ambusher would hardly expect.

As the blood rushed to his head Gordon was primed to snap off six quick shots at anything that moved.

Nothing did. There was nobody in the second-floor hallway.

He reached for his canvas bag, never taking his gaze from the hallway, and dropped it to clatter on the landing.

The sound triggered no ambush.

Gordon took up his gear and dropped to the next level in a crouch. He quickly moved down the hall, skirmish-style.

The strongbox lay open and empty next to the bed, beside it a scattering of paper trash. As he had expected, there were such curiosities as stock certificates, a stamp collection, and the deed to this house.

But some of the other debris was different.

A torn cardboard container, the celophane wrapper newly removed, colorfully depicted a pair of happy canoeists with their new, collapsible rifle. Gordon looked at the weapon pictured on the box and stifled a strangled cry. Doubtless there had also been boxes of ammunition.

Goddamn thieves, he thought bitterly.

But the other trash almost drove him wild. empirin WITH CODEINE, ERYTHROMYCIN, MEGAVITAMIN COMPLEX, morphine… the labels and boxes were strewn about, but the bottles had been taken.

Carefully handled… cached and traded in dribbles … these could have bought Gordon admission into almost any hamlet. Why he might even have won a probationary membership in one of the wealthy Wyoming ranch communities!

He remembered a good doctor, whose clinic in the ruins of Butte was a sanctuary protected by all the surrounding villages and clans. Gordon thought of what that sainted gentleman could have done with these.

But his eyesight nearly went dim with dark tunnels of rage when he saw an empty cardboard box whose label read

My tooth powder!

Gordon counted to ten. It wasn’t enough. He tried controlled breathing. It only helped him focus on his anger. He stood there, slope-shouldered, feeling impotent to answer this one more unkindness by the world.

It’s all right, he told himself. I’m alive. And if I can get back to my backpack, I’ll probably stay alive. Next year, if it comes, I can worry about my teeth rotting out of my head.

Gordon picked up his gear and resumed his stalking exit out of that house of false expectations.

A man who spends a long time alone in the wilderness can have one great advantage over even a very good hunter — if that hunter nevertheless goes home to friends and companions most nights. The difference is a trait in kinship with the animals, with the wilds themselves. It was something as undefinable as that which made him nervous. Gordon sensed that something was odd long before he could attribute it. The feeling would not go away.

He had been retracing his steps toward the eastern edge of town, where his gear was cached. Now, though, he stopped and considered. Was he overreacting? He was no Jeremiah Johnson, to read the sounds and smells of the woods like streetsigns in a city. Still, he looked around for something to back up his unease.

The forest was mostly western hemlock and bigleaf maple with alder saplings growing like weeds in nearly every former open area. It was a far cry from the dry woodlands he had passed through on the east side of the Cascades, where he had been robbed under the sparse ponderosa pines. Here there was a scent of life richer than anything he remembered since before the Three-Year Winter.

Animal sounds had been scant until he stopped moving. But as he kept still, a flow of avian chatter and movement soon began to flow back into this patch of forest. Gray-feathered camp robbers flitted in small groups from spot to spot, playing guerrilla war with lesser jays for the best of the tiny, bug-rich glades. Smaller birds hopped from branch to branch, chirping and foraging.

Birds in this size range had no great love for man, but neither did they go to great lengths to avoid him, if he was quiet.

Then why am I nervous as a cat?

There was a brief snapping sound to his left, near one of the ubiquitous blackberry thickets, about twenty yards away. Gordon whirled, but there, too, there were birds.

Correction. A bird. A mockingbird.

The creature swooped up through the branches and landed in a bundle of twigs Gordon guessed to be its nest. It stood there, like a small lordling, haughty and proud, then it squawked and dove toward the thicket again. As it passed out of sight, there was another tiny rustle, then the mockingbird swooped into view again.

Gordon idly picked at the loam with his bow while loosening the loop on his revolver, trying hard to maintain a frozen expression of nonchalance. He whistled through fear-dry lips as he walked slowly, moving neither toward the thicket nor away from it, but in the direction of a large grand fir.

Something behind that thicket had set off the mockingbird’s nest defense response, and that something was trying hard to ignore the nuisance attacks — to stay silently hidden.

Alerted, Gordon recognized a hunting blind. He sauntered with exaggerated carelessness. But as soon as he passed behind the fir, he drew his revolver and ran into the forest at a sharp angle, crouching, trying to keep the bulk of the tree between himself and the blackberry bramble.

He remained in the tree’s umbra only a moment. Surprise protected him a moment longer. Then the cracking of three loud shots, all of different caliber, diffracted down the lattice of trees. Gordon sprinted to a fallen log at the top of a small rise. Three more bangs pealed out as he dove over the decaying trunk, and hit the ground on the other side to a sharp snapping sound and stabbing pain in his right arm.

He felt a moment’s blind panic as the hand holding his revolver cramped. If he had broken his arm …

Blood soaked the cuff of his U.S. Government Issue tunic. Dread exaggerated the pain until he pulled back his sleeve and saw a long, shallow gash, with slivers of wood hanging from the laceration. It was the bow that had broken, stabbing him as he fell on it.

Gordon threw the fragments aside and scrambled on hands and knees up a narrow gully to the right, keeping low to take advantage of the creekbed and underbrush. Behind him whoops of gleeful chase carried over the tiny hillock.

The following minutes were a blur of whipping branches and sudden zigzags. When he splashed into a narrow rivulet, Gordon whirled, then hurried against the flow.

Hunted men often will run downstream, he remembered, racing upslope, hoping his enemies knew that bit of trivia. He hopped from stone to stone, trying not to dislodge mud into the water. Then he jumped off into the forest again.

There were shouts behind him. Gordon’s own footfalls seemed loud enough to wake sleeping bears. Twice, he caught his breath behind boulders or clumps of foliage, thinking as well as practicing silence.

Finally, the shouts diminished with distance. Gordon sighed as he settled back against a large oak and pulled out his belt-pouch aid kit. The wound would be all right. There was no reason to expect infection from the polished wood of the bow. It hurt like hell but the tear was far from vessels or tendons. He bound it in boiled cloth and simply ignored the pain as he got up and looked around.

To his surprise, he recognized two landmarks at once… the towering, shattered sign of the Oakridge Motel, seen over the treetops, and a cattle grate across a worn asphalt path just to the east.

Gordon moved quickly to the place where he had cached his goods. They were exactly as he had left them. Apparently, the Fates were not so unsubtle as to deal him another blow just yet. He knew they didn’t operate that way. They always let you hope for a while longer, then strung it out before they really let you have it.

Now the stalked turned stalker. Cautiously, Gordon sought out the blackberry blind, with its irate resident mockingbird. As expected, it was empty now. He crept around behind to get the ambushers’ point of view, and sat there for a few minutes as the afternoon waned, looking and thinking.

They had had the drop on him, that was for certain. From this point of view it was hard to see how they had missed when the three men fired on him.

Were they so surprised by his sudden break for it? They must have had semi-automatic weapons, yet he only remembered six shots. Either they were being very stingy with ammo or …

He approached the grand fir across the clearing. Two fresh scars blemished the bark, ten feet up.

Ten feet. They couldn’t be such bad marksmen.

So. It all fit. They had never meant to kill him at all. They had aimed high on purpose, to give him a scare and drive him off. No wonder his pursuers never really came close to catching him during his escape into the forest.

Gordon’s lip curled. Ironically, this made his assailants easier to hate. Unthinking malice he had come to accept, as one must accept foul weather and savage beasts. So many former Americans had become little better than barbarians.

But calculated contempt like this was something he had to take personally. These men had the concept of mercy; still they had robbed, injured, and terrorized him.

He remembered Roger Septien, taunting him from that bone-dry hillside. These bastards were no better at all.

Gordon picked up their trail a hundred yards to the west of the blind. The bootprints were clear and uncovered… almost arrogant in their openness.

He took his time, but he never even considered turning back.

It was approaching dusk before the palisade that surrounded New Oakridge was in sight. An open area that had once been a city park was enclosed by a high, wooden fence.

From within could be heard the lowing of cattle. A horse whinnied. Gordon smelled hay and the rich odors of livestock.

Nearby a still higher pallisade surrounded three blocks of what had once been the southwest corner of Oakridge town. A row of two-story buildings half a block long took up the center of the village. Gordon could see the tops of these over the wall, and a water tower with a crow’s nest atop it. A silhouetted figure stood watch, looking out over the dimming forest.

It looked like a prosperous community, perhaps the best-off he had encountered since leaving Idaho.

Trees had been cut to make a free-fire zone around the village wall, but that was some time ago. Undergrowth half as high as a man had encroached on the cleared field.

Well there can’t be many survivalists in the area, anymore, Gordon thought, or they’d be a whole lot less careless.

Let’s see what the main entrance is like.

He skirted around the open area toward the south side of the village. On hearing voices he drew up cautiously behind a curtain of undergrowth.

A large wooden gate swung open. Two armed men sauntered out, looked around, then waved to someone within. With a shout and a snap of reins, a wagon pulled by two draft horses sallied through then stopped. The driver turned to speak to the two guards.

“Tell the Mayor I appreciate the loan, Jeff. I know my stead is in the hole pretty deep. But we’ll pay him back out of next year’s harvest, for sure. He already owns a piece of the farm, so it ought to be a good investment for him.”

One of the guards nodded. “Sure thing, Sonny. Now you be careful on your way out, okay? Some of the boys spotted a loner down at the east end of old town, today. There was some shootin’.”

The farmer’s breath caught audibly. “Was anyone hurt? Are you sure it was just a loner?”

“Yeah, pretty sure. He ran like a rabbit according to Bob.”

Gordon’s pulse pounded faster. The insults had reached a point almost beyond bearing. He put his left hand inside his shirt and felt the whistle Abby had given him, hanging from its chain around his neck. He took some comfort from it, remembering decency.

“The feller did the Mayor a real favor, though,” the first guard went on. “Found a hidey hole full of drugs before Bob’s guys drove him off. Mayor’s going to pass some of them around to some of the Owners at a party tonight, to find out what they’ll do. I sure wish I moved in those circles.”

“Me too,” the younger watchman agreed. “Hey Sonny, you think the Mayor might pay you some of your bonus in drugs, if you make quota this year? You could have a real party!”

“Sonny” smiled sheepishly and shrugged. Then, for some reason, his head drooped. The older guard looked at him quizzically.

“What’s the matter?” he asked.

Sonny shook his head. Gordon could barely hear him when he spoke. “We don’t wish for very much anymore, do we, Gary?”

Gary frowned. “What do you mean?”

“I mean as long as we’re wishing to be like the Mayor’s cronies, why don’t we wish we had a Mayor without cronies at all!”

“I…”

“Sally and I had three girls and two boys before th’ Doom, Gary.”

“I remember, Sonny, but—”

“Hal an’ Peter died in th’ war, but I counted me an’ Sally blessed that all three girls grew up. Blessed!”

“Sonny, it’s not your fault. It was just bad luck.”

“Bad luck?” The farmer snorted. “One raped to death when those reavers came through, Peggy dead in childbirth, and my little Susan… she’s got gray hair, Gary. She looks like Sally’s sister!”

There was a long stretch of silence. The older guard put his hand on the farmer’s arm. “I’ll bring a jug around tomorrow, Sonny, I promise. We’ll talk about the old days, like we used to.”

The farmer nodded without looking up. He shouted “Yaah!” and snapped the reins.

For a long moment the guard looked after the creaking wagon, chewing on a grass stem. Finally, he turned to his younger companion. “Jimmy, did I ever tell you about Portland? Sonny and I used to go there, before the war. They had this mayor, back when I was a kid, who used to pose for…”

They passed through the gate, out of Gordon’s hearing.

Under other circumstances Gordon might have pondered hours over what that one small conversation had revealed about the social structure of Oakridgc and its environs. The farmer’s crop indebtedness, for instance — it was a classic early stage of share-kind serfdom. He had read about things like this in sophomore history tutorial, long ago and in another world. They were features of feudalism.

But right now Gordon had no time for philosophy or sociology. His emotions churned. Outrage over what had happened today was nothing next to his anger over the proposed use of the drugs he had found. When he thought of what that doctor in Wyoming could do with such medicines… why most of the substances wouldn’t even make these ignorant savages high!

Gordon was fed up. His bandaged right arm throbbed.

I’ll bet I could scale those walls without’much trouble, find the storage hut, and reclaim what I found… along with some extra to make up for the insults, the pain, my broken bow.

The image wasn’t satisfying enough. Gordon embellished. He envisioned dropping in on the Mayor’s “party,” and wasting all the power-hungry bastards who were making a midget empire out of this corner of the dark age. He imagined acquiring power, power to do good… power to force these yokels to use the education of their younger days before the learned generation disappeared forever from the world.

Why, why is nobody anywhere taking responsibility for putting things right again? I’d help. I’d dedicate my life to such a leader.

But the big dreams all seem to be gone. All the good men — like Lieutenant Van and Drew Simms — died defending them. I must be the only one left who still believes in them.

Leaving was out of the question, of course. A combination of pride, obstinacy, and simple gonadal fury rooted him in his tracks. Here he would do battle, and that was that.

Maybe there’s an idealists’ militia, in Heaven or in Hell. I guess I’ll find out soon.

Fortunately, the war hormones left a little space for his forebrain to choose tactics. As the afternoon faded, he thought about what he was going to do.

Gordon stepped back into the shadows and a branch brushed by, dislodging his cap. He caught it before it fell to the ground, was about to put it back on, but then stopped abruptly and looked at it.

The burnished image of a horseman glinted back at him, a brass figure backed by a ribbon motto in Latin. Gordon watched shifting highlights in the shiny emblem, and slowly, he smiled.

It would be audacious — perhaps much more so than attempting the fence in the darkness. But the idea had a pleasing symmetry that appealed to Gordon. He was probably the last man alive who would choose a path of greater danger purely for aesthetic reasons, and he was glad. If the scheme failed, it would still be spectacular.

It required a brief foray into the ruins of old Oakridge — beyond the postwar village — to a structure certain to be among the least looted in town. He set the cap back on his head as he moved to take advantage of the remaining light.

An hour later, Gordon left the gutted buildings of the old town and stepped briskly along the pitted asphalt road, retracing his steps in the gathering dusk. Taking a long detour through the forest, he came at last to the road “Sonny” had used, south of the village wall. Now he approached boldly, guided by a solitary lantern hanging over the broad gate.

The guard was criminally lax. Gordon came within thirty feet unchallenged. He saw a shadowy sentry, standing on a parapet over near the far end of the palisade, but the idiot was looking the other way.

Gordon took a deep breath, put Abby’s whistle to his lips, and blew three hard blasts. The shrill screams pealed through the buildings and forest like the shriek of a stooping raptor. Hurried footsteps pounded along the parapet. Three men carrying shotguns and oil lanterns appeared above the gate and stared down at him in the gathering twilight.

“Who are you? What do you want?”

“I must speak with someone in authority,” Gordon hailed, “This is official business, and I demand entry to the town of Oakridge!”

That certainly put them off their routine. There was a long, stunned silence as the guards blinked, first at him and then at each other. Finally, one man hurried off while the first speaker cleared his throat. “Uh, come again? Are you feverish? Have you got the Sickness?”

Gordon shook his head. “I am not ill. I am tired and hungry. And angry over being shot at. But settling all that can wait until I have discharged my duty here.”

This time the chief guard’s voice cracked in blank perplexity. “Dis-discharged your… What the hell are you talking about, man?”

Hurried footsteps echoed on the parapet. Several more men arrived, followed by a number of children and women who began to string out to the left and right. Discipline, apparently, wasn’t well practiced in Oakridge. The local tyrant and his cronies had had things their way for a long time.

Gordon repeated himself. Slowly and firmly, giving it his best Polonius voice.

“I demand to speak with your superiors. You are trying my patience keeping me out here, and it will definitely go into my report. Now get somebody here with authority to open this gate!”

The crowd thickened until an unbroken forest of silhouettes topped the palisade. They stared down at Gordon as a group of figures appeared on the parapet to the right, carrying lanterns. The onlookers on that side made way for the newcomers.

“Look, loner,” the chief guard said, “you’re just asking for a bullet. We got no ‘official business’ with anyone outside this valley, haven’t since we broke relations with that commie place down at Blakeville, years ago. You can bet your ass I’m not bothering the Mayor for some crazy…”

The man turned in surprise as the party of dignitaries reached the gate. “Mr. Mayor… I’m sorry about the ruckus, but…”

“I was nearby anyway. Heard the commotion. What’s going on here?”

The guard gestured. “We got a fellow out there babbling like nothing I’ve heard since the crazy times. He must be sick, or one of those loonies that always used to come through.”

“I’ll take care of this.”

In the growing darkness the new figure leaned over the parapet. “I’m the Mayor of Oakridge,” he announced. “We don’t believe in charity, here. But if you’re that fellow who found the goodies this afternoon, and graciously donated them to my boys, I’ll admit we owe you. I’ll have a nice hot meal lowered over the gate. And a blanket. You can sleep there by the road. Tomorrow, though, you gotta be gone. We don’t want no diseases here. And from what my guards tell me, you must be delirious.”

Gordon smiled. “Your generosity impresses me, Mr. Mayor. But I have come too far on official business to turn away now. First off, can you tell me if Oakridge has a working wireless or fiber optic facility?”

The silence brought on by his non sequitur was long and heavy. Gordon could imagine the Mayor’s puzzlement. At last, the bossman answered.

“We haven’t had a radio in ten years. Nothing’s worked since then. Why? What has that to do with anythi—”

“That’s a shame. The airwaves have been a shambles since the war, of course…” he improvised, “…all the radioactivity, you know. But I’d hoped I could try to use your transmitter to report back to my superiors.”

He delivered the lines with aplomb. This time they brought not silence but a surge of amazed whispers up and down the parapet. Gordon guessed that most of the population of Oakridge must be up there by now. He hoped the wall was well built. It was not in his plan to enter the town like Joshua.

He had quite another legend in mind.

“Get a lantern over here!” the Mayor commanded. “Not that one, you idiot! The one with the reflector! Yes. Now shine it on that man. I want a look at him!”

A bulky lamp was brought forth and there was a rattle as light speared out at Gordon. He was expecting it though and neither covered his eyes nor squinted. He shifted the leather bag and turned to bring his costume to the best angle. The letter carrier’s cap, with its polished crest, sat at a rakish angle on his head.

The muttering of the crowd grew louder.

“Mr. Mayor,” he called. “My patience is limited. I already will have to have words with you about the behavior of your boys this afternoon. Don’t force me to exercise my authority in ways both of us would find unpleasant. You’re on the verge of losing your privilege of communication with the rest of the nation.”

The Mayor shifted his weight back and forth rapidly. “Communication? Nation? What is this blither? There’s just the Blakcville commune, those self-righteous twits down at Gulp Creek, and Satan knows what savages beyond them. Who the hell are you anyway?”

Gordon touched his cap. “Gordon Krantz, of the United States Postal Service. I’m the courier assigned to reestablish a mail route in Idaho and lower Oregon, and general federal inspector for the region.”

And to imagine he had been embarrassed playing Santa Claus back in Pine View! Gordon hadn’t thought of the last part about being a “federal inspector” until it was out of his mouth. Was it inspiration, or a dare?

Well, might as well be hanged for a sheep as a goat, he thought.

The crowd was in tumult. Several times, Gordon heard the words “outside” and “inspector” — and especially “mailman.” When the Mayor shouted for silence, it came slowly, trailing off into a rapt hush.

“So you’re a mailman.” The sneer was sarcastic. “What kind of idiots do you take us for, Krantz? A shiny suit makes you a government official? What government? What proof can you give us? Show us you’re not a wild lunatic, raving with radiation fever!”

Gordon pulled out the papers he had prepared only an hour before, using the seal stamp he had found in the ruins of the Oakridge Post Office.

“I have credentials, here…” But he was interrupted at once.

“Keep your papers to yourself, loonie. We’re not letting you come close enough to infect us with your fever!”

The Mayor straightened and waved an arm in the air, addressing his subjects. “You all remember how crazies and imposters used to come around, during the Chaos years, claiming to be everything from the Antichrist to Porky Pig? Well, there’s one fact we can all depend on. Crazies come and crazies go, but there’s only one “government”… that’s what we got right here!”

He turned back to Gordon. “You’re lucky this isn’t like the plague years, loonie. Back then a case like yours would’ve called for immediate cure … by cremation!”

Gordon cursed silently. The local tyrant was slick and certainly no easy bluff. If they wouldn’t even look at the “credentials” he had forged, the trip into oldtown this afternoon had been wasted. Gordon was down to his last ace. He smiled for the crowd, but he really wanted to cross his fingers.

From a side pocket of the leather bag he pulled out a small bundle. Gordon made a pretense of shuffling through the packet, squinting at labels he knew by heart.

“Is there a … a Donald Smith, here?” he called up at the townspeople.

Heads turned left and right in sudden, hushed conversation. Their confusion was obvious even in the gathering darkness. Finally someone called out.

“He died a year after the war! In the last battle of the warehouses.”

There was a tremor in the speaker’s voice. Good. Surprise was not the only emotion at work here. Still, he needed something a lot better than that. The Mayor was still staring at him, as perplexed as the others, but when he figured out what Gordon was trying to do, there would be trouble.

“Oh well,” Gordon called. “I’ll have to confirm that, of course,” Before anyone could speak, he hurried on, shuffling the packet in his hand.

“Is there a Mr. or Mrs. Franklin Thompson, in town? Or their son or daughter?”

Now the tide of hushed whispering carried almost a superstitious tone. A woman replied. “Dead! The boy lived until last year. Worked on the Jascowisc stead. His folks were in Portland when it blew.”

Damn! Gordon had only one name left. It was all very well to strike their hearts with his knowledge, but what he needed was somebody alive!

“Right!” he called. “We’ll confirm that. Finally, is there a Grace Horton here? A Miss Grace Horton . , .”

“No there ain’t no Grace Horton!” the Mayor shouted, confidence and sarcasm back in his voice. “I know everyone in my territory. Never been no Grace Horton in the ten years since I arrived, you imposter!

“Can’t you all see what he did? He found an old telephone book in town, and copied down some names to stir us up with.” He shook a fist at Gordon. “Buddy, I rule that you are disturbing the peace and endangering the public health! You’ve got five seconds to be gone before I order my men to fire!”

Gordon exhaled heavily. Now he had no choice. At least he could beat a retreat and lose nothing more than a little pride.

It was a good try, but you knew the chances of it working were slim. At least you had the bastard going there, for a little while.

It was time to go, but to his surprise Gordon found his body would not turn. His feet refused to move. All will to run away had evaporated. The sensible part of him was horrified as he squared his shoulders and called the Mayor’s bluff.

“Assault on a postal courier is one of the few federal crimes that the pro tem Congress hasn’t suspended for the recovery period, Mr. Mayor. The United States has always protected its mailmen.”

He looked coldly into the glare of the lamp. “Always,” he emphasized. And for a moment he felt a thrill. He was a courier, at least in spirit. He was an anachronism that the dark age had somehow missed when it systematically went about rubbing idealism from the world. Gordon looked straight toward the dark silhouette of the Mayor, and silently dared him to kill what was left of their shared sovereignty.

For several seconds the silence gathered. Then the Mayor held up his hand. “One!”

He counted slowly, perhaps to give Gordon time to run, and maybe for sadistic effect.

“Two!”

The game was lost. Gordon knew he should leave now, at once. Still, his body would not turn.

“Three!”

This is the way the last idealist dies, he thought. These sixteen years of survival had been an accident, an oversight of Nature, about to be corrected. In the end, all of his hard-won pragmatism had finally given way … to a gesture.

There was movement on the parapet. Someone at the far left was struggling forward.

The guards raised their shotguns. Gordon thought he saw a few of them move hesitantly — reluctantly. Not that that would do him any good.

The Mayor stretched out the last count, perhaps a bit unnerved by Gordon’s stubbornness. The raised fist began to chop down.

“Mr. Mayor!” a woman’s tremulous voice cut in, her words high-pitched with fear as she reached up to grab the bossman’s hand. “P-please … I…”

The Mayor shrugged her hands away. “Get away, woman. Get her out of here.”

The frail shape backed away from the guards, but she cried out clearly. “I … I’m Grace Horton!”

“What?” The Mayor was not alone in turning to stare at her.

“It’s my m-maiden name. I was married the year after the second famine. That was before you and your men arrived…”

The crowd reacted noisily. The Mayor cried out, “Fools! He copied her name from a telephone book, I tell you!”

Gordon smiled. He held up the bundle in his hand and touched his cap with the other.

“Good evening, Mizz Horton. It’s a lovely night, yes? By the way, I happen to have a letter here for you, from a Mr. Jim Horton, of Pine View, Oregon… He gave it to me twelve days ago…”

The people on the parapet all seemed to be talking at once. There were sudden motions and excited shouts. Gordon cupped his ear to listen to the woman’s amazed exclamation, and had to raise his voice to be heard.

“Yes, ma’am. He seemed to be quite well. I’m afraid that’s all I have on this trip. But I’ll be glad to carry your reply to your brother on my way back, after I finish my circuit down in the valley.”

He stepped forward, closer to the light. “One thing though, ma’am. Mr. Horton didn’t have enough postage, back in Pine View, so I’m going to have to ask you for ten dollars… C.O.D.”

The crowd roared.

Next to the glaring lantern the figure of the Mayor turned left and right, waving his arms and shouting. But nothing he said was heard as the gate swung open and people poured out into the night. They surrounded Gordon, a tight press of hot-faced, excited men, women, children. Some limped. Others bore livid scars or rasped in tuberculin heaviness. And yet at that moment the pain of living seemed as nothing next to a glow of sudden faith.

In the middle of it all Gordon maintained his composure and walked slowly toward the portal. He smiled and nodded, especially to those who reached out and touched his elbow, or the wide curve of his bulging leather bag. The youngsters looked at him in superstitious awe. On many older faces, tears streamed.

Gordon was in the middle of a trembling adrenaline reaction, but he squelched hard on the little glimmering of conscience … a touch of shame at this lie.

The hell with it. It’s not my fault they want to believe in the Tooth Fairy. I’ve finally grown up. I only want what belongs to me!

Simpletons.

Nevertheless, he smiled all around as the hands reached out, and the love surged forth. It flowed about him like a rushing stream and carried him in a wave of desperate, unwonted hope, into the town of Oakridge.