The Postman (11 page)

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 Blakeville commune, those self-righteous twits down at Culp 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.

In spring orange blazes,

      Dust of ancestors glowers—

              Cooling Earth with hazes

NATIONAL RECOVERY ACT
PROVISIONALLY EXTENDED CONGRESS OF THE RESTORED UNITED STATES

DECLARATION

TO ALL CITIZENS
: Let it be known by all now living within the legal boundaries of the United States of America that the people and fundamental institutions of the nation survive. Your enemies have failed in their aggression against humanity, and have been destroyed. A provisional government, acting in continuous succession from the last freely elected Congress and Executive of the United States, is vigorously moving to restore law, public safety, and liberty once more to this beloved land, under the Constitution and the righteous mercy of the Almighty.

TO THESE ENDS
: Let it be known that all lesser laws and statutes of the United States are suspended, including all debts, liens, and judgments made before the outbreak of the Third World War. Until new codes are adopted by due process, local districts are free to meet emergency conditions as suitable, providing—