The Postman (12 page)

The Provisional Government hopes to reestablish nationwide radio service by the year 2021. Until that time, all communications must be carried via surface mail. Postal service should be reestablished in the Central and Eastern States by the year 2011, and in the West by 2018.

By order of the Provisional Congress
Restored United States of America
May 2009

The black bull terrier snarled and foamed. It yanked and strained at its chain, whipping froth at the excited, shouting men leaning over the low wooden walls of the arena. A scarred, one-eyed mongrel growled back at the pit bull from across the ring. Its rope tether hummed like a bowstring, threatening to tear out the ring bolt in the wall.

The dog pit stank. The sick-sweet smoke of locally grown tobacco—liberally cut with marijuana—rose in thick, roiling plumes. Farmers and townspeople yelled deafeningly from rows of benches overlooking the crude arena. Those nearest the ring pounded on the wooden slats, encouraging the dogs’ hysterical frenzy.

Leather-gloved handlers pulled their canine gladiators back far enough to grip their collars, then turned to face the VIP bench, overlooking the center of the pit.

A burly, bearded dignitary, better dressed than most, puffed on his homemade cigar. He glanced quickly at the slender man who sat impassively to his right, whose eyes were shaded by a visored cap. The stranger sat quite still, in no way showing his feelings.

The heavyset official turned back to the handlers, and nodded.

A hundred men shouted at once as the dogs were loosed. The snarling animals shot at one another like quarrels, their argument uncomplicated. Fur and blood flew as the crowd cheered.

On the dignitaries’ bench, the elders yelled no less fiercely than the villagers. Like them, most had bets riding on the outcome. But the big man with the cigar—the Chairman of Public Safety for the town of Curtin, Oregon—puffed furiously without enjoyment, his thoughts cloudy and thick. Once more he glanced at the stranger sitting to his right.

The thin fellow was unlike anyone else in the arena. His beard was neatly trimmed, his black hair cut and combed to barely pass over the ears. The hooded blue eyes seemed to pierce and inspect critically, like in the images of Old Testament prophets the Chairman had seen in Sunday School as a boy, long before the Doomwar.

He had the weathered look of a traveler. And he wore a
uniform
 … one no living citizen of Curtin had ever expected to see again.

On the peak of the stranger’s cap, the burnished image of a horseman gleamed in the light of the oil lanterns. Somehow it seemed shinier than any metal had a right to be.

The Chairman looked at his shouting townspeople, and sensed a difference about them tonight. The men of Curtin were yelling with more than their usual gusto at the Wednesday Night Fights. They, too, were aware of the visitor, who had ridden up to the city gates five days ago, erect and proud like some god, demanding food and shelter and a place to post his notices …

 … and who then began distributing mail.

The Chairman had money riding on one of the dogs—old Jim Schmidt’s Walleye. But his mind wasn’t on the bloody contest on the sand below. He could not help glancing repeatedly at the Postman.

They had staged a special fight just for him, since he was leaving Curtin tomorrow for Cottage Grove.
He isn’t enjoying himself
, the Chairman realized unhappily. The man who had turned their lives upside down was apparently trying to be polite. But just as obviously, he did not approve of dogfights.

The Chairman leaned over to speak to his guest. “I suppose
they don’t do this sort of thing back East, do they, Mr. Inspector?”

The cool look on the man’s face was his answer. The Chairman cursed himself for a fool. Of course they wouldn’t have dogfights—not in St. Paul City, or Topeka, or Odessa, or any of the civilized regions of the Restored United States. But
here
, here in ruined Oregon, so long cut off from civilization …

“Local communities are free to handle their affairs as they see fit, Mr. Chairman,” the man replied. His compelling voice carried softly over the shouting in the arena. “Customs adapt to the times. The government in St. Paul City knows this. I’ve seen far worse in my travels.”

Absolved
, he could read in the postal inspector’s eyes. The Chairman slumped slightly and looked away again.

He blinked, and at first he thought it was the smoke irritating his eyes. He dropped the cigar and ground it out under his foot, but the stinging would not depart. The bull pit was out of focus, as if he were seeing it in a dream … as if for the very first time.

My God!
the Chairman thought. Are we really doing this? Only seventeen years ago I was a member of the Willamette Valley ASPCA!

What’s happened to us?

What’s happened to
me?

Coughing behind his hand, he hid the wiping of his eyes. Then he looked around and saw that he was not alone. Here and there in the crowd at least a dozen men had stopped shouting, and were instead looking down at their hands. A few were crying openly, tears streaming down tough faces, hardened from the long battle to survive.

Suddenly, for a few of those present, the years since the war seemed compressed—insufficient excuse.

The cheering was ragged at the end of the fight. Handlers leapt into the pit to tend the victor and clear away the offal. But half the audience seemed to be glancing nervously at their leader and the stern, uniformed figure next to him.

The slender man straightened his cap. “Thank you, Mr. Chairman. But I think I’d better retire now. I have a long journey tomorrow. Good night, all.”

He nodded to the elders, then rose and slipped on a worn leather jacket with a multicolored shoulder patch—a red, white, and blue emblem. As he moved slowly toward the exit, townsmen stood up silently and made way for him, their eyes downcast.

The Chairman of Curtin hesitated, then got up and followed, a murmur of voices growing behind him.

The second event was never held that evening.

Gordon Krantz lifted his pencil from the sheaf of yellowed paper the citizens of Cottage Grove had donated for his use. A brace of copper oil lamps and two candles flickered
over the antique desk, casting bright reflections off glass-framed pictures on the bedroom wall.

The locals had insisted Gordon take the best quarters in town. The room was snug, clean, and warm.

It was a big change from the way things had been for Gordon only a few months before. In the letter, for instance, he said little about the difficulties he had faced last October in the town of Oakridge.

The citizens of that mountain town had opened their hearts to him from the first moment he revealed himself as a representative of the
Restored United States
. But the tyrannical “Mayor” almost had his unwelcome guest murdered before Gordon managed to make it clear he was only interested in setting up a post office and moving on—that he was no threat to the Mayor’s power.

Perhaps the bossman feared his people’s reaction if he didn’t help Gordon. In the end, Gordon received the supplies he asked for, and even a valuable, if somewhat elderly, horse. On leaving Oakridge, Gordon had seen relief on the Mayor’s face. The local chief seemed confident he could keep control in spite of the stunning news that a United States still existed out there, somewhere.

And yet townspeople followed Gordon for over a mile, appearing from behind trees to shyly press letters into his hands, eagerly talking about the reclamation of Oregon and asking what they could do to help. They complained openly of the petty local tyranny, and by the time he had left that last crowd on the road, it was clear that a change was blowing in the wind.

Gordon figured the Mayor’s days were numbered.

Gordon could well imagine Mrs. Thompson’s reaction, on reading that paragraph. The scrappy old matriarch would shake her head, and maybe even laugh out loud at the sheer blarney that filled every sentence.

Better than anybody else in the wild territory that had once been the great state of Oregon, Adele Thompson knew there would be no couriers from the civilized East. There was no headquarters for Gordon to report back to. The only thing the city of St. Paul was capital of was a still slightly radioactive bend in the Mississippi River.

There had never been a Reclaimed State of Wyoming, or a Restored United States for that matter, except in the imagination of an itinerant, dark-age con artist doing his best to survive in a deadly and suspicious world.

Mrs. Thompson was one of the rare folks Gordon had met since the War who still saw with her eyes, and thought with a logical mind. The illusion Gordon had created—at first by accident, and later in desperation—had meant nothing to her. She had liked Gordon for himself, and shown him charity without having to be coaxed by a myth.

He was writing the letter in this convoluted way—filled with references to things that never were—for eyes other than hers. The mail would change hands many times along the route he had set up, before finally reaching Pine View. But Mrs. Thompson would read between the lines.

And she wouldn’t tell on him. Gordon was sure of that.

He only hoped she could contain her laughter.

Deep in his saddlebag, under the bundled letters he had accepted from excited, grateful people all along his way, was the one Abby had given him. Gordon would try to see it delivered, whatever eventually happened to all the others.

That last remark might be a little dangerous, but Gordon had to include it, if only to show Mrs. Thompson he wasn’t completely caught up by his own hoax—the scam that he hoped would get him safely across the almost lawless countryside to …

To what? After all these years Gordon still wasn’t sure what it was he was looking for.

Perhaps only someone, somewhere, who was taking responsibility—who was trying to do something about the dark age. He shook his head. After all these years, the dream would not quite die.

He folded the letter into an old envelope, dribbled wax from a candle, and pressed it with a seal salvaged from the Oakridge Post Office. The letter went atop the “progress report” he had labored over earlier, a tissue of fantasy addressed to officials of a make-believe government.

Next to the packet lay his postman’s cap. The lamplight flickered in the brass image of a Pony Express rider, Gordon’s silent companion and mentor for months now.

Gordon had stumbled onto his new survival plan by quirk and coincidence. But now, in town after town, people fell over themselves to believe, especially when he actually delivered letters from places he had already visited. After all these years, it seemed people still longed forlornly for a lost, shiny age—an era of cleanliness and order and a great nation now lost. The longing overwhelmed their hard-won skepticism like a spring thaw cracking the icy crust over a stream.

Gordon quashed a threatening sense of shame. No one alive was guiltless after the last seventeen years, and his scam actually seemed to do a little good in the towns he passed through. In exchange for supplies and a place to rest, he sold hope.

One did what one had to do.

There were two sharp raps on the door. Gordon called, “Come!”

Johnny Stevens, the newly appointed Assistant Postmaster of Cottage Grove, poked his head in. Johnny’s boyish face bore a barely sprouted fuzz of almost blond beard. But his lanky legs promised a great cross-country stride, and he was reputed to be a dead shot.

Who could tell? The lad might even deliver the mail.

“Uh, sir?” Johnny was obviously reluctant to interrupt important business. “It’s eight o’clock. You’ll remember that the Mayor wanted to have a beer with you in the pub, since it’s your last night here in town.”

Gordon stood up. “Right, Johnny. Thanks.” He grabbed his cap and jacket, then scooped up the phony report and the letter to Mrs. Thompson.