Read The Postman for Free Online

to have been free from mold for all these years.
    First he checked the mailman’s apparel.
    Funny—Why was he wearing a paisley shirt under his jacket?
    The garment, once colorful but now faded and stained, was a total loss, but the leather jacket was a wonderful find. If big enough, it would improve his chances immeasurably.
    The footgear looked old and cracked, but perhaps serviceable. Carefully, Gordon shook out the gruesome, dry remnants and laid the shoes against his feet.
    Maybe a bit large
. But then, anything would be better than ripped camp moccasins.
    Gordon slid the bones out onto the mail sack with as little violence as he could manage, surprised at how easy it was. Any superstition had been burned out the night before. All that remained was a mild reverence and an ironic gratitude to the former owner of these things. He shook the clothes, holding his breath against the dust, and hung them on a ponderosa branch to air out. He returned to the jeep.
    Aha
, he thought then.
The mystery of the shirt is solved
. Right next to where he had slept was a long-sleeved blue uniform blouse with Postal Service patches on the shoulders. It looked almost new, in spite of the years.
One for comfort, and another for the boss
.
    Gordon had known postmen to do that, when he was a boy. One fellow, during the muggy afternoons of summer, had worn bright Hawaiian shirts as he delivered the mail. The postman had always been grateful for a cool glass of lemonade. Gordon wished he could remember his name.
    Shivering in the morning chill, he slipped into the uniform shirt. It was only a little bit large.
    “Maybe I’ll grow to fill it out,” he mumbled, joking weakly with himself. At thirty-four he probably weighed less than he had at seventeen.
    The glove compartment contained a brittle map of Oregon to replace the one he had lost. Then, with a shout Gordon grabbed a small square of clear plastic. A scintillator! Far better than his Geiger counter, the little crystal would give off tiny flashes whenever its crystalline interior was struck by gamma radiation. It didn’t even need power! Gordon cupped it in front of his eye and watched a few sparse flickerings, caused by cosmic rays. Otherwise, the cube was quiescent.
    Now
what was a prewar mailman doing with a gadget like that?
Gordon wondered idly, as the device went into his pants pocket.
    The glove compartment flashlight was a loss, of course; the emergency flares were crumbled paste.
    The bag, of course
. On the floor below the driver’s seat was a large, leather letter carrier’s sack. It was dry and cracked, but the straps held when he tugged, and the flaps would keep out water.
    It wouldn’t come close to replacing his lost Kelty, but the bag would be a vast improvement over nothing at all. He opened the main compartment and bundles of aged correspondence spilled out, breaking into scattered piles as brittle rubber bands snapped apart. Gordon picked up a few of the nearest pieces.
    “From the Mayor of Bend, Oregon, to the Chairman of the School of Medicine, University of Oregon, Eugene.” Gordon intoned the address as though he were playing Polonius. He flipped through more letters. The addresses sounded pompous and archaic.
    “Dr. Franklin Davis, of the small town of Gilchrist sends—with the word URGENT printed clearly on the envelope—a rather bulky letter to the Director of Regional Disbursement of Medical Supplies … no doubt pleading priority for his requisitions.”
    Gordon’s sardonic smile faded into a frown as he turned over one letter after another. Something was wrong, here.
    He had expected to be amused by junk mail and personal correspondence. But there didn’t seem to be a single advertisement in the bag. And while there were many private letters, most of the envelopes appeared to be on one or another type of official stationery.
    Well, there wasn’t time for voyeurism anyway. He’d take a dozen or so letters for entertainment, and use the backsides