Read The Postman for Free Online Page B

in the movement, sincere people, if maybe a little strange.
    Gordon retrieved the guitar strings and for the first time that morning felt a little guilty.
    The letter carrier hadn’t even been armed! Gordon remembered reading once that the U.S. Mail operated across the lines for three years into the 1860s Civil War. Perhaps this fellow had trusted his countrymen to respect that tradition.
    Post-Chaos America had no tradition but survival. In his travels, Gordon had found that some isolated communities welcomed him in the same way minstrels had been kindly received far and wide in medieval days. In others, wild varieties of paranoia reigned. Even in those rare cases where he had found friendliness, where decent people seemed willing to welcome a stranger, Gordon had always, before long, moved on. Always, he found himself beginning to dream again of wheels turning and things flying in the sky.
    It was already midmorning. His gleanings here were enough to make the chances of survival better without a confrontation with the bandits. The sooner he was over the pass then, and into a decent watershed, the better off he would be.
    Right now, nothing would serve him half so well as a stream, somewhere out of the range of the bandit gang, where he could fish for trout to fill his belly.
    One more task, here. He hefted the shovel.
    Hungry or not, you owe the guy this much
.
    He looked around for a shady spot with soft earth to dig in, and a view.

4
    “… They said, ‘Fear not, Macbeth, till Birnam Wood comes to Dunsinane’; and now a wood comes to Dunsinane!
    “Arm, arm, arm yourselves! If this is what the witch spoke of—that thing out there—there’ll be no running, or hiding here!”
    Gordon clutched his wooden sword, contrived from planking and a bit of tin. He motioned to an invisible aide-de-camp.
    “I’m gettin’ weary of the sun, and wish the world were undone.
    “Ring the alarum bell! Blow, wind! Come wrack! At least we’ll die with harness on our back!”
    Gordon squared his shoulders, flourished his sword, and marched Macbeth offstage to his doom.
    Out of the light of the tallow lamps, he swiveled to catch a glimpse of his audience. They had loved his earlier acts. But this bastardized, one-man version of Macbeth might have gone over their heads.
    An instant after he exited, though, enthusiastic applause began, led by Mrs. Adele Thompson, the leader of this small community. Adults whistled and stamped their feet. Younger citizens clapped awkwardly, those below twenty years of age watching their elders and slapping their hands awkwardly, as if they were taking part in this strange rite for the first time.
    Obviously, they had liked his abbreviated version of theancient tragedy. Gordon was relieved. To be honest, some parts had been simplified less for brevity than because of his imperfect memory of the original. He had last seen a copy of the play almost a decade ago, and that a half-burned fragment.
    Still, the final lines of his soliloquy had been canon. That part about “wind and wrack” he would never forget.
    Grinning, Gordon returned to take his bows onstage—a plank-covered garage lift in what had once been the only gas station in the tiny hamlet of Pine View.
    Hunger and isolation had driven him to try the hospitality of this mountain village of fenced fields and stout log walls, and the gamble had paid off better than he’d hoped. An exchange of a series of shows for his meals and supplies had tentatively passed by a fair majority of the voting adults, and now the deal seemed settled.
    “Bravo! Excellent!” Mrs. Thompson stood in the front row, clapping eagerly. White-haired and bony, but still robust, she turned to encourage the forty-odd others, including small children, to show their appreciation. Gordon did a flourish with one hand, and bowed deeper than before.
    Of course his peformance had been pure crap. But he was probably the only person within a hundred miles who had once minored in