The Postman (15 page)

As Gordon cautiously approached the open center of the building, it felt momentarily as if he had stepped backward in time. Looters had left the student organization offices—with their passionate tornadoes of paper—completely
untouched. Bulletin boards were still plastered with age-dimmed announcements of sporting events, variety shows, political rallies.

Only at the far end were there a few notices in bright red, having to do with the emergency—the final crisis that had struck almost without warning, bringing it all to an end. Otherwise, the clutter was homey, radical, enthusiastic …

Young …

Gordon hurried past and skirted down the spiraling ramp toward the voices below.

A second floor balcony extended out over the main lobby. He got down on his hands and knees and crawled the rest of the way.

On the north side of the building, to the right, part of the two-story glass facing had been shattered to make room for a pair of large wagons. Steam rose from six horses tethered over by the west wall, behind a row of dark pinball machines.

Outside, amid the broken glass shards, the sulking rain created spreading pink pools around four sprawled bodies, recently cut down by automatic weapons fire. Only one of the victims had even managed to draw a sidearm during the ambush. His pistol lay in a puddle, inches from a motionless hand.

The voices came from his left, where the balcony made a turn. Gordon crawled cautiously forward and looked out over the other part of the L-shaped room.

Several ceiling-high mirrors remained along the west wall, giving Gordon a wide view of the floor below. A blaze of smashed furniture crackled in a large fireplace between the reflecting panes.

He hugged the moldy carpet and lifted his head just enough to see four heavily-armed men arguing by the fire. A fifth lounged on a couch over to the left, his automatic rifle aimed idly at a pair of prisoners—a boy of about nine years and a young woman.

Red weals on her face matched the pattern of a man’s hand. Her brown hair was matted and she held the boy
close, watching her captors warily. Neither prisoner seemed to have any energy left for tears.

The bearded men were all garbed in one-piece prewar army surplus outfits in green, brown, and gray-speckled camouflage. Each wore one or more gold earrings in his left ear lobe.

Survivalists
. Gordon felt a wave of revulsion.

Once upon a time, before the War, the word had had several meanings, ranging from common sense, community-conscious preparedness all the way to antisocial paranoid gun nuts. By one way of looking at things, perhaps Gordon himself could be called a “survivalist.” But it was the latter connotation that had stuck, after the ruin the worst sort had caused.

Everywhere he had gone in his travels, folk shared this reaction. More than the Enemy, whose bombs and germs had wrought such destruction during the One-Week War, the people in nearly every wrecked county and hamlet blamed these macho outlaws for the terrible troubles that led to the final Fall.

And worst of all had been the followers of Nathan Holn,
may he rot in Hell
.

But there weren’t supposed to
be
any survivalists anymore in the valley of the Willamette! In Cottage Grove, Gordon had been told that the last big bunch had been driven south of Roseburg years ago, into the wilderness of the Rogue River country!

What were these devils doing here, then? He moved a little closer and listened.

“I dunno, Strike Leader. I don’t think we oughta go any deeper on this recon. We’ve already had enough surprises with this ‘Cyclops’ thing the bird here let slip about, before she clammed up. I say we oughta head back to the boats at Site Bravo and report what we found.”

The speaker was a short, bald man with a wiry frame. He warmed his hands over the fire, his back to Gordon. A SAW assault gun equipped with a flash suppressor was slung muzzle-down over his back.

The big man he addressed as “Strike Leader” wore a
scar from one ear to his chin, only partly hidden by a gray-flecked black beard. He grinned, displaying several gaps in his teeth.

“You don’t really believe that bull the broad was spewing, do you? All that crap about a big computer that talks? What a crock! She’s just feedin’ it to us to give us a stall!”

“Oh yeah? Well how do you explain all
that?
”

The little man gestured back to the wagons. In the mirror, Gordon could see a corner of the nearest. It was loaded down with odds and ends, no doubt collected here on the University campus. The haul seemed to consist mostly of electronic equipment.

Not farm tools, not clothes or jewelry—but
electronics
.

It was the first time Gordon had ever seen a gleaner’s wagon filled with salvage like this. The implication caused Gordon’s pulse to pound in his ears. In his excitement, he barely ducked down in time as the little man turned to pick up something from a nearby table.

“And what about
this?
” the small survivalist asked. In his hand was a toy—a small video game like the one Gordon had seen in Cottage Grove.

Lights flashed and the little box gave out a high, cheerful melody. The Strike Leader stared at it for a long moment. Finally he shrugged. “Don’t mean shit.”

One of the other raiders spoke. “I agree wit’ lil’ Jim.…”

“That’s Blue Five,” the big man growled. “Maintain discipline!”

“Right,” the third man nodded, apparently unperturbed by the rebuke. “I agree with Blue Five, then. I think we oughta report this to Colonel Bezoar an’ the General. It could affect the invasion. What if the farmers
do
got high tech up north of here? We could wind up doin’ an end run right into some heavy-duty lasers or something … especially if they got some old Air Force or Navy stuff working again!”

“All the more reason to continue this recon,” the leader growled. “We’ve got to find out more about this Cyclops thing.”

“But you saw how hard we had to work to get the
woman to tell us even what we learned! And we can’t leave her here while we go deeper on recon. If we turned back we could put her on one of the boats and …”

“
Off
the damn woman! We finish with her tonight. The boy, too. You been in the mountains too long, Blue Four. These valleys are
crawling
with pretty birds. We can’t risk this one making noise, and we sure can’t take her along on a recon!”

The argument didn’t surprise Gordon. All over the country—wherever they had managed to establish themselves—these postwar crazies had taken to raiding for women, as well as for food and slaves. After the first few years of slaughter, most Holnist enclaves had found themselves with incredibly high male-female ratios. Now, women were valuable chattel in the loose, macho, hyper-survivalist societies.

No wonder some of the raiders below wanted to carry this one back. Gordon could tell that she might be quite pretty, if she healed and if the pall of terror ever left her eyes.

The boy in her arms watched the men with fierce anger.

Gordon surmised that the Rogue River gangs must have become organized at last, perhaps under a charismatic leader. Apparently they were planning to invade by sea, skirting the Roseville and Camas Valley defenses—where the farmers had somehow beaten back their repeated efforts at conquest.

It was a bold plan, and it could very well mean the end of whatever flickering civilization remained here in the Willamette Valley.

Until now, Gordon had been telling himself he might somehow stay out of this trouble. But the last seventeen years had long ago made almost everybody alive take sides in this particular struggle. Rival villages with bitter feuds would drop their quarrels to join and wipe out bands like these. The very sight of Army surplus camouflage and gold earrings elicited a loathing response that was common
nearly everywhere, like the way people felt about vultures. Gordon could not leave this place without at least trying to think of a way to harm the men below.

During a lull in the rain, two men went outside and began stripping the bodies, mutilating them and taking grisly trophies. When the drizzle returned, the raiders shifted their attention to the wagons, rummaging through them for anything valuable. From their curses it seemed the search was futile. Gordon heard the smashing of delicate and totally irreplaceable electronics parts under their boots.

Only the one guarding the captives was still in view, turned away from both Gordon and the wall of mirrors. He was cleaning his weapon, not paying particular attention.

Wishing he were less a fool, Gordon felt compelled to take a chance. He lifted his head above the level of the floor and raised his hand. The motion made the woman look up. Her eyes widened in surprise.

Gordon put a finger to his lips, praying she would understand that these men were his enemies, too. The woman blinked, and Gordon feared for a moment she was about to speak. She glanced quickly at her guard, who remained absorbed in his weapon.

When her eyes met Gordon’s again, she nodded slightly. He gave her a thumbs-up sign and quickly backed away from the balcony.

First chance, he drew his canteen and drank deeply, for his mouth was dry as ashes. Gordon found an office in which the dust wasn’t too thick—he certainly couldn’t afford to sneeze—and chewed on a strip of Creswell beef jerky as he settled down to wait.

His chance came a little while before dusk. Three of the raiders left on a patrol. The one called Little Jim remained behind to cook a raggedly butchered haunch of deer in the fireplace. A gaunt-faced Holnist with three gold earrings guarded the prisoners, staring at the young woman while whittling slowly on a piece of wood. Gordon wondered how long it would take for the guard’s lust to overcorne
his fear of the leader’s wrath. He was obviously working up his nerve.

Gordon had his bow ready. An arrow was nocked and two more lay on the carpet before him. His holster flap was free and the pistol’s hammer rested on a sixth round. There was little more he could do but wait.

The guard put down his whittling and stood up. The woman held the boy close and looked away as he walked closer.

“Blue One ain’t gonna like it,” the bandit by the fire warned lowly.

The guard stood over the woman. She tried not to flinch, but shivered when he touched her hair. The boy’s eyes glistened with anger.

“Blue One already said we’re gonna waste her later, after takin’ turns. Don’t see why my turn shouldn’t come first. Maybe I can even get her to talk about that ‘Cyclops’ thing.

“How ’bout it, babe?” He leered down on her. “If a beatin’ won’t make you loosen your mouf, I know just what’ll tame you down.”

“What about the kid?” Little Jim asked.

The guard shrugged casually. “What
about
’im?” Suddenly a hunting knife was in his right hand. With his left he seized the boy’s hair and yanked him out of the woman’s grasp. She screamed.

In that telescoped instant, Gordon acted completely on reflex—there was no time at all to think. Even so, he did not do the obvious, but what was necessary. Instead of shooting at the man with the knife, he swung his bow up, and put an arrow into
Little Jim’s
chest.

The small survivalist hopped back and stared down at the shaft in blank surprise. With a faint gurgle he slumped to the ground.

Gordon quickly nocked another arrow and turned in time to see the other survivalist yank his knife out of the girl’s shoulder. She must have hurled herself in between him and the child, blocking the blow with her body. The boy lay stunned in the corner.

Gravely wounded, she still tore at her enemy with her nails, unfortunately blocking Gordon from a clear shot. The surprised bandit fumbled at first, cursing and trying to catch her wrists. Finally, he managed to hurl her to the ground. Angered by the painful scratches—and unaware of his partner’s demise—the Holnist grinned and hefted his knife to finish the job. He took a step toward the wounded, gasping woman.

At that point Gordon’s arrow tore through the fabric of his camouflage fatigues, slicing a shallow, bloody gash along his back. The shaft struck the couch and quivered, humming.

For all their loathesome attributes, survivalists were probably the best fighters in all the world. In a blur, before Gordon could snatch up his last arrow, the man dove to one side and rolled up with his assault rifle. Gordon threw himself back as a rapid, accurate burst of individual shots tore into the balustrade, ricocheting from the ironmongery where he had just been.

The rifle was equipped with a silencer, forcing the raider to fire on semi-automatic; but the zinging bullets clanged all about Gordon as he rolled over and pulled out his own revolver. He scurried over to another part of the balcony.

The fellow down below had good ears. Another rapid burst sent slivers flying inches from Gordon’s face as he ducked aside again, barely in time.

Silence fell, except that Gordon’s pulse sounded like thunder in his ears.

Now
what?
he wondered.

Suddenly there was a loud scream. Gordon raised his head and caught a blurry motion reflected in the mirror … the small woman below was charging her much bigger foe with a large chair raised over her head!

The survivalist whirled and fired. Red blotches bloomed across the young gleaner’s chest and she tumbled to the ground; the chair rolled to the survivalist’s feet.

Gordon might have heard the click as the rifle’s magazine emptied. Or perhaps it was only a wild guess. Whatever
the reason, without thinking he leapt up, arms extended, and squeezed the trigger of his .38 over and over again—pumping until the hammer struck five times on empty, smoking chambers.

His opponent remained standing, a fresh clip already in his left hand, ready to be slammed into place. But dark stains had begun to spread across the camouflage tunic. Looking astonished, more than anything else, his eyes met Gordon’s over the smoking pistol barrel.

The assault rifle tipped and fell clattering from limp fingers, and the survivalist crumpled to the floor.

Gordon ran downstairs, vaulting the rail at the bottom. First he stopped at both men and made sure they were dead. Then he hurried over to the fatally wounded young woman.