Free The Postman by David Brin Page A

toward the Pacific.

8
    The barricades had been long abandoned. The baffle wall on Highway 58, at the east end of Oakridge, had weathered into a tumbled tell of concrete debris and curled, rusting steel. The town itself was silent. This end, at least, was clearly long abandoned.
    Gordon looked down the main street, reading its story. Two, possibly three, pitched battles had been fought here. A storefront with a canted sign— EMERGENCY SERVICES CLINIC —sat at the center of a major circle of devastation.
    Three intact panes reflected morning sunlight from the top floor of a hotel. Elsewhere though, even where store windows had been boarded, the prismatic sparkle of shattered glass glistened on the buckled pavement.
    Not that he had really expected anything better, but some of the feelings he had carried with him out of Pine View had led to hopes for more islands of peace, especially now that he was in the fertile watershed of the Willamette Valley. If no living town, at least Oakridge might have shown other signs conducive to optimism. There might have been traces of methodical reclamation, for instance. If an industrial civilization existed here in Oregon, towns such as this one should have been harvested of anything usable.
    But just twenty yards from his vantage point Gordon saw the wreckage of a gas station—a big mechanic’s tool cabinet lay on its side, its store of wrenches, pliers, and replacement wiring scattered on the oil-stained floor. A row ofnever-used tires still hung on a rack high above the service lifts.
    From this, Gordon knew Oakridge to be the worst of all possible Oakridges, at least from his point of view. The things needed by a machine culture were available at every hand, untouched and rotting … implying there was no such technological society anywhere near. At the same time, he would have to pick through the wreckage of fifty waves of previous looters in his search for anything useful to a single traveler like himself.
    Well
, he sighed.
I’ve done it before
.
    Even sifting through the downtown ruins of Boise, the gleaners before him had missed a small treasure trove of canned food in a loft behind a shoe store … some hoarder’s stash, long untouched. There was a pattern to such things, worked out over the years. He had his own methods for conducting a search.
    Gordon slipped down on the forest side of the barricade baffle and entered the overgrowth. He zigzagged, on the off chance he had been watched. At a place where he could verify landmarks in three different directions, Gordon dropped his leather shoulder bag and cap under an autumn-bright red cedar. He took off the dark brown letter carrier’s jacket and laid it on top, then cut brush to cover the cache.
    He would go to any lengths to avoid conflict with suspicious locals, but only a fool would leave his weapons behind. There were two types of fighting that could come out of a situation like this. For one, the silence of the bow might be better. For the other, it could be worth expending precious, irreplaceable .38 cartridges. Gordon checked the pistol’s action and reholstered it. His bow he carried, along with arrows and a cloth sack for salvage.
    In the first few houses, on the outskirts, the early looters had been more exuberant than thorough. Often the wreckage in such places discouraged those who came after, leaving useful items within. He had found it true often before.
    Still, by the fourth house Gordon had a poor collectionto show for this theory. His sack contained a pair of boots almost useless from mildew, a magnifying glass, and two spools of thread. He had poked into all the usual and some unconventional hoarder’s crannies, and found no food of any sort.
    His Pine View jerky wasn’t gone, but he had dipped down farther than he liked. His archery was better, and he had bagged a small turkey two days ago. Still, if he didn’t have better luck gleaning, he might have to give up on the Willamette Valley for now and