Free The Postman by David Brin Page B

get to work on a winter hunting camp.
    What he
really
wanted was another haven such as Pine View. But fate had been kind enough, lately. Too much good luck made Gordon suspicious.
    He moved on to a fifth house.
    The four-poster bed stood in what had once been a prosperous physician’s two-story home. Like the rest of the house, the bedroom had been stripped of nearly everything but the furniture. Nevertheless, as he crouched down over the heavy area rug, Gordon thought he might have found something the earlier looters had missed.
    The rug seemed out of place. The bed rested upon it, but only with the right pair of legs. The left pair lay directly on the hardwood floor. Either the owner had been sloppy in placing the big, oval carpet, or …
    Gordon put down his burdens and grabbed the edge of the rug.
    Whew. It’s heavy
.
    He started rolling it toward the bed.
    Yes!
There was a thin, square crack in the floor, under the carpet. A bed leg pinned the rug over one of two brass door hinges. A
trapdoor
.
    He pushed hard on the bedpost. The leg hopped and fell again with a boom. Twice more he shoved and loud echoes reverberated.
    On his fourth heave the bedpost snapped in two. Gordon barely escaped impalement on the jagged stub as hetoppled onto the mattress. The canopy followed and the aged bed collapsed in a crash. Gordon cursed, fighting with the smothering shroud. He sneezed violently in a cloud of floating dust.
    Finally, regaining a bit of sense, he managed to slither out from under the ancient, moldy fabric. He stumbled out of the room, still sputtering and sneezing. The attack subsided slowly. He gripped the upstairs bannister, squinting in that torturous, semi-orgasmic state that comes before a whopping sternutation. His ears rang with an extra murmur that seemed almost like voices.
    Next thing you’ll be hearing churchbells
, he told himself.
    The final sneeze came at last, in a loud “Ah—chblthooh!” Wiping his eyes, he reentered the bedroom. The trapdoor lay fully exposed, layered under a new coating of dust. Gordon had to pry the edge of the secret panel. Finally, it lifted with a high, rusty skreigh.
    Again, it seemed as though some of the sound came from
outside
the house. But when he stopped and listened carefully, Gordon heard nothing. Impatiently, he bent down and brushed aside cobwebs to peer into the cache.
    There was a large metal box inside. He poked around hoping for more. After all, the things a prewar doctor might have kept in a locked chest—money and documents—would be of less use to him than canned goods stashed here in a spree of wartime hoarding. But there was nothing other than the box. Gordon hauled it out, puffing.
    Good. It’s heavy. Now let’s hope it’s not gold or any similar crap
. The hinges and lock were rusted. He lifted the haft of his knife to smash the small lock. Then he stopped abruptly.
    Now
they were unmistakable. The voices were close, too close.
    “I think it came from this house!” someone called from the overgrown garden outside. Feet shuffled through the dry leaves. There were steps on the wooden porch.
    Gordon sheathed the knife and snatched up his gear.Leaving the box by the bed, he hurried out of the room to the stairwell.
    This was not the best of circumstances to meet other men. In Boise and other mountain ruins there had been almost a code—gleaners from ranches all around could try their luck in the open city, and although the groups and individuals were wary, they seldom preyed on one another. Only one thing could bring them all together—a rumor that someone had sighted a Holnist, somewhere. Otherwise they pretty much left each other alone.
    In other places, though, territoriality was the rule—and fiercely enforced. Gordon might be searching in some such clan’s turf. A quick departure would, in any case, be discreet.
    Still
 … he looked back at the strongbox anxiously.
It’s mine, damnit!
    Boots clomped noisily downstairs. It was too late to