Dale grew up in Topeka. His folks came into town from Wyoming when he was just a boy of six. His father, Hans II (also called Deuce), aspired to work in radio, doing mJu his work announcing rodeos and drag races to build up enough money to move the hell out of Wyoming. When Deuce heard about a couple of guys in Kansas who were taking bouncy balls, peach baskets, and two teams of five guys making an organized game out of it, they thought it was sure to be something that would catch on. Sure enough, Deuce, landed a gig in Topeka announcing basketball on AM580, and he, his wife, and only son had a modest but well-kept home on Huntoon.
Deuce encouraged Dale in the arts, but Dale’s mother, Betty, saw to it that he focused on his studies, not relying on natural talent and a stroke of luck to pay the bills. Dale, as it turned out, preferred his creative outlets to exist outside of work and school. As a boy he excelled in school to keep his parents happy and to keep their noses out of his busy and deviant social schedule. The constant adventurer, he would often explore the fields out behind the house and ride his bike for hours only to find abandoned beat up Packards and empty tin cans. Fond of toilet paper and eggs, Dale got to know plenty of police officers in town on a first name basis; officers like Bill Malloy, Jimbo’s dad.
It was Jimbo who served as Dale’s conscience throughout high school and onward, often pleading with him not to continue for the fear of getting into trouble with Old Man Malloy. As all great friendships, theirs had started with one doozy of a story.
Once when they were about thirteen, Dale got his hands on his father’s shotgun and took it out on a long bike ride, putting plugs into tree stumps out by the Santa Fe train tracks. Jimbo begrudgingly accompanied him, and when it came to be his turn to shoot, he balked. After some careful persuasion on Dale part, Jimbo finally conceded to take one shot at a cluster of bushes.
>BLAM!<
What followed was a horrific sound: like a child screaming briefly, then cut silent. They froze for a moment.
“What’d you do?” Dale asked.
“You gave me the darn gun, Dale!” Jimbo tossed it away. “Oh, shoot!”
“Hang on, hang on,” Dale urged, approaching the bush. “Lemme take a look.” Underneath the brush, a small deer could be seen with half of its body completely mangled, blood pulsing out in time with the creature’s still-beating heart.
“Omigosh!” Dale uttered, “Omigosh, omigosh, omigosh, God dang it!”
“What do we do?” Jimbo blubbered, crying.
“Let’s see if we can get some help,” Dale said, not moving, transfixed on the mortally wounded animal. Jimbo started to bawl. Without another word, Dale picked up what he could of the animal and loaded it on his handlebars to his bike. Jimbo continued to bawl, riding after Dale all the way back into town. It was dusk when he got home and showed his father what had happened.
“Pa?” Dale stammered, entering the home.
“There you are, boy! It’s supper time. Where you been?” Deuce called from the other room. His thought was cut off by a siren scream from the kitchen, where Dale stood covered in blood in front of his mother.
Outside, Jimbo sat on the porch, dazed, dark streaks of mud and tears running down his face. In front of him a trail of blood leading to the east, ending in a pile of what once was a living creature. Jimbo stared at it: a gross reminder of the needless, careless taking of an innocent life. Dale came out of the house and showed his parents the carcass. For a moment, Hans just stood there, looking back and forth from the animal to his son while Dale explained. Meanwhile, Jimbo’s gaze never left the fawn. Never again would he let this happen, he promised. Jimbo tuned out most of what was being said until he heard a question that made him gasp.
“Where’s the gun?”
October 18, 1957
Even now, as he enters the post office in Stull, Dale thinks about riding his bike at nightfall so many years ago to retrieve and deliver his first very important package. He looks around at the dusty, abandoned post office, all full of undelivered mail. A tiny maze of small offices jetted off to the right, and directly in front of him was an array of flues and chutes, each leading to separate collection bags and postal totes. Dale spied a door with old pressman style glass, honeyed with heavy indoor smoking. On the door, in plain block lettering, read the name JOHN STULL with the word POSTMASTER centered underneath.
“I guess this is it,” Dale called out.
“Yep, there she is,” a voice called out from the front of the shop, “Right where we left her.”
“How long did you say it has been?”
“Six months,” the voice replied, “Feels like a lot longer.”
“Yeah?” Dale silently thought about what his life was like six months prior. A wiry little man with a dark beard limped into the hallway.
“Pretty much founded the town,” the man continued, getting more animated as he spoke. “Practically built it from the ground up. Named the whole damn town after him.” He took a moment to catch his breath.
“Listen,” Dale explained, “I’m not even going to try to replace John Stull. That’s impossible. Not gonna happen.”
“No, it ain’t,” urged Jim. He clicked his ring against the countertop a few times in thought.
“Okay, so let’s just figure out where we’re at.” He entered the office, which was surprisingly well-kept, if only a bit dusty. “I guess John was a tidy fellow? That’s helpful.”
“Of course he was,” Jim replied. “He was the postmaster.”
In the middle of a standard steel desk sat a parcel wrapped in brown paper with several postage stamps all over it. No dust, he noticed.
“What’s this?” Dale asked. They both approached the package to examine it closer.
“Looks like it moved around a lot,” Jim noted, poking his pen at the numerous postage stamps that studded the wrapping. Dale walked around, taking a seat at the head of the desk.
“Denmark, Sweden, England, Belgium, France, Germany, Scotland… What’s that? Iceland?”
“Travelled a long way to get here, whatever it is. Just ‘Postmaster’? Stull, KS 660-50.”
“That’s crazy,” Dale offered. “Whoever sent this knows the new postal codes, and those haven’t even been regulated yet.”
“John was usin’ ‘em, I know,” Jim added.
“Still, if this was overseas,” Dale noted, “that’s a pretty savvy European.”
“True,” Jim agreed. “It wasn’t here when I cleaned up last month,” he added.
“Okay, enough suspense,” Dale declared. He grabbed a letter opener and artfully slid it cleanly through the packaging to reveal a parcel of four books bound together with a leather strap. Wrapped around the outside was an envelope.
He opened the envelope and read aloud.
“To Whom It Concerns:
If you are reading this, then I must have failed. Enclosed are the remaining volumes of the Principia Divinica. Keep them secret. Do not let anyone know you have them. Defend them with your life. Wait for further instruction.
-John Stull”
Jim looked at the note. “Doesn’t look like John’s handwriting… Prickipee DaVinci? Well, that doesn’t make a lick of sense,” he blurted, handing it back.
“It is a mystery,” Dale agreed. He flipped the note over, examining the back side. Nothing.
“You want me to put ‘em in the safe?” Jim suggested.
“I’m sure I can handle it,” said Dale, looking them over. “This note seems pretty urgent. Something you’ll learn about me: I always liked a good mystery.” He peeked at the note again. “Wait for further instruction. Wonder what that means…”
“You got me,” the wiry postman shrugged.
“We have a lot to get done,” Dale pressed, “so we’ll have to solve this mystery some other time. Why don’t you work out a schedule for getting this stuff out?” He dropped the books in the bottom drawer of his office desk, escorting Jim out the door. “We’ll need to get a hold of every local post office these packages go to and figure out when and how we can get it all delivered.” Dale looked around the main office. “How many pieces of mail you think we got here, anyway?”
“Oh… maybe twenty-five, thirty thousand,” Jim shrugged, “give or take.”
Dale thought about it for a second then sighed. There had to be ten thousand letters, packages, post cards, and invoices in the this room, and twenty more in the back. “We’re gonna need more people.”
He walked over to the nearest telephone and dialed. Jim clicked on a small AM radio and sorted out a short stack of envelopes next to the flues, sliding them neatly through the holes into baskets on the other side. He moved on to the next stack, and in the time it took Dale to have a very frustrating conversation with the Topeka office, Jim had gone through half of what had been cluttering up the counter. Dale hung the black rotary phone back in its cradle and sighed heavily. “Looks like we’re on our own.”
“It’s not so bad,” Jim acknowledged. “At least we only got one delivery a day.”
“True,” said Dale. He silently contemplated the complete absorption of time that two deliveries a day caused when he first started working for the post office. That was less than ten years ago, but it felt like it was another life; like it must have happened to someone else. These days everything was much more streamlined; organized; industrial. The postmaster studied the grid of chutes, memorizing the order with professional efficiency. He reminded himself that he could do this. It would just take some focus, some energy, and a whole lot of hustle if they were going to get any of it out the door. The delivery trucks out of town would be there in an hour, so they would have to work fast if they wanted to get caught up. “You keep doing what you’re doing, I’ll get the bags.”
“Oh,” remembered Jim. “Before I forget.” He fumbled around his pockets and pulled out a keyring with five keys. “Keys to the kingdom.” He picked out individual keys and showed them to Dale one by one: “The office, the safe, the desk, the door.” He handed them over.
“What’s this other one for?” he asked, indicating the key Jim had failed to identify.
“Don’t know,” said Jim. “I been trying to think what that’s to, myself.” He scratched his head. “Probably John’s, though I’m not sure what to.”
“Yippee,” blurted Dale. “Another mystery.” He pocketed the keys and continued. “Alright, we have a lot to do. Let’s get to it.”
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