Just a Song at Twilight

Chapter One The mail truck drove into Bedford from the west. The town sat off to the left of the highway, just over the crest of the hill with the blacktop leading into town. Down at the bottom of the hill there was another intersection; Sam’s Texaco Station sat there just off the highway to the south. From the crest of the hill the highway sloped down to the east for maybe a half-mile, past Sam’s before leveling out for another quarter-mile and then finally dropped down into the bottoms. The truck turned left into town. The blacktop led into the main part of the hamlet, past the Methodist Church on the east side, past Mel Jackson’s repair shop on the west side, around the right turn and the left one back, past the grade school on the right side, past Smith’s Groceries and Appliances, around another corner past Tom’s Meats and Groceries and U. S. Government Post Office, and finally past the Catholic Church before it faded into dust. Farther on the road led to the Midland Construction Company and to the river. The truck pulled up alongside the cement porch on the west side of Tom’s. The driver got out, opened the rear door of the truck, and took out a canvas mail sack; it had U. S. Mail lettered on it. He closed the door and entered Tom’s with the sack. In a few minutes he emerged from Tom’s with the empty mail sack. He opened the rear door again, deposited the sack, and closed the door. Then he started the truck up and made a u-turn in the street to leave Bedford. It wasn’t just another stop on Ben Thompson’s route. Every day he drove the mail truck out of Clarksville, Missouri, leaving at three a.m. He always tried to be back in Clarksville by eleven; his day’s work was done by then. Usually he didn’t make it. He looked forward to Bedford because that was his last stop.