He was a survivor - a wanderer who traded tales for food and shelter in the dark and savage aftermath of a devastating war.  Fate touches him one chill winter’s day when he borrows the jacket of a long-dead postal worker to protect himself from the cold.  The old, worn, uniform still has power as a symbol of hope.  With it he begins to weave his greatest tale - that he is a mail carrier and a federal inspector for the "Restored United States of America," a nation on the road to recovery.  This is the story of a lie that became the most powerful kind of truth; the dramatically moving saga of a man who rekindled the spirit of America through the power of a dream which gives hope to people who are threatened by a murderous, neo-feudalist militia.  Adapted into a film starring Kevin Costner and Will Patton in 1997.