The mob came for Berendtsen, as he knew it must—and all that remained of the man who had unified the scattered remnants of a plague-stricken America was a smear of blood in the street. But Berendtsen had planned beyond his death....

Decades later, the rumor drifted in, from the mountains, from the barren plains: Berendtsen lives. The men who strove for power in the ruins knew that if it was true, Berendtsen had to be found, to take power in a new regime—or to be killed...this time for good.

Expanded version published as Some Will Not Die in 1961.