The Cache Read Online Free

Benoni leaped into the air at the burn of a whiplash on his buttocks. He began running, and he felt no more cuts, for there was not a man in Fiiniks who could run as fast. But, behind him, the whips cracked and the yelling continued, and he ran for at least a mile until his pursuers had dropped far behind. Then he continued dog-trotting for several more miles, heading northeastward.
    Benoni planned to trot for about five more miles, then hunt a while for a kangaroo rat or a jackrabbit to furnish him with blood and meat. Afterwards, he would find a place to sleep during the day. Travel by night was the only sane way. The sun would burn up the water in his naked body and make him more easily seen by any Navahos who might be in the area. Besides, hunting was better in the night when most of the beasts were out.
    He paused on top of a high hillock of malapi to get his bearings, and then he heard, or thought he heard, somebody in the rocks below. At once he slipped behind a huge black malapi boulder and gripped a stone as a weapon. The man, or whoever it was, seemed to be in a hurry, which puzzled Benoni. He did not think it likely that a Navaho would be this close to Fiiniks, though it was possible. And if the follower were a Navaho, he would not be making this much noise. Chances were that it was one of the initiates. Either one who had happened to be taking the same path as himself, or one who was purposefully tracking him.
    Joel Vahndert?
    If it were Joel, he would not be one bit better armed than himself. It would be better to face him now, get it over with, rather than wait until he had fallen asleep and Joel could take him by surprise.
    Benoni crouched behind the boulder. And he, whose ears could detect the lizard running over the sand and whose nose could smell a rabbit a quarter mile away upwind, knew at once that this was a sweating man. There was tobacco in the odor, which relieved him. It could not be Joel; youths were not allowed to moke until they took their first scalp.
    However, if this were the case, then the man could be a Navaho. And he might be careless because he thought that he, Benoni, was much further ahead.
    The man came by the boulder, Benoni leaped around it, ready to catch him in the side of the head with a thrown stone.
    He stopped, restrained his arm, and said, “Father!”
    Hozey Rider jumped away, whirled, his long knife in hand. Then he relaxed, put the knife back in its sheath, and smiled.
    “Good work, son!” he said, “I knew you must be some place close. I’m glad I didn’t catch you unawares. I’d have felt very bad about your chances among the Navahos.”
    “You made a lot of noise,” said Benoni.
    “I had to catch you,” said Hozey.
    “Why?”
    Benoni looked at the knife and wondered, for a second, if his father planned to give him the blade so he would have a better chance. He dismissed the thought as dishonorable.
    “What I’m doing isn’t according to ritual,” said his father. “And it’s actually a last-minute thought on the part of the chiefs. I’ll be brief, because it’s not good to hold a young unblood back from the warpath.
    “You know, son, that your older brother went out with a scouting party about two years ago, and we never heard of him again. Possibly, he may be dead. Then, again, he might just not have come back from wherever he went to. You see, the mission he went on was secret, because we didn’t want to stir up our own folk. Or let word to the Navahos what we might be doing in the future.”
    “I never did know what the party Rafe went out on was looking for,” said Benoni.
    “It was looking for a good place for us to move to,” said his father. “A place where there is no valley fever, no earthquakes, no volcanoes, and plenty of water, grass, and trees.”
    “You . . . mean out of the valley?”
    Hozey Rider nodded, and he said, “You must not tell anybody. The Council sent the scouting party out two years ago but told nobody why they went.