The Cache by Philip José Farmer Read Free Book Online

drunk all the water on the second day. Painfully, he made his way down the mountains. At its foot, he drank water and refilled the bottles. Then, he began walking toward the northeast. A week later, he was able to run and to work the arm in which the arrow had sunk. He killed game with his arrows, and he built a small fire in the most secluded spots and cooked his meat.
    Always, he looked for Joel Vahndert. If he had found the youth sleeping, he would have cut his throat on the spot. But he did not find him.
    One night, he almost stumbled into a Navaho sentinel. This man was placed on a cliff high above the trail. After studying him, Benoni decided that this was the first in a chain of sentinels placed near the town that guarded the end of the trail. There was a big lake beyond it, the beginning of a series of lakes which ended in the body of water beside which Benoni had been wounded. Benoni worked his way over the mountains. At the end of the second night, he saw the lake and the stockaded village beside it. To the east were the beginnings of pine forests. He knew that north and east were many small Navaho settlements. About a hundred years ago the Navahos had come into this area, killed or driven off the Apaches then living there.
    Benoni stood on top of the cone-shaped peak in the shadow of a jumper for a long time. What to do? Skulk around the town, kill a man, then leave for Fiiniks with a scalp at his belt? Or go east for a long distance, maybe to the edge of the earth, searching for a well-watered earthquake-free country to which the Fiinishans might migrate?
    Finally, he decided that it was too soon to make up his mind. He would go much further east, however. He did not think it would be good to try to take a scalp here. Doubtless, Vahndert and some of the other youths had already been here. They would have stirred up the Navahos, put them on their guard. It would be better to go through here at night and strike at some of the towns or farms where the inhabitants were not so cautious.
    That night, he left the mountain and struck across the forests. He traveled for two weeks, hunting on the way. He passed many Navaho farms with their rock hogans and straight or circular rows of maize, beans, pumpkins, squash, and muskmelons and little herds of sheep, goats, and a few cattle. Several times, he had a chance to take the scalp of some farmer working in the field, but he refrained. Two more weeks passed, and always he traveled into the rising sun. Now that he had many trees and bushes to hide him, he walked by day.
    Then, one morning, a lone Navaho youth riding a horse came close to his sleeping place. The horse was a fine roan stallion; the saddle was chased with silver. The youth was singing a song about the maiden whose hand he meant to ask for.
    Benoni admired the song and the fine voice of the youth. But he admired the saddle and the horse even more. He shot an arrow through the youth, cutting off his song in the middle of a word. He took the scalp and the horse and set off towards the east. Knowing that he would be tracked, he pushed the horse for several days. He went up as many streams as he could find and many times took the horse carefully across rocky places. Never did he see any pursuers, but he did not breathe easily until he had come to the edge of the forest.
    On the edge of the Navaho country, where the desert began again, at the time of the sun’s setting, Benoni heard something. What it was he did not know. Only a murmur from upward that told him of something dangerous. He tied his horse to a branch of a tree beside a wash and worked his way on his belly northwards.
    After fifteen minutes of cautious progress, he came to the top of a low ridge. He looked through the sparse grass and down into a little amphitheater. In its center sat Joel Vahndert, Joel Vahndert cooking a rabbit over a tiny fire. His horse was a few feet from him and was feeding upon the tough brown grass.
    Benoni’s heart had been