Sanchesca Panza

Sanchesca Panza led a life of quiet exclamation. One would think that a woman living in the rural recesses of Pearl River County, a woman with typical feminine needs, shoes and investments, would not have very many secrets. But one would be wrong. (If one thought that.) On the day she met Richard Kancache, Sanchesca woke up as she normally did, striking her forehead on the bedside table as she rolled out of bed, applied toothpaste to her curling iron and brushed under her arms with it, and had a typical breakfast of pepperoni sticks and bromo-seltzer, just as she did every morning. Yet, somehow, she knew instinctively that this day would be different.

After leaving Picayune, the two of them drove in silence up Hwy. 43 to the unassuming hamlet of Henleyfield, the stillness broken only by the occasional backfire from Sanchesca's pickup truck.

Eventually, Richard broke the silence. "So tell me, Sanchesca. Why are we driving out here, so far into the country?"

"I figured we should start your tour of the Caches of Pearl River County with something simple." Richard nodded. Simple, he could identify with. "Simple...yet memorable. We're going to find the Benjifield cache."

"Benjifield? Odd name."

"It's named after Benji Jarrell. Richard," Sanchesca said, turning to him and slamming on the brakes so hard that Richard's head impacted the dashboard, "I must tell you my...terrible secret. You see, Benji Jarrell was...was the other man in my life. Before you."

"You don't have to tell me, Sanchesca," said Richard, his head swimming.

"No...I want to. I have to...it's part of the long description. Benji...Benji played baseball." She stared dreamily towards the road ahead. "He was a catcher. With a t, that is, not a cacher. One day he was playing at the home field in Henleyfield when a batter hit a high popup. It was going to land out of bounds but Benji went for it. He jumped the fence along the right field line and went back...back..." She halted in the midst of her sporting reverie.

Richard looked at her, puzzled. "So...did he catch the ball?"

"Nobody knows," replied Sanchesca, a single tear streaking down her cheek and landing in her sno-cone. "He just disappeared and was never seen again. Search parties combed the area for days...nothing, except for his cap. In the end they established a geocache there as a memorial to the play he almost made...Benji's Great Cache." She stifled a sob. "He was only seven years old!"

Richard knew that he could never compete with the memory of the Little Leaguer in Sanchesca's life. And so they proceeded to Henleyfield and their destiny, semi-conscious and with the faint aroma of toothpaste in the air.