Cyanide Wells Read Free

photography business. Heavy and old-fashioned next to the new single-lens reflexes or digital models, the markings were worn on the f-stop band, and the surfaces where he’d so often held it were polished smooth. He stared at it, afraid to take it into his hands because if he did, it would work its old magic, and then what he now realized he’d been subconsciously considering would become a reality…
    Don’t be ridiculous. Picking it up isn’t a commitment.
    And just like that, he did.
    His fingers curled around the Nikon, moving to long-accustomed positions. They caressed it as he removed the lens cap, adjusted speed, f-stop, and focus. He sighted on the flames in the fireplace, saw them clearly through the F3.5 micro lens with a skylight filter. Even though the camera contained no film, he thumbed the advance lever, depressed the shutter.
    The mind may forget, but not the body.
    She’d said that to him the last time they made love, in a sentimental moment after being separated for two months, but he sensed that her body had already forgotten, was ready for new memories, a new man. She’d told him she needed to be free—not to wound him, but with deep regret that proved the words hurt her as well. But now, after allowing him to think her dead for fourteen years, it seemed she was alive in California, near a place called Cyanide Wells. He had no reason to doubt his anonymous caller, who had taken the trouble to track him down for some unexplained reason.
    “…your wife is very much alive. And very cognizant of what she put you through when she disappeared…”
    Matt’s fingers tightened on the Nikon.
    Picking it up had been a commitment after all.

    Soledad County, California
Tuesday, May 7, 2002
    R ain clouds hovered over the heavily forested ridge-line that separated central Soledad County from the coastal region, reminding Matt of home. As the exit sign for Talbot’s Mills appeared, he took his right hand off the wheel of the rented Jeep Cherokee and rubbed his neck. It had been a long drive north from the San Francisco Airport, and he was stiff and tired but keyed up in an unpleasant manner that twice had made him oversteer on Highway 101’s sharp curves.
    It had taken him two weeks to put the charter business in order so that it would run properly under Johnny Crowe’s supervision, as well as to prepare his cabin should his absence be a long one. All the time he was going about his tasks, he felt as if he were saying good-bye: to Millie, to Johnny, to the woman at the bank where he arranged for payment of what few bills would come in, to the clerks at the marine supply he patronized, to the mechanic at the gas station where he had his truck serviced for the drive to Vancouver. Once there, he left the truck in the garage of a woman with whom he’d had an onand-off affair for years, and she drove him to the airport. As his plane took off and his adopted country receded below him, he wondered what kind of man he’d be when he returned there.
    Now he rounded a bend in the highway and sighted the lumber company town nestled at the base of the ridge. Clustered around the interchange were the ubiquitous motels and gas stations and fast-food outlets, and beyond them a bridge spanned a wide, slow-moving river. Two huge beige-and-green mills sprawled for acres along its banks, and small houses rose on the terraced slope above them. Higher on the hill were larger homes, including one whose gables cleared the tallest of the trees.
    Matt exited on a ramp whose potholed surface threatened to jar the Jeep’s wheel from his hands. Logging rigs lined the frontage road’s shoulder on both sides, in front of a truck stop advertising HOT SHOWERS AND GOOD EATS. He’d pulled off for a burger hours ago in a place north of the Golden Gate Bridge called Los Alegres, but the keyed-up feeling had prevented him from eating most of it. He knew he should have a solid meal, but his stomach was still nervous, so he drove past the