The Snowmelt River (The Three Powers) Read Free Page A

accident.”
    “What kind of accident?”
    He looked down at his feet. “It was in March—just a lousy accident.”
    She slumped down into a chair and toyed with her glass of juice. She said, “I’m sorry! I didn’t mean to upset you.”
    He remained standing, annoyed with himself for letting his feelings show. “How about your folks?”
    “Mommy and Daddy were murdered.”
    “Oh, man!”
    “You don’t need to worry. I’ve got used to it.”
    He took a deep breath. “I’d been on a school skiing trip. It was snowing a bit but it wasn’t any kind of a snowstorm. Dad and Mom were coming to pick me up. A special treat in a chopper. Dad was an experienced pilot. He wouldn’t have taken any risk. A bunch of us, school friends, we wanted to get one more run on the slopes. I look back and I think it was a really stupid thing to do. I keep thinking, what if we hadn’t gone back for that last run? A kid named Rudy Forrester broke his leg. It was a really bad break, with his shinbone poking out through his skin. Mom and Dad—they had to take him to the hospital about thirty miles away. They were supposed to come right back for me.”
    The silence between them lasted several seconds.
    “All my life, well, I guess I was your typical American kid. You could say I was one of those laid-back guys. To tell you the truth—!” Alan’s right hand suddenly came up and he slapped it against his head, like he somehow wanted to just smack sense into it.
    She jumped to her feet and grabbed at his arm. “Please, Alan! Don’t do that. Don’t blame yourself.”
    His brown eyes grew distant. “I guess . . . I guess I was some kind of a stupid jerk. The kind of kid who just goes through life without really thinking all that much about anything.”
    She held onto his arm, almost hugging it to her. “What happened to them? Was it an accident?”
    “That’s what the wreck report said. They made a big thing about the fact it was snowing—and the fact Dad wasn’t familiar with the area. But he was a really good pilot. I just don’t buy it.”
    “You don’t think it was an accident?”
    “My grandfather, Padraig, doesn’t think so. He’s downright paranoid about it.”
    “What? He thinks it was suspicious?”
    “I know it sounds kind of crazy. But that’s what he thinks.”
    She took him into a large sitting room, with its big chintzy lounge suite and dark mahogany furniture. The strange tower came off it on one corner, and there was an upholstered window seat so you could sit in there and look out into the garden. There were photographs onthe walls of waterfalls and safari shots of lions, zebras, elephants and crocodiles. In between the photographs, Alan saw rusty iron spears and big wooden clubs. He looked at pictures of a younger Kate with her parents outside single-story buildings with white walls and red-tile roofs. They were surrounded by palm trees and colorful tropical plants. Kate’s parents looked slim, medium height. Her father was black-haired and her mother was red-haired, like Kate herself, but a lighter, more golden, red. There was a boy, who looked younger than Kate, with the same red hair.
    She brushed her finger over the glass in the frame. “My brother, Billy.”
    “And all that’s what—some kind of medical mission?”
    “It was a Belgian Catholic Mission, with a school and a small hospital. Mommy was the matron of the hospital and Daddy was the doctor. They worked in the Democratic Republic of the Congo all of the time I was growing up. Billy and me, we lived here with Uncle Fergal and Bridey.” Her green eyes filled with longing. “We used to really look forward to going out there and joining Mommy and Daddy for the long holidays. The mission was close to the gorilla forest. There were palm trees on the grounds and all sorts of fabulous plants. Right outside our bungalow was a giant aloe plant that sent up seed flowers as tall as a tree. Then, when they seeded, the whole plant just