Free The Snowmelt River (The Three Powers) by Frank P. Ryan Page A

it when you smile like that.”
    “Get lost.”
    “I do. It reminds me of the day we met. When you were showing me the single plant you’d rescued, in the bed down by the river.”
    “Oh, isn’t it just ravishing!” She threw her arms wide at the Suir Valley far below them, like a gigantic folded counterpane of pea-green and flag-yellow oblongs and stripes.
    “It sure as hell makes me giddy.”
    By the time they got to the top of the mountain, it was after eleven. They rested, gazing down onto Coumduala Lough, so far below them the waves on the surface looked like threads of fine white cotton. The sun and breeze had had a few hours to dry the dew out of the heather and they sat comfortably in it, fishing for sandwiches and drinks from their backpacks. Kate lay flat on her belly and marveled at the panoramic view of the Suir Valley heading eastward towards Waterford.
    Alan asked her, “You seeing or feeling anything of what Padraig was hinting at?”
    “I don’t care any more. I just want to lie here and soak it up.”
    Hunching forward, Alan began to rub the aching muscles of his calves. “Me too. To tell you the truth, the only thing I’m feeling is my legs complaining. And here comes Mo—five feet nothing and not even a hint of flagging.”
    “So what do you really think?”
    “I think maybe Grimstone is a crazy-livered bully and Grandad is just a mite eccentric, like I’ve been telling you guys all along.”
    Kate glanced over at Mo, who was resisting Mark’s attempts to get her to listen to a tune on his phone. “Mo—isn’t she what dear old Bridey would call a ‘quare one’?”
    “She’s different—I’ve got to grant you that.”
    “What is it about her that makes her avoid technology?”
    He shrugged. “Your guess is as good as mine. You get to thinking why Mark and Mo put up with it. I mean the way Grimstone’s been treating them all their lives, why don’t they go and complain to the authorities?”
    “I asked her.”
    “You did?”
    “Grimstone is very powerful, highly connected in his local community in London. What if the authorities didn’t believe them? Then they’d have to go back home and face him.”
    “Shee—it!”
    “You really care about them, don’t you?”
    “Don’t you?”
    She nodded. “I think maybe you’re all the only best friends I’ve ever had.” Kate blinked for what seemed longer than the few moments it really was—she didn’t want him to see the stupid tears in her eyes.
    Alan nodded. “I think so too. I just want it to stay like this. I don’t ever want it to change.”
    Kate hugged his arm.
    He said, “Makes you want to get back at people like Grimstone. Teach him a lesson he’ll understand.”
    “Is this your Irish mother talking?”
    “Maybe I got a dose of that from both sides. Dad told me never let a bully get away with it. You do that and it will only get a whole heap worse. I tell you, Kate, if somebody had done to me what Grimstone’s beendoing to those kids, I’d have found some way to put a stop to it.”
    The sun came out from behind Alan’s shoulder, making her squint to look at him. “So what would the brave Alan Duval have done?”
    “I don’t know—but something!”
    “I keep thinking of you, just standing there that day with the swans. I’m beginning to think there’s a major streak of stubbornness in you.”
    At the summit of the mountains, Mo felt dwarfed by the enormous landscape that stretched away to the horizon on all sides.
    There was so much to think about that her thoughts reeled through her mind like the flight of the swallows wheeling overhead. She recalled the moment Mark had explained things to Padraig. A baby abandoned on a church step somewhere in a small town in Australia, like a cruel offering on a cold slab of an altar. To an outsider, the church must have looked solid and respectable. Did whoever it was who had abandoned her know that Grimstone was there? Did he or she know exactly what lay