The Mountain Between Us

by Charles Martin

  When I returned, Ashley was sitting up, stirring the fire. She started on me before I had a chance to say good morning. “How’d you know you wanted to marry your wife? I mean, how’d you know?”

  “Good morning.”

  “Yeah, yeah, yeah. Good morning yourself. Let me know when it gets good.”

  “I see you’re feeling better.”

  I knelt next to her bag, unzipped the side, pulled it back, and examined her leg. The good news was that there was no real change. And the bad news was that there was no real change.

  “Today at lunch we need to ice that…okay?”

  She nodded. “Seriously. I want to know.”

  I began stuffing my bag into its compression sack. “I wanted to spend every second with her. Wanted to laugh with her, cry with her, grow old with her, hold her hand, touch knees at the breakfast table, and I since we’d been hanging out a couple years, I really wanted to have sex with her. And a lot of it.”

  She laughed. “Were you two still pretty active before you separated?”

  “The best kept secret about the whole marriage thing is that the loving part gets better. You lose—at least I did—all the ‘I’ve got to prove something’ or whatever it is. I guess us guys get our ideas of what it ought to be through movies. When in fact, it’s little or nothing like that. It’s more of a sharing than a taking. Movies don’t do a very good job of portraying this. They show the hot, sweaty side. And that’s great, I’m not knocking it; I’m just exposing the myth that that’s as good as it gets.

  “Granted, there are a lot of folks whose fires die out, I get that, but I also think there are a lot of couples out there who have been married thirty, forty, fifty years that know a whole lot more about the loving part of marriage than we give them credit for. We think we’re young, we’ve got the monopoly on passion.” I shook my head. “Not so sure. They might give Dr. Phil a run for his money. Grover sure would.”

  “What about when one wants to and one doesn’t.”

  I laughed. “Rachel liked to call that ‘mercy loving’—and it’s 99 percent of the time her having mercy on me.”

  “Mercy loving?”

  “It goes something like, ‘Honey…I can’t sleep. Help.’”

  “And…before the separation…did she ‘help’ you?”

  “Sometimes. Not all the time.”

  “What do you do when she doesn’t?”

  “Tylenol PM.”

  “I guess I’m getting pretty personal.”

  “You are.”

  “So…how’s that work in the separation?”

  I took a deep breath. “It doesn’t.”

  “How long have you two been separated?”

  “Long enough for me to buy my Tylenol PM in the bulk section at Costco.” I began strapping stuff to the sled. “Listen, I need to get you to stand up. I don’t want you putting weight on that leg, so we’ll take it easy, but I want you to start bearing weight on the good leg. Forcing circulation.”

  She held out her hands. I unzipped the bag, she braced her good foot on mine, and I lifted her slowly. She wobbled, got dizzy, leaned her head on my shoulder, and then finally stood up straight. “That feels good. Almost feel human.”

  “How’s the bad leg?”

  “Tender. More of a dull pain than sharp as long as I don’t flex the muscles around the break.”

  I readjusted the straps on the brace. She put her arms on my shoulders, balancing on me. I steadied her by the hips. “Let’s just give this a few minutes. The change in your blood pressure will be good for your heart. Put it under a load and force it to move the blood around your body.”

  She stared up into the trees, smiling. “My legs are cold.”

  “Well…that’s what you get for walking around in your socks and underwear.”

  “You know, when I was in middle school, this was how we danced if we were ‘going with someone.’”

  “It’s been a long time since I’ve heard the term ‘going with someone.’”

  “If we were serious, I’d put my hands on his shoulders and he’d put his hands on my hips, slowly wrapping them around my back when the chaperones weren’t watching. The crude guys wrapped their hands all the way around you and cupped your butt or slid them into your jeans pockets. My dad wouldn’t let me date those guys.”

  “Good call.”

  “Vince hates to dance.”

  “Can’t say I’m much of a fan either.”

  “Why?”

  “Got no rhythm.”

  “Okay, I’ve had enough. Put me down.” I settled her back inside her bag and zipped her up. She pointed. “Come on. Let me see. Show me what you’ve got.”

  “What? Dance?”

  She nodded.

  “You’ve lost your mind.”

  She swirled her finger at the ground beneath me. “Go ahead. I’m waiting.”

  “You don’t understand. I have the hip movement of a toy soldier. I can’t even do the ‘white man dance.’”

  “The what?”

  “The white man dance. You know, the dance that black guys do to make fun of white guys who can’t dance. Only problem is you’ve got to have rhythm to mimic guys who have none. I don’t even have enough to do that.”

  She crossed her arms. “I’m waiting.”

  “Why don’t you spit in one hand and wish in the other and see which one gets full the quickest.”

  She scratched her head, then smiled. “Where’d you hear that?”

  “Something my dad used to say when I’d ask him for money for the weekend.”

  “Sounds like a rough relationship.”

  “A bit.”

  “So, are you going to dance or what?”

  I turned, did my best John Travolta “Staying Alive” imitation followed by that weird mop-bucket thing that guys do with their arms and hips. I topped it off with my YMCA imitation and a Michael Jackson moonwalk, spin, and hat tilt. When I finished, she was doubled over in her bag, laughing so hard she couldn’t talk. Finally she held out a hand. “Stop…don’t…I think I just peed a little.”

  The laughter felt good. Real good. And as much as I wanted a satellite phone, a helicopter ride out of there, and a surgical suite to fix her leg, the laughter was worth all of that put together. Napoleon looked at us like we were nuts. Especially me.

  She lay back, breathing. Half laughing.

  I zipped up my jacket. “Rachel made us take lessons.”

  “What?”

  “Yep. Swing. Tango. Waltz. Viennese Waltz. Jitterbug. Foxtrot. Even a line dance or two.”

  “You know how to do all those?”

  I nodded. “Rachel said that due to all the running, my hip flexors are rather tight, making me somewhat rhythmically challenged. So I signed us up for dance lessons. A year’s worth. Some of the most fun we ever had on dates.”

  “So you really can dance?”

  “With her.”

  “If I’m lucky, I’ll get one dance out of Vince at our wedding. That’s about it.”

  “I learned that I like dancing with my wife. Once I learned what to do, how to lead…” I laughed. “Once she let me…it wasn’t so bad. Wasn’t so embarrassing. Took the worry out of it, let us have fun. ’Course, after that she wanted to dance at every party we ever attended.”

  “And did you?”

  I nodded. “I called it mercy dancing, and 99 percent of the time it had to do with me having mercy on her. But, it had its trade-off.” I raised my eyebrows.

  “You need to talk to Vince when we get out of here.”

  “I’ll see what I can do.” I gave her my jacket, which she stuffed inside her bag, stepped into the harness, and buckled myself in. “Come on, we’re burning daylight.”

  “I’ve heard that before.” She snapped her fingers. “Where’s that come from?”

  “John Wayne. The Cowboys.”

  She slid down in her bag. “You are getting more interesting with every day that passes.”

  “Trust me, my rabbi
t’s hat is just about empty.”

  “I doubt that.”

  I strapped on my snowshoes and leaned into the sled, and it gave way across the frozen snow. I took two steps, and she called to me.

  “Can I see that little dance move one more time?”

  I shook my hips, mopped the floor, tossed the pizza, spun the Q-tip, and spelled YMCA.

  She was howling, gently kicking her one good leg.

  We pulled out through the trees, bathed in the smell of evergreens and the sound of her laughter.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  By lunchtime we’d walked a mile and a half, and I was toast. My left foot was frozen, a bad sign, and because the last half mile was slightly uphill, the straps had been cutting into my shoulders, making my fingers numb. It’s a good thing I wasn’t scheduled to operate on anybody.

  We stopped for an hour alongside a small creek whose banks were frozen and swollen with snow. I pulled Ashley up beneath a tree, pulled off my wet shirt and hung it to dry. Letting the shirt freeze was actually good because it was easier to shake off ice than wring out sweat in this temperature.

  The tree’s branches canopied out over the ground, protecting it from snow. It created a bowl effect. I slid Ashley down inside, flattened her out, and slid one of the branches slightly askew to let in more light. Then I climbed into my bag where, warm and quiet, I slept for an hour. When I woke I dressed, nibbled on some jerky, and stepped back into the harness. I dug a ramp of sorts to pull her out of the bowl beneath the tree. Once I got her up on flat ground again, I stamped my foot five or six times. It felt wet. Wet meant cold. And cold was bad. Especially for toes. I’d need to watch this.

  Late in the afternoon the sun poked through, heated things up slightly, which turned the snow more toward mush—wet and sticky. I’d take two or three steps, fall, bury myself in snow, climb out, take two or three more steps, bury myself again…. This went on for a couple of hours.

  By nightfall we’d come maybe two and a half miles. A total of three and a half or four from the crash site. Sometimes I’d take a minute rest between steps, and yet it wasn’t enough. Clouds spilled over the mountains, nighttime fell quickly, and I could barely move. I was cold and soaking wet, but I didn’t have the energy to make a fire. The little voice inside my head was telling me I couldn’t keep this up for long. I needed to find a place to hole up tomorrow and rest a day.

  Ashley too was tired. She’d been bracing herself all day against the what-if or possible fall. That was taking its toll on her.

  We camped at a rock outcropping. A ledge that, given years of use by critters, had made somewhat of a cave. Good protection from the wind and snow, while also offering a one-in-a-million view. I propped Ashley up against the wall, giving her the full effect of the panorama. She cracked her eyes open and said, “Wow. Never seen anything like that.”

  “Me either,” was all I could mutter. I sat down. Totally zonked. “Would it be all right with you if we didn’t have a fire tonight?”

  She nodded.

  I stripped out of my wet clothes and tried to hang what I could along the inside of the rock ledge. Even though the outside temperature was in the teens, my inner layer of Capilene was dripping with sweat. I pulled on my only pair of boxer shorts, slipped into my bag, closed my eyes, and only then thought of my boots. If I didn’t get my left boot dry, tomorrow would be a miserable day.

  I climbed out. Grabbed handfuls of dead pine needles and small twigs and built a teepee about a foot tall. I stacked the dry needles inside, along with a few branches still holding on to their dead needles. I knew I would only get one shot at this.

  I took out Grover’s lighter, rubbed it between my palms for some reason that I can’t explain, stuck it inside the teepee, and struck it. It sparked, but no flame. I shook it.

  “Come on, just one time.”

  I struck it again. Nothing.

  “Last time.”

  I struck it, a flame appeared, grabbed the pine needles, and was gone. The flame didn’t last more than a second. But it was long enough to light the needles—which are incredibly flammable. If you’ve ever set a Christmas tree on fire you know what I mean. I slowly fed more twigs into it, blowing lightly at the base. The fire grew, I fed more tinder into it, and once I felt like it had caught, I searched for larger sticks. Maybe even a log.

  Dead on my feet, I found enough wood to feed the fire for a few hours, and stacked rocks alongside the edge to insulate it while creating an opening in the back so the heat could escape and waft in our direction. I set my boots at the base of a crack between two of the rocks. Close enough to dry but not melt the rubber. Peeled off my jacket. Climbed into my bag and fell asleep seconds after my head hit the ground.

  My last thought was knowing that Grover’s lighter was finished. It had given us its last flame. Conditions continued to worsen. Wet clothes, wet feet, blisters, and little energy. We had the cooked mountain lion, but even at our current rate of eating it sparingly, we might have two days left.

  That included Napoleon. If we didn’t feed him, maybe three.

  Problem was, I couldn’t not feed him. Intellectually and in different circumstances, say the warm comfort of my office or operating suite, I might talk about how I’d eat Napoleon in dire conditions. But in truth, now that I was in those dire conditions, I couldn’t eat him. Every time I looked at him, he licked my face and wagged his tail. And every time the wind blew he stood up, facing into it, and growled. Anything with that tough a spirit deserves a chance.

  Others might have already carved him into dog steaks and filled up, but I just couldn’t. He was probably tough as old shoe leather anyway. But, to be honest, every time I looked at him, I saw Grover. Maybe that’s reason enough.

  SIX OR SEVEN HOURS LATER, with the first hint of daylight crawling across the gray and white mountains before us, my eyes cracked open to the unexpected sound of a hot crackling fire. The meaning of the sound registered in my brain, and I shot upright—fearful that I’d set us on fire.

  I had not.

  Ashley was tending it. And had been, for several hours. My clothes were warm, dry, and oddly enough, folded on top of a rock a few feet from the fire. She was poking at the fire with a long green evergreen limb, which she got from I don’t know where. The ground around her sled was bare. She’d picked it clean. Anything within arm’s reach had been thrown into the fire to keep it going. Now she was using the last of the sticks I’d gathered, which explained the crackling. My boots had been turned, and the leather was dry. As were my socks. I stood there rubbing my eyes, my boxers falling off my hips now that they were two sizes too big.

  “Hi.” She pointed with her stick—the end of which was smoking. “You might think about buying down one or two sizes when we get out of here. Those are kind of big. And”—she made a little circle with her stick—“buy some with a button fly You selling hot dogs?”

  I covered up, rubbed my eyes, and lay back down. “I’d like some coffee, a cinnamon bun, six eggs over medium, a New York strip, some hash browns, more coffee, some orange juice, a piece of key lime pie, and a bowl of apple—no, make that peach cobbler.”

  “Can I have some?”

  I sat up. “You didn’t sleep much, did you?”

  She shrugged. “Couldn’t. You were pretty tired, even talked in your sleep. And your clothes were dripping wet. I can’t do much, but this…” She circled the fire with her stick. “I can do.”

  “Thanks. Really.” I dressed. Pulled on my warm boots, which brought a smile to my face, and grabbed the hatchet. “I’ll be back.”

  I returned a half hour later, arms full. I made three more trips. I’d heard that wives and mothers in African tribes can spend three to ten hours a day, depending on conditions, searching for water and firewood.

  Now I understood why.

  I cranked the fire up, melted some snow, heated up some jerky, and fed both Ashley and Napoleon. She chewed quietly, pointing at the dog. “His ribs are showing.”

&n
bsp; “Yeah…I think he’d like to be out of here.”

  Her voice softened, betraying both humor and seriousness.

  “Me too.”

  We were quiet awhile. The fire felt good.

  “How’s the leg?”

  She shrugged.

  I knelt, unzipped her bag, and ran my hand along her thigh. The swelling had decreased and the purple had quit spreading. Both good signs. She looked up at me while I stared at the stitches in her face. “I need to pull those out before the skin grows over them.”

  She nodded. I pulled out my Swiss Army knife, snipped each stitch, and then began the rather painful and unpleasant experience of pulling them out. She held out her palm, and I laid each stitch into it. She winced but never cried out.

  When I’d finished, she crossed her arms and asked, “How do I look?”

  “Nothing a good plastic surgeon can’t fix.”

  “That bad?”

  “Neosporin or vitamin E oil would be helpful once we get home. Lessen the scars.”

  “Vitamin E oil?”

  “Yeah. Rachel used to have me put it on her stomach to reduce the stretch marks when she was pregnant with the twins.”

  “I’ll bet they miss you.”

  “I miss them.”

  She changed the subject. “Don’t know if you’ve had time to think about it yet, but what’s the plan?”

  “Shelter and food.” I unconsciously looked at my watch, forgetting it was dead, and said, “We’re on a bit of a plateau here. It continues another mile or so through trees like this, then drops off, if I remember right. I’d like to get there tonight. If it drops off, it drops off to something. I’m thinking a water source. Lake, stream, something. Maybe we can hole up there a few days and give me a chance to find some food.”

  She eyed the bow, strapped to the top of the sled. “Are six arrows enough?”

  I shrugged. “Don’t have much choice.” I rubbed my chest. “My ribs feel better, but if I pull that thing all the way back, it stings a bit. Grover’s draw length was longer than mine, so it’s harder for me to pull it and hold it back than it should be.”