The Mountain Between Us

by Charles Martin

  It was dark except for the fire. I fed it with wood. Of which we had plenty.

  “You let me know when you get around to voicing the thing that’s really bothering you.”

  I could hear the smile in her voice. I scratched my head. “I just did.”

  “Nope. You did not. It’s still in there.” She pointed toward the door. “Why don’t you go for a walk. And take your recorder with you. By the time you get back, you’ll have figured it out.”

  “You…are annoying.”

  She nodded. “I’m trying to be more than just annoying. Now go for a walk. We’ll be here when you get back.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

  Did you have something to do with this? I don’t know how you did it, but I’d bet you put her next to me on the plane. I’m not sure what she’s talking about. Well…maybe I do a little, but that doesn’t make her right. Okay, it makes her right. There. She’s right. And I’m right back here talking into this thing ’cause I can’t get what I think out my mouth.

  Both of you should be happy.

  But what am I supposed to do? I haven’t hunted seriously since Granddaddy took me in school. Well, maybe a bird hunt here and there. A few deer hunts. But it’s never mattered. It didn’t matter then. We were just hanging out. Granddaddy took me hunting because he should’ve taken Dad when he was a boy, didn’t, and Dad grew up a jerk. I was the consolation prize. Which was fine with me; I loved him, he loved me, and we became pals, and it got me out from under Dad’s thumb. But if we didn’t shoot anything, neither of us died. We just stopped at Waffle House on the way home. Maybe McDonald’s. Or Wendy’s. Sometimes the seafood buffet. It was a social thing. Not a life or death thing.

  Out here, if I miss, wound it and can’t find it, or just don’t see anything ’cause it either smells me or sees me, then we die. Out here, it matters. A lot. I should have watched more TV. What’s that guy’s name? Bear Grylls? And Survivorman. What’s his name? I’ll bet either of those guys would already be out of here. If they could see me, they’d probably laugh at me.

  I just didn’t know when I got on Grover’s plane that I was going to have to hunt my way out of this eternal wilderness. I know a lot of people have survived much worse conditions, but ours aren’t getting any better. It’s like…it’s like being in hell when things froze over. It’s not like I have any idea what I’m doing. And I’m scared that if I don’t get it figured out, that girl in there is going to die a slow, painful death.

  There. I said it. I feel responsible. How can I not? She should be back at her office, after her honeymoon, talking on the phone, e-mailing her friends, racing to meet a deadline, glowing in the post-wedding bliss. Not lying helpless out here in the middle of nowhere with a bumbling, tongue-tied idiot who’s slowly starving her.

  I’ve got nothing to offer her. And I’ve got nothing to offer you. Now you’ve both got me talking to myself. What is it with you women? Can’t us guys not have the answer? Can’t we not know what we’re doing or what’s going to happen next? Can’t we be…incapable and broken and worn down and disheartened? Can’t we not know how we’re going to help or fix the problems we encounter?

  But, you already knew that, didn’t you? I’m not telling you anything you don’t already know.

  I’m sorry for yelling at you. This time…and the last.

  I guess she was right. Guess I needed to get out here and get this off my chest. To vent a little. But I’m not telling her that. Of course, she already knows it. It’s why she sent me out here. She’s bad as you. You two must be cut from the same cloth.

  Okay, I heard you. I’ll tell her. I know she’s lying there with a broken leg in the middle of nowhere, dependent upon a total stranger. Although we’re not as much strangers now as we once were. I mean, she hasn’t been to the bathroom in three weeks without my help. Even in the A-frame I’ve got to support her leg. She’s not any more happy about it than I am, but if I don’t she can’t bend or sit or put pressure on it. You ever tried squatting on one leg? Ain’t easy. I tried it. So anyway, we’re not strangers.

  And yes, I’ve looked at her, and no, it’s not what you’re thinking. If you know what I mean? Well, of course, I find her attractive. She is. She’s…incredible. Honey, she’s getting married, and I’m trying to get her home to her fiancé. I don’t know if she likes him or not. Sometimes I think yes. Other times I think no.

  I’m not having this conversation with you.

  Yes, she has legs like yours. No, she’s…bigger. Not sure what size she wears. It’s not like I’m checking bra tags. Well, of course, I’ve seen them. I had to take it off her after the crash.

  No, I’m not having a tough time with all this. I’m…I’m missing you.

  Honey, I’m her doctor. That’s all. Okay…maybe it’s a little tough. There, you want me to be honest. I said it. It’s not easy.…

  I will say this about her…her sense of humor is rare. Something I’ve found myself leaning on. Needing. It’s a strength thing. Like yours. Comes from way down deep. She’s tough. I think she’ll make it. Provided I don’t kill her first from starvation.

  Will I? Honey…I don’t know. Didn’t think I’d make it this far, but I have. Could it get worse? Sure. This is not the worst thing. The worst thing…is…being separated from you. That’s ten times tougher than being stuck out here.

  I’m going to bed now.

  And no, I don’t know what I’m going to do about the “it’s not easy” part. No, I’m not going to tell her. Absolutely not. Stop it. I’m not telling her. I’m not listening.

  All right, I might tell her…it’s a little tough. Fair?

  No, I don’t know how. I don’t know…I’ll be honest. Honesty’s never been a problem. Selfishness? Yes. Honesty? No. But you already knew that.

  And, yes, I’ll tell her I’m sorry.

  I’m sorry for raising my voice at you.

  Both now…and then.

  CHAPTER FORTY

  The following morning, I was out early. Setting twelve snares took the better part of the morning. When I finished, it was after lunch. A dozen plus the two I already had made fourteen. I’d set them up all around the lake. Some on the bank, some inland a hundred yards or so. I could check them all going to and coming from my moose blind.

  I got settled in my blind in the midafternoon, and sat three hours before I saw anything. A young moose, followed closely by its mother, came waltzing out onto the lake. It ran out a few feet, the snow above its knees, then turned and ran back to the trees and began feeding. It was too big to still be nursing on its mother’s milk. Most animals that I know of give birth after the harsh winters. If this calf was born in May or June of last year, it might have been eight months old now. The cow, its mother, was huge. Probably seven feet tall at the shoulders, and weighed every bit of a thousand pounds. She could have fed us for a year. But we didn’t need a year. If I took the calf, the cow would make it. If I took the cow, chances were good the calf would die anyway.

  They fed to within forty yards, and my heart started beating pretty fast. The snow was blowing into my face, which meant the wind was blowing that way, too. The cow moved to within twenty yards, and I thought seriously about shooting her. In hindsight, I should have. The calf didn’t let her get too far away and moved in closer. Getting within ten yards of me. Any closer and they’d hear my heart beating.

  I drew slowly, and the mother popped her head up. One big eye looking at me. Or, rather, at the tree. She knew something was in here. She just didn’t know what.

  I settled the pin on the calf’s chest, took a deep breath, let out half, and whispered, “Front sight, front sight, front sight…press.”

  The arrow disappeared into the chest of the calf. It hopped, bucked, spun in a circle, and took off running behind me, out across the lake, followed closely by the cow. The mother’s head and ears were held high. Full alert. Pounding through the snow.

  I caught my breath, allowed my nerves to settle, and thought back through th
e release and the arrow flight. I’d intended to hit it in the heart area—causing it to die quickly—but I’d flinched and pulled the shot right, causing it to hit too far back on the ribs. A difference of maybe four inches. That meant the arrow had pierced the lungs, which meant that the calf, afraid and in pain, would run. It couldn’t fight, so it took flight. That meant it would bleed itself to death, but in the process it might run a mile. The mother would follow the flight, and fight when needed.

  Once it ran into cover, it would stop and listen for its mother. Seeing the mother and feeling safe, the calf would lie down and bleed to death. If I stepped out of my hide and traipsed off after it, I would scare it some more, and push it.

  I waited almost an hour, nocked another arrow, and stepped out. The blood trail was a red brick road, trailing out across the lake. I was right. It had been a bad shot. The calf had run a straight path across the lake and up into the trees. I followed slowly, keeping a lookout for the mother. Cow moose are protective. They’d rather fight than run.

  It quit snowing, a breeze pushed out the clouds, and a three-quarter moon shone above me. It was the brightest night I’d seen in a long time. My shadow followed me into the trees. The only sounds were my breathing and the sound of snowshoes crunching snow.

  I took my time, and an hour later, I found them. The calf had made it nearly a mile from where I’d shot it, began climbing up a ridgeline and, too weak to continue, had toppled and rolled down. The mother stood over it, nudging it.

  It lay unmoving.

  The cow was standing straight up, as was her tail. I hollered, raised the bow high in the air, and tried to look bigger than I was. She looked at me, then back over her shoulder. While its nose is quite good, a moose’s eyesight is poor. I walked within forty yards, approaching downwind, arrow nocked. I didn’t want to shoot her, but if she charged me, I wasn’t sure I’d have much choice.

  I kept the trees close by. If needed, I could dive below one.

  At twenty yards, she’d had enough of my encroachment. She charged as if she was shot out of a cannon. I stepped for the trees, but tripped on my own snowshoes. She caught me with her head and chest, launching me into the limbs of the aspen. I slammed against the trunk, then dove below the lowest limbs, wrapping myself into a ball down around the base. She could smell me, but given the limbs, couldn’t see me. She snorted and made a deep bellowing sound, then shook the limbs with her chest, stamped her foot, and then stood back listening. Her ears perked up. She took one tentative step…

  They came all at once.

  Eight wolves spilled out of the trees higher up and descended upon the calf, tearing at it. She didn’t even hesitate. Nine animals collided in a spinning whirl and mass of fir, teeth, and hoof above the dead calf.

  I crawled out from underneath the tree, lay on my belly, and watched. She was standing over the calf, kicking. I heard bones crunching and saw wolves flying some twenty feet into the air. One jumped from somewhere, latched itself to her hindquarters and began tearing while another jumped onto her throat and clung to her windpipe and jugular. A third and fourth began tearing at her from underneath. Two more were still tearing at the calf. Two lay unmoving on the snow.

  With little regard for herself, she kicked the two atop the calf, sending them spinning through the air like footballs. Then she turned her attention to those that had latched onto her. She bucked and kicked and filled the air with splattering wolf blood and shattered wolf teeth. Within seconds, the wounded wolves had retreated to the trees, whining. They stood off some sixty or eighty yards, considering their options. She stood in the moonlight, breathing heavily, her own blood dripping on the snow, straddling the calf, nudging it with her muzzle. Every few minutes she’d fill her stomach with air and sound a deep bellow. I crawled into my bag, sat on top of my pack, and leaned against the tree.

  The wolves circled for another hour, made one feigned charge, then disappeared over the ridgeline, their howling echoing into the distance. In the hours that followed, she stood over the calf, shielding it from the snow that had returned. The field of red she had created slowly turned to white, burying the memory.

  At daylight, when the calf was little more than a white mound beneath her, the cow bellowed one last time and wandered off into the trees. Quietly, I pulled the calf into the trees. Its hams or hindquarters were gone, having been eaten—or at least torn off, by the wolves. Its shoulders too had been chewed at, but some meat remained. I cut out the backstraps, pulled as much meat as I could off the tops of the shoulders and the tenderloins from inside, between the shoulder blades. Doing so gave me maybe thirty pounds of meat. Enough to feed us for a week to ten days. Or more.

  I tied it down into my pack and went to retrieve the bow where I’d dropped it during the charge. It lay in pieces. The limbs had shattered, cams had broken, the string lay in a bird’s nest of a mess, and all the arrows had snapped when she’d stepped on it.

  I left it.

  I strapped on the snowshoes and walked back to the lake. At the far end I could see the A-frame, the fire glowing bright through the glass. I doubted Ashley had slept.

  I reached the red brick road and stopped. In the distance, the cow bellowed. She would probably do that all day and into tomorrow.

  I wasn’t sad for killing the calf. We needed to eat. If given the chance, I’d do it again. I wasn’t sad that the cow was lonely. She’d have another calf. Most had twins or triplets when they gave birth.

  The thing that had my stomach in knots was the sight of the mother, standing over her young.

  I sank my hand into the snow, ran my fingers through the clumps of red. Fresh snow had covered most of it. Only a dim outline remained. In an hour, there would be no reminder.

  Maybe it was my twenty-third morning, my weakened condition, my own weariness, the weight of the recorder pressed against my chest, the fading bellows of the cow, the thought of Ashley hurt and worried, maybe it was all of the above. I fell forward, landing on my knees, my pack driving me into the snow, which rose around my thighs. I scooped my hand beneath a red clump the size of my fist, lifted it to my nose, and breathed.

  To my left stood a tall pine. Straight and spiraling upward maybe sixty feet. The first limbs didn’t sprout out until some thirty feet up the trunk.

  I unbuckled my pack, pulled the hatchet from my belt, and crawled to the tree. With several good swings I cut a band, maybe two feet long, three inches wide, and an inch or two deep, into and around the base. Come summer, when the heat rose, drawing the sap up, it would ooze and trickle out the scar like tears.

  Chances are, it would do that for several years.

  CHAPTER FORTY-ONE

  You were right…you were right all along.

  CHAPTER FORTY-TWO

  Ashley’s face told me all I needed to know. I shuffled in and put down my pack. I didn’t realize how drained I was until I tried to speak. I shrugged. “I tried to call, but the line was busy….”

  She smiled, squinted her eyes, and fingered me closer. I knelt next to her. She raised her hand to my left eye, gently brushing it. “You’ve been cut. Deep, too.” Her palm brushed my cheek. “You okay?”

  Next to her, the puzzle lay complete. The picture had come together. It was a panoramic view of snowcapped mountains and a sun behind.

  “You finished it?” I turned my head, squinted my eyes. “Is it a sunrise or sunset?”

  She lay back, closed her eyes. “I think that depends on the eyes of the viewer.”

  I SPENT THE DAY cutting strips of meat and slow-cooking them over the fire. Ashley held up a small mirror and flinched while I sewed up the skin above my eye. Seven stitches in all. We ate off and on all day. If we even thought about food, we tore off a piece and chewed. Napoleon, too. We gave ourselves permission. We didn’t gorge, but we weren’t hungry either. By nighttime, we were content. All three of us.

  She asked me to run her a bath, which I did. While she bathed, I packed the sled. We didn’t have much left. My pack, our bags
, the blankets, the hatchet, the meat. Anything that wasn’t necessary, I left, lightening the load. I helped Ashley out of the bath, got her tucked into bed, then bathed myself, not knowing if and when I’d have another chance.

  I was asleep by nightfall, and slept until just before daylight. Maybe twelve hours in all. The longest stretch since the crash. In truth, the longest stretch in years. A decade maybe.

  Surgeons, especially trauma surgeons, are pretty good at making tough decisions, making them quickly and under a good bit of stress. I’d been struggling with ours. What to do? Go? Stay?

  I didn’t want to leave. I wanted to stay by that warm fire and hope somebody stumbled upon us, but we’d gotten lucky with the calf. I could hunt my whole life and not get that chance again. Not to mention the fact that the bow had been destroyed.

  I thought about setting the A-frame on fire. Just torching the whole place. But there was no guarantee that someone would investigate. And if we got three days out and had not gotten anywhere, or seen anything of promise, we needed a retreat. I was not Columbus. We needed someplace to come back to more than we needed the possibility that someone might see and investigate the fire.

  I cut the foam pad to fit into the bottom of the sled, laid two blankets atop it. Then I dressed Ashley in her clothes, strapped the brace back on her leg, zipped her up in her bag, slid her onto the sled, and lifted her head onto a third blanket I’d folded into a pillow. The sled was hollow in the middle, putting a pocket of air between her backside and the snow. That meant she’d stay warm. And maybe just as important, stay dry, because the plastic sled was totally impervious to moisture.

  I tied the tarp down across the top of her to protect her from the snow. She thumped it from the underside. “Snug as a bug in a rug.”

  I tucked Napoleon in alongside her. He must have been worried too, because he licked her face more than usual.