The Mountain Between Us

by Charles Martin

  Ashley spoke. “I’m glad he’s putting some meat back on his bones. I was starting to worry about him.”

  When I leaned over, my recorder slipped out of my shirt pocket. She noticed it and spoke without looking at me. “How are the batteries holding up?”

  “Thanks to the airport, batteries are not a problem.”

  “The airport seems like a long time ago. Another life even.”

  “Yes, it does.”

  She smiled. “Those batteries the same size you use for your shorts?”

  “Very funny.”

  “So…what are you telling her?”

  I didn’t respond.

  “Is that too personal?”

  “No.”

  “What then?”

  “Well…I have described the snow and the crappy situation in which we find ourselves.”

  “You saying you don’t like having me as a traveling companion?”

  “No. Other than having to haul you halfway across Utah, you’re a great traveling companion.”

  She laughed. “I’ll give you that. Why don’t you tell her what you miss about her?”

  The moon must have been shining behind the clouds, because an eerie and bright light shone. More of a glow, it cast down through our window and threw a shadow on the concrete floor.

  “I’ve done that.”

  “Certainly, you haven’t told her everything.”

  I turned the recorder in my hands. “I’ve told her a good bit. Why don’t you tell me what you miss about Vince.”

  “Let’s see…I miss his cappuccino maker, and the smell of his Mercedes, and the sparse cleanliness of his bachelor’s penthouse…the view off the balcony at night is really something. If the Braves are playing you can see the lights of Turner Field. Boy…a hot dog would be good right now. I’d even settle for one of those big pretzels. What else? I miss his laughter and the way he checks on me. He’s very good at calling me even when he’s busy.”

  “You’re hungry, aren’t you?”

  “No…what makes you say that?”

  After she fell asleep, I lay awake a long time, thinking. She had told me very little about Vince.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

  A month passed. You were ready to climb the walls. Couldn’t wait for the next ultrasound. We got to the hospital, and Steve met us in the room. The attendant squirted the goo and Steve squinted, watching the screen.

  The attendant stopped circling and looked at him. A blank stare. You were the only one who didn’t know. You said, “Somebody better start talking to me.”

  Steve handed you a towel and looked at the technician, who left the room. I helped you wipe the goo off and sat you up.

  Steve leaned against the wall. “The tear has worsened. A lot.” He fumbled with his hands. “This doesn’t mean you can’t have more kids, Rachel. It’s an anomaly. You’re healthy, you can have more children.”

  You looked at me, so I translated. “Honey…the abruption has…worsened. Sort of hanging by a thread.”

  You looked at Steve. “Are my babies okay?”

  “For the moment.”

  “Getting nutrition?”

  “Yes, but…”

  You held up your hands, two stop signs. “But are they, as of this moment, okay?”

  “Yes, but…”

  “But what? What else is there to talk about? I stay on bed rest. I rent a room in this hospital. I do something. Anything.”

  Steve shook his head. “Rachel…if it tears…”

  You shook your head. “But as of this moment, it hasn’t.”

  “Rachel…if you were in OR right now, and I was scrubbed for surgery, and it tore, I’m not sure I’d have enough time to get them out and stop the bleeding before you bled to death. Your life is in danger. I need to take the babies.”

  You looked at him like he’d lost his mind. “Where are you going to take them?”

  He shrugged. “You know what I mean.”

  “I’m not letting you do any such thing.”

  “If you don’t…none of you will make it.”

  “What chance do I have? I mean, in percent?”

  “If I wheel you into surgery right now, real good. Beyond that, the numbers fall off a cliff.”

  “And if not…?”

  “Even if we monitor you, we won’t know it until it’s too late. Once it tears, the internal bleeding will…”

  “But it is conceivable that if I can lie real still for the next, what…four weeks, then I can have a C-section and we can drive home with a happy family, two cribs, two baby monitors, and two very tired parents? Well? Is it conceivable?”

  “With total bed rest, it is conceivable, but not likely. You have better odds in Vegas. You need to understand that this is like walking around with a cyanide tablet in your stomach. Once it’s broken, we can’t unbreak it.”

  “My children are not cyanide.”

  “Rachel…”

  You held a finger in the air. “Is there a chance we could make it?”

  “Technically, yes…but…”

  You pointed at the screen. “I’ve seen their faces. You showed them to me with your fancy 3D hi-def television that you’re so proud of.”

  “You’re not being reasonable.”

  “I’ll not sleep the rest of my life looking at their faces on the backs of my eyelids. Wondering what if I let you “take” them, when in reality you were wrong and they’d have made it and if it weren’t for you and your dire predictions, they’d be right here.”

  He had no comment. Just looked at me. He shrugged. “Rachel…at this point, they’re just…clumps of cells.”

  You took his hand, pressed it to your stomach. “Steve, I’d like to you meet Michael and Hannah. They’re pleased to meet you. Hannah plays piano. She could be the next Mozart. And Michael, he’s a math wizard, and a runner like his daddy. He thinks he can find a cure for cancer.”

  Steve shook his head.

  You two were getting nowhere. Not that I was much help.

  I piped in. “How long do we have? I mean, realistically, to make this decision…when everyone’s emotions aren’t so high.”

  Steve shrugged. “I can push it to first thing tomorrow morning.” He looked at you. “You can have more children. This is not something you will incur again. It’s a fluke. An accident of nature. You can start again right away.”

  You placed your palm across your stomach. “Steve…we didn’t have an accident. We made babies.”

  The ride home was quiet. You sat with your hands on your stomach, legs crossed.

  I parked and met you on the porch. The breeze was tugging at your hair.

  I spoke first. “Honey, let me get you into bed.”

  You nodded, and I propped you up there. We sat staring out across the waves. The ocean was choppy. The silence was thick.

  “Hey…your chances aren’t real good.”

  “Like what are they?”

  “I’d say less than 10 percent.”

  “What does Steve say?”

  “He doesn’t think it’s that much.”

  You turned. “Seventy-five years ago this wasn’t even an issue. People didn’t have this much information.”

  I nodded. “You’re right. But we’re not living in the Great Depression. We’re living now. And, either thanks to or in spite of modern medicine, we have technology, which is giving us a choice.”

  Your head tilted. “Ben…we made our choice. That night, about five months ago. It’s the risk we took then, and it’s the one we’re taking now.”

  I bit my lip.

  You placed my palm on your stomach. “I can see their faces. Michael has your eyes and Hannah has my nose…I know how they smell, which side of their lips turn up when they smile, whether or not their ear lobes are connected, the wrinkles in their fingers. They are a part of me…of us.”

  “This is selfish.”

  “I’m sorry you see it that way.”

  “Ten percent is nothing. It’s a death senten
ce.”

  “It’s a sliver of hope. A possibility.”

  “You’re willing to bet on a sliver?”

  “Ben, I will not play God.”

  “I’m not asking you to play God. I’m asking you to let him work it out. Let God be God. I’ve seen all the pictures. Jesus with all the children. Let him have two more. We’ll see them when we get there.”

  You turned. “The only way he’s getting these two is to make me part of the deal.” You shook your head, turning back. The tears came in earnest. “Seriously, what percent is enough for you? If Steve had a different number, what would that number be?”

  I shrugged. “Somewhere north of fifty.”

  You shook your head. Touched my face. “There’s always hope.”

  I was angry. Bitter. I couldn’t change your mind. The very thing I loved about you, your laser-beamed focus, anchored strength, was the very thing I was fighting. And at that moment, I hated it. “Rachel…there is no hope. You’re playing God with you.”

  “I love you, Ben Payne.”

  “Then act like it.”

  “I am.”

  “You don’t love me. And you don’t even love them. You just love the idea of them. If you did, then you’d be in surgery right now.”

  “It’s because of you that I love them.”

  “Forget them. I don’t want them. Go away. We’ll make more.”

  “You don’t mean that.”

  “Rachel, if I had it my way, you’d be in surgery right now.”

  “Are you absolutely certain it’ll tear loose?”

  “No, but…”

  “Are my babies alive right now?”

  “Rachel…I’ve spent the last fifteen years of my life studying medicine. I come at this with some credibility. This is no kids’ game. This will kill you. You will die and leave me alone.”

  You turned, amazement in your eyes. “Ben…there are no guarantees. This is the chance we take. The chance we took.”

  “Why are you being so stubborn? Think about someone other than yourself for a minute. Why are you being so selfish?”

  “Ben…I’m not thinking about me. One day you’ll see that.”

  “Well…you’re certainly not thinking about me.”

  I changed, laced up my shoes, and tore out the door, nearly slamming it off its hinges.

  I took off running. A half mile down the beach, I turned. You were standing on the porch, leaning against the railing. Watching me.

  When I close my eyes, I can still see you.

  And whenever I get to this point in our story…I never quite know how to talk about what comes next.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

  Two days passed. Three weeks since the crash. One moment, it seemed like a year. At another, like a day. It was an odd feeling. A place where time both sped and crawled.

  I woke and found myself groggy, holding my head in my hands. In the last couple of days we’d eaten rabbit and two ground squirrels, but nothing bigger. We weren’t wasting away as quickly, but we weren’t putting much in the bank either. I needed a massive influx of calories if I hoped to get us out of here. In the A-frame, we were safe and warm. Stoking the fire, napping, and playing Monopoly required little energy. But as soon as I strapped on the harness and we stepped out the door, all bets were off. Between the cold, shivering, wind, driving snow, sweating, and physical exertion, I’d never make it on an empty tank.

  We needed several days of stored food because of the simple fact that I couldn’t pull, take care of Ashley, and hunt. I needed to hunt now, freeze the meat, preferably seven days’ worth, and strike out. To set out before was to invite a cold, hungry death.

  It might be anyway.

  Ashley woke shortly after me. She stretched and said, “I keep hoping to crack open my eyes and find that you’ve hauled us out of this place, back to the world where train horns echo through the night and the smell of Starbucks lures me on my way to my office and my biggest struggles are road rage and a phone that rings more than I wish, and where…” She fidgeted, a grimace on her face. “Advil exists. And…” She laughed. “Disposable razors and shaving cream are found.”

  I had grown used to that laugh. I scratched my face. The beard had come in thick and grown past the place where it itched my face. “Amen to that.”

  She lay back. “I’d give a thousand dollars for some scrambled eggs, toast, cheese grits—heavy on the cheese, and spicy sausage.” She stuck a finger in the air. “Bookended by a pot of coffee and finished with a cheese Danish.”

  I walked to the kitchen to boil some water. My stomach was growling. “You’re not helping me.”

  I MASSAGED ASHLEY’S LEGS, and was encouraged by both the healthy blood flow and lack of swelling. I got her settled in the chair and told her, “I might be gone most of the day. Probably be dark when I get back.” She nodded, pulled Napoleon up onto her lap, and I set the puzzle next to her. I packed my bag into my pack, buckled on the snowshoes, grabbed the bow and hatchet, and set off around the lake. I had gotten better at walking in the snowshoes, which meant I wasn’t always beating the insides together. I brought along both of Grover’s fly reels in the event I could make a few snares.

  The wind had picked up and was swirling the snow. Tiny flakes, thick, blowing fast and stinging my face. I circled the lake, walking in the direction I’d spotted the cow moose and her yearling days before. The yearling would feed us for two weeks.

  I walked the rim of the lake, setting two snares in areas where the tracks suggested animal traffic. I cut limbs and spread debris, further narrowing the lane of travel, and hung loops just off the surface of the snow.

  When I reached the other end of the lake, I found the snow torn up and moose tracks everywhere. Not directional-tracks, but standing-around-eating-tracks. Wasn’t hard to figure out. The moose stood on the lake and ate the tree limbs extending out over what, during summertime, was water. The ice and snow allowed them to eat higher on the branches—essentially standing on the water.

  I needed a blind, a place to hide. The lake was lined with lodgepole pine, spruce, Douglas fir, and aspen. I picked out an aspen close to the tracks with branches low to the ground, located about thirty yards downwind from where they fed. I cut limbs, inserted them into the tree to thicken it so nothing could see me from behind, then dug out the snow beneath the tree and packed it up into the underside of the limbs. Doing so blocked the wind and made for a cozy blind. Beneath the tree were several large rocks. I rolled one up against the base and used it as a chair, leaning against the trunk. I cut a small “window” in front of me to shoot through, nocked an arrow, slid into my bag up to my chest, and began the long wait. Around lunchtime I shot a rabbit, retrieved it, and buried it in the snow alongside me. By midafternoon I’d seen nothing, so I napped, waking an hour before dark.

  Night fell, and I walked back. Wasn’t hard finding my way; I just kept the trees on my right and the large white, open area on my left. The first snare remained untouched, the second had been moved but remained empty, suggesting something had bumped it. I reset it and trudged home, realizing I needed to increase my chances. Sort of like Bingo. If you really want to win, play more boards.

  I cleaned the rabbit and threaded it through the rod hanging horizontally over the fire. I bathed my face and hands, and after an hour or so, we ate. Ashley was chatty. The consequence of my having left her alone all day. I was not. I’d been left alone with my thoughts and one or two questions I couldn’t answer.

  She picked up on it. “You don’t want to talk, do you?”

  I’d finished eating and I was stripping line off Grover’s fly reels to make new snares. “Sorry. Guess I don’t multitask very well.”

  “You run the ER at your hospital, right?”

  I nodded.

  “So, you deal with multiple traumas at once?”

  Another nod.

  “I imagine you multitask just fine. What is it?”

  “Are you interviewing me for an article?”


  She raised both eyebrows. Universal women’s body language for I’m waiting.

  The fly line was light green and blended in well with the branches. It should work. I’d cut twelve equal pieces of line, all about eight feet in length, and looped the ends with slipknots. I sat on my bag, legs crossed. “We’re at a bit of a crossroads.”

  “We’ve been at one since our plane went down.”

  “True, but this one is a bit different.”

  “How so?”

  I shrugged. “Stay or go. We’ve got shelter here, warmth, maybe somebody will stumble upon us, but I think it’s more likely that’d be two or three months off. If we head out, we’re taking our chances on shelter and food, and we don’t know how far we have to go. If we could increase our food stores, we could cook it here, wrap it up, and probably last a week or two out there. The new sled will move easier, the snowshoes will work, but…”

  “But, what?”

  “We’re left with one big unknown.”

  “Which is?”

  “How far? We don’t know if we’re twenty miles or fifty or more. It’s been snowing for I don’t know how long, there’s four feet of fresh powder, avalanches will be a constant concern, and…”

  “Yes…?”

  “What if I walk you out into the middle of that mess only to get us both killed—when if we stayed here, we might get lucky and hold out.”

  She lay back. “Sounds like you’re in a pickle.”

  “Me?”

  “Yeah, you.”

  “I’m not deciding for us. We are.”

  She closed her eyes. “Let’s sleep on it. You don’t have to decide right now.”

  “I told you, I’m not deciding. We are.”

  She smiled. “I’m going to sleep. You can give me your decision in the morning.”

  “You’re not listening.”

  She pulled Napoleon up underneath her arm and pulled the bag up around her shoulders.