The Mountain Between Us

Speaking to Rachel, Ben recalls the state meet in his senior year of high school. He won his first three races, setting three state records, and then prepared for the mile race. Much hype surrounded the race, and his father was convinced that he could break four minutes and set a fourth state record.

On the last lap of the race, Ben’s pace was under four minutes. However, he thought of his father and realized that—no matter his time—his father would never be happy. He intentionally slowed down, finishing the race in four minutes and 37 milliseconds. Nevertheless, he won the race and set a state record.

Rachel accompanied him home to change before they went out to celebrate. Ben’s father was waiting for him. He had been drinking—which he rarely did—and angrily punched Ben in the face, breaking his nose. When he turned on Rachel, Ben retaliated, shoving his father through the sliding glass door and shattering it. He and Rachel went to the hospital to get his nose set and then went to an all-night diner to eat pie and celebrate.

The next morning, Ben’s father didn’t wake him up to run for the first time in years. Unsure what to do with himself, Ben spent the entire day walking along the beach. At the end of the day, Rachel found him. Ben realized that she had been crying. She told him that she didn’t want things to end between them even though she knew that they were going to different schools.

Ben hikes several miles up the mountain, resolving to get a view of everything around them. He’s disappointed to see wilderness stretching in every direction. The only sign of anything potentially man-made is a trail far in the distance between two mountains. He heads toward it to try to determine where it is, but the GPS dies.

Despite his exhaustion and the failing light, Ben heads back toward camp. He doesn’t want Ashley to worry, and he knows that she’ll stay awake waiting for him until he returns.

Ben talks to Rachel about their time together in college. After he chose a school, he called the track coach and asked him to look into Rachel. He agreed to give her a scholarship to encourage Ben to come there. They both ran all four years, and, to Ben’s knowledge, his father never came to see him run. He realized that he didn’t care, though, since running had become a part of his and Rachel’s relationship.

In their fourth year, Ben and Rachel went home for spring break. On the beach one day, she seemed annoyed. She finally confronted Ben about wanting to marry him, frustrated that he hadn’t asked yet. On the beach, he knelt in the water and proposed to her, and she accepted.

Ben gets back to Ashley around midnight. He spots tracks outside their snow cave. They go to and from the entrance, and he spots flattened snow where the animal had lain outside. He realizes that it likely smells “sickness” within their camp and is waiting for them to die.

Inside, Ashley is barely conscious. He gives her water and pain medication. She forces him to take two Tylenol. He tells her the news about the surrounding area, joking that he’s sure they’ll find a hospital nearby.

Ashley asks Ben about the compass around his neck. He tells her that Rachel gave it to him and that he uses it every time he goes hiking. He explains magnetic north and how the compass works.

Ben talks with Rachel. He recalls the day that he got the recorder from her. They lived in Colorado after college. Rachel got a job in Florida, so they moved back to Ben’s home. He drove the moving truck across the country alone. When he got in the truck, he found a box containing the recorder inside. Rachel recorded her entire day for him, walking him through everything she did, to comfort Ben on his drive. She told him that she wanted to use the recorder to pass back and forth between each other. They would take turns recording messages and then listen to them at work so that they could hear each other’s voices whenever they wanted.

Ben ends his message by telling Rachel that he’s worried about his and Ashley’s survival. He’s desperate to get to a lower elevation since he can feel how much the lack of oxygen is affecting him.

Ben lays in bed for most of the next day. Near sundown, he forces himself to go out and try to fish. Before he leaves the camp, he covers the animal’s tracks so that he can see if new ones appear. He avoids looking at Grover the entire time, realizing that he needs to bury the body but lacking the energy to do so.

Ben fishes at several different lakes using Grover’s gear before he manages to catch a few small trout. He uses them as bait and catches 47 tiny trout in total.

When Ben returns to camp, he practices using Grover’s bow. He can draw it, but it causes extreme pain in his ribs. Nevertheless, he has decent accuracy. At the entrance to the camp, Ben finds several new tracks. He again spots where the animal had lain in the snow.

Ben cooks several trout and helps Ashley eat. He also gives her coffee and the last of their strong pain medication, leaving them only a handful of Tylenol. After a few hours, Ben goes outside. He sees a shadow moving into the trees as Napolean snarls beside him.

Ben recalls his honeymoon. They went to a cabin in the woods, where they spent their time hiking. Rachel asked Ben if he would still love her after they were married for “seventy years,” and he insisted that he would. He tells her in the recorder that she’s still the love of his life.

One night, Rachel gave Ben a present: an Iron Man watch. She insisted that each time he pushed the button to light it up, he would think of her.

In the middle of the night, Ben wakes to the sound of Napolean growling. He can see two eyes at the entrance to their enclosure, staring in. Napolean attacks it, and the two briefly scuffle before the animal runs away. Ben guesses that it was a mountain lion.

Ben finds a deep cut on Napolean’s shoulder. Ashley wakes up and helps him stitch it. He spends the rest of the night with the crossbow trained on the entrance.

Ben and Rachel moved into his father’s old home. He thought that it was weird at first, living where he had a difficult childhood, but Rachel insisted that they would remodel and make it their own.

One night, Ben worked well past the end of his shift after a car accident brought in a handful of people to the emergency room. In the middle of the night, he got home and stood by the window, looking out at the sea and thinking about life’s fragility. Rachel joined him in the living room. He told her what he was thinking about. She told him that she wanted to have a baby with him.

Ben confessed that Rachel was the person who brought him stability and purpose for the first time in his life. He never truly had love, given that he had no mother and that his father was abusive. However, Rachel showed him what love was, making him feel like he wasn’t drowning for the first time.

Ben decides to use Grover’s body as bait for the mountain lion. He spends two days sitting at the entrance with the bow drawn, drifting in and out of consciousness. He realizes that Ashley is getting much worse: She rarely moves and is fighting infection.

Napolean wakes Ben. He looks out and sees the mountain lion, around six feet long, by Grover’s body. He struggles to see the pin on the crossbow to aim. Just as he’s getting desperate, he hears Ashley beside him. She shoots their flair gun into the air, lighting the surrounding area. It gives Ben enough light to see the pin, and he shoots. The mountain lion runs.

Just from moving to the entrance, Ashley is exhausted and freezing. Ben doesn’t have the energy to carry her back to her bed, so he gets the sleeping bag and wraps it around her as they hold hands in the dark. After Ben gets Ashley back into her sleeping bag, he follows a trail of blood. He eventually finds the lion with the arrow through its neck. He cuts off its pelt and then brings the carcass back to their camp.

Ben finds Ashley shaking and barely breathing. He takes off his clothes and lies with her in the sleeping bag. He gives her water and Tylenol. When she finally feels stable, Ben goes out and drags the lion into their cave. He cooks the meat over the fire and then feeds some to Ashley.

Slowly, Ashley’s health returns. Her leg is swollen and likely infected, and Ben is nervous that it isn’t setting correctly. However, she’s well enough to joke with him about how stupid she was for getting onto a plane with two strangers. She kisses him on the forehead and thanks him for saving her.

Ben and Rachel discovered turtle nests near their home on the beach. Ben took a week off of work so that they could watch them hatch. As they sat on the shore, one of the turtles went in the wrong direction, so Rachel carried it down to the beach.

Afterward, Rachel noticed a “for sale” sign on the empty lot above the nests. She thought of how the plot was next to state land, so it would be difficult to build a large home on it. In addition, the plot had limited beach access because of the areas that were roped off for turtle nests. However, she suggested that they buy it, partially to protect the turtles.

A week later, Ben came home from work and found Rachel standing and looking out at the ocean. She gave him a box containing a compass, engraved with the words “My True North.” The card read, “So you can find your way back to me” (132). Ben then told her that he had a gift for her too. He showed her the offer he made to buy the property. It was expensive, so they would have to wait to build on it, but Rachel insisted that she wanted to build a small home with a large window overlooking the beach and the turtles.

Ben takes Grover’s body to bury him. He chooses a rock outcropping slightly higher up, thinking that Grover would enjoy the spot. He moves as much dirt and rocks aside as he can, unable to dig into the earth. Then, he piles rocks on top of Grover’s body.

He apologizes to Grover for taking him out into the wilderness and then jokingly points out that they’re lost because of him. He asks Grover for help in figuring out where to go. He isn’t concerned about himself but desperately wants Ashley to make it home. He points out that her “spirit” is breaking, despite her efforts to hide it.

Ben then compares having a broken heart to being “half dead,” like a shattered stained-glass window that one can never put back together again despite tireless efforts to do so. He looks up into the sky and sees two planes crossing, tens of thousands of feet above them. At their intersection, he sees what looks like an arrow pointing southeast. He takes it as a sign from Grover.

Ben tells Rachel that he and Ashley plan to move from the crash site. He knows that it will be a difficult journey to move Ashley, but he has realized that they can’t just stay in one spot and wait to die.