During a camping trip Steve and Danny find a crashed plane and a couple of million dollars in stolen money. Read what happens when the two meet the criminals who want to pick up their money.

Part One

"Why don't we kill him? Then he would cause no trouble." The woman nodded at Steve, who stared stonily back at her. "And we need only one of them in case we need a hostage."

Steve heard his death sentence... just making out the words over the distant thunder of the river crashing over the boulders down the mountainside behind them.

The other's, two men, began to debate the woman's suggestion. Steve brought his head up for one last look at Danny. "My God, do I have to do everything myself?" The woman inquired rhetorically, and the bullet slammed into Steve's chest, left side - knocking him back. He went with it, letting himself topple right over the side of the mountain. He nearly blacked out with the pain.

Steve slid and slithered a few feet, stones showering down around him, the momentum of his fall carrying him several yards down the slope. He rolled, trying to protect his head from the trees and boulders trying to absorb how badly he'd been hit, listening to the sound of the shot reverberating off the mountains - and the echo of Danny's cry.

Danny sounded… There were no words to describe that cry. Horror, grief - he sounded mortally wounded. And after that one cry, he sounded mad enough to kill - beyond rage, beyond sanity. Steve, snatching frantically for handholds, anything to slow his descent, could hear his partner over the roar of the river below, ranting, swearing, threatening.

And then silence.

Damn. Danny…

Let him be okay.

Don't let them have changed their minds, don't let them have killed him…

Steve managed to grab onto a tangle of tree roots. A boulder, loosened by his brush against it, crashed on down the slope and plunged into the tumbling water below with a loud splash. There had been no second shot, right? He hadn't heard a second shot.

The vegetation he was holding on to loosened in the wet soil above him, Steve refocused on his own peril: legs dangling over an outcrop of rocks and nothing but the cold night air and a couple hundred feet of falling beneath him. He shifted his grip, hauled himself up a foot, onto firmer ground. Dug his fingers and boot tips into the soggy earth.

He could hear voices drifting above him. "He went into the river," one of the men called. "I heard his body hit the water."

Steve, a couple of yards to the left, jammed his face into his arm and smothered his whimpers in his jacket sleeve. He had to stay motionless, had to stay quiet, but the pain from being shot was stupefying. Almost impossible to get beyond it. But after a few moments of relative calm - of no longer falling down the slope and no more rocks raining down on him - and no more shooting at him - he did manage to think; and he began to wonder why he wasn't soaked in blood. There had been a hell of blood other times; his body had begun to shut down immediately. That wasn't happening. Excruciating though the pain was, it was just… pain.

He reached up, feeling the hole in his jacket. He poked his finger through the leather, felt the hole in his shirt pocket - and there was dampness there, but not nearly enough - and then his fingertip touched metal. Dented metal. The stainless steel of Danny's flask, which he had plugged in earlier that day, leaking bourbon around the lodged bullet in its face. And for one crazy moment Steve almost laughed. Damn. Saved by the bourbon. He struggled against the hysterical giggles threatening to burst out of his throat. It wasn't that funny, for God's sake, and he was still in a hell of a lot of trouble, but the relief of not being really shot again outweighed the extreme pain of being… well, shot again.

Steve pulled himself up a few inches, trying for a more secure position, then rested, gathering himself, listening for what was happening topside. He couldn't hear much over the river's boom. But then he heard voices - and froze. He knew that the woman had been joined by the two men, that they were all looking over the edge of the cliff, trying to spot his body in the water below - or on the slope. He could just make out snatches of their discussion.

"He went in the river… splash was too heavy to be anything else…"

"What's that? There on the left?"

Steve stopped breathing, waiting, eyes staring into the darkness. Someone turned a flashlight on. The circle of light picked out a fallen tree, moved slowly across the hillside towards him… He lay very still, trying not to breathe, praying the darkness and the scraggly vegetation concealed him.

"I'm telling you, he went in the river. I heard him hit the water."

The flashlight switched off. The figures at the top of the hillside drew back. Steve closed his eyes. His chest hurt like he'd been kicked by a mule. And while the bullet hadn't penetrated anything more vital than Danny's flask, the impact had left bruises and contusions down the left side of his chest. The pain was draining, especially once the adrenaline that had numbed him to the worst of it faded away during the long, long minutes while he waited for the criminals to leave.

It took him forty-five minutes to crawl six yards, and by then Steve was beginning to panic about Danny. He wasn't sure how long they planned on keeping Danny alive. He wasn't sure why they felt they might need a hostage. Steve continued on his wet and muddy way, clambering up a few inches at a time. And then, finally, he was dragging himself over the embankment, lungs burning, muscles screaming, body soaked in sweat.

Steve crawled away from the edge, scanning the now empty area, verifying - and re-verifying - that Danny was not lying dead there. He let himself collapse, resting his head on his forearms, closing his eyes. His heart was racketing around his chest like it was trying to find an escape route. Steve only allowed himself a few minutes before he pushed up and began trying to figure which way the woman and her pals had taken Danny.

To be continued…