He’d been a country boy growing up. He hadn’t realized until he went to prison that he needed access to nature to thrive. All those years he’d lived in big cities trying to forget his rustic roots had been a joke. He was a man who could castrate a bull, spend the day throwing hundred-pound hay bales into a truck, or camp for a week in the dry flatlands of eastern Oregon with only a knife and a sleeping bag. When the plane had taken off he’d felt a surge of pure energy. Being able to see nature from the skies had powered fuel into his soul. Fuel he’d been starved of in prison. And the air had smelled a million times better.

He inhaled a deep breath of icy clean air and studied the silent marshal across the aisle. The agent’s skin was gray and his head sat twisted at an odd angle on his shoulders. Darrin couldn’t see any blood, but the man was obviously dead. Apparently, the marshal’s God had ignored his whispered prayers.

Darrin leaned into the aisle to look around the high seat in front of him to see into the cockpit. He caught his breath as ice stabbed his lungs. No cockpit. Just trees and snow.

There wasn’t just a hole in the ceiling of the plane; the entire front end was gone.

Where’s the cockpit? Where are the pilots?

His shoulder throbbed as he clumsily undid his seat buckle with cuffed, frozen hands. Standard operating procedure said he was to be transported in leg irons, waist chains, and cuffs. And with two marshals as escorts. But Darrin Besand wasn’t a standard transport. Cuffs and a single marshal were all he needed. And the cuffs were just a show for the pilots.

He stiffly straightened his body and stood in the aisle, swaying slightly. He stamped his feet to get some feeling back and swore as needles pricked his toes.

That pain’s a good sign, right?

He stared at the dead body. Odd to be looking over a dead body when he wasn’t the cause. He dug in the marshal’s inside jacket pocket for the key to unlock the cuffs. The agent was cold.

How long have we been down?

Darrin blew out a breath of air. The cloud of fog he created hung heavy before dissolving into the cold air. He fumbled with the key, dropping it several times and ineptly scrambling for it on the floor in the crowded cabin. His damned fingers were numb. The pinky fingers useless. Finally the cuffs dropped from his wrists and he relaxed as he rubbed at his wrists and hands. He threw the cuffs on the floor and roughly kicked them away. A rush of heat filled his veins as the cuffs slid across the aisle and out of sight under a seat.

Freedom.

With new strength, he opened the marshal’s suit jacket again and slipped the gun from the agent’s shoulder holster. He tucked it into his waistband and immediately hated the foreign feeling. It felt like the gun would drop down his pants. He wrestled the agent’s jacket off and removed the shoulder harness, buckling and adjusting the straps on himself, and hissing at the pain in his arm until the fit was good. He squared his shoulders, feeling the straps of the holster touch in odd places. He’d never worn one before.

He touched the butt of the gun at his side and practiced quickly drawing it out, annoyed at his clumsiness. He wasn’t real familiar with handguns. The only firearms he’d handled were shotguns as a teen on his dad’s farm. A shotgun didn’t take a lot of talent. To hit an offending crow or coyote he’d simply point it in the right direction and count on the wide spray of shot and loud noise to scare them off. Other than being on the wrong end of a handgun while being arrested, he hadn’t dealt with the smaller weapons. He preferred to use his bare hands on a victim.

Less mess. More personal.

Guns were impersonal. Darrin didn’t get pleasure from instant results. He liked his tight hands wrapped around a neck and staring into the fading eyes. Then easing off and watching light and comprehension ooze back into their sight. Tightening the grip and watching them panic and fade again.

Darrin breathed deep and his eyes drifted closed as a narcotic-like lightness touched his brain. The rush. He lived for the rush.

But an impersonal handgun might come in handy out here.

He took the cell phone from the marshal’s belt and turned it on.

No service.

He mashed his lips together as he stared at the small screen. The phone was fully charged. Maybe he could find a pocket of service outside somewhere. A better clearing or up on a peak or something.

He stepped out of the ruptured plane and his boots sank into the powder. Utter stillness and silence. He glanced back into the plane and eyed the small drifts of snow that had formed on the floor and again wondered how long the plane had sat in the snow. He squinted in the direction of the sun. The sky was completely overcast, but a faint glow pushing through the gray over the high mountain range to the east indicated the sun’s low position. Early morning. The plane went down yesterday evening, maybe ten hours ago. He glanced at the roof of the plane and blinked.

Four inches of fresh snow sat on top of the plane.

Why didn’t the cold kill me?

Darrin rubbed a hand down the stomach of his bright orange jumpsuit with prisoner stamped on the back. He had on a full set of clothes underneath the baggy suit. Probably the fact that he was wearing a wool sweater and had yanked on a Blazers knit cap to annoy the Lakers-loving marshal had saved him from freezing to death. The marshal had brought Darrin’s favorite Timberland boots to wear along with crispy new Levi’s. In the clothing he’d felt like a real man again. But then he’d had to cover it up with the orange suit. The damned jumpsuits were like wearing a plastic bag that itched and they’d made him sweat like crazy in his prison cell. In this case the synthetic blend material had done him a favor by trapping his body heat.