Page 72 of Rangers Last Promise

Something changes in his eyes.

Before either of us can speak again, Wolf shouts from the walkway.

“He’s gone!”

Sheriff Tate curses. “How?”

“Jumped from the roof onto the church awning. A motorcycle was waiting in the alley.”

“The motorcycle you found behind the feed store?” I ask.

“No,” a deputy answers from the front entrance. “A second one.”

Hampton planned every escape before he entered the building.

I check the magazine in my weapon.

Sheriff Tate crosses toward us. His gaze drops to the blood on Doc’s side.

“Do we need another ambulance?”

“No,” Doc and I answer together.

Tate looks between us.

“I’ll ask someone who isn’t stubborn.”

“You’ll have to leave Eagle River,” Wolf calls from above.

Despite the pain and adrenaline, I laugh.

Doc turns his head toward me.

This time, he smiles.

It changes his entire face.

The hard lines soften. The distance disappears. For one brief moment, he looks like a man who remembers how to be alive.

Then Wolf comes down the stairs carrying the unit photograph stolen from the Last Stand.

“It was on the walkway,” he says. “Hampton dropped it when Mara shot him.”

The glass is broken, and blood smears one corner.

Captain Fred Miller’s face has been cut from the photograph.

Sheriff Tate puts on gloves and accepts it.

“Anything on the back?”

Wolf turns it over.

Three lines are written across the faded cardboard backing in black ink.

Eight entered the valley.

Seventeen were waiting.